| Rose Mary Woods | |
|---|---|
| Woods demonstrates the "Rose Mary Stretch", a gesticulation that purportedly lead to the erasure of five-plus minutes of the Watergate tapes | |
| Personal Secretary to the President | |
| In office January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974 |
|
| Appointed by | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Gerri Whittington |
| Succeeded by | Dorothy E. Downton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 26, 1917 |
| Died | January 22, 2005 (aged 87) |
| Political party | Republican |
Rose Mary Woods (December 26, 1917 – January 22, 2005) was Richard Nixon's secretary from his days in the Congress in 1951, through his Vice Presidency, Presidency, and until the end of his political career. Before H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman became the operators of Nixon's presidential campaign, Woods was Nixon's gatekeeper.[1]
Contents |
Rose Mary Woods was born in northeastern Ohio in the small pottery town of Sebring on December 26, 1917. This was part of blue-collar America and as most such households were then, her family was strongly Democratic. Following graduation from McKinley High School, she went to work for Royal China Inc., the city's largest employer. Woods had been engaged to marry but her fiance died during WWII. To escape all the memories of her hometown she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1943, working in a variety of federal offices until she met Nixon while she was a secretary to the Select House Committee on Foreign Aid. Impressed by his neatness and efficiency, she accepted his job offer in 1951. [2]
She developed a very close relationship with the entire Nixon family, especially First Lady Pat Nixon.
Woods was President Nixon's personal secretary, the same position she held from the time he hired her until the end of his lengthy political career.
Fiercely loyal to Nixon, Woods claimed responsibility in a 1974 grand jury testimony for inadvertently erasing up to five minutes of the 181⁄2 minute gap in a June 20, 1972 audio tape. Her demonstration of how this might have occurred — which depended upon her stretching to simultaneously press controls several feet apart (what the press dubbed the "Rose Mary Stretch"[3]) -- was met with skepticism from those who believed the erasures, from whatever source, to be deliberate. The contents of the gap remain a mystery.[4]
Woods died on January 22, 2005, at a nursing home (McCrea Manor) in Alliance, Ohio.[2] A memorial service was held at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.