HOUSE OVERSIGHT 030202 because of the reputational damage to the president: "The spectacle of an indicted President still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination." Of particular interest is the memo's consideration of whether criminal proceedings against a vice president are precluded. OLC found this to be a difficult question before concluding that a grand jury could indict the vice president. The memo notes that Vice President Spiro Agnew was said to be part of a conspiracy and that it would be difficult to have a proper indictment of co-conspirators without including the vice president (a point also true of a conspiracy involving a president). Moreover, Another circumstance counselling prompt presentation of evidence to the grand jury is that the statute of limitations is about to bar prosecution of the alleged offenders with respect to some or all of the offenses. The problem presented by the statute of limitations would be avoided by an indictment within the statutorily specified period. (The issue of statute of limitations arises as well in cases involving a president.) The Dixon memo concludes that "[a]fter indictment, the question of whether the Government should ... delay prosecution until the expiration of the Vice President's duties involves questions of trial strategy" beyond OLC's expertise. The conclusion that the sitting president should not be indicted was not necessarily a categorical constitutional-judgment conclusion but seems, rather, to be a balance of policy considerations. That, it appears, is how it was read by the office of Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski___as I will describe below. 2. The Oct. 5, 1973, Brief for the United States in In re Agnew. Lawyers for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew argued that if a president could not be indicted while in office, that same immunity should apply to a serving vice president. The vice president should have the same immunity as the president, they wrote, because