Watergate tapes

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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.

1 Tapes existence made public
2 Nixon refuses to release the tapes
3 18½ minute gap Tape
4 The "Smoking Gun" Tape
5 Tape Timeline
6 Notes
7 References
8 See also

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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

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]

[edit] 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].

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.

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]

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

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.

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.

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.

[edit] 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