Balis Andrea - Bringing down a president: the Watergate scandal

FLY ON THE WALL: It is hard to say when a historical event begins, but one place to start the story of Watergate might be February 16, 1971. On that day, President Richard M. Nixon and his faithful aide Alexander Butterfield stood by the presidents desk in the Oval Office. They were staring at the new, up-to-date recording device that the Secret Service had installed at the presidents request and hidden under his desk.

Nixon (turning solemnly to Butterfield): Mums the word.

FLY ON THE WALL: Some leaders, such as pharaohs and kings, have built pyramids or monuments so history will remember them. Nixon got a monument of his own words. He wanted a record of everything that was said in the Oval Office. According to H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, Nixons chief of staff, the president wanted to use that record to write his own history.

Haldeman (looking back on Watergate): Nixon and I agreed something had to be done to ensure that we possessed an accurate record of what was said for his eventual memoirs.

FLY ON THE WALL: Nixon didnt want anyone except a few people on his staff to know about the devices recording thousands of hours of conversations3,700 hours, to be exact. Theres so much tape that the recordings are still being transcribed to this day. There were seven microphones in the Oval Office: five in Nixons desk alone and one on each side of the fireplace. Dozens more were scattered around wherever Nixon might go. All of these microphones were hooked up to recorders hidden in a White House locker room that nobody used anymore. Almost every single word that Nixon or anybody else said in the Oval Office, including each phone conversation, would be recorded day and night. And everybody, especially a president, says things they dont want certain other people to hear.