Watergate tapes
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The Watergate tapes are a collection of conversations between President Nixon and various 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 machines. While the recorders were turned off shortly after the hearing, the system was not removed until 1974, after Nixon left office.
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; what the president said and when could be verified. The prosecuting attorney, Archibald Cox, a Harvard Law School professor, immediately subpoenaed eight relevant tapes to confirm White House Council, John Dean’s testimony. 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 turn over the tapes 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.
Nixon appointed another prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Texas lawyer, and gave the tapes to Sirica. Some subpoenaed conversations were missing, and one tape had a mysterious gap of 18½ minutes. Experts determined that the gap was the result of five separate erasures. Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, took the blame for the missing recording. She testified that while she was transcribing the tape, a ringing phone startled her, causing her to press a wrong button without removing her foot from the device’s foot pedal, accidentally recording over the section of tape.
In April, 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 conversations 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. In April 1974, 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 the United States v. Nixon that Nixon must turn over the tapes. Facing impeachment in the House of Representatives and a probable conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned in August of 1974.
See also
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