On the afternoon of October 1, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and his chief of staff, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., slipped away from the White House and went for a rambling, nearly two-hour car ride through the Washington countryside.
Nixon and Haig left the White House because they did not want to risk anyone overhearing them talk about a sensitive matter. Or perhaps they feared that someone might use remnants of the White House recording system, though it was supposedly disconnected, to capture their words. Given all the leaks to the press, and the exposure of just about every administration secret up to and including the existence of the White House tapes, paranoia wasn’t entirely unjustified.
Just prior to this unscheduled outing, Nixon’s long-time personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, had come to the president in a panic. She breathlessly told him she had accidentally caused a four to five minute buzz on Rmwa subpoenaed tape she had been transcribing. And the recording appeared to be a crucial one: it encompassed meetings on June 20, 1972 between the president and his top aides, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, on what was Nixon’s first day back in the White House since the Watergate break-in, which had occurred three days earlier.
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