In United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683; 94 S. Ct. 3090; 41 L. Ed. 2d 1039 (1974), the United States Supreme Court considered a claim of executive privilege advanced by the President of the United States in an attempt to quash a third-party subpoena duces tecum. The Nixon Court rejected application of the claimed privilege on the facts of that case, given the prosecutor's specific need for evidence relevant to a pending criminal trial. In reaching that decision, the Nixon Court relied heavily on the generalized nature of the President's claim of executive privilege: A President's acknowledged need for confidentiality in the communications of his office is general in nature, whereas the constitutional need for production of relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding is specific and central to the fair adjudication of a particular criminal case in the administration of justice. Without access to specific facts a criminal prosecution may be totally frustrated. The President's broad interest in confidentiality of communications will not be vitiated by disclosure of a limited number of conversations preliminarily shown to have some bearing on the pending criminal cases. We conclude that when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the general interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice. The generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial. Nixon, supra, 418 U.S. 712-713.