The Watergate tapes, also known as the Nixon tapes, are a collection of conversations between President Nixon and various White House staff members, recorded on the White House taping system and White House dictabelts. President Nixon had ordered the installation of the recording system by the Technical Services Division of the U.S. Secret Service in February 1971. In addition to the line-taps placed on the telephones, small lavalier microphones were installed at various locations around the rooms. The recordings were produced on as many as nine Sony TC-800B open-reel tape recorders. While the recorders were turned off shortly after the Watergate hearings, the system was not removed until 1974, after Nixon left office. Order: 37th President Vice President: Spiro Agnew (1969–1973), Gerald R. Ford (1973–1974) Term of office: January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974 Preceded by: Lyndon B. Johnson Succeeded by: Gerald R. Ford Date of birth: January 9, 1913 Place of birth: Yorba Linda, California Date of death: April 22... North façade of the White House, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. ... Technical Services Staff is the United States Central Intelligence Agency component responsible for providing supporting gadgets, disguises, forgeries, secret writings, and weapons. ... The United States Secret Service is a United States federal government law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security (prior to the foundation of that department in 2002, it was under Treasury). ... A clip-mounted lavalier A lavalier microphone or lavalier (or lav or lapel mike) is a small electret or dynamic microphone used for television, theatre, and public speaking applications, in order to allow hands-free operation. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Tapes existence made public

The existence of the system was first made public during the testimony of White House Aide Alexander Butterfield, unlocking the entire investigation. On July 16, 1973, Butterfield told the committee, on nationwide television, that Nixon had ordered a taping system installed in the White House to automatically record all conversations; it was possible to concretely verify what the president said, and when he said it. The prosecuting attorney, Archibald Cox, a Harvard Law School professor, immediately subpoenaed eight relevant tapes to confirm the testimony of White House Counsel John Dean. Alexander Porter Butterfield (born April 6, 1926) was the deputy assistant to Richard Nixon from 1969 until 1973. ... Archibald Cox, Jr. ... Harvard Law School, often referred to in shorthand as Harvard Law or HLS, is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ... A subpoena is a writ commanding a person to appear under penalty (from Latin). ... John Dean, May 7, 1972. ...

Nixon refuses to release the tapes

Nixon refused to release the tapes, claiming they were vital to the national security. U.S. District Court Judge John Sirica ruled that Nixon must give the tapes to Cox, and an appeals court upheld the decision. Nixon refused to comply with Cox's order, and on Saturday, October 20, 1973, ordered the attorney general, Elliot Richardson to dismiss Cox. Richardson refused and resigned instead, as did Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork discharged Cox. Judge John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904 – August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. ... In the court system of a state or of a subordinate regional entity, an appeals court is a court of second instance where a party to a case on which judgment has been entered can ask to have their case reheard if they suspect an error of law, fact, or... The Saturday night massacre (October 20, 1973) was the term given by political commentators to U.S. President Richard Nixons executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the forced resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus during the controversial and drawn-out... Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920 – December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and politician who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. ... William Doyle Ruckelshaus (born July 24, 1932) is an attorney and civil servant in the United States. ... Robert Bork Robert Heron Bork (born March 1, 1927 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a conservative American legal scholar who advocates the judicial philosophy of originalism. ...

18½ minute gap Tape

Nixon appointed another prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. The White House then agreed to comply with the subpoena and gave some of the subpoenaed conversations to Sirica. The White House informed the Court that two subpoenaed conversations had not been recorded, and that an 18½ minute gap existed on a third tape. Leon Jaworski (September 19, 1905 - December 9, 1982) was the Special Prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. ...

Rose Mary Woods

Rose Mary Woods demonstrating how she may have erased tape recordings

On November 8, 1973, Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, testified Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Woods, on the cover of Time Magazine (December 10, 1973) Rose Mary Woods (December 26, 1917 – January 22, 2005) was Richard Nixons secretary from 1951, through the Watergate scandal and until the end of his political career. ...

The buttons said on and off, forward and backward. I caught on to that fairly fast. I don't think I'm so stupid as to erase what's on a tape.^[1]

Later that month she testified she had made "a terrible mistake" during transcription. On October 1, 1973 while playing the tape on the Uher 5000, she answered a phone call. Reaching for the Uher 5000 stop button, she testifies she mistakingly hit the button next to it — the record button. For the duration of the phone call, about five minutes, she kept her foot on the device's pedal, causing a five-minute portion of the tape to be re-recorded. She insisted she was not responsible for the remaining 13 minutes of buzz.

Woods was asked to replicate the position she took to cause that accident: seated at a desk, reaching far back over her left shoulder for a telephone as her foot applies constant pressure to the pedal controlling the transcription machine. Her extremely awkward posture during the demonstration resulted in many political commentators questioning the validity of the explanation. ^[2]

Advisory Panel on White House Tapes

On November 21, 1973, Chief Judge John J. Sirica appointed an Advisory Panel of persons nominated jointly by the White House and the Special Prosecution Force ^[3]. Judge John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904 - August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. ...

The Advisory Panel on White House Tapes consisted of

• Richard H. Bolt, chairman of Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc. and founder of the M.I.T. Acoustics Laboratory, acoustics expert
• Franklin S. Cooper, president and research director of Haskins Laboratories, speech perception and synthesis expert
• James L. Flanagan, head of the Acoustics Research Department at Bell Telephone Laboratories
• John G. McKnight, vice president of Engineering for the Magnetic Reference Laboratory, audio and magnetic recording consultant
• Thomas G. Stockham Jr., professor of electrical engineering at the University of Utah, signal processing expert
• Mark R. Weiss, vice president for acoustics research of Federal Scientific Corp, audio signal analysis/classification/processing expert ^[4]

The Advisory Panel were supplied with the Evidence Tape, the seven Sony 800B recorders from the Oval Office and Executive Office Building, and two Uher 5000 recorders. One Uher5000 was marked "Secret Service." The other was accompanied by a foot pedal, respectively labeled Government Exhibit 60 and 60B. Richard Henry Bolt, better known as Richard Bolt or Dick Bolt was a physics professor at MIT with an interest in acoustics. ... BBN Technologies (originally Bolt Beranek and Newman) is a high-technology company that provides research and development services. ... Franklin Seaney Cooper (Apr. ... Haskins Laboratories [1] is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. ... James L. Flanagan is an electrical engineer, and is Rutgers vice president for research. ... Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... Thomas Greenway Stockham, (December 22, 1933-January 6, 2004) was an American scientist who developed the first practical digital audio recording system, and pioneered techniques for digital audio recording and processing as well. ... The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU) is a public university in Salt Lake City, Utah. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Oval Office from above The Oval Office is the official office of the President of the United States. ... Because of both the secrecy of secret services and the controversial nature of the issues involved, there is some difficulty in separating the definitions of secret service, secret police, intelligence agency etc. ...

By January 10, 1974 the Panel determined that the buzz was of no consequence, and that the 18½ gap was due to erasure^[5] performed on the Exhibit 60 Uher.^[6] The Panel also determined that the erasure/buzz recording consisted of at least five separate segments, possibly as many as nine,^[7] and that at least five segments required hand operation, that is, they could not have been performed using the foot pedal.^[8]

The Panel was subsequently asked by the court to consider alternative explanations that had emerged during the hearings. The final report dated May 31, 1974, found these other explanations did not contradict the original findings.^[9]

Restoration

The National Archives now owns the tape, and has tried several times to recover the missing minutes, most recently in 2003. [1] None of the Archive's attempts have been successful. The tapes are now preserved in a climate-controlled vault in case a future technological development allows for restoration of the missing audio. The National Archives building in Washington, DC The United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records. ...

The "Smoking Gun" Tape

In April 1974, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the tapes of 42 White House conversations. At the end of that month, Nixon released edited transcripts of the White House tapes. The transcripts revealed conversations concerning the punishing of political opponents and the halting of the Watergate investigation. The Judiciary Committee, however, rejected Nixon’s edited transcripts, saying that he did not comply with their subpoena. U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, or (more commonly) the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. ...

Sirica, acting on a request from Jaworski, issued a subpoena for the tapes of 64 presidential conversations to use as evidence in the criminal cases against the indicted officials. Nixon refused, and Jaworski appealed to the Supreme Court to force Nixon to turn over the tapes. On July 24, the Supreme Court voted 8-0 in United States v. Nixon that Nixon must turn over the tapes. Holding The Supreme Court does have the final voice in determining constitutional questions; no person, not even the President of the United States, is completely above law; and the president cannot use executive privilege as an excuse to withhold evidence that is demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial. ...

In late July 1974, the White House released the subpoenaed tapes. One of those tapes was the so-called "smoking gun" tape, from June 23, 1972, six days after the Watergate break-in. In that tape, Nixon agrees that administration officials should approach the Director of the CIA and ask him to request that the Director of the FBI halt the Bureau's investigation into the Watergate break-in on the grounds that the Watergate break-in was a National Security matter. In so agreeing, Nixon had entered into a Criminal Conspiracy whose goal was the Obstruction of Justice — a felony, and an impeachable offense. The term smoking gun is a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act. ...

Once the "smoking gun" tape was released, Nixon's political support evaporated. Every single Republican on the House Impeachment Committee who had voted against impeachment in committee announced that he would now vote for impeachment once the matter reached the House floor. In the Senate, it was said that Nixon had at most a half dozen votes.

Facing impeachment in the House of Representatives and a probable conviction in the Senate, Nixon announced his resignation, to take effect at 12 noon on Friday, August 9, 1974.

Tape Timeline

• July 13, 1973: Butterfield reveals existence of taping system in the White House
• July 23, 1973: Cox requests the tape of June 20, 1972 conversations between Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman
• July 23, 1973: Nixon refuses to turn over presidential tapings
• October 1, 1973: * Woods transcribes the tape and informs President Nixon of the erasing error
• October 20, 1973: Nixon orders Cox be fired
• Mid-October, 1973: * Buzhardt learns of a problem with the tape
• October 30, 1973: White House releases some of the subpoenaed conversations, including the 18½-minute gap
• November 8, 1973: Woods testifies she didn't erase the tape
• November 14, 1973: * Buzhardt claims he discovered the tape problem
• November 21, 1973: Buzhardt informs the court that 18 minutes of conversation between Nixon and Haldeman is obscured
• November 21, 1973: Woods testifies she did erase 5 minutes of tape
• November 21, 1973: Sirica appoints Advisory Panel on White House Tapes
• January 10, 1974: Advisory Panel determines erasure deliberate
• April, 1974: More subpoenaes for tapes issued
• April 30, 1974: White House releases edited transcripts of subpoenaed tapes
• July, 1974: White House releases the conversations, including the "smoking-gun" tape

* items indicate testimony, or alleged acts

Notes

1. ^ Time Magazine, Dec 10 1973
2. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30678-2005Jan23.html
3. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page i, and Preface
4. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) Appendix C
5. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page 4
6. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page 11
7. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page 36
8. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page 44
9. ^ Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974) page iv

References

• Advisory Panel on White House Tapes (1974), The EOB Tape of June 20, 1972. Report on a Technical Investigation Conducted for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. [link accessed January 1, 2007].
• Time Magazine, "The Secretary and the Tape Tangle," Dec. 10, 1973. [2]

January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...

See also

• Richard M. Nixon