Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abergan.

This day, November 18th, 1973, we are on the brink of one of the most consequential moments

in the quickly growing and unraveling Watergate scandal.

This moment would actually happen on the 21st, but this is the moment

where J. Fred Buzzhart, let me say that name again, J. Fred Buzzhart, who is a lawyer

defending President Richard Nixon in the Watergate case,

reveals to a US district court that a key White House tape

of a conversation taking place just a few days after the Watergate break in,

well that tape had an 18 and a half minute gap in it

Nixon of course had a secret tape recorder in the Oval Office the contents of

those tapes had been coming out for a year or so as part of this scandal and they generally proved pretty damning.

And then this moment the lack of content may have proved even more damning because there were 18 and a half minutes missing from a very key day.

So listeners to give you a sense of what that really means, we will now pause in silence for

18 and a half minutes and then we'll continue with the podcast.

Now, we will talk about it.

You can imagine what 18 and a half minutes of silence

amidst very gripping and very damning audio evidence from the White House would mean, but let's talk about it with, as always,

Nicole Hemer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello there.

Hi, Jody.

Hey there.

...