Alexander Butterfield, former aide to Richard Nixon who revealed the existence of the secret White House recording system during the Watergate scandal, has died at age 99
Alexander Butterfield, a former aide to President Richard Nixon whose revelation of a secret recording system at the White House dramatically changed the Watergate scandal, ultimately leading to Nixon’s resignation, has died. He was 99 years old.
His wife, Kim, along with John Dean, who served as Nixon’s White House counsel during the Watergate scandal, confirmed his death to .
Butterfield, who worked as Nixon’s assistant deputy, was responsible for overseeing the installation of the White House with the Secret Service in 1971, long before the infamous break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. Nixon wanted the devices in place so that he could, if necessary, hold discussions and debunk any leaks, rather than relying solely on someone taking notes. in the Oval Office and other places where Nixon conducted business.
For a time, as Watergate unfolded, Butterfield was one of the few people in Washington who knew of the recording system’s existence. The system came to the attention of the Senate Watergate Committee after former White House aide Dean had with Nixon in the Oval Office led lawmakers to suspect the president of recording meetings and opened a new line of investigation for future witnesses. Suspicions about the recording system were confirmed by Butterfield when he was questioned directly about the existence of such a system in July 1973, more than a year after the robbery.
The revelation immediately sparked a dispute over the recordings, with the committee and special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who oversaw the Watergate investigation,
Cox did not back down on his subpoena when Nixon initially refused to release the recordings, which led the former president to look for someone in his Justice Department to fire him, a search that became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” because Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Assistant Attorney General William Ruckelshaus instead complied with the order.
The recordings were eventually turned over, including the recording known as the “smoking gun”, which proved Nixon’s involvement in the subsequent cover-up of the robbery, ultimately leading to the president’s resignation. The National Archives released the famous recordings
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“Frankly, I don’t like being known as the man who revealed the existence of the recordings,” said Butterfield. “It makes it sound like I ran full speed ahead to the Watergate committee and anxiously and breathlessly told them information that Nixon considered top secret. That was not the case. I was facing a real dilemma: I really wanted to respect Nixon’s wishes while at the same time being cooperative and transparent with congressional investigators. The phrasing of their questions meant everything to me. And when Don Sanders, the deputy minority counsel… asked the $64,000 question, clearly and directly, I felt I had no choice but to answer in the same way.”
Alexander Butterfield testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee on July 16, 1973. AP
Served briefly as head of the FAA
Butterfield joined the Air Force in 1948 with the rank of colonel, serving in Vietnam and receiving the rank of colonel.
He reached the White House with the help of Nixon’s chief of staff, , with whom Butterfield became friends while at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Butterfield started at the White House as he initially disliked the work and wanted to resign. But things got better for Butterfield in the White House when his office was moved next to Nixon’s and he was able to keep a close watch on the president. He ended up becoming one of Nixon’s closest advisors.
Nixon appointed Butterfield administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in 1972, a position he went to. He was called to testify before the Senate about the then-suspicious White House recording system just four months after starting his job at the FAA.
Although Butterfield was not part of the Watergate scandal, at the end of the hearings and when Nixon resigned as president in 1974, his reputation was tarnished. It became increasingly difficult to work in the Ford administration
He resigned from the FAA in 1975 after being removed by President Gerald Ford,
That same year, Butterfield was accused of being , an accusation he said was “absolutely false,” during an interview that year on the CBS program “60 Minutes.”
He later joined the private sector as director of operations and moved to La Jolla, California.
He married Charlotte Mary Maguire in , who died in 2019 at the age of 92. : Alexander (Vanessa) Butterfield Jr.; Susan Holcomb; and Lisa (John) Buchholz.
Butterfield was the subject of a 2016 book by Bob Woodward titled “The Last of the President’s Men,” which was based on Butterfield and thousands of documents he provided.
