Ar the age of sixteen, I watched retired Air Force Col. Alexander Porter Butterfield's truthful testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee live, on July 13, 1973, watching PBS broadcast in the faculty lounge at the Camden County College library in Blackwood, N.J.
My Mother hated Nixon with a passion, and I fondly remember her sense of triumph when his wrongdoing was revealed and he resigned before the House of Representatives got to vote on his impeachment.
From The New York Times:
Alexander Butterfield, Who Revealed Nixon Tapes in Watergate Scandal, Dies at 99
“There is tape in the Oval Office,” said Mr. Butterfield, a former White House aide, in testimony that rocked the Watergate hearings and led to the president’s resignation.
Alexander P. Butterfield, who disclosed to the U.S. Senate and to a stunned nation the existence of Richard M. Nixon’s White House taping system, blowing the cover on the Watergate conspiracy and sealing the fate of the only American president to resign from office, died on Monday at home in the La Jolla section of San Diego. He was 99.
His wife, Kim Butterfield, confirmed the death.
On July 16, 1973, Mr. Butterfield, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration and a former White House aide, appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee. The panel had already heard allegations of criminality against the president, but there had been no hard evidence, no “smoking gun.”
Mr. Butterfield had been in charge of White House security but had not been a member of Nixon’s inner circle and did not appear to be a major witness. But under questioning by Fred D. Thompson, a Tennessee Republican who was chief minority counsel to the Watergate committee, Mr. Butterfield dropped a bombshell.
Q. Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?
A. I was aware of listening devices, yes, sir.
Under the folksy prodding of Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., a North Carolina Democrat who chaired the panel, along with that of Mr. Thompson (who later became a senator himself) and Samuel Dash, the committee’s chief counsel, it all tumbled out — the story of a secret, sophisticated recording system that the president himself had authorized and that for more than two years had picked up virtually all of Nixon’s meetings and telephone conversations.
The microphones were hidden in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Lincoln Sitting Room, Nixon’s hideaway in the Executive Office Building and his lodge at Camp David in Maryland. The system was mostly sound-activated, and the tapes — thousands of hours of talks with presidential aides, cabinet officials, congressional leaders and national and foreign dignitaries — were kept by the Secret Service.
Mr. Butterfield’s disclosures immediately transformed the Watergate inquiry into a fight over access to the tapes, which were crucial because they could resolve competing claims by Nixon and his chief accuser, John W. Dean III, his former White House counsel.
The president had insisted that he had not been aware of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington on June 17, 1972, or of any cover-up. But Mr. Dean testified that Nixon had not only known of the break-in but had been deeply involved in its cover-up, authorizing the payment of hush money for the burglars and promising them executive clemency if all else failed.
Mr. Dean, an assiduous note-taker who cited dates and locations of the incriminating conversations, said he had warned the president that his aides, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and others, had obstructed justice. He said he had urged Nixon to make a full disclosure because Watergate had become “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
The Supreme Court finally ordered the president to surrender the tapes, which showed that he had played a central role in the cover-up. Many of his aides went to prison, and Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He was pardoned by his successor, Gerald R. Ford, who had the taping system removed.
Never implicated in wrongdoing, Mr. Butterfield said he believed Nixon had installed the tape system to keep a historical record of his official business. He said that he had testified reluctantly but that he believed that the president was guilty. “There’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he said in 1995 as a consultant for Oliver Stone’s film “Nixon,” released that year.
The president had insisted that he had not been aware of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington on June 17, 1972, or of any cover-up. But Mr. Dean testified that Nixon had not only known of the break-in but had been deeply involved in its cover-up, authorizing the payment of hush money for the burglars and promising them executive clemency if all else failed.
Mr. Dean, an assiduous note-taker who cited dates and locations of the incriminating conversations, said he had warned the president that his aides, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and others, had obstructed justice. He said he had urged Nixon to make a full disclosure because Watergate had become “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
The Supreme Court finally ordered the president to surrender the tapes, which showed that he had played a central role in the cover-up. Many of his aides went to prison, and Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He was pardoned by his successor, Gerald R. Ford, who had the taping system removed.
Never implicated in wrongdoing, Mr. Butterfield said he believed Nixon had installed the tape system to keep a historical record of his official business. He said that he had testified reluctantly but that he believed that the president was guilty. “There’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he said in 1995 as a consultant for Oliver Stone’s film “Nixon,” released that year.
The president had insisted that he had not been aware of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington on June 17, 1972, or of any cover-up. But Mr. Dean testified that Nixon had not only known of the break-in but had been deeply involved in its cover-up, authorizing the payment of hush money for the burglars and promising them executive clemency if all else failed.
Mr. Dean, an assiduous note-taker who cited dates and locations of the incriminating conversations, said he had warned the president that his aides, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and others, had obstructed justice. He said he had urged Nixon to make a full disclosure because Watergate had become “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
The Supreme Court finally ordered the president to surrender the tapes, which showed that he had played a central role in the cover-up. Many of his aides went to prison, and Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He was pardoned by his successor, Gerald R. Ford, who had the taping system removed.
Never implicated in wrongdoing, Mr. Butterfield said he believed Nixon had installed the tape system to keep a historical record of his official business. He said that he had testified reluctantly but that he believed that the president was guilty. “There’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he said in 1995 as a consultant for Oliver Stone’s film “Nixon,” released that year.
The president had insisted that he had not been aware of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington on June 17, 1972, or of any cover-up. But Mr. Dean testified that Nixon had not only known of the break-in but had been deeply involved in its cover-up, authorizing the payment of hush money for the burglars and promising them executive clemency if all else failed.
Mr. Dean, an assiduous note-taker who cited dates and locations of the incriminating conversations, said he had warned the president that his aides, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and others, had obstructed justice. He said he had urged Nixon to make a full disclosure because Watergate had become “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
The Supreme Court finally ordered the president to surrender the tapes, which showed that he had played a central role in the cover-up. Many of his aides went to prison, and Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He was pardoned by his successor, Gerald R. Ford, who had the taping system removed.
Never implicated in wrongdoing, Mr. Butterfield said he believed Nixon had installed the tape system to keep a historical record of his official business. He said that he had testified reluctantly but that he believed that the president was guilty. “There’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he said in 1995 as a consultant for Oliver Stone’s film “Nixon,” released that year.
