This Day in History: , President Nixon
Refuses to Hand Over Tapes.
January 4, 1974.
The tapes were secret recordings that Nixon
had made of every conversation in the Oval Office.
Nixon aides, including White House counsel John Dean,
revealed knowledge of the tapes during grand jury
testimony about the Watergate break-in.
In 1972, members of Nixon's Committee to
Re-Elect the President broke into the
Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters.
After a security guard on patrol of the
offices called police, the burglars were arrested.
Their arrest led to the unraveling
of the Watergate scandal.
The Senate Watergate Committee soon
subpoenaed Nixon's White House tapes.
His refusal to hand them over is widely considered
the beginning of the end of his presidency.
Nixon resigned eight months later