Nixon Tape To Reveal Secrets at Last?

jonerik writes: "As part of its inevitable 30th-anniversary-of-Watergate coverage, ABC News has this article on the National Archives' search for someone who can recover part or all of the missing 18 ½ minutes of President Nixon's Oval Office tapes, whose existence had been unknown until the Watergate hearings. The famous tape - recorded on June 20th, 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in - was last examined in 1974, but Nixon tape archivist Karl Weissenbach is hoping that nearly thirty years of technological progress can make the difference this time, saying 'We have decided that the time is right and appropriate to determine whether that conversation can be retrieved or recovered.' Stephen St. Croix, one of several forensic audio experts who is interested in taking on the job, says 'You never completely erase a tape. You think you do, but you really don't.'" There's another article in Wired on this quest as well.

Comments

Subject goes here

[sheepab]

I read an article a few days ago about this somewhere, I dont remember where though. Anyway, appearently Nixon was going to erase ALL the tapes, but he realized there were so many of them it would take his lifetime to erase. So he chose to just erase a tiny bit of one tape. The tape was recorded over "between 7 and 11 times". The company that decodes that tape, while getting no compensation from the government, will be rich in publicity alone.

Re:Subject goes here

[zsmooth]

Yes, if you want it erased really well, it does take longer than recording. At least with conventional recording equipment.

Slightly o/t

[itwerx]

but wouldn't it be funny if the missing minutes were just Nixon concealing from his wife the fact that he'd been yuk-yukking it up with his beer buddies about his latest sexual conquests...?

18.5 minutes....

[carlos_benj]

...isn't that the long version of Inna Gadda Davida?

30 years ago, Richard Nixon said...

[Bonker]

"Fr15+ P05+!!!1!"

Personally, I'm fairly interested in all this, especially seeing who it's going to hurt today. Remember that 30 years ago is not ancient history. Many people who are still high-ranking members of government now were members of government then.

In the recent hooplah surrounding the new book, Pat Buchannan was named as a possible 'Deep Throat', something I seriously doubt. Still, it raises questions. Suppose that someone we respect *cough* *cough* is in actuality a criminal?

Re:30 years ago, Richard Nixon said...

[leighklotz]

Anybody remember who finally fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was investigating Nixon?

Turns out, it was a 25-year-old named...Robert Bork, who was famously rejected for supreme court in 1987 and hired by Netscape in 1998 to lobby their case!

See a Dr. Dobbs Journal reprint from 1998 for geek-friendly history.

Re:well we go to extreme

[captain_craptacular]

A cheaper alternative is a match and some lighter fluid. I challenge anyone to recove a tape "erased" in that manner ;)

Re:Yearg! The man was impeached, leave him alone!

[Fantanicity]

Nixon wasn't impeached.

Audio Archaeology

[Hatter]

Here is a previous story on this topic. St. Croix sounds like a pretty paranoid guy, tinfoil hat. A quote from the article I linked above:

St.Croix agreed to let me visit him, but because of security concerns, I was told to come to his house, not the office.... He gave me precise instructions for the cabby. I was told to get out at the end of a certain cul-de-sac. "Then wait for the cab to leave," he said. "I'm serious. And after you're sure the cab's gone, walk down the driveway to the left. Don't come to the front door. Just keep walking. You'll set off the lasers in my woods. I'll know you're coming and come out to meet you."

Interesting guy. Here's a link to his company's webpage.

Anyone seen the film "Dick"?

[Thornae]

Okay, so it wasn't the greatest film. But I thought their explanation for the missing eighteen minutes and the whole Deep Throat thing was pretty damned amusing. The dream sequence between Michelle Williams and Dan Hedaya was hilarilous. Incidentally, Hedaya is one of the better Nixons I've seen.

And wouldn't it be a crack up if the missing minutes really were the confessions of a lovesick teenager?

Watergate still??

[EastCoastSurfer]

I realize the technical merits of the article, but why is the general media still harping on something that happened 30 years ago? Why doesn't the media do aniversaries for things like travelgate, filegate, Vince Foster, etc...? These things are much more current and still have real implications to people in power (not to mention someone is dead).

Re:Watergate still??

[Lysander Luddite]

Maybe because it is attributed to a President resigning his office?

Re:Watergate still??

[Chasuk]

Watergate overshadows all of the other manufactured "scandals" that you mention above. It was easily the biggest scandal of the last 50 years, and will be discussed by historians centuries hence, long after the name "Vince Foster" had faded from memory.

Re:Watergate still??

[Anonymous Coward]

The media is composed of Democrats raised on Watergate. That's why they only care about scandals in Republican administrations.

Uhh.. if that's the case, then why don't i ever hear anyone in the media talking about the scandals of the Reagan years? Ever? Even though it's topical, and it would probably be fascinating to see a media review of "here is what the Eisenhower through Reagan administrations did covertly as foreign policy in the name of fighting Communism, and this is how it affects the current geopolitical climate, which is important becuase the U.S. is currently fighting an open-ended war against a number of nations whose current political situation is a direct result of U.S. actions"?

People keep going back to watergate because it's clear, it's dramatic and theatrical, and it's morally unambiguous. The whole thing is almost a greek epic on the Great Man Corrupted by Power. That's about it. It appeals to people's love of drama without challenging any of their held beliefs or making them understand complicated geopolitical context.

Re:Watergate still??

[startled]

Why doesn't the media cover anything of consequence any more? At least in the American media, it appears the assumption is that we don't care about international events, and we're too stupid to understand anything of consequence domestically.

Travelgate? Filegate? Vince Foster? WTF? Those are barrel-scraping attempts to dumb something down for general consumption. How about no TV coverage of genocide in Yugoslavia for almost two years after they knew it was going on? Hell, domestic current events haven't been covered substantively on TV for a good decade or so, and not in newspapers aside from the NYTimes and Washington Post.

No, the general media nowadays has no respectability. They cover nothing of substance. When's the last time I saw a mention in the paper about a bill going through my state's legislature? I'm lucky to see a mention of a federal bill outside of the budget, Medicare, or "terrorism". Meanwhile, there are giant cover stories on last year's dog mauling.

The media is covering Watergate for two reasons. One, of course, is they think it'll sell. This is a big thing that a lot of their audience lived through.

The other, more interesting, reason is that they're covering a time when they had respectability and impact. When investigative journalist meant something other than Geraldo Rivera. When journalistic careers were made by covering big events in a dangerous foreign country, or uncovering something big in political dealings at home. Now, foreign reporters get 5 minutes a day on CNN. Domestic reporters follow the police scanner to the site of the latest rich white babynapping or Chandra Levy's remains.

Nostalgia, then. Followups on a time when they had a function other than exposing sex scandals. Why would they follow up on something current, if no one cared about it in the first place? Yes, there are still respectable reporters doing significant work. But they're quite fringe, and mostly read by academics, politicians, "experts", and the tiny portion of the population that actually cares enough to read intelligent coverage on what's going on in the world. It's enough to support two newspapers and a handful of magazines.

Re:Watergate still??

[commodoresloat]

Uhh.. if that's the case, then why don't i ever hear anyone in the media talking about the scandals of the Reagan years? Ever? Even though it's topical, and it would probably be fascinating to see a media review of "here is what the Eisenhower through Reagan administrations did covertly as foreign policy in the name of fighting Communism, and this is how it affects the current geopolitical climate, which is important becuase the U.S. is currently fighting an open-ended war against a number of nations whose current political situation is a direct result of U.S. actions"?

Not to mention it is topical because a lot of the same creeps who committed what amounts to high treason during the Reagan Administration are back in office again (e.g. Poindexter, Reich, Negroponte, Abrams) except now they have an even better excuse than the "war on communism" to trash the Constitution and send the U.S. military all around the world. We've heard more about Monica Lewinsky than anyone could ever want and yet we've never had a real accounting of the crimes of the Reagan Administration. This video is enlightening for folks who want to be more educated on the topic....

Re:Watergate still??

[Paul Komarek]

"Reagan's alleged crimes were done for the expressed purpose of helping those fighting for their freedom against communism."

When was the last time you saw America do something for the pure, unadultered sake of helping someone fight for "freedom", "against communism"? Our government doesn't give a damn about communism -- we attack *ANY AND ALL* governments that don't bow down to our whims. It's as if our government is the Microsoft of governments.

"Congress had no authority to prevent the commander in chief from giving military arms to whomever he wishes."

Bullshit. We have laws, as well as policies, governing how we distribute and sell arms. The commander-in-chief is not God.

"That power is vested in the President in the constitution."

You'll have to quote a section and paragraph number for me. I don't recall reading this in our Constitution. If you can show it to me, I'll back down immediately. And then I'll work on an amendment.

"Nixon. Some two bit espionage done by an underling, that very likely occured without his knowledge. What was he guilty of? covering up a stupid move by someone acting without his authority."

Oh, really? Maybe this is exactly what we'd like to know. Maybe this is why we're still interested in Watergate.

-Paul Komarek

Tapes can't be erased?

[tuxlove]

You never completely erase a tape. You think you do, but you really don't.

I have a blowtorch that says magnetic tape can be erased.

Re:Tapes can't be erased?

[Alsee]

>You never completely erase a tape.
I have a blowtorch that says magnetic tape can be erased.

Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to wait another 30 years and see what the nanotech experts have to say about that.

-

Re:Tapes can't be erased?

[vr]

wow! you have a blowtorch that can talk? that's amazing, dude!

Re:Never erase

[JabberWokky]

I'm interested in seeing how this concept works on video tape, I imagine the process is probably a lot more in-depth than this, so kudos to them if they pull it off.

Little too early - these were reel to reel audio tapes, iirc.

That said, digital data can be recovered even when written over a few times. Analog data is probably significantly more difficult, as you can't look for up or down "ghost echos"... you kinda have to try and clean up a faint signal scattered in a noisy medium. Some impressive algorithims cleaning up "random noise" have been popping up lately - don't ask me how they work, though. Some Deep Magic lies in that field.

And yes, getting overwritten data is tremendously expensive, requiring that you peel apart the media and run it through a physical magnetic scanning device. There are several private companies you can approach, with basic consultation (no recovery) starting at ten or twenty thousand dollars. They have pretty good track records, and I know a couple financial institutions that used their services. I'm sure there are some people in the NSA who are just as good (I'd imagine that the private companies and spooks are pretty much the same pool of people and experts).

--
Evan

Re:Yearg! The man was impeached, leave him alone!

[grytpype]

Right. He resigned because he was about to be impeached.

Too bad for the Dems

[bubblegoose]

These tapes could have won Al Gore the Presidency. I heard these 18 1/2 minutes were Sen. Albert Gore Sr., introducing his son and Al Jr. discussing plans for the Internet

Where are today's Woodward and Bernstein?

[wrinkledshirt]

I think the most troubling thing about Watergate is that since then the amount of credible investigative journalism has dwindled to the point of non-existence. What is news is now determined by the corporate or political interests -- guys like the head of Fox saying that reporting about civilian casualties in Afghanistan doesn't do anyone any good, or John Ashcroft saying that criticizing the Bush administration is on par with helping the terrorists directly.

It's not just an American phenomenon. Up here in Canada two editors have been fired in last couple of years for writing editorials criticizing the Liberal government, because the two editors were working for a newspaper chain owned by Izzy Asper, a buddy of the PM. And as CNN goes international, you see them representing the conservative American viewpoint abroad, to the point of feeding a smear campaign against leaders like Pres. Chavez in Venezuela in their home country.

It's gotten so bad that the only people who openly criticize the powers that be have been largely marginalized (and then dismissed) as radical leftists -- Chomsky, Fisk, Moore, etc. These are brilliant guys with important questions, but the moment you mention their names the ad hominems commence as the argument degenerates into how big of a kook they are.

I guess the big question I have is, if a scandal like Watergate were to hit the ground, in the bustling forest of today's largely goose-stepping society, would it make a sound? I'm worried it wouldn't.

Re:Where are today's Woodward and Bernstein?

[Edmund Blackadder]

Themost worryingthing isthat the same bob woodward is now busy writing puff pieces for the president.

There were plenty of potential scandals today much bigger than watergate that have not been investigated.

Re: Where are today's Woodward and Bernstein?

[InitZero]

the amount of credible investigative journalism has dwindled to the point of non-existence.

In all seriousness, what Woodward and Bernstein did was not good journalism. In the end, they got it right, but it could have just as easily gone the other way.

W&B got lucky. Their All The President's Men is as often fiction as fact. If you read through their articles as they were printed (as I have as part of a number of journalism classes), you will come to understand that history has been very kind to them. They made a number of critical mistakes in their reporting.

They are cultural icons, changed the political landscape and are the answer to more than one trivia question so we must give them their due but their due isn't that of great journalists.

InitZero

Re:Where are today's Woodward and Bernstein?

[squiggleslash]

From the right, there seems to be plenty, as the muckraking over the last presidency seemed to reveal. From the left, not a lot.

There's an active campaign to change that, but it's arguable all it will do is, together with the long time attacks by freepers on percieved left wing bias, simply batter journalists into a sort of don't-offend-anyone submission. Still, arguably, that's what we have right now: Especially if the right is right and most journalists position themselves left of center, they're definitely not writing as if they're left of center.

Not that I believe they are, or at least, not to the same extent as conservatives believe they are. FAIR did a survey in which they polled journalist's positions on various issues and compared them to the national average. They found that while journalists leant to the left/center in terms of the causes they supported - Medicare, Social Security, Taxes, etc, they were generally to the right of what studies generally showed were the American public's positions on the same issues. This probably goes some way towards explaining why even some of the more intelligent right wingers are convinced of a left wing bias to the press - it's to the left of them.

Why is this relevent? Well, right now criticising government means, by definition, being critical of and willing to question right wing Republican policies. And, except for a burst for the last month or so, there's been very, very, little criticism of the government. Even before 9/11, CNN was devoting something in the order of 50% of its TV coverage (evidence from memory) of a scandal involving a Democratic congressman where he lied to police during a murder investigation, and there simply was no news on that score - he lied, that was it. Nothing came in, but the same story was repeated and excuses were found to repeat it, over and over again. And Condit (for it is he) isn't exactly an important figure.

The press, at the moment, is in the hands of people who do not want powerful forces challenged. Right now, those powerful forces are those in government. Until and unless there's a change of hands, and journalists feel they can breath and be more free, there will not be another Woodward and Bernstein.

It's True! Re:Alice's Restaurant is the answer!

[shlong]

There's a version of Alice's Restaurant that I have on MP3 where Arlo talks about exactly this. He claims that during the Carter Inauguration, Chip Carter pulled him aside and noted that they had found an LP of 'Alice's Restaurant' in the library. Arlo goes on to joke, "So, how many things can you think of that are 18 1/2 minutes long?".

Re:Fossil magnetism

[Helmholtz Coil]

Hysteresis. Ferromagnetic materials carry a "memory" of their magnetic history. AFAIK that's the basic principle behind our ability to track the motion of the magnetic pole over millions of years.

Superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) are seriously cool...they can measure magnetic fields down to about 10^-10 gauss. They'll detect fields created by things like a fetal heartbeat or a car starting down the block.

Theory + practice

[ocie]

You never completely erase a tape. You think you do, but you really don't.

Bull puckey. If you record over a tape enough times you will erase the original information. Otherwise, a length of tape could hole an infinite amount of information.

OTOH, just because you 'can' erase a tape, doesn't mean that it was done in this case.

Agency of Fear

[nesthigh]

Here is a great online book with the history of Nixon's rise, abuse, and fall, for those of you who aren't familiar with all the details.It's 35 chapters long and covers the whole "drug war" and the incidents leading to Watergate very well.

enjoy!

That's not the reason

[epepke]

Watergate is a big deal for the same reason that some people think Bob Dylan can sing: it's a Baby Boomer thing. First the Baby Boomers discovered color, sex, civil rights, and opposition to the war. Then they discovered political scandal, and that was Watergate. By the time Reagan came around, they had discovered cocaine, tax-free municipal bonds, and all-white neighborhoods, so they didn't notice.

In practice what he says is correct.

[Chuck Chunder]

In practice people don't erase/record over a tape enough to erase the original information. The effort and time involved in doing so is non-negligable so in practice people don't do it.

If the data on the tape were that important, if you had the opportunity and if you knew that recording over the top would not work unless you did it a lot and with the right sort of sounds you'd simply destroy the tape, ie by converting it to a pile of ash and smoke, dissolving it in acid or otherwise rendering it chemically different from it's original state.

It may be possible to record over a tape to the degree that the original data becomes unrecoverable with any degree of certainty, but it remains impractical to do so.