In 1954, the controversies didn't seem to pile up so. Weeks before Ervin took office, the Supreme Court had jolted the South and ruled that separate-butequal public schools were not equal enough for black kids. Ervin, born in the South, quarreled with that ruling and helped draft the Southern Manifesto in protest.

And later that year, the new senator would figure prominently in McCarthy's fall, as one of those who solemnly contemplated the facts and recommended

censure.

The world has changed since 1954 but not Sam Ervin. He looks to the future in terms of the past with unabashed reverence for the United States Constitution as written, opposing expansion of those words either to the left or to the right.

He criticized the Supreme Court for expanding the Constitution in 1954 to outlaw segregated schools; he criticizes the Supreme Court today for narrowing the Constitution to force a newsman to testify before a grand jury.

Starting Feb. 20, Ervin will conduct hearings on a basketfull of proposals designed to protect newsmen from court actions forcing them to reveal confidential information. He says legislation should not be necessary but the courts "missed the boat."

"I've always said all judges should possess wisdom as well as knowledge," Ervin said in a recent interview. "And I think if I'd been a judge out in California, I'd've exercised a little wisdom and tried not to compel that newsman (in one of the first test cases) to reveal his sources."

That lack of wisdom, Ervin said, carried on up to the Supreme Court which rejected the newsmen's plea for special protection in a 5-4 decision. "Five of them muffed a golden opportunity to do something constructive in this field." Ervin said, "and they just flatly held the First Amendment didn't give a newsgathering any privilege at all."

Ervin said that in his own opinion, each case should be decided on its merits. There are some situations where a newsman should be compelled to testify but there are others when he should not. The courts must balance the two interests of society-to know what is going on through a free press and to prosecute crimes in which newsmen may have knowledge.

Before he begins the news source hearings, Ervin hopes to be well started on his bill to give Congress a veto over impoundments-President Nixon's practice of refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress.

Then, as soon as a federal court trial is completed, Ervin then will take on the politically touchy issue of the bugging of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate-and related tales of political espionage from the 1972 presidential campaign. He says it will be a thorough investigation and no witnesses will be allowed to duck behind a wall of "executive privilege."

"I think the Watergate is a very serious affair." Ervin said. "There are serious charges made about the spying on presidential candidates. There are serious charges made about attempts to disrupt political meetings. There are serious charges made about the misuse of campaign funds. And I think all of these things ought to be investigated.

"If people are not guilty about some of the insinuations, they ought to be exonerated. And if they're not guilty, they ought to insist on their own exoneration."

Ervin said he is particularly concerned about the so-called "Canuck incident" in which Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, D-Maine, then campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, was accused of prejudice against French Canadians (by calling them "Canucks") in a letter to the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader. The author of the letter, never located, was said to be a White House aide.

Ervin said the plea of executive privilege, often claimed as a general immunity from Congressional scrutiny for all White House staff, will not be accepted in the Watergate investigation.

Executive privilege is another area of Ervin concern and he enthusiastically backed a Senate Democratic Caucus resolution that would limit its use and provide for Senate review whenever a witness claims such immunity to avoid testifying.

There is a legitimate area of executive privilege, he said, but it is not an absolute right. It can be inferred from the constitutional grant of executive power to the President that there must be some confidential matters between President and staff, Ervin explains, just as investigative authority is seen as a necessary tool in Congress' power to legislate.

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Ervin approaches his collection of assignments this year without hesitation: "My wife says if I see a controversy from far off, I come running right up and jump into the middle of it," he said.

But, when it comes to the Constitution, and all these matters touch in some way on the Constitution—rights and powers-Ervin is ready. He is, as one aide said, a scholar as much as a politician. He reads constitutional law cases for recreation.

At 76, Ervin's hair is grayer than when he arrived in Washington. His tall frame is a bit stooped but his words tumble out in a mix of cornpone and wisdom that has become familiar over the years on Capitol Hill.

His trademark is the folksy anecdote that makes a point: "Way back younder when I used to practice law . . ." or "We had a very fine poet in North Carolina some years ago . . ." or "That reminds me of a story

Sometimes the stories go on and on, punctuated by eyebrows that shoot up and down giving Ervin a slightly astonished look. But he obviously enjoys the stories and wants everyone else to. Often, as he speaks on the Senate floor, he will glance up to the press gallery to make certain the newsmen are getting the point.

But the great flow of words dries up when Ervin is asked about his personal life. He lives across the street from the Capitol in the Methodist Building with his wife of nearly 50 years. He is a private person. At home in Morganton, N.C., he likes to fish. In Washington, he reads.

[From the Evening Star and Daily News, Washington, D.C., Feb. 7, 1973]
IMPOUNDMENTS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, REHNQUIST TOLD NIXON

(By Shirley Elder)

Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist once advised President Nixon that the President had no constitutional authority to impound money appropri ated by Congress but his advice was spurned as "erroneous" and a new ruling obtained from the Justice Department, according to Deputy Attorney General Joseph T. Sneed.

Sneed told a Senate committee yesterday that Rehnquist, who was then an assistant attorney general, had spoken informally as an adviser to the President, not as an official Justice Department spokesman.

In a memo dated Dec. 1, 1969, Rehnquist wrote:

"With respect to the suggestion that the President has a constitutional power to decline to spend appropriated funds, we must conclude that existence of such a broad power is supported by neither reason nor precedent."

DELICATE ADJUSTMENT

"We think," said Sneed, "it (that view) was erroneous. We think Rehnquist took much too narrow a view of the President's authority to enforcé all the laws."

The current Justice Department position, presented by Sneed yesterday to the committee studying a law to end impoundments, is that the President does have the power to withhold funds; that he must have that power, in fact, to intelligently balance the fiscal needs of the country.

Sneed said the executive is the only branch of government equipped to make the "delicate adjustments" involved in policy judgaments based on changing national needs and their effect on the economy.

Such questions should not be submitted to the Supreme Court, he said: “Judges do not make economic policy under our system. Nor are they technically competent to review such economic decisions."

POWER OF DIVINE RIGHT

Such questions should not be left to Congress, he added, because of its "chronic tendency" to respond to conflicting special interests: "The harsh reality is that time and time again Congress has passed swollen appropriation acts and failed to levy the taxes necessary to avoid inflation."

Sneed added fuel to the growing anger on Capitol Hill over Nixon's decisions to hold back billions of dollars in programs enacted by Congress.

"The tone of your speech," Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, D-Maine, said at one point, "is very much like the tone of the speech made by the president of the Philippines in eliminating the national assembly."

Sen. Lawton Chiles, D-Fla., co-chairman of the hearings with Sen. Sam J. Ervin, D-N.C., suggested that Sneed was setting out a "power of divine right" for Nixon.

"I don't think anyone will say of you that you narrowed the powers of the presidency," Chiles said in reference to Sneed's view of the Rehnquist memo. And Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., appearing as a witness said claims of inherent presidential powers that go beyond the words and implied meanings of the Constitution are "warning shots across the bow of the ship of state."

UNRESTRAINED POWER

"We have heard a lot about inherent power in recent months from this Justice Department," Kennedy said. "It is cited, it seems, every time the Justice Department wants to do something that affronts the constitutional rights of Americans. "We fought a revolution to rid ourselves of the tyranny of the inherent powers of George III. We wrote a Constitution sharply limiting the powers of the government, and especially the President, because we knew that the claim of inherent power is just another name for a claim to eventual total unrestrained power by one man."

Kennedy had cited the Rehnquist opinion in his testimony.

In his testimony, Sneed set out the battle lines for the struggle with Congress. No doubts were expressed as to the rightness of the view that Nixon can legally impound funds approved by Congress.

Impoundment, he said, is the only way the President can resolve the conflict between laws that order spending and laws that limit it, such as the debt ceiling. Sneed conceded that Congress may enact mandatory spending programs but he said most appropriations bills appear to leave some discretion to the President.

TRADITIONALLY ASSUMED

For example, he said, the President is "authorized" to make certain grants and appropriations bills “appropriate" funds "not otherwise appropriated." Without anything more specific, he said, "it has been traditionally assumed" that these laws do not require that the full amounts be spent.

Sneed opposed an anti-impoundment bill drafted by Ervin as "wholly impractical, profoundly unwise and of very doubtful constitutionality."

He said it would seem to require the President to spend all funds appropriated by Congress, "substantially undercutting" the President's power to combat inflation, unemployment and other economic ills and shifting that responsibility to Congress.

"Indeed," he said, "in many circumstances, it would compel him to add fuel to the fire."

The Ervin bill, co-sponsored by half the Senate, would require congressional approval before any Presidentially-ordered impoundment could go into effect. In the House, meanwhile, Chairman George Mahon, D-Tex., of the House Appropriations Committee, told Treasury Secretary George Shultz yesterday that neither President Nixon nor other presidents have had the power to impound. Shultz described the President as a "law abiding” chief executive who is acting on full legal advice.

Rep. Bill D. Burlison, D-Mo., complained that Agriculture had taken much deeper cuts in the Nixon budget than other programs, and asked Shultz to justify such actions as the termination of the Rural Environmental Assistance Program and disaster relief loan program, both of which some congressmen are trying to revive.

Shultz replied that the budget reflects the success farmers are having in selling at good prices despite rising production. It is now possible, he said, to begin curtailing federal support for agriculture and letting farmers benefit from the growth of free markets, the Associated Press reported.

VETOES EXPECTED

"If Congress passes a bill directing the President to spend those REAP funds, will the President veto the bill?" Burlison asked.

"My understanding is that he will," Shultz replied.

After a White House meeting with President Nixon yesterday Republican congressional leaders quoted Nixon as saying he would take whatever steps necessary to keep his new budget intact. One leader predicted a substantial number of vetoes. The House Rules Committee yesterday cleared a bill to resurrect the Rural Environmental Assistance program, and House action is expected today.

The program was killed in late December by the Nixon administration on grounds it was a low priority item. The legislation cleared for House action would earmark $225 million for the program during the year ending June 30. Disaster relief loans to farmers facing financial crisis, another program cut off by the Nixon administration late last year, would be reinstated under a bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee ysterday, the AP said.

But the administration has endorsed this legislation because it would wipe out a so-called "forgiveness feature" on loans granted under last year's Hurricane Agnes-Rapid City flood emergency law.

[From the Evening Star and Daily News, Washington, D.C., Feb. 8, 1973]

NIXON DEFIED ON FARM FUNDS

(By Shirley Elder)

President Nixon has lost an initial budget battle with Congress but Republicans say he will continue to use the power of the presidency to fight inflation and higher taxes and that he will win the war.

As administration officials appeared on Capital Hill to explain Nixon's action to impound funds appropriated by Congress, both the Senate and House were searching for ways to disarm him.

The House yesterday approved a bill to force Nixon to spend $210 million he withheld from the Rural Environmental Assistance Program (REAP), and a Senate committee wrapped up hearings on longer-range legislation aimed at stopping future impoundments.

The House voted 251-142-mostly along party lines for the bill to force the Agriculture Department to continue a program of paying farmers up to 30 percent of their costs for anti-pollution and conservation efforts.

Rep. W. R. Poage, D-Tex., chairman of the Agriculture Committee who led the fight for the bill, charged Nixon had "abused" his authority in impounding the REAP funds in December.

"Let him crack his whip. We're going to try to do what this House should do," Poage yelled. "It's good for the farmers, it's good for the towns, it's good for the country. Everybody wants clean water and clean air, but it don't come free."

But House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., argued that Congress had forced the budget crisis by not establishing spending priorities. "If Congress is unwilling to make reductions, why is it opposed to the President making these reductions?"

Ford said "I have good reason to believe he (the President) will veto it" if the Senate also passes the REAP bill.

Yesterday's 251-142 vote was 34 votes short of the two-thirds which would be needed to override. There were 199 Democrats and 52 Republicans who voted for the bill and 20 Democrats and 122 Republicans who voted against it.

One of the Republican defectors, Rep. William Sherle, an Iowa conservative, said the REAP cut was "arbitrary" because "no one down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue knows anything about agriculture."

Rep. Wayne Hays, D-Ohio, challenged the Republicans to make REAP a campaign issue. He said Nixon was hurting the farmer at a time he was proposing $1 billion in aid to North Vietnam. He said Americans "don't want to double foreign aid and add $5 billion to the defense budget."

Rep. Philip Burton of San Francisco, chairman of the liberal Democratic Study Group, made a plea for solidarity among those opposing spending cuts. He told House members that while "this bill does not affect most of your constituencies . . . there will be other legislation that won't affect the majority of our constituents." If partisans of the various spending programs blocked by Nixon “extend a helping hand, one to another, we are more apt to succeed," he said.

REAP also was on the agenda of the Senate committee holding hearings on legislation to end impoundments. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz defended the farm program cutbacks as both legal and wise.

Butz said-as all other administration witnesses have said that Nixon was forced to impound funds this year or face the prospect of breaking another law, the debt ceiling.

He commended the President's courage for cutting draw widespread protests: "We've touched exposed nerves," he said.

"The easy way out, the cowardly way out, is to cut all programs five percent across the board," Butz said. "The difficult way, the sensible way, is to take it item by item." House Republicans expressed similar views in the debate there.

Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, D-Maine, obviously annoyed at Butz testimony, said he was weary of hearing the same argument from each GOP witness at the Senate hearing.

Selective cuts in programs enacted by Congress violate the law, Muskie said. "When you use this (presidential) power to treat programs unequally, you are exercising policy judgments without consulting Congress.”

Earlier, Muskie had lashed out angrily at another administration witness, Office of Management and Budget Director Roy L. Ash, for presenting a "dangerous constitutional philosophy."

Ash said the President's right to impound appropriated funds stems from the implied power of the presidency based on his constitutional duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

"Incredible," said Muskie. Committee members steadily have tried to convince Nixon witnesses that a bill, passed by Congress and signed by the Presi⚫ dent, is a law.

Ash, however, said the problem arises when two laws, one to spend and one to conserve, come in conflict. The President must cut back, he said, or violate a law. The senators have contended that if programs must be altered, the changes should come from Congress which enacted them, not the President.

If so, Ash said, the President then would be little more than a clerk. Muskie and Ash also clashed over a Muskie proposal to require that federal agencies submit budget requests to Congress at the same time as they go to OMB. Ash said Congress may have the information after OMB puts it together in a single Presidential budget, not before.

Muskie said he was astonished. He asked how Congress can legislate intelligently if it cannot have the same raw material available to the administation.

A GREAT TRAGEDY

"It's your view," he said, "that you have the authority to spoon feed the information that you decided we are to have in a way you decide we are to get it at a time you decide we are to have it."

Sen. Sam J. Ervin, D-N.C., chairman of the impoundment committee, said he considered the Nixon action of withholding funds "a great tragedy" and a clear "usurpation" of congressional rights.

He said he often agreed with the President's goals of saving money but added: "We can never justify using the wrong means to reach the right conclusion." A committee aide said Ervin hopes to have a bill on the Senate floor by March 1. As originally written, the measure would require congressional approval before any presidential decision to withhold funds could go into effect.

In related action yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill to review the Rural Electrification Administration loan program. The panel wants to reverse administration action which would shelve 2 percent loans of federal money to electric and telephone cooperatives in favor of federal guarantees of private loans at 5 percent.

And the Senate Labor Committee approved a program of aid to the elderly identical to one vetoed by Nixon last year. The bill would authorize grants to state agencies to help finance services to the aged such as nutrition and social programs, with special help for the handicapped among the elderly.