1974
Nixon Announces Release of White House Watergate Tapes
On this day in 1974, President Richard Nixon announces to the
public that he will release transcripts of 46 taped White House conversations
in response to a Watergate trial subpoena issued in July 1973. The House
Judiciary committee accepted 1,200 pages of transcripts the next day, but
insisted that the tapes themselves be turned over as well.
In his announcement, Nixon took elaborate pains to explain to the
public his reluctance to comply with the subpoena, and the nature of the
content he planned to release. He cited his right to executive privilege to
protect state secrets and stated that the transcripts were edited by him and
his advisors to omit anything “irrelevant” to the Watergate investigation or
critical to national security. He invited committee members to review the
actual tapes to determine whether or not the president had omitted
incriminating evidence in the transcripts. “I want there to be no question
remaining,” Nixon insisted, “about the fact that the President has nothing to
hide in this matter” and “I made clear there was to be no cover up.”
In June 1972, five men connected with Nixon’s Committee to
Re-Elect the President (CREEP) had been caught breaking into the Democratic
National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. A
subsequent investigation exposed other illegal activities perpetrated by CREEP
and authorized by senior members of Nixon’s administration. It also raised
questions about what the president knew about those activities. Nixon
vigorously denied involvement in the burglary cover-up, infamously proclaiming
“I am not a crook.” In May 1973, the Senate convened an investigation into the
Watergate scandal amid public cries for Nixon’s impeachment. In July 1974, the
Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s claim of executive privilege and ordered him to
turn over the remaining tapes. On one of them, the president could be heard
ordering the FBI to end its investigation of the Watergate break-in; this came
to be known as the “smoking gun” that proved Nixon’s guilt.