maybe at some levels a radical leftist. [ phone ringing ] hello? here s one of the men around the president we don t hear much about. alex butterfield, deputy assistant, who handles much of the paperwork. my first meeting, i can t tell it without acting it. nixon came out from behind his desk and looked very tentative. he had no idea what to do. so he began to gesture. okay. no words came out. no discernible words. it s just this deep guttural rrrrr. this is the president. i couldn t believe it. alexander butterfield would play a crucial role in the watergate investigation. he had direct knowledge of the secret taping system in the office. haldeman came to me and he said the president wants a tape recording system. the secret service has a
[ phone ringing ] hello? here s one of the men around the president we don t hear much about. alex butterfield, deputy assistant, who handles much of the paperwork. my first meeting, i can t tell it without acting it. nixon came out from behind his desk and looked very tentative. he had no idea what to do. so he began to gesture. okay. no words came out. no discernible words. it s just this deep guttural rrrrr. this is the president. i couldn t believe it. alexander butterfield would play a crucial role in the watergate investigation. he had direct knowledge of the secret taping system in the office. haldeman came to me and he said the president wants a tape recording system. the secret service has a technical security division, electronics guys and
haldeman and presidential adviser john ehrlichman would become the guardians of the clandestine activities. ehrlichman begins to monopolize more and more of their time. we know that because nixon had a secret tape recording system in the oval office. what s the dope on the watergate incident? there s nothing new. because i think the country doesn t give much of a [ bleep ] about it. and most people around the country think that this is routine, everybody s trying to bug everybody else. it s politics. the great thing about this is it is so totally [ bleep ] up and so badly done that nobody believes that we could have done it. that s right. it s just beyond comprehension.
i was under the assumption that this tape recording system was still deep, dark secret over at the white house. that secret was well kept. when you stop and think, rosemary woods, his secretary, never knew about the tapes. henry kissinger, as close as henry was, never knew about the tapes. john ehrlichman never knew about the tapes. two people told me about it before it became public. i called bradley at home at 9:00 on saturday night i believe and said nixon taped himself. what should we do? ben, said, i wouldn t bust one on it. it s kind of a b-plus story. okay. the boss says b-plus. i won t work on it. i took sunday off and monday they called butterfield. i remember, ben came by and knocked on my desk and said, okay, it s better than a b-plus. from then on, it s a fight for the tapes. because they answer the questions. am i telling the truth?
more and more of their time. we know that because nixon had a secret tape recording system in the oval office. what s the dope on the watergate incident? there s nothing new. because i think the country doesn t give much of a [ bleep ] about it. and most people around the country think that this is routine, everybody s trying to bug everybody else. it s politics. the great thing about this is it is so totally [ bleep ] up and so badly done that nobody believes that we could have done it. that s right. it s just beyond comprehension. well, it sounds like a comic opera. it would make a funny [ bleep ] damn movie. it really is like a comic opera. it would make one hell of a movie. but not very funny. haldeman and ehrlichman knew what they had to do, cover all the tracks leading to the white house. they started by enlisting another of the president s men, legal adviser john dean, to monitor day-to-day changes.