It is not too early to try and anticipate some of the possible defense strategies that might be used in trials emerging from “Watergate.” Some months ago, in one of those TV appearances, Richard Nixon suggested an excuse by way of comparison with the illegal antiwar demonstrations of the 1960's. Then there was Jeb Stuart Magruder before the Senate Watergate Committee arguing that his former ethics teacher, William Sloane Coffin, had inspired him with the idea that for certain higher reasons a breaking of the law was justified.

Other Watergate defendants have pleaded loyalty to Nixon and the Nixon cause as sufficient justification for their otherwise illegal actions. Notable were John Mitchell's insistence that (almost) anything was justified to prevent “the alternative” candidate from being elected; Patrick Gray asserting that loyalty to Nixon should override his own doubts about what he was asked to do; and Bernard Barker's commitment to the defeat of communism in general and Castroism in particular.