50 years ago, most of the nation was glued to “gavel-to-gavel” coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings that would uncover major abuses of power by the Nixon administration. In this episode – how a decision to speak up blew the lid off the largest political scandal in American history.
Released on July 18, 2023.
ARCHIVAL TAPE: The committee will come to order. Today the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities begins hearings into the extent to which illegal, improper, or unethical activities were involved in the 1972 presidential election campaign.
KK: 50 years ago THIS WEEK… most of the nation was glued to “gavel-to-gavel” coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings…that would uncover major abuses of power by the Nixon administration…
Keith Carroll: I was about 12 or 13 years old. And the teacher had the TV on.
Mary Glover: I remember being in High School when the Watergate hearings were going on and just being riveted by that.
Keith Carroll: The trial was basically national news, a national pastime, I would say.
Those are all voices from the StoryCorps archive…when we searched for the word “Watergate”…871 interviews showed up.
For most baby boomers, the investigation into this break-in, and the hearings that followed became one of those “where-were-you-when” moments.
Here’s another clip from the archive, it comes from Sam Guard…
Sam Guard: I still remember that day when my girls came home from school and were in tears and hanging their head. And we said well, what’s the trouble? What’s the matter? And they finally said that they were ashamed. And we said ashamed of what? They were ashamed to be Americans. And I thought about this, I spent four years in two wars fighting for my country and my children are ashamed to be Americans? I looked into their little faces and carefully explained that they are witnessing not the disgrace of America, but the Triumph of our system that works.
KK: But the thing is…it almost didn’t.
Nixon could have gotten away with it…if it weren’t for legendary Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, their source, deep throat…
…and a couple of white house staffers you probably DON’T know about…
In this episode, how a decision to speak up… blew the lid off the largest political scandal in American history…
It’s the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. I’m Kamilah Kashanie…
<MUSIC>
KK: The Watergate scandal began after five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C. … They were trying to steal information to help Nixon get reelected.
Just a few years earlier Joan Hall — a single mother of 3, had moved to DC for a job… as an administrative assistant at a law firm.
Her boss was an attorney named Charles “Chuck” Colson. Colson would later become Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon.
Joan Temple: Three months after I’d been with him, he said, ‘Joan, we’re going to the White House.’ I said, ‘I just got here!’ He said, ‘You’re bright, you’ll learn.’
KK: That’s Joan – who is now Joan Temple – at 90 years old, speaking with her daughter Ellen.
JT: I was office manager. I had pressure that was unbelievable at times. You would have something in a typewriter, the president is in a helicopter on the back lawn, waiting to take off, and waiting on the piece of paper you were working on that could have no errors in it. I was not his secretary but it was things that I sometimes got involved with because Chuck sort of got involved in things that not everybody knew about. He was known as the hatchet man of the white house. He did some of the dirty tricks for Nixon, I guess you would say.
KK: …Joan was his right-hand. And she was good at her job. She took extremely detailed notes about Colson’s every move. So she was asked to testify in the case against the Watergate 7 –5 burglars and two Nixon aides – G. Gordon Liddy…and Howard Hunt.
She told her daughter about running into Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, at the trial.
JT: Well, I was scared to death. And I was waiting out in the witness room, I was waiting to testify. Mitchell stopped in front of me and he said, You’re Joan Hall aren’t you? And I said yes. He stopped and he said, we’ll we’ve heard your name bandied around a lot in there. So I go in to testify and what I was testifying about were some shorthand notes that I had taken on a Sunday afternoon, and Judge Sirica said, “Speak up, young lady!” Anyway, you can only sugar and shake for a little while and I know I made mistakes in things I said. It was scary at the time but I got through it alright.
KK: The notes she took were from a phone call with Howard Hunt. And they ended up being critical to the trial and were later used in the Watergate hearings…
JT: Every report card I ever got in grade school said: too shy, needs to speak up, not be crying all the time.
I just seemed to wake up at 35 and say, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life this way. It was almost a physical change in me to want to go out and do something. And now I could walk in almost anywhere and I have no fear of saying anything to anybody.
Ellen Stone: It’s hard to believe you were ever shy. And you always seemed like you were so ahead of your time. I was looking back on one of your government applications and I noticed at the time for the title they only had Mr., Miss. or Mrs. that you could check and you wrote in Ms. in 1973.
You’ve been a great inspiration to all of us.
KK: That was Ellen Stone with her mother, Joan Temple, in 2017…
Joan died in 2021 at the age of 95…
Her obituary read: While Joan worked inside the White House, one daughter was protesting outside the building and another was campaigning for an opposing candidate, but a mother’s love outweighed any political differences.
We spoke with Ellen and her sister, Lori earlier this year.
Lori: Well, the Vietnam War was raging when she went there because I was pretty sure I was a freshman at Syracuse University and at least a couple of times took the bus of protesters going to Washington, D.C. to march around and she’d be working during the day.
KK: That’s Lori. She remembers hanging out in her mom’s office at the White House back in the 70s…
Lori: I remember seeing things like they would have this poster board on the floor listing, like all the horrible things those dirty hippie protesters were doing. And I think that was part of Colson’s job was, you know, what can we do to discredit the opposition? You know so obviously my mom saw all of that, but I think she was so naive when she fell into this job. She probably didn’t know, like, oh, is this normal? Is this what every president does?
Ellen: Because she was naive in this sense of being new to Washington. But I mean, she wasn’t afraid to walk into any room when she was in the White House. Somebody said, you just jut your chin out and, you know, walk in the first one.
Lori: You know, I forget if it was Woodward or Bernstein. But mom told me they were sort of on a fishing expedition and called the White House. She talked to one of them and they were like, ‘Oh, we’re looking for Howard Hunt,’ And she was like, ‘Oh, he’s not in his office right now.’
Ellen: That’s right, I think that was actually a scene in All the President’s Men, that phone call.
<FILM CLIP>
Secretary: Charles Colson’s office.
Woodward: Howard Hunt, please.
Secretary: Mr. Hunt isn’t here just now.
Woodward: Do you know when he’ll be back?
Secretary: No I don’t.
Woodward: Ok. Thank you.
Lori: I remember watching that movie with mom and I just turned to her and was like, ‘Oh my God, that was you! You started the whole thing.’ I mean, she didn’t deny it. I mean, I think she kind of was like, Yeah, I guess I did. You know? [Laughs]
<MUSIC>
KK: The Watergate scandal resulted in the indictment of dozens of people, including many top Nixon administration officials. The majority were convicted. Including Joan’s boss…Charles Colson…who served time in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
<MUSIC>
But to bring down the President… that would take another staffer speaking up.
AB: I knew I would not lie. People were lying—
TJ: Yes.
AB: —right and left. I knew that. So I said, if they ask me an absolutely direct question, I feel I will have no choice but to answer directly.
Stay with us.
<MUSIC>
Tom Johnson: So few people in American history have had the responsibility of sitting in the office adjacent to the president of the United States, dealing with a very complex president.
Alexander Butterfield: Yeah. First to see him in the morning. First guy to see him in the evening. And I got to know him very well.
KK: That’s former Air Force Colonel and deputy assistant to President Nixon, Alexander Butterfield
TJ: Tell me about the Nixon that you saw.
AB: Nixon was a very controlled person. He was so disciplined. He had a lot of hatreds and resentments of people, but he kept all that quite contained. Now and then he erupted, but it was very seldom.
He did like me at one time. I’m afraid it didn’t end up that way.
SFX: [GAVEL] Subcommittee will come to order. Mr. Butterfield, will you stand and raise your right hand…
KK: On day 21 of the senate select hearings on Watergate…a surprise witness took the stand…it was Butterfield…
SFX: Mr. Butterfield, I understand you were previously employed by the White House?
AB: That is correct.
Thompson: During what period of time were you employed at the White House?
AB: I was at the White House as a deputy assistant to the president from the first day of the administration January 21, 1969 until noon March 14, 1973…
Thompson: And what were your duties at the White House?
AB: My duties were many and varied, Mr. Thompson…
KK: Among those “many and varied duties”…was overseeing the installation of a voice activated taping system, at Nixon’s request, that secretly recorded all of the president’s conversations in the Oval Office and other rooms.
At 90 years old, Butterfield told his friend Tom Johnson…about his decision to testify…
TAPE
AB: No one knew who I was, and they certainly didn’t know that I had the control that I did.
TJ: How did you decide to reveal the White House tapes?
AB: Well, I knew I would not lie. People were lying—
TJ: Yes.
AB: —right and left. I knew that. So I said, if they ask me an absolutely direct question, I feel I will have no choice but to answer directly.
SFX: Fred Thompson: Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?
A.B.: [Long pause] I was aware of listening devices, yes sir.
AB: I hated to be the guy who had to tell about the tapes. But I saw these guys I really liked and admired going off to jail, and I realized Nixon exploited their loyalty.
TJ: Yes.
AB: They were ensnared by the glitter of the presidency like it is easy to do, and he really, he didn’t care. That was a bad part of Nixon. So I went back a year later and testified as the first witness during the impeachment deliberations, and I contradicted a couple of things Nixon had said. I said, “Yes, he was not consumed with the affairs of state. He was consumed by Watergate”. It’s all the meetings were all about; he met off the record with the attorney general almost every night.
So there are a lot of people that don’t speak to me today. And what hurts most are the Air Force officers. I loved being in the Air Force. I loved flying fighters. But military guys, their loyalty is to the commander in chief. The president. And I looked like someone who had been disloyal to the president and they didn’t know the circumstances. So that bothers me.
TJ: But we teach our children to tell the truth.
AB: Yeah. Yeah, we do. It was a big thing in my house.
TJ: Yeah. Even though it’s painful to your friends and even to your, your president. You disclosed a major situation and you were honorable and your integrity and your honesty remained intact.
AB: Well, that’s nice to hear. Thank you, Tom.
TJ: I mean, who can ask for more?
AB: …means a lot.
KK: That’s former Air Force Colonel and deputy assistant to President Nixon, Alexander Butterfield…speaking with his friend Tom Johnson…
One of the tapes Butterfield exposed…became the “smoking gun”…proving Nixon helped plan the cover-up.
President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974…
<MUSIC>
That’s all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast.
It was produced by Jasmyn Morris. And it was edited by our Senior Producer, Eleanor Vassili. Max Jungreis is our Associate Producer. Our Technical Director is Jarrett Floyd. Michael Garofalo is our Executive Producer. Special thanks to Kerrie Hillman, Jhaleh Akhavan and Vera Carothers.
To see what music we used head over to StoryCorps – dot – org. You can also see original artwork by Lyne Lucine.
For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Kamilah Kashanie. Catch you next week.
Every athlete’s looking for that extra edge — and for a lot of them, it’s their family. Who drove them to practice? Who told them to never give up? In this episode, player’s loved ones step into the spotlight.
On the first episode of a new sports-themed season of the StoryCorps Podcast, we’re talking about the game changers: People who altered how their sport was played. Some of these changes were tiny ones we now take for granted. Others changed how the sport looked. But after they made their mark, nothing was the same. If you want to leave the StoryCorps Podcast a voicemail, call us at 702-706-TALK. Or email us at [email protected].
All last season we asked our listeners to call our voicemail and tell us their stories. In this special bonus episode, it’s their time to shine. Call us at 702-706-TALK.
