BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Yorba Linda -- Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace -- Watergate

CA -- Yorba Linda -- Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace -- Watergate:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: This section was a complete replacement since my last visit. The National Archives had taken over the library and had issues with the accuracy of some of the displays. The Watergate section of the original library was pretty much a total fabrication before the Archives took over and replaced the whole thing.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NIXONW_130722_006.JPG: Road to Resignation
2. NIXONW_130722_009.JPG: 1971: After the New York Times published the top-secret Pentagon Papers in June 1971, a climate of deep suspicion emerged in the White House that put the President on the road to resignation. Believing that he faced a conspiracy of former Kennedy and Johnson officials who would continue leaking classified documents to destroy his Vietnam policy, President Nixon instructed his aides to form a special unit both to look for the group behind this national security leak and to discredit his perceived political enemies. Later known as "the Plumbers," the Special Investigations Unit acted outside of the FBI and the CIA. Even after former Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg made a public confession on June 28, 1971, President Nixon continued to press for action against a suspected anti-Nixon conspiracy. These presidential orders led to illegal actions and abuses of government power.
3. NIXONW_130722_012.JPG: "This is a conspiracy." -- President Nixon to HR Haldeman, July 1, 1971
4. NIXONW_130722_020.JPG: Daniel Ellsberg: Daniel Ellsberg, who briefly served as a Pentagon analyst in the Johnson administration, came to oppose the Vietnam War. In an effort to influence congressional and public opinion, he leaked a highly classified Department of Defense study, which became popularly known as "The Pentagon papers," to certain members of Congress and to the New York Times. Leaking classified material is illegal, and Ellsberg was later indicted for violating the Espionage Act.
5. NIXONW_130722_023.JPG: The Pentagon Papers: Completed in 1969, the 47-volume "Pentagon Papers" was a study prepared at the request of President Kennedy's and President Johnson's Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara. Written to recount and analyze America's involvement from 1945 through 1967, this top-secret document was designed to provide a comprehensive history to future policymakers who might be confronted with similar foreign policy challenges.
6. NIXONW_130722_026.JPG: Historical Background: Vietnam, the Nixon Administration, and a Troubled Nation: Warrantless Wiretaps: May 1969 - Feb 1971. The White House initiated FBI wiretaps without a court order on three journalists and 14 individuals on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, in the State Department, in the Defense Department and on the White House staff. In 1969 the White House also arranged its own wiretap on a journalist, Joseph Kraft. Some, but apparently not all, of these wiretaps reflected concerns over national security leaks, especially from opponents to the administration's Vietnam policy. At the time, wiretaps without a court order were legal only if placed for national security reasons. A Senate investigation later determined, however, that two of the wiretapped White House staffers were domestic advisers who did not have access to classified materials; and, in at least one case, the wiretaps on the NSC staff continued long after the individual had left government service. The White House had all of these wiretaps removed by early 1971. In June 1972, in a separate case, the Supreme Court ruled that "warrantless" national security wiretaps -- those without a Court's permission -- violated the US Constitution. The Huston Plan: July 1970. In the wake of widespread campus protests over US military intervention into neutral Cambodia in April 1970 and a spike in domestic bomb threats reported by the FBI, President Nixon sought to increase domestic intelligence-gathering. In July 1970, he briefly authorized new powers to permit the intelligence community to conduct more domestic spying without a court order. Confronted by the immediate opposition of Attorney General John Mitchell and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the President rescinded this program a week later. This set of new powers was known as the "Huston Plan" after Tom Charles Huston, the White House aid who coordinated the effort. This incident undermined the President's confidence that the FBI would do what was necessary against those he considered radical opponents of the war.
7. NIXONW_130722_033.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Plumbers: July 1971: The Special Investigations Unit -- later popularly known as the "Plumbers" -- operated from July to December 1971. Besides Ellsberg, the Plumbers investigated unauthorized leaks of classified materials on US-Soviet arms control talks and the Indo-Pakistani War. At the President's request, the unit provided Charles Colson with information to discredit political adversaries and to deflect public attention from the administration's handling of the Vietnam War. Colson leaked confidential FBI information on Ellsberg and arranged for a forged government document to be given to Life magazine. Designed by Plumber E. Howard Hunt, the forgery was part of an initiative ordered by President Nixon to discredit Democrats by implicating the late President John F Kennedy in the 1963 assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
8. NIXONW_130722_035.JPG: Charles Colson: Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson served as special counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973. Colson assisted the President in building a new political coalition and also supervised operations to damage the President's opponents. After the Watergate arrests, the President and Colson worried what the scandal might reveal about Colson's activities. Colson pled guilty to intentionally leaking information to discredit Daniel Ellsberg and served seven months in jail.
9. NIXONW_130722_038.JPG: John D. Ehrlichman: John Ehrlichman joined the White House staff in January 1969. A Seattle attorney, Ehrlichman first worked for Richard Nixon as an advance man in the 1960 presidential campaign. In response to the president's demand to stop leaks of classified material, Ehrlichman formed the Plumbers in July 1971.
10. NIXONW_130722_040.JPG: The Plumbers
11. NIXONW_130722_044.JPG: The Plumbers: June 13, 1971: The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers. The New York Times published the first in a series of excerpts from The Pentagon Papers. The Nixon administration went to court in an effort to halt further publication. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the federal government had no legal authority to prevent publication in advance. Egil "Bud" Krogh: As co-director of the Special Investigations Unit, Krogh believed that protecting national security secrets justified domestic covert action, even as it violated the law. In 1973, he pled guilty to depriving Dr. Lewis Fielding of his civil rights and served six months in prison. "I came to accept that I could no longer defend my conduct," he later wrote. "[I]f I continued to justify violating rights I continued to enjoy, I would be ... a traitor to the fundamental American idea of the right of an individual to be free from unwarranted government intrusion in his life." David Young: Former assistant to Henry Kissinger, Young was co-director of the Special Investigations Unit. He placed a sign saying "Plumbers" outside their office. He received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation with federal authorities. G. Gordon Liddy: Liddy was an attorney and former congressional candidate who had served five years with the FBI. Bud Krogh recruited him from the Treasury Department in mid-1971 for the Plumbers unit. Liddy, who refused to cooperate with investigators, received the longest sentence of any of the Watergate conspirators. He was paroled in September 1977 after serving 4-1/2 years in prison.
12. NIXONW_130722_049.JPG: E. Howard Hunt: Hunt joined the CIA after World War II. Hunt worked with Cuban exiles during the planning of the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. Charles Colson recommended Hunt to President Nixon in 1971 for the Plumbers. From July 1971, Hunt worked on projects for Colson and recruited Cuban Americans for secret operations. Hunt served 33 months in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in. Bernard L. Barker: Born in Cuba, Barker worked with Hunt in the CIA's failed Bay of Pigs operation. When recruited by Hunt for the Plumbers in 1971, he ran a real estate office in Miami that the Cuban American team would later use as an operational headquarters. He was arrest on June 17, 1972, in the Watergate break-in. Eugenio Rolando Martinez: Born in Cuba and nicknamed "Musculito," Martinez participated in the CIA's 1961 Bay of Pigs operation. Hunt recruited him in Miami in 1971 for Liddy's operational team. He was arrested on June 17, 1972, in the Watergate affair. According to the Senate Watergate report, Martinez remained a CIA operative until his arrest.
13. NIXONW_130722_051.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Investigating Civil Servants: July 2, 1971: In the tense weeks after the Pentagon Papers leak, President Nixon also sought action against perceived political opponents with the federal government. Convinced that some civil servants were intentionally misrepresenting monthly unemployment figures, President Nixon ordered an investigation into the loyalty of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The President asked specifically how many people in the unit were Jewish Americans. In late July, White House staffer Frederic V Malek reported that there were 19 in the Bureau. Civil service protections prevented any from being fired. Discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation is illegal. This form of abuse of governmental power would later be cited in the Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon.
14. NIXONW_130722_054.JPG: Firebombing the Brookings Institution: Believing that the conspiracy extended into the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, President Nixon repeatedly ordered the seizure of any classified materials held there. Charles Colson, who was given responsibility with Ehrlichman for the issue, suggested that Brookings could be firebombed to distract security while the secret papers were recovered. When John W. Dean, III, alerted Ehrlickman to Colson's arson plan, it was abandoned.
15. NIXONW_130722_056.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Fielding Break-In: Sept 3, 1971: After the Plumbers reported that Daniel Ellsberg's former psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, had refused to hand over his confidential notes to the FBI, John Ehrlichman authorized a "covert operation" to "examine all the medical files still held by Ellsberg's psychoanalyst...." Planned by Liddy and Hunt and funded with the help of Charles Colson, the break-in at Dr. Fielding's office in Beverly Hills, California, occurred on the night of September 3, 1971. The burglars, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez and Filipe DeDiego, turned the office upside down but found nothing. Before leaving the crime scene, they threw prescription drugs on the floor to mislead the police into thinking that an addict had committed the crime. On September 8, Ehrlichman reported to the President that the Plumbers had undertaken a "little operation" in Los Angeles that had gone wrong, "which, I think, it's better that you don't know about."
16. NIXONW_130722_059.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Enemies List: June 1971: As President Nixon assessed the damage to his presidency from the Pentagon Papers leak, he ordered Haldeman on June 23, 1971, to have the Internal Revenue Service undertake special audits of his political opponents and suggested that Charles Colson create a list of "the ones we want." John Dean was assigned the "Political Enemies Project" to coordinate action on the list. After consulting with Colson, Dean presented a list of 16 names to Haldeman's staff on September 14. The President learned about the list and assented to its use with the IRS on September 18. In 1972, Dean presented a much longer list to IRS Commissioner Johnnie M. Walters. Walters and his boss Treasury Secretary George P. Shultz refused to launch these audits, believing that they represented an improper use of the IRS. The House Judiciary Committee later identified the President's attempt to launch these tax audits as a violation of citizens' constitutional rights. The September 1971 list included the conductor Leonard Bernstein, computer pioneer Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former Defense Secretary Clark M. Clifford, and journalists Mary McGrory and Daniel Schorr.
17. NIXONW_130722_062.JPG: Daniel Schorr: Daniel Schorr's Story. In August 1971, the White House sought derogatory information from the FBI on CBS news correspondent Daniel Schorr. Misunderstanding the request, the FBI interviewed Schorr as if the journalist was under consideration for a federal appointment. After Schorr complained about the FBI investigation, the White House had it stopped. In September 1971, Haldeman reported to the President that Schorr was on the list for harassment by the IRS. The House Judiciary Committee cited this misuse of the FBI in its second article of impeachment in July 1974.
18. NIXONW_130722_065.JPG: John Dean's list of September 17 with the names of 16 who were perceived to be political enemies of the President. Eugene Carson Blake ... (per request) Leonard Bernstein ... (per request) Arnold Picker ... (United Artists Corp. -- Top Muskie fund raiser) Ed Guthman ... (Managing Editor, LA Times) Maxwell Dane ... (Doyle, Dane & Bernbach) Charles Dyson ... (Associate of Larry O'Brien, bankrolls anti-RN radio programs) Howard Stein ... (Dreyfus Corp. -- Big Demo contributor) Allard Lowenstein ... (Pushing the Dump RN move with young people) Morton Halperin ... (Top Executive -- Common Cause) Leonard Woodcock ... (UAW) Dan Schorr ... (CBS) Mary McGrory Lloyd Cutler ... (Principal force behind Common Cause law suit against RNC, DNC, et al) Thomas Watson ... (Muskie Backer -- IBM) Tom Wicker ... (NY Times) Clark Clifford
19. NIXONW_130722_068.JPG: Haldeman's note of Nixon's order to audit the tax records of anti-war Democrats. Now have our man in IRS Pull Clark Clifford + top supporters of doves -- full list full field audit -- let us see what we can make of it Colson made list of the ones we want
20. NIXONW_130722_073.JPG: The Watergate Break-In , June 17, 1972
21. NIXONW_130722_078.JPG: Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, five men were arrested with electronic surveillance equipment inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC. Two years later, President Nixon became the first American president to resign. Why? What happened? A generation ago, the public witnessed the long, often confusing, unravelling [sic] of revelations about illegal wiretapping, break-ins, payoffs, political dirty trick and other governmental abuses of power. This scandal, which began with what the Nixon White House termed "a third-rate burglary," ultimately led to a constitutional crisis.
22. NIXONW_130722_082.JPG: The Watergate Gallery: This gallery is designed to help today's visitor make sense of the web of personalities, actions and intentions at the heart of that story. On your left is a timeline that presents the story of the events that collectively became known as Watergate, from the formation of the Plumbers' unit in 1971 through the pardoning of former President Nixon by President Gerald R. Ford in 1974. On your right are six different exhibits, and a Watergate Learning Center, that each allow you to explore in more depth aspects of this complex and difficult political moment in our country's history. The National Archives selected the events and themes highlighted in this gallery. Watergate has produced many books and conflicting interpretations. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide how well our system of government worked back then and what, if any, lessons there are for us today.
23. NIXONW_130722_084.JPG: Watergate
24. NIXONW_130722_087.JPG: How Did the Burglars Get Caught? The Command Post: The Watergate Hotel: G. Gordon Liddy E. Howard Hunt The Look Out: At the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, across from the Watergate complex. Alfred C. Baldwin, III
25. NIXONW_130722_090.JPG: The Break-In: How did the burglars get caught? The burglars left pieces of marking tape on the stairwell doors leading from the Democratic National Committee's sixth floor offices to the Watergate complex's garage. James McCord had placed the tape earlier in the night so that he and the other burglars could later open the doors without a key. Building cleaning crews in that era often taped doors to avoid having to get out their keys and the burglars expected the security guards to blame the cleaning crew for any tape they found. In the early morning of June 17, an alert security guard, Frank Wills, noticed that the door in the garage leading to the office building was taped open. Earlier that night, Wills had removed tape from the same door, thinking it had been left by the maintenance men. When he saw tape on the lock for the second time, Wills called the Washington Metropolitan Police, which arrested the five burglars. Hunt, Liddy and Baldwin fled the scene.
26. NIXONW_130722_099.JPG: The page from the security log where at 1:47am, June 17, 1972, Frank Wills noted "call police found tape."
27. NIXONW_130722_100.JPG: An Enduring Mystery Surrounding Watergate: Why did the Liddy-Hunt team target the Watergate? There is no agreement on the motive for breaking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters. Jeb Magruder blamed White House pressure to get damaging information on DNC Chairman Lawrence F. O'Brien Jr. Liddy blamed Magruder's demand for information on O'Brien and for any damaging information that the Democrats had on Republicans. Hunt recalled Liddy telling him that the White House wanted to know whether the North Vietnamese were funding the Democrats. The burglars believed they were looking for information on Senator McGovern's possible relationship to Fidel Castro. President Nixon, John Mitchell, HR Haldeman, John Dean, John Ehrlichman and Charles Colson all claimed to know nothing about the operation beforehand. Although Haldeman speculated in his memoirs that the President and Colson had somehow inspired the break-in to get information on O'Brien, investigators found nothing to contradict President Nixon's assertion.
28. NIXONW_130722_103.JPG: The Crime Scene: The Democratic National Committee headquarters on the 6th floor of the Watergate Office Building. Bernard L. Barker Virgilio Gonzalez James W. McCord, Jr. Eugenio R. Martinez Frank A. Sturgis
29. NIXONW_130722_106.JPG: Lock picks carried by the burglars, June 17, 1972
30. NIXONW_130722_108.JPG: Electronic listening device carried by the burglars, June 17, 1972
31. NIXONW_130722_116.JPG: Plumber Bernard Barker's Address Book: Barker was hired by E. Howard Hunt for both the Plumbers and the GEMSTONE operations. Hunt's initials "HH" appear on the right page, and both the White House and home numbers for Hunt are legibly written on the page. This address book, which was found in Barker's room at the Watergate Hotel, was the first evidence to link the burglars to Hunt and the White House.
32. NIXONW_130722_121.JPG: 71/72: President Nixon set the stage for the activities that would lead to the Watergate scandal by demanding more inside information on political rivals and supporting covert activities to disrupt other campaigns. With the knowledge of the President, White House Chief of Staff HR Haldeman initiated both political intelligence and "dirty tricks" operations for the 1972 campaign. In the spring of 1971, Haldeman's staff recruited Donald Segretti to do dirty tricks. Later that year, Haldeman worked with Attorney General John Mitchell to set up a political intelligence unit, led by former Plumber G Gordon Liddy, inside the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.
33. NIXONW_130722_122.JPG: Mitchell & Magruder: John N. Mitchell (top) was Richard Nixon's law partner before becoming the candidate's 1968 campaign manager. Mitchell held office as Attorney General of the United States from 1969 until he left on February 15, 1972, to run the President's re-election campaign. Mitchell served 19 months in prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up. Jeb Stuart Magruder (bottom) was an executive in the cosmetics industry before joining the White House Office of Communications in the summer of 1969. In 1971, Magruder became deputy director of the President's re-election committee. In 1973, he pled guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully intercept wire and oral communications, to obstruct justice and to defraud the United States and served seven months in prison.
34. NIXONW_130722_124.JPG: Campaign Tactics in 1960 and 1968: There is a long history of dirty tricks in American political campaigns. In his memories, John D Ehrlichman recalled, "In the 1960 campaign, there were dirty tricks on the Nixon side and also on the John Kennedy side. But the Nixon campaign staff always felt a bit outclassed; the Kennedy fellows were really much better at the dirty stuff than we were." The President believed his campaign had been the victim of dirty tricks by a Kennedy advanceman named Dick Tuck. "In 1968," Ehrlichman added, "Nixon demanded that his staff conduct his campaign as if we were in an all-out war." Dick Tuck From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dick Tuck (born 1924) is a former American political consultant, campaign strategist, advance man, and political prankster for the Democratic National Committee. Pranks: Tuck first met Richard Nixon as a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1950, Tuck was working for Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. She was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate against Richard Nixon. In a 1973 Time magazine article, Tuck stated, "There was an absent-minded professor who knew I was in politics and forgot the rest. He asked me to advance a Nixon visit." Tuck agreed and launched his first prank against Nixon. He rented a big auditorium, invited only a small number of people, and gave a long-winded speech to introduce the candidate. When Nixon came on stage, Tuck asked him to speak about the International Monetary Fund. When the speech was over, Nixon asked Tuck his name and told him, "Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance." Tuck's most famous prank against Nixon is known as "the Chinatown Caper." During his campaign for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon visited Chinatown in Los Angeles. At the campaign stop, a backdrop of children holding "welcome" signs in English and Chinese was set up. As Nixon spoke, an elder from the community whispered that one of the signs in Chinese said, "What about the Hughes loan?" The sign was a reference to an unsecured $205,000 loan that Howard Hughes had made to Nixon's brother, Donald. Nixon grabbed a sign and, on camera, ripped it up. (Later, Tuck learned, to his chagrin, that the Chinese characters actually spelled out "What about the huge loan?") After the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, Tuck hired an elderly woman who put on a Nixon button and embraced the candidate in front of TV cameras. She said, "Don't worry, son! He beat you last night, but you'll get him next time." Tuck is credited with waving a train out of the station while Nixon was still speaking, but he denies committing this prank. The prank became a Trivial Pursuit question, but cannot be attributed to Tuck. Tuck has said he did wear a conductor's hat and waved to the engineer, but that the train stayed put. He also played similar pranks against Barry Goldwater in 1964. He was dubbed by one newspaper, "the Democrat Pixie of 1964." In 1968, Tuck utilized Republican nominee Nixon's own campaign slogan against him; he hired a very pregnant African-American woman to wander around a Nixon rally in a predominantly white area, wearing a T-shirt that said, "Nixon's the One!" Political career: In 1966, Tuck ran for the California State Senate. He opened his campaign with a press conference at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale claiming that just because people had died doesn't mean they don't still have (voting) rights. Hearing of Tuck's entry as a candidate, Richard Nixon sent him a congratulatory telegram, including an offer to campaign for him, despite his being a Democrat. Dick Tuck designed his campaign billboards to read, in small print, "Dick," and in much larger lettering, "Tuck". The names were printed twice, piggy-backed one above the other. On the eve of the election he drove around the area and painted an extra line on the upper "Tuck" on the billboards. This converted the T in his name to an F so that passersby would see a profane phrase. Tuck said he thought voters would think his opponent had done this and he'd "get the sympathy vote" with this tactic. In a field of eight candidates for the Democratic nomination, Tuck finished 3rd with 5211 votes (almost 10% of votes), losing to future Congressman George Danielson. As the ballot totals piled against him on Election Night, the candidate was asked his reaction. Referring back to his cemetery speech, Tuck quipped, "Just wait till the dead vote comes in." When defeat became inevitable, Tuck made the now notorious statement, "The people have spoken, the bastards." Tuck was a key adviser in Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. After Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles, he rode in Kennedy's ambulance as the mortally-wounded candidate was rushed to the hospital. Tuck claimed that the Watergate break-in was an attempt to access information held by Larry O'Brien, chair of the Democratic National Committee about the Hughes-Nixon relationship. Tuck was first and foremost a campaign operative, and claimed he was never malicious in his political pranks. Richard Nixon was obsessive towards Tuck, however, as recorded in his presidential tapes. But Nixon also admired Tuck, comparing the dirty tricks committed by his staffer Donald Segretti unfavorably to the intelligence and wit behind some of Tuck's political pranks. After the Watergate scandal became public, H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff under Nixon, saw Tuck in the Capitol. Haldeman reportedly turned to Tuck and said, "You started all of this." Tuck replied, "Yeah, Bob but you guys ran it into the ground." Tuck also served briefly as political editor/adviser to the National Lampoon magazine. As of 2006 Tuck was retired and living in Tucson, Arizona. Controversy: Virtually every great "prank" Dick Tuck claimed to have pulled or has been associated with him has been disputed in some way. Dick Tuck often confessed and later denied his actions. He admitted to making up some of his pranks to author Neil Steinberg, who covered Tuck in his 1992 book If At All Possible, Involve A Cow: The Book of College Pranks. However, Tuck is mentioned in an October 1972 Oval Office tape when Nixon, speaking to H.R. Haldeman about the Segretti disclosures, said, "Dick Tuck did that to me. Let's get out what Dick Tuck did!" Nixon goes on to describe egged limousines and staged violence in San Jos�, Costa Rica. According to a 1997 The Washington Post article by reporter Karl Vick, Nixon was not the first to confuse Tuck's record with Tuck's legend. White House tapes also record Nixon speaking with John Connally on October 17, 1972, stating Tuck had all of Goldwater's speeches in hand before they were spoken because, Nixon presumed, Tuck had an informant in the Goldwater campaign. Quotes: "I didn't hide what I did. I never tried to be malicious. It's just the difference between altering fortune cookies to make a candidate look funny and altering State Department cables to make it look as if a former President were a murderer." --Dick Tuck on the difference between himself and Nixon's Watergate operatives. "The people have spoken, the bastards." --Dick Tuck's concession speech following his loss in the 1966 California State Senate election.
35. NIXONW_130722_127.JPG: Dirty Tricks and Political Espionage
36. NIXONW_130722_137.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The White House Orders Dirty Tricks: Early 1971: Haldeman informed the President in May 1971 that planning for a dirty tricks operation was underway. The President's appointments secretary Dwight Chapin and Haldeman's assistant, Gordon Strachan, hired Donald Segretti. Segretti recruited 22 operatives and received $45,000 from President Nixon's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach. Segretti's group organized hecklers to disrupt opposition rallies, forged letters on Democratic campaign stationery to divide the Democrats, and infiltrated spies to collect political intelligence. In addition, President Nixon instructed Colson in December 1971 to create a false "write-in" campaign for Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the New Hampshire primary to siphon votes from then front-runner Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine.
37. NIXONW_130722_140.JPG: White House staffers Dwight Chapin (top) and Gordon Strachan (middle) had attended the University of Southern California with Donald Segretti (bottom). Chapin contacted Segretti in April 1971 about a possible White House job. Strachan and Chapin then hired him in June 1971. Chapin remained Segretti's main contact until Segretti and his group were absorbed in G. Gordon Liddy's intelligence program in February 1972.
38. NIXONW_130722_143.JPG: 1971: The President requests better political intelligence. At a meeting with Attorney General Mitchell, the President asks for better intelligence on his political rivals. 1972: The President orders round-the-clock survellance of Senator Edward Kennedy. At a meeting with Haldeman, the President requested increased intelligence gathering on Senator Kennedy to "get him in [a] compromising situation." On July 1, Haldeman informed the President that his lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, would pay for this out of a special campaign fund. Although the White House would drop this idea later in the summer, discussion over improving political intelligence continued.
39. NIXONW_130722_149.JPG: In February 1972, Mr. Robin Ficker, a registered Democrat, signed this letter believing that it came from representatives of Senator Kennedy. It was actually the product of President Nixon's order to Colson.
40. NIXONW_130722_151.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Mitchell, Colson & Gemstone: Jan 27, Feb 4 Mar 30 1971 G Gordon Liddy proposed GEMSTONE to Attorney General Mitchell twice without success in January and February. After Liddy's second effort, he and Hunt enlisted Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson's help. Colson called Deputy Campaign Director Jeb Stuart Magruder to tell him that Mitchell needed to make up his mind. On March 30, Mitchell considered the plan a third time at a meeting in Key Biscayne, Florida with his close aid Fred LaRue and Magruder. On April 4, 1972, Magruder relayed to Haldeman that Liddy's operational budget had been approved and that Mitchell would receive the raw intelligence. Meanwhile, Mitchell informed Maurice Stans, the Committee's finance chair, to release the money that Magruder requested for Liddy.
41. NIXONW_130722_154.JPG: The Gemstone Plan: Liddy and Hunt gave the codename GEMSTONE to their proposed one-million-dollar-program of counterdemonstrations, illegal bugging and surreptitious entries. In early April, Liddy told Hunt that "the Big Man," which Hunt assumed meant Mitchell, had approved a scaled-down version of GEMSTONE. The $250,000 budget included money for break-ins and bugging at the headquarters of the eventual Democratic nominee and of the DNC in Washington, DC and at the Democrats' convention hotel in Miami.
42. NIXONW_130722_157.JPG: Nov 4 1971: Creating a Spy Unit: After months of considering the need for more political intelligence, Mitchell and Haldeman decided to create a special espionage unit in the re-election committee and discussed recruiting G Gordon Liddy to run it. Bud Krogh had earlier told John Dean and John Ehrlichman that Liddy was the man for the job. December 1971: Liddy and Hunt Start Planning: After joining the re-election committee in December, Liddy worked with former Plumber colleague E Howard Hunt -- who was still a paid consultant to Charles Colson -- to prepare an intelligence plan. Attorney General Mitchell, who was about to leave the Justice Department to run the President's campaign, was responsible for approving the plan.
43. NIXONW_130722_163.JPG: An enduring mystery surrounding Watergate: What Did the White House Know? One of the enduring mysteries of Watergate is how much the President or his senior aides knew about GEMSTONE. Charles Colson denied that Hunt or Liddy told him any operational details. John Dean, who witnessed Liddy's two presentations to Mitchell, testified that he told Bob Haldeman about the direction Liddy was taking. Gordon Strachan, Haldeman's liaison with the re-election committee, destroyed documents after the Watergate arrests, but his surviving notes indicate that Haldeman at least knew about the approval of a Liddy intelligence plan. Strachan told investigators that Haldeman instructed him to have Liddy shift his primary target to Senator George McGovern and that later Magruder told Strachan about one of the attempts to break into McGovern headquarters. No evidence has been found to show what, if any, details were shared with Haldeman. President Nixon denied knowing anything about GEMSTONE before the Watergate arrests, and investigators found no evidence to contradict his assertion.
44. NIXONW_130722_169.JPG: Haldeman aide Gordon Strachan's note after Magruder tells him on April 4, 1972 that the Liddy plan had been approved. April 4, 1972 Haldeman learns that Liddy's plan has been approved. Jeb Stuart Magruder told HR Haldeman, through his aide Gordon Strachan, that "2 of 4" of Liddy's operations had been approved. Neither the surviving documentary record, nor the tapes or trial testimony has cleared up the mystery of whether Haldeman knew that these operations involved illegal wiretapping. Excerpt from Gordon Strachan's 1973 interrogation where he tells investigators that he knew about a break-in attempt at McGovern's headquarters. May 26, 1972 The plan to break into George McGovern's headquarters. After South Dakota Senator George McGovern won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin and became the likely Democratic nominee, Haldeman ordered Liddy, through Strachan, to focus his intelligence efforts on McGovern. On May 26 and 28, Liddy's group made two unsuccessful attempts to break into McGovern's headquarters in Washington, DC. Their goal was to plant illegal electronic bugs.
45. NIXONW_130722_172.JPG: Strachan's briefing note for Haldeman on the approval of Gemstone before Haldeman met with John Mitchell on April 4, 1972. Haldeman aide Gordon Strachan's note after Magruder tells him on April 4, 1972 that the Liddy plan had been approved. Strachan note from April 14, 1972 that the Liddy intelligence operation would or should shift its focus from Senator Edmund Muskie to McGovern. Excerpt from Gordon Strachan's 1973 interrogation where he tells investigators that he knew about a break-in attempt at McGovern's headquarters.
46. NIXONW_130722_180.JPG: The 18-1/2-Minute Gap
47. NIXONW_130722_182.JPG: What is this gap? On November 21, 1973, White House lawyers informed Judge John J. Sirica, who was presiding over the Watergate cover-up trail, that there was an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap in a recording made of a conversation between the President and White House Chief of Staff HR Haldeman on June 20, 1972. There were no voices during the gap, just buzzing and clicking noises. Archibald Cox, the first Watergate Special Prosecutor, had subpoenaed this recording in July 1973.
48. NIXONW_130722_189.JPG: An Enduring Mystery Surrounding Watergate: Who erased the tape? On November 27, 1973, the President's longtime secretary Rose Mary Woods testified that she had accidentally caused the first five minutes of the gap when she reached for a telephone call while transcribing the tape. Woods recalled pressing the "record" button down by mistake and thought she might have also kept her foot on the machine's operating pedal during the entire five-minute call. No one took responsibility for the remainder of the gap and Woods had difficulty recreating this stretch for the Sirica Court. Six audio experts appointed by the Court reported in 1973 that the gap was the result of at least five and possibly nine separate erasures; these erasures could not have been caused by using the pedal; and the tape showed evidence of being erased, rewound, and erased again.
49. NIXONW_130722_195.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Why Does the Gap Matter? The gap occurs during a recording of the President and Haldeman's first conversation in Washington, DC after the Watergate break-in. President Nixon was in The Bahamas and Haldeman in Florida on June 17, 1972, when the five burglars were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters. On June 20, 1972, Haldeman met with the President in the Old Executive Office Building. A comparison of Haldeman's handwritten notes of that conversation with the actual recording shows that the gap begins just as the men start discussing the Watergate break-in and how to respond. The disclosure of the existence of this gap in the White House tapes led to public skepticism in 1973 and still raises questions about how the gap happened and what was erased. Presidential Daily Diary for June 20, 1972. The gap occurred during the President's 11:26am meeting.
50. NIXONW_130722_196.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Can We Recover the Missing Conversation? In 1974, the Court-appointed experts wrote "we know of no technique that could recover intelligible speech from the buzz section." Between 2001 and 2003, the National Archives and Records Administration sponsored an investigation to determine if newer technology could recover information from the gap. In 2009, NARA launched an effort to use hyperspectral imaging, video spectral comparison and electrostatic detection analysis to examine Haldeman's notes of the meeting for latent and indented images of additional content. Perhaps future advances will unlock the secrets of the gap.
51. NIXONW_130722_199.JPG: Section from Rose Mary Woods' November 1973 testimony on how she might have caused part of the gap.
52. NIXONW_130722_202.JPG: Haldeman's handwritten notes of the June 20, 1972 conversation. The gap in the recorded conversation begins at the end of the first place. -- Mrs N and I have alwy had spec plac in our hrts for SD bee. her parnts were marred al Leeds SD [sheftiy before they] later moved to Ely Nov, her birthplace. be sure EOB office is thoroly ckd re bugs at all times - etc. what is our counter-attack? PR offensive to top this -~- hit the opposition w/ their activities pt. out libertarians have created public [unreadable -- controversy?] do they justify this less than stealing Pentagon papers, Anderson file etc? we shld be on the attack - for diversion - what is schcd on SFR SALT hearings? go to Calif on Fri - w/ PN - Julie come out later PN not to the shower
53. NIXONW_130722_206.JPG: The 18-1/2-Minute Gap: Listen to the Gap: You can listen to the gap in the June 20, 1972 recording with its buzzing and clicking. Lift the handset and Press 1 on the handset keypad to start the tape 15 seconds before the gap begins. Press 2 through 8 to skip forward through the tape to hear the nine clicks that were identified by the Sirica Court's nonpartisan audio panel as probable evidence of multiple erasures. Segments 6 and 8 each include two clicks. Press 9 to go to the end of the tape, where intelligible conversation resumes on the tape.
54. NIXONW_130722_212.JPG: Presidents and Secret Taping 1940-1973
55. NIXONW_130722_215.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Who Knew About the Nixon Taping System? The existence of the White House taping system was kept secret. Only President Nixon, his chiefs of staff, HR Haldeman and Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and a few aides and members of the Secret Service knew about it. The recorders in the Oval Office, the President's office in the OEOB across the street from the White House and at Camp David were sound activated. The system in the Cabinet Room was manually operated by Alexander Butterfield, a deputy assistant to the President.
56. NIXONW_130722_218.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Nixon Taping System, 1971-1973: In February 1971, President Nixon ordered the US Secret Service to set up a secret taping system. Initially, the taping system included microphones in the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. In April 1971, the system expanded to include the President's hideaway office in the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), and telephones in the Oval Office, in the Lincoln Sitting Room and in the President's OEOB office. In May 1972, the Secret Service began recording office and telephone conversations in the President's study in Aspen Lodge at Camp David. All recording stopped on July 12, 1973, after Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the system to the Senate Watergate Committee.
57. NIXONW_130722_221.JPG: President Nixon was the sixth and last US President to have a White House taping system. President Franklin D Roosevelt established the first secret White House taping system in the Oval Office in 1940. Presidents Harry S Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, and Lyndon B Johnson, to varying extents, also authorized secret recording of White House conversations. The size and scope of President Nixon's system, however, was unprecedented. When the taping stopped in mid-July 1973, the Nixon system had recorded about 3,700 hours of conversations. Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, whose taping programs were the second and third most active, left about 850 and 264 hours of recordings, respectively. On the left are the dates of the presidential recordings left by each president and the presidential library where they can be found.
58. NIXONW_130722_230.JPG: Evidence about Watergate is as complex as the story itself. This exhibits allows you to explore aspects of Watergate in more depth using segments from oral histories prepared by the Nixon Library, excerpts from the White House tapes, original documents and television coverage from the era. To dig even further, please visit our research room downstairs.
59. NIXONW_130722_237.JPG: 1972: President Nixon and his senior aides were concerned that an uncontrolled investigation of the Watergate operation would reveal much more than a simple plot to break into Democratic headquarters. The President's re-election committee, headed by Mitchell, had hired Liddy and paid for this break-in. Because Liddy's team included former White House Plumbers, an uncontrolled investigation could also lead back to the unethical and illegal domestic operations of 1071, including the Fielding break-in and Hunt's special projects with Colson. The actions by President Nixon and his chief lieutenants to keep those secrets away from criminal investigators would doom his presidency.
60. NIXONW_130722_240.JPG: May 27, 1972: The first Watergate break-in: The Hunt-Liddy team broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate late in the evening of May 27. They installed electronic taps on the telephones of DNC chairman Larry O'Brien and R. Spencer Oliver, another Democratic party official. The team left the Watergate building without being detected.
61. NIXONW_130722_243.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Second Watergate Break-In and Arrests: June 17, 1972: Magruder and Liddy pressured Hunt's team to break into the Watergate for a second time because the bug on O'Brien's phone did not work and the one placed on Oliver's phone was not producing any usable political intelligence. The Cubans were reluctant, as was Hunt, but the attempt was made. At 1:47am, a building security guard, Frank Wills, noticed that the door from the stairwell into the garage had been taped open. He called the police and the five burglars -- Bernard L. Barker, Virgilio R. Gonzalez, Eugenio Rolando Martinez, James W. McCord Jr., and Frank A. Sturgis -- were arrested. Hunt and Liddy, who were following the operation on walkie-talkies from a room in the Watergate Hotel, and Alfred Baldwin, the lookout at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge across the street, fled the scene.
62. NIXONW_130722_246.JPG: June 17, 1972: What the FBI Finds the First Day: In the burglars' hotel rooms, the FBI found items that connected E. Howard Hunt to the break-in. Hunt's name and a White House telephone number appeared in two of the burglars' address books. The FBI also found stacks of crisp $100 bills, which the Bureau would eventually track to checks from contributors to the President's re-election campaign.
63. NIXONW_130722_250.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Cover-Up: Early Efforts: June 17 to July 16: The President participates in the evolving cover-up and orders the CIA to obstruct the FBI's investigation. Through the Justice Department, the White House learned that the FBI had already traced the money found in the hotel rooms to checks cashed by burglar Bernard Barker in Miami. Haldeman suggested, citing a recommendation from John Mitchell and John Dean, that the President use the CIA to prevent the FBI from tracing the money from Barker to the re-election campaign. The plan involved ordering the CIA to mislead the FBI into believing that the Watergate break-in was a CIA operation. Haldeman also informed the President that his advisors had implemented a plan to get Hunt out of the country. The President approved the plan to use the CIA and raised no objection to keeping Hunt away from criminal investigators.
64. NIXONW_130722_253.JPG: John W Dean III John Dean became Counsel to the President in July 1970. With the President's approval, Dean was made coordinator of the cover-up after the Watergate arrests. As the cover-up collapsed, Dean sought but did not receive immunity from federal prosecution. Dean did receive immunity from the Senate and was the first insider to reveal the President's involvement in the cover-up. After pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and sentenced to a prison term of one to four years, he served four months in a witness holding facility.
65. NIXONW_130722_256.JPG: HR "Bob" Haldeman: Bob Haldeman was President Nixon's closest aide. After serving as chief of staff in the 1968 Nixon campaign, Haldeman became White House chief of staff in January 1969. Haldeman was convicted in the Watergate cover-up trial of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and perjury. Sentenced to a term of between 2-1/2 and 8 years, he served 18 months in prison.
66. NIXONW_130722_259.JPG: The Cover-Up: Break-In and Evidence
67. NIXONW_130722_266.JPG: "Well, they took a... risk, and they have to be paid." -- President Nixon on the Watergate burglars, August 1, 1972
68. NIXONW_130722_269.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Obstruction of Justice June 23 1972: In three different conversations, the President approved the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI's criminal investigation. Ehrlichman and Haldeman subsequently told CIA director Richard Helms and his deputy, General Vernon Walters, that the CIA should instruct the FBI to back off its investigation of the source of the burglars' money for national security reasons. Although the CIA had not organized the Watergate break-in, Helms and Walters initially agreed to the presidential request. The White House did not want the FBI to investigate this political contribution from Kenneth Dahlberg. Cashed by Barker, this check linked the re-election committee to the Watergate burglars. "If the CIA could deflect the FBI from Hunt, they would thereby protect us from the only White House vulnerability involving Watergate that I worried about exposing -- not the break-in, but the political activities Hunt had undertaken for Colson." -- Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, 1978
69. NIXONW_130722_275.JPG: The Cover-Up Break-In and Evidence HR "Bob" Haldeman: Now, on the investigation, you know, the Democratic break-in thing, we're back in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because [Active FBI Director L. Patrick] Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have... their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they've been able to trace the money, not through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources..." -- June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon, HR "Bob" Haldeman President Nixon orders the CIA to interfere in the FBI's investigation: In this White House tape segment recorded on June 23, 1972, President Nixon approved a plan to use the CIA to prevent the FBI from investigating Nixon campaign contributions that had been used to fund the Watergate break-in. The conversation from which this segment is taken became known as the "Smoking Gun" after its transcript was publicly released in August 1974.
70. NIXONW_130722_278.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Payments to the Burglars: June 19 1972: G Gordon Liddy told John Dean that the burglars would keep quiet about what they knew, but they expected financial support. Dean, with Ehrlichman and Haldeman's authorization, arranged for payments by the President's lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach. From June 29 through September 19 the burglars' representatives received $217,000 from the President's re-election committee and one large private donation. Payments were dropped in unmarked envelopes at prearranged times and places. When Kalmbach concluded the payments were illegal, Mitchell's close aide Frederick C. LaRue assumed responsibility for the operation. The payments made after September 19 (a sum of at least $237,000) came from the White House's secret $350,000 political fund. LaRue, who received the money from Haldeman's aide Strachan, understood the payments were "hush money" to keep the burglars from implicating others.
71. NIXONW_130722_281.JPG: Dorothy Hunt's (E. Howard Hunt's wife) accounting of payments given to the burglars in July and August 1972. "In other words, I received a total of $88,000 and have paid out $91,000 (using the final $3,000 from my own funds)."
72. NIXONW_130722_284.JPG: July 6, 1972: The CIA says no to the cover-up: The CIA changed its mind and informed the FBI that national security was not involved in the Watergate affair. The CIA had earlier refused a White House request that it pay salaries and legal fees for Hunt and the Cuban Americans. On July 6, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, told President Nixon that both the FBI and the CIA were concerned that some White House staffers were attempting to use the CIA to obstruct the Watergate investigation. The President told Gray that the FBI should press on with its investigation.
73. NIXONW_130722_287.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Cover-Up: Further Efforts: July 7-Sept 15, 1972: With the CIA and FBI out of their control, President Nixon and his senior aides revised the cover-up scenario. The White House now hoped to shape the investigation so that federal prosecutors believed that Liddy had acted without the knowledge of campaign chief John Mitchell and deputy Jeb Magruder. Skeptical that this would work, and certain that Magruder would have to be sacrificed to protect Mitchell, the President told aides on July 19 that he would pardon Magruder if he pled guilty. The President also said that he intended to pardon Hunt, Liddy and the burglars after the election. The President devised a plan to pair these pardons with pardons for jailed members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Meanwhile, Mitchell's staff worked with Dean to give money to the burglars' families. The President's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, started these payments on July 7 and the President expressed his approval on August 1.
74. NIXONW_130722_297.JPG: Investigations. Testimony & Indictments
75. NIXONW_130722_298.JPG: 72/73: The cover-up unraveled under the fear of harsh sentences by Judge Sirica, the pressure of federal prosecutors and the FBI, and because of the continuing coverage by the media. During the period when the cover-up was working, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post kept the Watergate story alive in the Press. Using tips from Associate FBI Director Mark Felt -- later revealed in 2005 as their source "Deep Throat" -- and the products of their own reporting, the two journalists wrote articles that laid the groundwork for the Senate's decision to initiate its own investigation. Meanwhile, Judge John J. Sirica, who presided over the Watergate grand jury, suspected that some of the witnesses were lying and looked for a way to get at the truth. In early 1973, some Watergate conspirators would start working with prosecutors.
76. NIXONW_130722_301.JPG: Bob Woodward (right) and Carl Bernstein (left). Between June and October 1972, these two Washington Post reporters broke the news that Hunt's name had been found in the burglar's address books (June 20); that some of the burglars' money had come from a $25,000 campaign contribution from Kenneth Dahlberg (August 1); and that the White House had funded Segretti's "dirty tricks" operation (October 10). Woodward and Bernstein's reporting on the Watergate scandal earned the Washington Post a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
77. NIXONW_130722_304.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Court Only Indicts Seven: Sept 15, 1972: After the Watergate grand jury only charged Liddy, Hunt and the five burglars with complicity in the illegal bugging operation, (and did not indict Mitchell or his deputy, Magruder), President Nixon thanked John Dean for "putting your fingers in the dikes every time that leaks have sprung here and sprung there." "[T]he whole thing is a can of worms," commented the President.
78. NIXONW_130722_307.JPG: November 7, 1972: The President Wins Re-Election in a Landslide: President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew defeated Senator George McGovern and Sargent Shriver, winning 49 states and 60.7 percent of the vote.
79. NIXONW_130722_309.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The First Watergate Trial: Jan 30 1973: The jury found McCord and Liddy guilty of their participation in the Watergate break-in. Hunt, Barker, Martinez, Sturgis and Gonzalez had all pleaded guilty at the start of the trial. Convinced that the defendants had lied to cover-up for their superiors, Judge John J Sirica would ultimately give the men very long but provisional sentences in the hope of encouraging them to cooperate with government prosecutors and Senate investigators. Judge Sirica: John Joseph Sirica was appointed to the US District Court for the District of Columbia by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957. As Chief Judge of that court between 1971 and 1974, he presided over both the Watergate burglary and cover-up trials. His rulings were upheld in every appeal from the Watergate cases.
80. NIXONW_130722_313.JPG: The Senate forms a Select Committee on Watergate: By a vote of 77-0, the US Senate formed the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, better known as the Senate Watergate Committee. Composed of four Democrats and three Republicans, the Senate Watergate Committee was chaired by Democratic Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. of North Carolina. Republican Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. of Tennessee was the ranking minority member. The Senate decided that the Committee would investigate only the 1972 campaign.
81. NIXONW_130722_316.JPG: Who What When Where Why? A Burglar Breaks His Silence: March 19 1973: In a letter to Judge Sirica, Watergate burglar James McCord made four explosive charges: * "There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilt and remain silent." * "Perjury occurred during the trial in matters highly material to the very structure, orientation, and impact of the government's case, and to the motivation and intent of the defendants." * "Others involved in the Watergate operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying." * "The Watergate operation was not a CIA operation. The Cubans may have been misled by others into believing that it was a CIA operation." The letter became public four days later when Judge Sirica read it aloud in court.
82. NIXONW_130722_319.JPG: Who What When Where Why? "A Cancer on the Presidency": March 21, 1973: The White House's management of the Watergate issue reached a turning point when John Dean approached the President with his concerns that the cover-up was getting out of hand. E Howard Hunt's lawyer, William Bittman, had just approached John Dean for additional payments for his client. During his meeting with President Nixon on March 21, 1973, Dean warned that the cover-up was "a cancer on the presidency." Instead of ordering an end to the cover-up, the President told Dean that one million dollars could be found to satisfy Hunt.
83. NIXONW_130722_322.JPG: Who What When Where Why? John Dean Testifies: June 25, 1973: John W Dean III began four days of televised testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. The Committee, which comprised four Democrats and three Republicans, was formed in February 1973 and started televised hearings in May. After receiving immunity from the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean became the first White House official to claim publicly that President Nixon had participated in the Watergate cover-up. Dean revealed that the President knew about the payments to the Watergate burglars and E. Howard Hunt after they were arrested. Dean also revealed the existence of an "Enemies List" and the "Huston Plan."
84. NIXONW_130722_325.JPG: April 8-15, 1973: Dean and Magruder begin to cooperate with federal prosecutors: Seeking immunity from prosecution, John Dean and Jeb Magruder approached federal prosecutors with information about Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell's role in the cover-up. Magruder revealed his own role in setting up Liddy's intelligence operation and Dean also revealed the Plumbers' September 1971 break-in at Dr. Fielding's office. A month later, a mistrial was declared in the Ellsberg trial and Daniel Ellsberg was released from jail. In the end, Dean and Magruder did not get immunity from the prosecutors. April 30, 1973: Haldeman and Ehrlichman are forced out: After Dean and Magruder exposed the cover-up to prosecutors, President Nixon concluded that dramatic action was required to present the Watergate investigation from consuming his presidency. He asked his two closest aides, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, to resign. The President, who also fired John Dean and requested that Attorney General Richard Kleindienst leave, announced these departures in a televised address.
85. NIXONW_130722_328.JPG: March 21, 1973: President's Denial: With senior members of the White House staff and the Re-Election Committee now implicated in the scandal, the President issued his most sweeping denial of any personal involvement. He declared that he knew nothing about the cover-up before the March 21 meeting with Dean, that he knew nothing about any payments to the convicted burglars, that he never authorized any pardons, and that he played no role in using the CIA to block the FBI investigation of the break-in. None of these denials would turn out to be true. Excerpt from President Nixon's May 22 Statement on His Involvement in Watergate Events: "With regards to the specific allegations that have been made, I can and do state categorically: (1) I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate operation. (2) That I had no part in, nor was I aware of, any subsequent efforts that may have been made to cover up Watergate. (3) At no time did I authorize any offer of executive clemency for Watergate defendants, nor did I know of any such offer. (4) I did not know, until the time of my own investigation, of any effort to provide the Watergate defendants with funds. (5) At no time did I attempt, or did I authorize others to attempt, to implicate the CIA in the Watergate matter. (6) I was not until the time of my own investigation that I learned of the break-in at the office of Mr. Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and I specifically authorized the furnishing of this information to Judge Byrne. (7) I neither authorized nor encouraged subordinates to engage in illegal or improper campaign tactics."
86. NIXONW_130722_332.JPG: "What did the President know and when did he know it?" -- Senator Howard Baker (R-Tennessee)
87. NIXONW_130722_335.JPG: May 25, 1973: Watergate Special Prosecutor Is Hired: Harvard Law Professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as the first Watergate Special Prosecutor. A former Solicitor General under President Kennedy, Cox was the fifth man asked by Attorney General Elliot Richardson to take the job. The Senate had made the appointment of an independent prosecutor a condition for confirming Richardson to replace Richard Kleindienst.
88. NIXONW_130722_338.JPG: The Fight Over The Tapes
89. NIXONW_130722_341.JPG: 73/74: A White House Assistant Reveals the Secret Presidential Taping System. When Alexander Butterfield told the Senate Watergate Committee in mid-July 1973 that President Nixon had been secretly recording his conversations, the Watergate scandal entered a new phase. From that moment, the Senate, the Sirica Court, Special Prosecutor Cox and many in the public viewed the White House tapes as the key to figuring out whether the President was telling the truth. The President, however, fought to prevent Congress or the Court from hearing the tapes, citing the constitutional doctrine of "executive privilege." Ultimately, the US Supreme Court would settle the fight over the tapes by ordering the President to turn over the tapes requested by the Special Prosecutor.
90. NIXONW_130722_344.JPG: July 23, 1973: The Special Prosecutor and the Senate Watergate Committee demand tapes. On the same day, Judge Sirica, on behalf of Cox, issued a formal demand -- a subpoena -- for nine White House tapes and the Senate issued a separate subpoena for five tapes.
91. NIXONW_130722_347.JPG: Why Didn't President Nixon Destroy the Tapes? President Nixon assumed, like the five presidents who secretly tapes in the Oval Office before him, that he owned his White House tapes forever. After Butterfield disclosed the taping system, the President, who was recuperating from pneumonia, received conflicting advice. Vice President Spiro Agnew advised the President to built "a bonfire." White House Counsel Leonard Garment argued that destroying the tapes could be seen as destroying evidence. Haldeman also argued for keeping the tapes, believing that they strengthened the White House's Watergate defense. Initially uncertain as to what to do, President Nixon ultimately decided to preserve the tapes and assert executive privilege to protect them from disclosure.
92. NIXONW_130722_350.JPG: Alexander P. Butterfield. Butterfield had a career in the Air Force before joining the White House in 1969. As deputy assistant to the President from 1969 to 1973. Butterfield handled the daily preparation of briefing materials for the President and oversaw the US Secret Service. Butterfield supervised the Secret Service's installation of the secret White House taping system in mid-February 1971.
93. NIXONW_130722_353.JPG: Aug 29, 1973: Sirica's Decision. Judge Sirica rejected the President's argument that executive privilege allowed him to keep his tapes confidential. Judge Sirica ruled instead that the Court had to listen to the tapes to decide whether they were relevant to the Watergate criminal investigation. The President appealed the decision.
94. NIXONW_130722_356.JPG: Oct 10, 1973: Vice President Agnew Resigns: Vice President Agnew resigned, pleading no contest to several counts of accepting bribes. The bribes were unrelated to the Watergate scandal, but the Vice President's plea was a blow to public trust in the Nixon administration. Two days later, President Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, the House minority leader, to be the 40th Vice President of the United States. Oct 19, 1973: The Court of Appeals Upholds Sirica's Tapes Decision: The US Court of Appeals ruled that the President must hand over the tapes to Judge Sirica. The White House had until October 19 to appeal to the US Supreme Court.
95. NIXONW_130722_359.JPG: The Stennis Compromise: On October 19, the White House announced that instead of appealing to the Supreme Court, the President would prepare editing summaries of the nine requested tapes for Judge Sirica. Only Senator John C. Stennis, a Democrat from Mississippi, would be allowed to verify them. In exchange, the Special Prosecutor would not be permitted to request any other tapes. Cox rejected this plan on the grounds that the Court had the right to list to the actual tapes and, by limiting any further requests, the plan also interfered with his ongoing investigation.
96. NIXONW_130722_362.JPG: Who What When Where Why? Saturday Night Massacre: Oct 20 1973: The President set off a wave of public anxiety by ordering the firing of the Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. After the Court of Appeals upheld Cox's demand for nine White House tapes on October 12, the Attorney General and the White House scrambled to find a compromise that would satisfy the President and Cox. When Cox announced on October 20 that he could not accept the so-called Stennis Compromise because it did not allow access to the actual tapes, the President instructed the Justice Department to fire him. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus chose to resign rather than follow the President's order. Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, who was next in line, agreed to fire Cox. White House Chief of staff Alexander M. Haig Jr., directed the FBI to seal the offices of the Watergate Special Prosecutor Force (WSPF). The WSPF, which was formally dissolved a few days later, was quickly re-established in early November.
97. NIXONW_130722_365.JPG: In the wake of the Saturday Night Massacre, TIME magazine, in its first editorial ever, calls for the resignation of President Nixon. An 18-1/2-Minute Gap: When the President agreed to turn the nine tapes over to Judge Sirica, two of the subpoenaed conversations turned out never to have been recorded and one -- from June 20, 1972 -- was found to include a controversial 18-1/2 minute gap during a section dealing with Watergate. These omissions and the gap would raise serious questions about White House tampering with the tapes.
98. NIXONW_130722_368.JPG: Oct 23, 1973: The President Turns Over Some Tapes: Responding to the public furor caused by the Saturday Night Massacre, the President agreed to turn over the nine requested tapes to the Court and the Special Prosecutor. Included among the nine was the President's March 21, 1973 "cancer on the presidency" conversation with John Dean. When Judge Sirica and the new Special Prosector Leon Jaworski listened to it, they each concluded that President Nixon had participated in the cover-up.
99. NIXONW_130722_371.JPG: "Richard Nixon and the nation have passed a tragic point of no return." -- Time Magazine, November 12, 1973
100. NIXONW_130722_374.JPG: When the President ordered that Cox be fired, three Justice Department officials faced a fateful decision. Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson (top left), who had assured Congress that he would protect Cox's independence, would not fire Cox. Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus (right center), who had been Acting FBI Director, had seen evidence of the President's role in the cover-up and refused to obstruct the Watergate investigation. Solicitor General Robert H. Bork (right, bottom) agreed to fire Cox for President Nixon because he believed that a president had the authority to fire any appointee in the Executive Branch. Uncomfortable with the situation, Bork, however, wanted to resign after firing Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus convinced him to stay to ensure continuity at the Justice Department.
101. NIXONW_130722_377.JPG: Nov 1, 1973: A New Special Prosecutor is Named: Acting Attorney General Bork named Leon Jaworski, a Texas and former president of the American Bar Association, as Cox's replacement. The President assured Jaworski of his independence. Feb-March, 1974: Unindicted Co-Conspirator: The Watergate grand jury, which heard the "cancer on the presidency" in the Watergate cover-up. Originally sealed, this action later leaked.
102. NIXONW_130722_380.JPG: Some Lawmakers and Members of the Public Started Calling for the President's Impeachment After the Saturday Night Massacre: The Democratic leadership in the House gave the Judiciary Committee the responsibility for considering articles of impeachment. In February 1974, with only four dissenting votes, the entire House assigned broad investigative powers to the Judiciary Committee. On March 26, 1974, Judge Sirica handed over grand jury materials, including the "cancer on the presidency" tape, to the House for its investigation. The White House Releases Some Transcripts: In a televised address on April 30, 1974, President Nixon announced the release to the House Judiciary Committee of 1,308 pages of edited transcripts, covering 46 White House meetings and telephone conversations. Since this release did not include the key tapes that the Special Prosecutor wanted, Judge Sirica ruled that the actual tapes were required and Jaworski's request headed to the Supreme Court.
103. NIXONW_130722_383.JPG: April 1974: Jaworski Wants More Tapes: On April 16, 1974, the new Watergate Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, requested 64 more tapes, seven times as many tapes as Cox had wanted.
104. NIXONW_130722_385.JPG: Gerald R. Ford: President Nixon selected House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to replace Spiro Agnew after Republican leaders opposed the President's first choice, former Democratic Governor of Texas and US Treasury Secretary John B. Connally, Jr. Vice President Ford took the oath of office on December 6, 1973, after confirmation by both the Senate and the House. Less than a year later, he became the first person to become U.S. President without being elected president or vice president.
105. NIXONW_130722_388.JPG: August 1974
106. NIXONW_130722_391.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Supreme Court Rules Against the President: July 24 1974: In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court upheld Judge Sirica's order that the President hand over the 64 recordings requested by the Special Prosecutor. Late that afternoon, President Nixon agreed to abide by the decision and had his legal team prepare transcripts of those conversations. Over the next two weeks, as some White House aides and congressional allies of the President began to learn about what was in these transcripts, the President's last level of support began to erode. The President, however, decided to await the public's response to the release of the new transcripts before deciding how to proceed.
107. NIXONW_130722_394.JPG: Who What When Where Why? The Effect of "The Smoking Gun" Conversations: Aug 5 1974: When the White House released transcripts on August 5 of three conversations from June 23, 1972, the public learned for the first time that the President had ordered the CIA to obstruct the FBI's investigation. These transcripts, popularly known as "the Smoking Gun," contradicted the President's public defense and undermined his remaining support on Capitol Hill. Every Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who had voted for the President in committee announced that they now supported impeachment. At the same time, the President's support in the Senate, where he would be put on trial once the House recommended Impeachment, collapsed. Three veteran Republican leaders -- Senator Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater and Congressman John Rhodes -- met with the President on August 7 to deliver the news. Meanwhile, the President's public approval rating fell to 24 percent.
108. NIXONW_130722_397.JPG: Bipartisan majorities in the Judiciary Committee support three articles of impeachment. With the support of every Democrat and nearly half of the Republicans, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend three articles of impeachment be approved by the House of Representatives. The first covered presidential obstruction of justice; the second governmental abuse of powers; and, the third, failure to comply with House subpoenas. By bipartisan majorities, the Committee rejected two other proposed articles of impeachment.
109. NIXONW_130722_399.JPG: "Our long, national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men." -- President Gerald R. Ford, August 9, 1974
110. NIXONW_130722_402.JPG: The President Resigns: President Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign at noon the next day. At a tearful farewell to his staff the next morning in the East Room, the President observed, "always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." Ford Pardons Nixon: On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted former President Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon" for "all offences against the United States" that he "has committed or may have committed" as president. President Ford believed that putting Richard Nixon on trial would only prolong the trauma of Watergate and the country needed to start healing.
111. NIXONW_130722_405.JPG: "I didn't want to make myself believe that [President] Nixon did this, that he actually participated... It was a tragic chapter in political history." -- Senator Bob Dole [R-Kansas), Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1971-1973 Why Watergate Matters: Since the 1970s, the public and the media have attached the suffix -gate to major American political scandals. Why did Watergate sear itself into the public imagination and our history? And what is its legacy for us today? Did public expectations about the use of presidential power change because of Watergate? What, if anything, can it teach us about our rights as citizens and the workings of our Constitution? "What really happened in Watergate is that the system worked." -- Carl Bernstein, Washington Post, 1966-1976 "I came away feeling much better, frankly, about ... [our] system of government, and the Constitution and the people in general. We came through a crisis because of that." -- D Todd Christofferson, law clerk to Judge John Sirica, 1972-1974
112. NIXONW_130722_408.JPG: Watergate and the Supreme Court
113. NIXONW_130722_411.JPG: A unanimous decision from the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in US v Nixon, affirming that President Nixon had to release all materials under subpoena to District Court Judge John J. Sirica. The vote was 8-0: Justice William Rehnquist, a former Nixon administration official, had recused himself.
114. NIXONW_130722_413.JPG: At issue: the limits of a President's "executive privilege". Our government consists of three equal branches: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. Since deciding Marbury v Madison in 1803, the US Supreme Court has exercised the power of judicial review over the actions of the Executive and Legislative branches of the US government. In the summer of 1974, the US Supreme Court considered the question of whether the US Constitution permitted President Nixon to withhold the White House tapes from a federal court. At issue was whether a President's right to have confidential conversations with advisors -- as a matter of "executive privilege" -- outweighed the Judiciary's need for access to records of those conversations for a criminal investigation.
115. NIXONW_130722_416.JPG: Debate and Decision "The framers of the Constitution had in mind a strong presidency... The President is not above the law by any means; but the law as to the President has to be applied in a constitutional way, which is different than anyone else... The President of the United States, we suggest, can be proceeded against only by impeachment while in office and his powers are unabated until such time as he leave that office." -- James D. St. Clair, Special Counsel to the President, July 8, 1974
116. NIXONW_130722_418.JPG: "The nation's constitutional form of government is in serious jeopardy of the President, any President, is to say that the Constitution means what he says it does and that there is no one, not even the Supreme Court, to tell him otherwise." -- Leon Jaworski, Watergate Special Prosecutor, July 8, 1974
117. NIXONW_130722_421.JPG: "Neither the doctrine of separation of powers nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances." -- Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States, July 24, 1974
118. NIXONW_130722_424.JPG: Watergate's Legislative Legacy Legislation Resulting from the Watergate Scandal * Privacy Act of 1974 * Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 * 1974 Amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act * 1974 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act * Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 * Presidential Records Act of 1978 * Ethics in Government Act of 1978 * Independent Counsel Act of 1978 * National Archives and Records Administration Act of 1984 Watergate left a long legislative legacy. In the decade following President Nixon's resignation, the US Congress passed laws to address the abuses of governmental power and campaign irregularities uncovered by Senate and House investigators. The new laws limited the federal government's ability to collect information on private citizens, reformed the campaign finance system and strengthened public control of and access to presidential records. Not only did the Congress act to preserve the famous Nixon White House tapes; but it also established an independent agency, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), to protect all government documents. NARA administers the libraries of all modern presidents.
119. NIXONW_130722_427.JPG: Privacy Act of 1974: Calling it "an initial advance in protecting a right precious to every American," President Gerald R. Ford signed the Privacy Act on December 31, 1974. The law created tougher standards for the handling of private information in government records and required that federal agencies make their processes for handling and storing such data transparent to the public. The law also allowed individuals to access and amend their official records, while prohibiting, with some exceptions, the government's disclosure of an individual's private information. While President Ford believed that the bill, with its exceptions, did not "adequately protect the individual against unnecessary disclosures of personal information," he defended it as a first step towards greater privacy protection. Ford wrote that the law would contribute to a "proper balance between the privacy interests of the individual and those of society."
120. NIXONW_130722_430.JPG: Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 (PRMPA): Before Watergate, White House documents were considered the personal property of each president. Starting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, modern presidents traditionally donated their documents to the US government for deposit in a presidential library run by the National Archives. When his White House materials came under special Watergate-related investigative and public scrutiny, President Richard Nixon tried to arrange a different agreement with the head of the General Services Administration (whom the National Archives then served under), allowing him to retain control of his presidential materials and to destroy the White House tapes after five years. When this deal became public in 1974, Congress seized President Nixon's official papers and tapes and transferred them to the National Archives to ensure their long-term preservation. Signed into law on December 19, 1974, the PRMPA authorized the National Archives to process and release the Nixon materials, and to focus on those that contributed to a greater understanding of what President Gerald R. Ford called "the President's 'abuses of governmental power incident to Watergate.' " It also required that the materials remain in the Washington DC region. Amended in 2004 to permit the Nixon presidential materials to move to California, this Act governs the archival preservation of and access to these materials at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
121. NIXONW_130722_433.JPG: 1974 Amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act: Signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford, these amendments sought to address concerns over the influence of private donors on presidential campaigns. They set limits on donations made to presidential candidates and political parties on behalf of individuals and political organizations. Along with these limitations, the amendments also established federal funding of presidential campaigns through an optional one-dollar donation on federal tax forms. In 1975, the Federal Election Commission was created to enforce the amendments. Although President Ford expressed concern about the use of federal funds to finance elections, he nevertheless supported these changes, declaring that "the times demand this legislation."
122. NIXONW_130722_435.JPG: 1974 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act: Public concerns on a variety of issues related to public access to government records, including the controversy over the war in Vietnam and abuses by the intelligence community, led Congress to amend the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1974. The amendments strengthened the original law, passed in 1966, by changing a number of administrative provisions, including calling for the judicial review of documents that were classified due to claims of national security. President Gerald R. Ford vetoed the bill because of his concerns over its effect on national security. Weeks later, in November 1974, Congress overwhelmingly overrode the President's veto.
123. NIXONW_130722_438.JPG: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA)
124. NIXONW_130722_440.JPG: Presidential Records Act of 1978: Four years after the Presidential Recordings And Materials Preservation Act seized control of President Nixon's official papers and transferred them to the National Archives, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Presidential Records Act (PRA) on November 6, 1978. The PRA stipulated that, beginning with the next presidential administration, the government would own all official presidential and vice-presidential records, and that at the end of a presidential administration, these records would be immediately transferred to the National Archives. This law also established a process for public access to presidential records after the president leaves office. The PRA permits public access to presidential records give years after the president leaves office through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The PRA permits the former president to apply up to six restrictive categories for a period of up to twelve years. Additionally, all of the records are subject to closure under eight of the nine FOIA exemptions.
125. NIXONW_130722_444.JPG: Ethics in Government Act: Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, the Ethics in Government Act required senior government officials to report annual incomes earned by them, their spouses or dependent children. Senior government officials must also list all positions in outside organizations or boards on which they serve. It also revised conflict of interest laws to prohibit employees of executive agencies from lobbying their former agency to two years after leaving government on any matter or issue that was under their official responsibility. Former senior-level employees may not lobby their former agency for one year after leaving government service regardless of the issue involved, and may never do so on a particular matter that they personally worked on during their government service. [Note that none of this restricted former Congressmen and Senators since they're part of the legislative branch, not the executive branch.]
126. NIXONW_130722_446.JPG: Independent Counsel Act of 1978: In an effort to curb executive power and avoid future incidents that would resemble the Saturday Night Massacre, this law allowed the Congress or the Office of the Attorney General of the United States to request the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate high-ranking officials within the federal government. The independent prosecutor would be appointed by a panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals and could only be dismissed by the attorney general or a panel of three federal judges, and not by the president. After signing the bill, President Jimmy Carter wrote that such a position was "necessary in response to the embarrassment of our country in the past." Following independent counsel investigations of President Ronald Reagan for Iran-Contra, and President William J. Clinton for Whitewater, Congress chose not to renew the law when it expired in 1999.
127. NIXONW_130722_451.JPG: National Archives and Records Administration Act of 1984: The Watergate scandal demonstrated the importance of protecting the independence of federal archivists. Congress found numerous incidents of mismanagement and politicization of the National Archives by the General Services Administration, which since 1949 had administered the National Archives. For example, in 1973, Mary Walton Livingston, an archivist, disclosed to Congress that she had discovered that a deed of vice-presidential materials signed by President Nixon in 1969 had been accepted by the National Archives even though it had been improperly dated, thus invalidating a tax deduction that the President had taken. The importance of archival independence was underscored yet again a year later when the President reached a private agreement regarding the destruction of the White House tapes with GSA, without any consultation or review by the Archivist of the United States. Signed by President Ronald Reagan on October 19, 1984, this Act officially transformed the GSA's National Archives and Records Service into the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent executive branch agency. The President appoints, and the Senate confirms the Archivist of the United States, who is the head of NARA.
128. NIXONW_130722_454.JPG: The View from San Clemente: Richard Nixon Reflects on Watergate
129. NIXONW_130722_457.JPG: When former President Richard Nixon arrived in California in August 1974, he intended to tell his side of the Watergate story someday. Although his presidential papers and tapes would remain in the custody of the US government, President Nixon and his research assistants were permitted to consult these records. In 1977, President Nixon broke his public silence on Watergate by participating in an internationally syndicated television interview with the British broadcaster David Frost. A year later Grosset & Dunlap published RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.
130. NIXONW_130722_460.JPG: On the political use of the Internal Revenue Service, page 676: "If there was any campaign advantage to incumbency, it had to be access to government information on one's opponents. I remembered the IRS leaks of my tax returns to Drew Pearson in the 1952 campaign and the politically motivated tax audits done on me in 1963." On the 1971 Fielding break-in, page 514: "I do not believe I was told about the break-in at the time, but it is clear that it was at least in part an outgrowth of my sense of urgency about discrediting what Ellsberg had done and finding out what he might do next. Given the temper of those tense and bitter times and the peril I perceived, I cannot say that had I been informed of it beforehand, I would have automatically considered it unprecedented, unwarranted, or unthinkable." On the Watergate cover-up, page 646: "It was in these days at the end of June and the beginning of July 1972 that I took the first steps down the road that eventually led to the end of my presidency. I did nothing to discourage the various stories that were being considered to explain the break-in, and I approved efforts to encourage the CIA to intervene and limit the FBI investigation. Later my actions and inactions during this period would appear to many as part of a widespread and conscious cover-up. I did not see them as such. I was handling in a pragmatic way what I perceived as an annoying and strictly political problem. I was looking for a way to deal with Watergate that would minimize the damage to me, my friends, and my campaign, while giving the least advantage to my political opposition."
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Wikipedia Description: Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
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The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and final resting place of Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. Located in Yorba Linda, California, the library is one of twelve administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. From its original dedication in 1990 until becoming a federal facility on July 11, 2007, the library and museum was operated by a private foundation and was known as the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace. The nine acre (36,000 m�) campus is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard in Yorba Linda, California and incorporates the National Historic Landmarked Richard Nixon Birthplace where Nixon was born in 1913 and spent his childhood. The facility is now jointly operated between NARA and the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Background prior to dedication:

Traditionally, materials and records of a U.S. president were considered to be his personal property upon leaving office. The Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's subsequent resignation from office complicated the issue, however.

In September 1974, Richard Nixon made an agreement with the head of the General Services Administration, Arthur F. Sampson, to turn over most materials from his presidency, including tape recordings of conversations he had made in the White House; however, the recordings were to be destroyed after September 1, 1979 if directed by Nixon or by September 1, 1984 or his death otherwise. Alarmed that Nixon's tapes may be lost, Congress abrogated the Nixon-Sampson Agreement by passing S.4016, signed into law by President Gerald Ford on in December 1974 as the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act. It applied specifically to materials from the Nixon presidency, directing NARA to take ownership of the materials and process them as quickly as possible. Private materials were to be returned to Nixon. ...More...
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2013 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS [to which I added a week to to visit sites in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee], and Richmond, VA), and my 8th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Nevada and California). Ego Strokes: Aviva Kempner used my photo of her as her author photo in Larry Ruttman's "American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball" book. Number of photos taken this year: just over 570,000.
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