During the investigation of Watergate and the other misdeeds of the Nixon reelection committee, Pat Buchanan advised Nixon to have a tape bonfire on the White House lawn. Obviously, he didn’t take that advice, but what if he had? What if he had said, “Oops, sorry, committee, the tapes were all destroyed in a freak electromagnetic accident. I don’t have them.”? Would the outcome have changed at all? Obviously, the 18 minute gap in the tape that Rosemary Woods “accidentally” erased didn’t help Nixon any, but that was after other tapes had already been released, and the audio evidence was already piling up?
Obviously, even before the Nixon administration turned the tapes over, it was suffering the death of a thousand cuts. The testimony of various White House officials, especially John Dean, was making Nixon out to be a liar and a criminal. But it seemed to me that the tapes were the final nail. It’s one thing to hear testimony from other people that “Nixon had said X”, or “Macgruder had told me Y.”, but it’s another to actually read the transcripts or hear the statements. So what would have happened?
In terms of his Presidency, not much would have changed except maybe to expedite his impeachment. But I think it would have been politically much more difficult – well nigh impossible, I’d say – for Ford to pardon him under those aggravated circumstances. So the practical effect is likely that Nixon would have ended up facing trial and jail time along with the rest of his buddies, unless he could pin the destruction of the tapes on somebody else as he did with the 18-minute gap.
John Dean wrote a brief discussion about that famous 18 1/2 minute gap in his new book. He includes it as an appendix because he doesn’t consider it particularly important. From his knowledge of the circumstances the erased conversation in itself wouldn’t have revealed anything particularly extraordinary; it would have been just another Nixon Watergate discussion, and the true significance was the date, June 20, 1972-- just three days after the Watergate break-in – and its involvement in a complicated web of other missing conversations that had been subpoenaed by Judge Sirica. The upshot of it was that it would have been incriminating because it would have contradicted Nixon’s defense which rested on allegedly not being aware of the events until much later.
The other related question is who erased it. Dean quotes expert testimony stating that it was physically impossible for Rose Marie Woods to have accidentally erased the segment in the manner claimed. It remains unclear whether it was done by Nixon himself, by someone acting on his orders, or by someone acting on their own initiative. But Dean seems fully confident in knowing why it was erased.
Once Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the recording system to the Senate Watergate Committee, Nixon was pretty much in the cart. Releasing the bowdlerized “transcripts” (which were excoriated by pretty much everyone except his ardent supporters) only dug him in deeper. Destroying the tapes would have created the indelible impression that they contained material even worse than they actually did.
The House Judiciary Committee passed* three impeachment resolutions without the benefit of the tapes, it was a lead-pipe cinch that the full House would go along, and all but the aforementioned ardent supporters conceded that he couldn’t muster the 1/3 minority in the Senate to avoid conviction and removal from office.
*The votes on two of the three were unexpectedly bipartisan, and after the tapes were released most of the representatives who had opposed them indicated they would change their votes.
The Saturday Night Massacre when Nixon fired the special prosecutor tasked to investigate Watergate was the beginning of the end. It demonstrated to even the most loyal of supporters that there was indeed something to hide.
Both Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelhaus knew this was potentially an illegal act and that’s why they resigned. Robert Bork did too (according to his memoirs) but he did as he was told. And that’s why Bork was never became a Supreme Court Justice.
So the tapes themselves were largely irrelevant by the end as Nixon’s GOP support began eroding from October 23, 1973 until George H.W. Bush asked him to resign and Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott and John Jacob Rhodes all met Nixon and had their “Come to Jesus” meeting with him. The next day Nixon resigned.
The tapes without the incriminating part show that the Nixon White House was filled with foul mouthed bigots who were down to the man (and they were all men) not the deep thinkers and policy wonks as presented to the press, but rather a bunch of louts who come off better than your local bar bigots because they got the names of countries and their leaders correct most of the time. NFL locker room banter comes off as less offensive.
Nixon has all his conversations recorded because he thought that they would be valuable to historians and also to writing his memoirs. This was nothing unusual. Johnson also recorded hours and hours of his phone calls and I think Kennedy and Roosevelt might also have done so.
The main differences, as I recall, were that Nixon had the recording process automated so he wouldn’t have to work the on-off button himself and also his predecessors managed to keep their mouths shut regarding their existence.
When does he destroy the tapes? At some arbitrary time before all the trouble begins, or after the Committee hears about them and starts asking for them? It would make a big difference.
If he destroyed any of them after the Watergate breakin it would be hard to dispel the suspicion that he was destroying evidence which contradicted his position (that the WH was not involved). Doubly so if he did so after the existence of the recording system became known.