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My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Butterfield: Nixon’s Watergate Frenemy

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

Politics, History, News

4.61.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alexander Butterfield, Nixon’s deputy COS who revealed the existence of the taping system in the White House, gets only a small mention in Watergate history but he has a lot to contribute to the understanding of it. He recently spoke to Bob Woodward in a new book and his account and the records he kept for decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.

0:05.0

Whether it's an under-the-radar genre or a proper out-there podcast,

0:09.0

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0:12.0

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0:17.3

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0:26.3

It's a taste you can't quite put your finger on.

0:28.7

Weird.

0:29.7

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0:34.0

It was kind of like a game of battleship where you know the person is calling

0:41.0

squares that are close to where your battleship is, you're hoping they will

0:47.0

miss. But you know they're getting close. That's something like how Alexander Butterfield might have

0:57.8

felt in 1973 as the Watergate Committee's's councils asked him questions.

1:05.6

As Nixon's Deputy Chief of Staff, he knew that he held a great secret. That secret was a taping system and not just as many suspect a little tape

1:38.2

recorder in a draw where the president was recording some conversations or even like Linda Johnson's crude dictaphone that the secretaries would operate on some of the phone calls.

1:49.4

He was aware of a sophisticated voice-activated taping system with fairly good fidelity.

1:56.6

It was like a bug.

1:58.6

Except President Nixon had bugged himself.

2:07.0

Watergate's already been in the news.

2:10.0

Now the Senate and the House Joint Committee are investigating in 1973.

2:14.6

They've got John Dean, who was the previous White House Council.

2:18.7

He is revealing some of the cover-up going on in the White House.

...

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