Supreme Court rules 8-0: Nixon must hand over the tapes
For a year, Richard Nixon had refused to release the secret recordings from his own Oval Office, citing executive privilege and the confidentiality of presidential conversations. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court disagreed, unanimously, ruling in United States v. Nixon that the president had no authority to withhold the tapes from special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. Nixon complied. Within days the "Smoking Gun" tape surfaced, a June 23, 1972 recording of Nixon ordering the CIA to pressure the FBI into halting the Watergate investigation.
United States v. Nixon settled for the first time that a sitting president cannot claim absolute privilege to block a criminal subpoena. Chief Justice Burger's opinion set the precedent that presidential privilege has limits, and the ruling forced the tape's release that ended Nixon's presidency within sixteen days.
QHow did investigators even find out the tapes existed?
Almost by accident. Alexander Butterfield, a White House aide, was being asked routine questions by Senate investigators in July 1973 about how Nixon kept track of his conversations. Butterfield answered honestly that the Oval Office had been recorded automatically since February 1971, a voice-activated system installed for Nixon's own historical record-keeping. No one had asked directly before. The admission turned a slow-moving scandal into a hunt for physical evidence, and within weeks special prosecutor Archibald Cox had subpoenaed the recordings that ended the presidency that made them.
QWhy did Nixon fire his own attorney general and deputy attorney general in one night?
Because they refused to fire someone else. On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to dismiss special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had subpoenaed the tapes. Richardson resigned rather than do it. The order then passed to Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned. It finally fell to Solicitor General Robert Bork to carry out the firing. Three officials cycled through the decision in a single evening. The press dubbed it the Saturday Night Massacre.
QWhat exactly was on the tape that finished Nixon's presidency?
A tape recorded six days after the break-in. Recorded June 23, 1972, just six days after the DNC break-in, the tape captured Nixon instructing aide H.R. Haldeman to have the CIA tell the FBI that further investigation risked exposing the Bay of Pigs operation, a pretext to get agents to stand down. Nixon can be heard saying investigators should not be told the truth, only that it was 'a comedy of errors.' It proved the cover-up began almost immediately, not months later as Nixon had claimed.
