Loyal Nixon Secretary Rose Mary Woods Dead at 87

[doxieone]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB74ZEOB4E.html

Loyal Nixon Secretary Rose Mary Woods Dead at 87

By Mark Williams Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 23, 2005






COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Rose Mary Woods, the devoted secretary to President Nixon who admitted to inadvertently erasing part of a crucial Watergate tape, has died. She was 87.
Woods died Saturday night at a nursing home in Alliance, Roger Ruzek, owner of a funeral home in Sebring, said Sunday. He did not know the cause of death.

The 18 1/2-minute gap in the tape of a June 20, 1972, conversation between Richard Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman was critical to the question of what Nixon knew about the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex three days earlier - and when he knew it.


(snip)

[Charlie Brown]

1. My condolences to her family n/t

[doxieone]

2. Her dead will be under reported I am sure, as it was, after

all, a Republican administration.

[bluestateguy]

3. If Nixon could gave gotten away with it, he'd have thrown her overboard

Ehrlichman, Haldeman and Mitchell were all "family" too, but when the shit hit the fan, they were all disposed of accordingly.

[Melynn]

4. Sorry that she died

but on the other hand I wonder if she told anyone what really happen to the 18 1/2 minute gap in the tapes? As I remember, Nixon tried to pin the blame on the gap on her.

I bet she could tell some really interesting stories about the Nixon White House. I also bet that she was a classy lady who never said anything bad about her boss, Nixon.

R.I.P Rose Mary.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. Boy, it sure did take Liddy a long time...

...to silence her.

Bad joke, sorry.

My condolences to her family...

[Journeyman]

6. And thus passes a woman who, if she'd chosen another path. . .

would have been one of the greatest acrobats/contortionists of all time.

Those who saw her demonstration will never forget her remarkable display of elastic limberness as she demonstrated how she answered the phone on the left side of her desk, typed letters on the right side, and erased 18 minutes of tape with her foot on a button under the desk . . . all at the same time -- sustained acrobatic activity for almost a third of an hour -- a feat unmatched by Houdini and incapable of being duplicated by our day's most accomplished Yoga masters.

Rose Mary Woods. Loyal to a fault.

[American Tragedy]

8. Right. I'm sure that's exactly what happened.

She certainly would never lie in order to cover for the individual who actually erased the tapes.

Loyal to a fault indeed.

[struggle4progress]

24. Bad things happen, as the Don said.

[Piperay]

30. The "Rosemary Stretch"

that's what the pundents took to calling it.

[deminks]

7. I remember the picture,

and I kept thinking that it was impossible for someone so competent to make such a cruicial mistake. The picture made it look impossible to me, anyway. Now this article says there were 9 deliberate erasures, and Rosie could not have done them all.

I just will say that you can't find that kind of loyalty anymore.

RIP, Rose Mary.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Her explanation for the erasure:

"...while playing the tape at her desk, she reached to answer the phone. At the same time, she inadvertently hit the "ERASE" button while forgetfully keeping her foot on the control pedal. And she stayed in that position, talking on the phone and unwittingly erasing critical evidence, for nearly nineteen minutes. That was her story, and she was sticking to it, while demonstrating for skeptical lawyers and reporters how it could be done."



Examination of the tape showed at least nine erasures.

[two gun sid]

10. We should have 18 1/2 minutes silence to mourn her passing.

[ooglymoogly]

13. and her bionic foot. eom

[scarlett1]

34. My husband said the exact thing when he heard of Ms. Woods passing

My guess is so will Jon Stewart and Jay Leno, after they mourn the great Carson.

[Blue_Tires]

11. funeral home owner Roger Ruzek

is that the same guy that was an NFL kicker (sorry to hijack the thread)

[ooglymoogly]

12. self delete

[msanthrope]

14. "You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out,

you step down on the treadle and the tape gets all wiped out..."

Sorry, but that's what my husband sang to me as soon as I told him.

[DinahMoeHum]

33. "...you do the hanky-panky as you turn yourself around. . .

...that's what it's all about..."

That was from an old National Lampoon cartoon called "News On The March"


:evilgrin:

[diamond14]

15. this one line tells the world what a PIG nixon was:

"But Nixon considered her a member of the family. He wrote in his memoirs that it was Woods he asked to inform first lady Pat Nixon and his daughters in 1974 that he had decided to resign on Aug. 9."



gawwwdddd....send your secretary to tell your wife, AND your married adult daughters, that you are RESIGNING THE PRESIDENCY !!!!! :wtf:

[Canuckistanian]

16. Don't all presidents keep tape records of phone calls?

I think it was a tradition started by LBJ. I wonder if Shrub is recording all of HIS calls. Somehow, I don't think so.....

[Top Lizard]

20. Presidential Recordings

FDR was the first chief executive to begin recording his White House conversations, albeit in a limited way. I'm not sure about Eisenhower, but both Kennedy and Johnson often recorded meetings. To my knowledge Nixon was (understandably) the last president to continue this practice. Subsequent Republican regimes have probably been too savvy to preserve potentially incriminating evidence, but like the Nazis, you just never know...

[Jack Rabbit]

17. As I said on another thread on this topic . . .

It's too bad she didn't work for Bush. He would have appointed her to a cabinet post for that whopper.

[IndianaGreen]

18. She lied to protect her boss

She is no hero of mine, and her sordid role in covering up Watergate was nothing to brag about.

[FlemingsGhost]

19. Yup ... this is no upstanding American, by any stretch.

Frankly, I'm surprised she wasn't asked to be a part of the triumphant "return of honor and integrity" to the White House.

She would have been a natural ...

:eyes:

[mitchum]

21. Is she going to be buried at the feet of Nixon...

like a loyal dog?

[Solly Mack]

22. So she'll spend 18 1/2 minutes in heaven ?

[Benhurst]

23. They are making a movie of her life. It's going to be called

My Right Foot.

[aikido15]

25. I hope she is resting...

In GOP hell.

[Javaman]

26. Boo hoo, hitlers secretary is dead. Who cares. There are no accidents.

[MADem]

27. Wonder if she kept a journal, a diary, or left

...an affadavit with a lawyer? History wants to know the FULL story. We know she took the hit for Dick, and didn't back down even when challenged, but we don't know who came, took the tape from her, did the erasing (over and over again) and then put the tape back. She KNEW. Odds are good that person is still alive.

I hope she wrote the whole story down and stashed it somewhere, or better yet, did a video affadavit.

[American Tragedy]

31. Not if it was Nixon himself who did the erasing.

[MADem]

32. We'll never know, unless she left a record somewhere

It certainly COULD have been Nixon, but for some reason I think it was Haldeman, Erlichman, Colson, or some other unnamed creep in his White House. Hell, it could have been Cheney or Rumsfeld, for all we know!

I always had the impression that Nixon wasn't too swift, technically. I just can't see him threading the offending reel-to-reel tape, finding the appropriate point, and then erasing, reversing, erasing, reversing....over and over. Whoever did it had to get that one particular tape out of the stacks, do the deed, and put it back. It could have been that Deep Throat suspect who was responsible for maintenance of the recording system, but maybe not. Whoever it was was very, very close to the throne indeed.

It might have well been Rosemary herself. One of those incidents that may be lost in the mists of time.........

[oasis]

28. She was the Condoleeza of her day.

[murielm99]

29. There's an odd thing I always remembered about her,

and with Johnny Carson dying, I can't help remembering.

At the time her erasure was in the news, Rosemary's Baby was a hit movie.

Carson referred to the Wood's story as "Rosemary's Boo-Boo."

[Magleetis]

35. So long

crook.