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Alexander Butterfield, Nixon Aide Who Revealed Secret Tapes, Dies at 99

His 1973 disclosure of a covert White House recording system yielded the tapes that led to Nixon’s resignation.

Alexander Butterfield testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee on July 16, 1973.
FAA Administrator Alexander Butterfield in an undated photo. Butterfield served as deputy assistant to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973, and served as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration from 1973 to 1975. Courtesy FAA/Handout via REUTERS
Image
FILE - Alexander Butterfield, former deputy assistant to President Nixon, speaks during the Presidential Tapes Conference at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Feb. 16, 2003. Butterfield, the White House aide who inadvertently hastened Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal when he revealed that the president had bugged the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and routinely recorded his conversations, has died. He was 99. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki, File)

Overview

  • His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by his wife, Kim, and by John Dean, with Reuters reporting he died at his home in La Jolla a month before turning 100 and no cause cited.
  • As deputy assistant to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973, Butterfield oversaw a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, Nixon’s Executive Office Building office, and at Camp David that few staff knew existed.
  • He first acknowledged the system in a closed interview on July 13, 1973, then confirmed it publicly on July 16, telling senators, “Everything was taped … as long as the president was in attendance.”
  • His revelation triggered subpoenas and a constitutional showdown over executive privilege that ended with the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1974 order to release the recordings.
  • The tapes, including the “smoking gun” conversation, documented Nixon’s role in the Watergate cover-up and preceded his resignation on August 9, 1974; Butterfield was never indicted, later led the FAA, and became an outspoken critic of Nixon.