More Nixon Tapes: The Facts, However Ugly They Might Be : Pending release meets the public’s right and need to know

For 2 1/2 crucial years of his presidency, beginning in early 1971, Richard Nixon secretly and routinely taped thousands of hours of conversations with top aides and other officials. The aim of this obsessive bugging, as he subsequently justified it in his memoirs, was to ensure that his time in the presidency would be “the best chronicled in history.”

What Nixon did not intend was for the tapes to be made public, least of all in an unedited and--given the vulgarity of much of the language heard on them--unsanitized version.

Neither did he ever imagine that 63 hours of the tapes--once their existence became known and their release ordered by the Supreme Court--would become an instrument of his undoing. The Watergate tapes, dealing with the attempt to cover up White House involvement in a 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, helped lead the House Judiciary Committee to approve articles of impeachment against Nixon. Facing the virtual certainty that the Senate would convict him in an impeachment trial, he resigned the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974.

But the resignation and even Nixon’s death two years ago did not end the legal battle over the remaining 3,700 hours of White House tapes. Only now has agreement finally been reached for a phased release of virtually all of the tapes beginning later this year. The first batch--described by the National Archives, the tapes’ custodian, as the “abuse of power” series--is expected to deal with such matters as presidential misuse of the CIA and FBI and other illegal activities.

Stephen E. Ambrose, author of a three-volume biography of the 37th president, expects the recordings to “show that Nixon was even [worse] than many thought he was.” Ambrose also speaks for the nation’s historians and, even more important, for the public interest when he describes the outcome of this long legal battle as “good for America.” The idea that a president somehow retains proprietary rights to documents generated during his tenure--and the tapes, bearing directly on Nixon’s conduct as president, are unquestionably documentary--is not defensible. Neither is the claim that release of the tapes would violate Nixon’s right to privacy. That assertion is especially egregious given the utter lack of respect that Nixon showed for the privacy of others when he made the secret recordings.

In the end, the only argument worthy of any serious consideration is that argument in behalf of supporting open government, of the fullest possible disclosure, of the public’s right and in fact need to know. The tapes are likely to reveal much that is ugly and demeaning. They are also likely to provide a picture unparalleled for the candid insights it gives into presidential decision making and behavior.