# Did the National archives give up on "fixing" the 15  minute gap in the Nixon tape?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 13, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043 "2003-05-13T20:31:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 13\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Payton\_s\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3da27b/32.png) [@Payton\_s\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payton_s_Servant)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/1 "2003-05-13T20:31:10Z")

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Yesterday at [the official Doonesbury site](http://www.doonesbury.com) one of the **Daily Briefing Headlines** said : **Archives give up on Nixon tape gap**. I know that the National archives announced a few years ago that they were going to try and work with the tape to see if they could uncover exactly what was said during the 15 minute gap.

But when I clicked on the link, there was nothing about the Nixon tapes.

So, was Doonesbury just showing its true colors trying to further smear a dead man:rolleyes: or what?

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/2 "2003-05-13T21:03:25Z")

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[True.](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/08/nixon.gap.ap/)

(Googled “watergate nixon” at Google news.)

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**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/3 "2003-05-13T21:58:41Z")

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[Expletive deleted]

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/4 "2003-05-13T23:09:56Z")

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The infamous gap was 18 and 1/2 minutes.

Nixon was quite capable of tarnishing his own name.

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**Author:** ![Gjorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@Gjorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gjorp)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/5 "2003-05-14T00:03:04Z")

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Could somebody fill me in on this “Nixon tape gap”?

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/6 "2003-05-14T00:08:45Z")

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What happened was, a couple teenage girls were allowed into the Oval Office and Rose Mary Woods stepped out for a while, leaving them in there. They snooped in the desk and found the tape recorder. One of the girls had a crush on Nixon so she confessed her undying love for him and sang an Olivia Newton-John song. She kept it up for 18½ minutes.

Later when Nixon discovered her love message, he was forced to erase it because he was already in enough trouble over Watergate and didn’t need the added accusation of having an affair with an underage girl.

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**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/7 "2003-05-14T00:13:32Z")

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**Jomo** , stop confusing the young people, please.

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**Author:** ![Payton\_s\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3da27b/32.png) [@Payton\_s\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payton_s_Servant)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/8 "2003-05-14T02:13:31Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Gjorp \*  
> \*\*Could somebody fill me in on this “Nixon tape gap”? \*\*

Nixon had a taping system installed in the Oval Office. this wasn’t all that unusual, as both JFK and Lyndon Johnson had one.

However, Johnson and Kennedy didn’t have taped conversations in which various illegal deeds were discussed and approved of. (Or if they did, they were smart enough to destroy the tapes.)

Nixon, however, wasn’t that smart. He had conversations with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, and his Secretary of Domestic Affairs, John Erlichman, in which they discussed how to handle the Watergate break in. Nixon wanted to tell the FBI to back oof their investigation of the break-in and was planning on lying and saying that national security and the CIA were involved. \<----This was known as _the smoking gun_ because it proved that Nixon had obstructed justice.

Neither of which was true, except for the fact, that Howard Hunt, who had been a CIA agent, was one of the burglers.

During the Watergate hearings it came out that Nixon had a taping system and so the committee subpeoned the tapes. Nixon at first refused to turn them over, again sighting national security concerns, and then handed over "_edited transcripts_, which is where the phrase "_expletive deleted_ became famous. The committee refused to accept the edited tapes and took Nixon to court, and the case very quickly went to the Supreme Court which ruled against Nixon and said that he had to turn over the uneditied tapes.

On one of the tapes, there was an 18 1/2 minute gap. This particular tape involved a conversation that took place several days after the Watergate break-in, and it is widely acknowledged that this tape contained very devastating and damning material about Nixon.

But, since there was this 18 1/2 minute gap, no one knew what the conversation had been. Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods claimed that she was the one who had accidentally erased the tape and she demonstrated how it might have happened.

The problem was that upon listening to the tape it became clear to the investigators that it wasn’t one long gap, but up to 5 different erasures, which pretty much threw the whole "_accidentally erased_ theory in the garbage.

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**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/9 "2003-05-14T14:02:45Z")

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And just for further clarification…not to ruin a good, deadpan joke…what **Jomo Mojo** is referring to is from the movie _Dick_, which comedically depicts the last two years of the Nixon presidency as having revolved around the antics of two teenaged girls.

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**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/10 "2003-05-14T14:28:22Z")

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“So, was Doonesbury just showing its true colors trying to further smear a dead man or what?”

It ain’t a smear job if it actually happened, is it? I mean, if I call Hitler an anit-semite, is that a further smear?

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**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/11 "2003-05-14T18:52:21Z")

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From [Wired](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/nixon_pr.html) magazine’s article about the tape:

> [@](#):
>
> An opposing theory is that the lost conversation is the one Nixon couldn’t bear anyone to hear. Even Haldeman’s somewhat sanitized version supports this. As he reconstructs it in _The Ends of Power_, a worried Nixon spends part of the meeting setting the Watergate cover-up in motion. During the discussion, Nixon is particularly concerned that the trail will lead to White House special counsel Chuck Colson. Linking Colson to the break-in would tie the burglary to the White House. “I know one thing,” Haldeman recalls Nixon saying. “I can’t stand an FBI investigation of Colson.”
> 
> “Inadequate as [Haldeman’s] version might be, it fits with the overall evidence in the case,” notes Bob Woodward. “There was an effort to cover up and conceal.”

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**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/12 "2003-05-14T20:10:43Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by cmkeller \*  
> **what Jomo Mojo is referring to is from the movie _Dick_**

Pretty good movie, too. Didn’t get nearly the attention I thought it deserved. Many of the little references to Watergate mysteries being associated with the two bubbleheaded girls are awfully clever.

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-national-archives-give-up-on-fixing-the-15-minute-gap-in-the-nixon-tape/175043/13 "2003-05-15T00:14:23Z")

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I think the problem with the movie was that you needed to have lived through Watergate (or at least studied it carefully) to get the joke. It was, indeed, very clever and funny, but if all you knew about Watergate was that Nixon resigned, you’d miss them.

Judging by the OP, there are many in that position.