In a recorded Oval Office conversation, Richard Nixon discussed paying hush money to E. Howard Hunt and other Watergate burglars to keep them silent, remarking that cost was no obstacle. The tape, later released during the impeachment investigation, provided some of the most damning direct evidence of Nixon's personal involvement in obstructing justice.
By March 1973, the Watergate break-in was over eight months old, but the cover-up was fraying at the edges. E. Howard Hunt, one of the convicted burglars, was demanding money in exchange for his continued silence, and Nixon's aides brought the problem directly to the president in the Oval Office.
On the newly surfaced tape from this day, Nixon can be heard telling John Dean and others that raising hush money for Hunt was essential, declaring "I don't give a shit what happens, I want you to stonewall it." The casualness of the remark, captured on Nixon's own secret taping system, became one of the most quoted lines of the entire scandal once transcripts were released to Congress and the public in 1974.
The recording undercut Nixon's public claims that he had no knowledge of efforts to cover up the break-in. Combined with dozens of other tapes, it formed the backbone of the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment articles and helped drive Nixon to resign in August 1974, the first and only U.S. president to do so.
Key people: Richard Nixon, John Dean, E. Howard Hunt