This Day in History: , President Nixon Refuses to Hand Over Tapes.
January 4, 1974.
The tapes were secret recordings that Nixon had made of every conversation in the Oval Office.
Nixon aides, including White House counsel John Dean, revealed knowledge of the tapes during grand jury testimony about the Watergate break-in.
In 1972, members of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters.
After a security guard on patrol of the offices called police, the burglars were arrested.
Their arrest led to the unraveling of the Watergate scandal.
The Senate Watergate Committee soon subpoenaed Nixon's White House tapes.
His refusal to hand them over is widely considered the beginning of the end of his presidency.
Nixon resigned eight months later
