Rufus Edmisten Event at Wilson Library, Discovery of White House Taping System, September 20, 2012

Rufus Edmisten Event at Wilson Library, Discovery of White House Taping System, September 20, 2012

This event was an interview of Rufus Edmisten by Chancellor Holden Thorp marking the donation of the Rufus Edmisten Papers to the Southern Historical Collection. This clip is about the discovery of a White House taping system.

Edmisten, Rufus, 1941-

September 20, 2012

Thorp, H. Holden, 1964-; Michalak, Sarah

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

audio/mp4

English

Sound

https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/items/show/7900

“As most of you know, there was the hearings went along, and John Dean had said all sorts of things. And we discovered in a little hearing room—well, I called it the dungeon—and none of us were in there that day but they had this man named Alexander Butterfield in it and one our Raleigh people, Gene Boyce, was in that room. And the question was just asked ‘well, is there any kind of taping system in the White House?’ And according to Gene, there was pause, pause, pause, and ‘well, is there a taping system in the White House?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Everywhere!’ ‘Like everywhere what?’ ‘Wherever the president goes.’ Bingo. Bingo, and I wish I had been in there that day. But, see, we thought it wasn’t a good enough meeting for us because here’s this guy named Alexander Butterfield. And this was the little interrogation room where the old lawyer adage ‘don’t put somebody on the stand unless you know what they’re going to say.’ So, every day before anybody went on national television, we put them on first in the interrogation room, or the dungeon—it didn’t have any windows in it by the way. And I remember being out at a party and I think it was Senator Herman Talmadge [D-Georgia], and somebody ran up to me and said, ‘guess what, guess what, there’s a taping system in the White House. Everything that Richard Nixon has said during his tenure is on tape.’ So, I went and told the Senator [Sam Ervin], and of course his eyebrows were very active.” *laughter*

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