Help! Anyone know where to find transcripts on the Nixon investigation?

[Norquist Nemesis]

Anyone? Specifically, I'm looking for information about the discovery of the taping system.

Thanks in advance!

[bananas]

1. google "Rosemary Woods" nt

[rsdsharp]

2. I would assume the Congressional record has transcripts

of the Seante Watergate hearings. On July 16, 1973, Fred Thompson (yes that Fred Thompson, serving as minority counsel) asked Alexander Butterfield a question which illicited the answer outing the Nixon taping system.

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

He was claiming credit for it with his remarks as the Chair of the Cmte on Governmental Affairs. I'm guessing he's going to use these types of things as "I'm a non-partisan kinda guy (cue cheesy grin)."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/3-34.htm
"Nevertheless, we didn't do as well as we could have. Our
work was affected tremendously by the fact that Congress is a
much more partisan institution than it used to be. I was
personally involved in the Watergate investigation. We had our
share of battles on the staff level, but when push came to
shove, the Members of the Watergate Committee stood together in
order to ferret out wrongdoing on the part of the Nixon
Administration. As a young lawyer, I signed the pleading suing
President Nixon in order for the Committee to gain access to
the White House tapes. Senator Howard Baker, the Ranking
Republican Member, made the motion to file that suit. I asked
the question in public session that revealed for the first time
publicly the existence of that taping system. The Republicans
on that Committee felt an obligation to thoroughly investigate
the alleged wrongdoing of their own President. And, in large
part because the investigation was conducted with bipartisan
cooperation, campaign finance reform was one of the benefits.
Congress made sweeping changes in 1974."

Did Poppy have a pep-chat with FDT? hmmmmm....

[rsdsharp]

7. There WAS bipartisanship on the Watergate Committee.

Howard Baker coined the famous question: "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

From the standpoint of the Republicans in July 1973, however, most still assumed Nixon wasn't guilty. They initially believed that the tapes would CLEAR him. So Thompson asking the question wasn't nearly as bi-partisan as it may seem today. It was only after Nixon refused to turn them over that they realized the tapes contained at least one smoking gun. By that time they had no choice but to participate in efforts to get the tapes through the courts.

The Republican's willingness to embrace hypocrisy wasn't as well developed in 1973. Of course, then there was no right wing Wurlitzer telling the sponge heads what to believe -- even if it was 180 degrees from what they were supposed to believe yesterday.

[Norquist Nemesis]

9. Excellent point on how to attack his feather!

When he starts pounding his chest that he was the first to ask (blah blah blah), the first response should delve into his thinking that the tapes would clear Nixon.

[DeSwiss]

3. That was a riveting time. I remember it very well...

You might try at these links:

Richard M. Nixon The Watergate Tapes
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/watergate.html

U.S. Senate: Watergate Leaks Lead to Open Hearings
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Watergate_Investigation.htm

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. Thanks! (bookmarking) Was looking for the Thompson questions

that 'discovered the taping system'. Being all of around 13 or 14 years old, details on politics weren't my strong point then. :hi:

[blm]

6. You mean Thompson's famous question about the system?

Yep - of all things, it will be the GOPs running the candidate who will have the APPEARANCE of being the anti-corruption candidate in the race at a time when MOST VOTERS have said that corruption is their main concern.

Democratic powerbrokers treat their REAL anti-corruption lawmakers like dirt.

[Norquist Nemesis]

8. That's exactly what I meant

Exactly!

I read him making the assertion elsewhere and wanted to verify it for myself. And you're take is spot on, IMO.

[blm]

13. Scary, isn't it? Dems are ignoring corruption issue because the DC powerstructure

knows how far it has gone to smooth things over for BushInc all these years - even if it meant undermining members of their own party.

[dave_p]

10. Donald Sanders?

University of Missouri - Columbia's Illumination tells a different story, featuring the questioner's own diary note of the occasion:

"President Nixon has been routinely taping all his conversations and meetings in the Oval Office and cabinet room of the White House, in his Executive Office Building office and on four of his personal telephones, former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield told the Senate select Watergate committee yesterday."

This 49-word bombshell, splashed across the front page of the Washington Post on July 14, 1973, signaled the beginning of the end of Richard Nixon's presidency. The decline and fall of America's 37th chief executive, of course, has been well documented. Not so the story of the man who elicited Butterfield's historic disclosure.

Donald G. Sanders, a former FBI agent and 1954 graduate of MU's School of Law, served as Deputy Minority Counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities during Watergate. As minority counsel, it often fell to Sanders to directly question witnesses called to give testimony before the committee. And so it was that Sanders asked Butterfield the fateful question: "Is there any kind of recording system in the White House?"

[rsdsharp]

11. Saunders was the first to actually ask Butter field the question

on July 13, 1973. It was done in private, however, as committee staff members were questioning potential witnesses before they actually testified. In essence, Sanders was taking a discovery deposition of Butterfield, which formed the basis of testimony Thompson publicly elicited three days later before the Committee.

[dave_p]

12. That's what puzzles me

His note suggests that, but the article seems convinced that it was a July 14 WaPo splash, even though Woodward recalls Bradlee rating it a "B-plus" story.

Anyone got that day's front page?

[rsdsharp]

14. The article also refers to the revelation happening in the July 13

hearing. It didn't. Sanders interviewed him that afternoon or evening. That is what staff did -- interview or depose witnesses BEFORE they appeared to adequately prepare the Committee members and counsel who would actually be asking the questions during the hearing. I doubt that there was a 7/14 WaPo story because it was a bombshell when Butterfield revealed the existence of the taping system on July 16 in testimony before the Committee. If the information was already publicly known, as opposed to a close hold by Committee staffers, the impact would not have been as great when Butterfield said it, live on TV. The article seems to be trying to bolster the historical impact of the July 13 background interview, and therefore the importance of it's alum.

If you weren't there, it's impossible to describe the hold those hearings had on the country during the Spring and Summer of 1973. It was like a collective national soap opera, Super Bowl and reality show all rolled into one. The three networks rotated coverage on a daily basis and EVERYBODY watched, or sought out summaries of the days testimony if they couldn't. By July, it was grinding down to a "he said, she said" kind of deal. There was no way to prove who was lying, John Dean, or those who were stonewalling for Nixon. The revelation of the tapes meant we were going to KNOW. There was a little flutter of fear on the left that just maybe we had been wrong. That ended when Nixon refused to turn the tapes over. There could only be one reason for not using them to vindicate himself, and it wasn't the presence of "expletives," deleted or not.

[dave_p]

15. Ah, I missed his alumness

That figures!