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Approved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4 e beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no presidential authorization for the East Coast Project. It would therefore, for practical purposes, have to concede that the mail opening~ were authorized and to argue that the authorization was "· ineffective. This would make it unnecessary for the defen- dants to raise a mistake of fact defense; the prosecution simply could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no authorization. This would then lead to the assertion of a mistake of law defense. Mistake of law generally is recognized as a defense in criminal prosecutions only when a law or an authori- tative legal decision or interpretation misled the defendant reasonably to believe that his conduct was lawful.29/ Criminal convictions in such circumstances would impose criminal sanc- tions for conduct -which the defendant could not reasonably have known was unlawful.JO/ In any potential mail opening prosecution, however, the normal foundation for the defense would not be present. No statute or judicial decision ever affirmatively establishe~ or announced that the mail opening projects, or conduct closely analogous to them, were lawful, and Attorney General Mitchell's possible approval of the projects lacked any indicia of a formal considered opinion 29? See Model Penal Code §2.04(3)(b) (P.O.D. 1962). 3(¥ Cf. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964); Brief tor the Unitea States in Marks v. United States, No. 75-708, argued in the Supreme Court, November 1 and 2, 1976. A roved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4