FREE ESSAY ON DECIPHERING THE PRESIDENTIALS TAPES: WATERGATE

DECIPHERING THE PRESIDENTIALS TAPES: WATERGATE

Deciphering The Presidential Tapes
Ever since I can remember I have always heard, whether over the news or on an educational
channel, about the Watergate scandal. I never knew what the Watergate scandal was about,
but I did know that it had to do with one our former Presidents. Before I read "Breaking
into Watergate" I had no clue about all the lies and betrayals that went on in the
highest and most prestigious office in America. It is very important as a history major
to have read this article so that I am no longer oblivious to what went on in the Oval
Office prior to June 7, 1972.
As I started to read through this article the realization of what the Watergate scandal
was, became more and more clear. The information that I read was very upsetting and
discomforting. To know that a President of the United State would be so deceitful and
disloyal to not only his piers but also to the people of the United States is very
upsetting but unfortunately is not too uncommon these days. Reading about President Nixon
trying to bribe witnesses with money and trying to blackmail the opposition was mind
boggling. President Nixon did almost everything perfect and might of slipped past the
accusations except for the fact that he forgot about the tapes that recorded his phone
conversations. Donald Sanders was very smart to think of something that none of the other
investigators thought of; a tapping system. Alexander Butterfield, when reminded that he
was under oath, admitted that there was a recording system in the White House which no
longer made John Dean's testimony just his word against the President's(Breaking Into
Watergate, 341). Knowing that John Dean would stand up and tell the truth, despite being
told to do otherwise, makes at least one good moral story come out of the scandal. 
In the thirty years that the presidents had been making secret recordings, on and off,
all of them had their different reasons. In nineteen forty Franklin Roosevelt had a
microphone hidden in a desk lamp so that he could secretly record his press
conferences(Breaking Into Watergate, 343). The machine also caught Roosevelt promoting a
whispering campaign to discredit his presidential opponent, Wendell Willkie(BIW, 343).
Dwight Eisenhower had a crude Dictaphone device installed and explained, "I want to have
myself protected so they can't later report that I had said something else(BIW, 343)."
Although these Presidents had made secret recordings John F. Kennedy was the first
president to make extensive audio recordings, though not until eighteen months after he
assumed office(BIW,343). Neither Nixon or Kennedy ever revealed their motives for doing
so(BIW,343). As you can see each President has had different reasons for recording their
conversations if they had any reason at all. The tapes recorded through the history of
each presidency are very important not only to the public but also important in unfolding
what went on in the conversations that took place before a major event or decision
occurred. The tapes tell us how each situation was and how and why each President made
their decisions. Although the tapes were very hard to decipher, Ernest May and Philip
Zelikow, once cleared away the static and verbal debris the tapes told a riveting
story(BIW,344). They showed President Kennedy and his advisers striving to respond, under
intense pressure, to the secret placement of Soviet offensives nuclear missiles at
launching sites in Cuba only thirty miles away from American shores. The tapes, as shown,
are an important part of history because it informs the people and gives the public
explanations of the decisions that were made in crucial times.
The problems with tapes and transcripts are that they can be altered, destroyed, or so
old that they are illegible or cannot be heard good enough to make out what is being
said. Two historians that tried to decipher recorded tapes of President Kennedy reported
that "the large majority of the tapes crackle, rumble, and hiss. Conversation is as hard
to make out as on a factory floor or in a football stadium(BIW,344)." Stanley Cutler
said, "The process of deciphering the tapes is endless, different ears pick up a once
unintelligible comment, or correct a previous understanding(BIW,347)." Other transcripts
have had omissions, deletions, and unintelligibles that the government has removed for
reasons of either personal privacy or national security(BIW,347). Tapes and transcripts
are a good source of history but are tangible, which makes them subjects to tampering.
Precedents are important to understanding Nixon's rationale because they show us his
superior motives behind his decisions. A precedent is an example or reason for a later
action, which would help us to understand why President Nixon chose to do the things that
he did. Precedents apply to presidential tapes because each President used them to
justify their methods of decision making. I don't think that Nixon used the presidential
tapes to show precedents over his actions. If Nixon had used the presidential tapes to
show his reasons for a later action then he would not of gotten into the mess that he was
in. Nixon had forgotten about the tapes and if he had remembered then he might have
changed his conversations to show his reasons for his actions. 
The Nixon tapes not only hold a fascination for historians but also for the general
public because the tapes show how devious and disloyal the, what is to be said, most
trusted man in America was. Presidential tapes became the subjects of newspaper stories,
magazines articles, and television news programs(BIW,346). Even if the outlines of
Watergate were clear enough without the tapes, the transcripts remain invaluable in
helping us to understand Richard Nixon the man(BIW,352). Historians have long wondered
about Nixon because he was a loner who didn't like to be in big crowds or meet new people
which is what politics is all about. The Nixon tapes also offered a chance to tell all in
the sense of providing a window into the "real" Nixon(BIW255). The fascination that
historians have with the Nixon tapes could be dangerous because it shows Nixon, when not
in public, angry, vulgar, and vindictive(BIW,355). Using the tapes to see how Nixon
really was came with risks. In replaying private conversations, the historians experience
an almost unavoidable illicit pleasure of being privy to information not meant for their
ears.
"Breaking Into Watergate" was well documented with factual evidence. The article gave me
a sense of what really went on in the Oval Office and what kind of man Richard Nixon
really was. If not for the recorded tapes and transcripts we would have never seen or
known the truth about the Watergate Scandal.