Watergate Figure. She was the Secretary to President Richard M. Nixon, and was blamed for the missing 18 and ½ minutes in a critical White House tape. Born in Sebring, Ohio, she worked as a pottery company secretary in Sebring, then moved to Washington, DC, where she became a typist on Capitol Hill. In 1950, her typing skills caught the eye of Congressman Richard Nixon, and he hired her to be his secretary. She would stay with him through his career, becoming a close personal friend of the Nixon family. During the Watergate Investigation period of 1972 to 1974, she was required to transcribe tape recordings of conversations held inside the White House Oval Office and recorded on audiotape for the President's future use. During one of the transcribing episodes, she was accused of erasing 18 and ½ minutes of White House tapes, believed by many to hold damaging evidence of President Nixon's involvement with the break-in at the Watergate Complex of the Democratic National Committee's offices there during the 1972 election campaign. She would testify that she inadvertently erased four or five minutes of the tape while answering the telephone, but denied erasing the entire 18 minutes. Expert examination of the tape later found as many as nine deliberate erasures. She would stay with President Nixon following his resignation until 1976, when she decided to return to Ohio.
Watergate Figure. She was the Secretary to President Richard M. Nixon, and was blamed for the missing 18 and ½ minutes in a critical White House tape. Born in Sebring, Ohio, she worked as a pottery company secretary in Sebring, then moved to Washington, DC, where she became a typist on Capitol Hill. In 1950, her typing skills caught the eye of Congressman Richard Nixon, and he hired her to be his secretary. She would stay with him through his career, becoming a close personal friend of the Nixon family. During the Watergate Investigation period of 1972 to 1974, she was required to transcribe tape recordings of conversations held inside the White House Oval Office and recorded on audiotape for the President's future use. During one of the transcribing episodes, she was accused of erasing 18 and ½ minutes of White House tapes, believed by many to hold damaging evidence of President Nixon's involvement with the break-in at the Watergate Complex of the Democratic National Committee's offices there during the 1972 election campaign. She would testify that she inadvertently erased four or five minutes of the tape while answering the telephone, but denied erasing the entire 18 minutes. Expert examination of the tape later found as many as nine deliberate erasures. She would stay with President Nixon following his resignation until 1976, when she decided to return to Ohio.
Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson
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