Richard M. Nixon: Smoking Gun Tape

The Smoking Gun Tape is a recording of an Oval Office meeting between President Richard Nixon and chief of staff H. R. Haldeman on June 23, 1972, that provided proof of Nixon's role in the Watergate cover-up. By the time of Nixon's reelection to a second term as U.S. president in November 1972, Nixon and his White House staff were deeply involved in covering up a crime that led eventually to his resignation in August 1974. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, five men employed by Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) were arrested at the Democratic Party's national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. At the time of their arrest, the burglars were attempting to replace defective listening devices they had previously installed on the Democrats' telephones in an attempt to gather information they could use against Nixon's opponent in the 1972 general election, Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota.

Although it appears that Nixon did not directly order the Watergate break-in, he quickly understood the potential political damage it could do to his reelection campaign. Thus, within six days of the break-in, in an Oval Office meeting with Haldeman, Nixon initiated an effort among key members of his administration to cover up any White House connection to the crime. Over the next twenty months, however, the cover-up steadily unraveled. Because the June 23 meeting—like all Oval Office conversations in Nixon's administration—was recorded, it provided the proverbial smoking gun, proving Nixon's involvement in the cover-up. On July 23, 1973, citing executive privilege, Nixon initially refused to release his Oval Office tapes to the Senate Watergate Committee, the body investigating the scandal. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in United States v. Nixon that the president must turn over the White House tapes to investigators. Ultimately, to avoid impeachment on charges of obstruction of justice, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.