Tape Delay

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a request by Richard M. Nixon’s estate for quick return of private conversations on his White House tapes. Nixon estate lawyers had won a ruling last March that the National Archives return 820 hours of the late president’s conversations to his daughters. But last week’s appeals court ruling means government lawyers now have a chance to argue that turning over the tapes contradicts a 1974 congressional mandate that the tapes not be lost or destroyed.