The Supreme Court's decision regarding executive privilege in the case of the United States v. Richard Nixon focused on specifics and left the greater issues of executive privilege untouched. This report summarizes the events leading up to Nixon's confrontation with the Supreme Court and examines the future of executive privilege. Questions raised by this confrontation--Will commercial distribution of evidence lead to unfavorable pretrial publicity? Should a president have the authority to restrict documents which concern the conduct of public affairs? --remain largely unanswered. (KS)