With his external political enemies, the Chinese, President Richard Nixon saw an opportunity for peace. With his internal enemies, like Daniel Ellburg, publisher of the secret Pentagon Papers, he was ruthless. Nixon operatives broke into Ellsburg’s psychiatrist’s office to find possibly discrediting information about him. In much the same fashion, five burglars linked to President Richard Nixon’s administration were arrested in the Democratic National Committee offices. When investigators discovered conversations were taped in the White House regarding the scandal, they ordered Nixon to hand over the tapes. Nixon refused, citing executive privilege.

On this day, July 24, in 1974 the Supreme Court threw out Nixon’s executive privilege defense, saying the ongoing criminal investigation that required them took precedence. Nixon did hand over the tapes — with 18 ½ minutes found inexplicably missing, taped over with nothing but silence.

Nixon’s secretary, Mary Rose Woods took responsibility for the erasure — claiming she accidentally taped over them by pressing the wrong button answering a phone. When asked to demonstrate, Mary took a seat at her station and awkwardly reached for the phone while keeping a foot on the machine’s pedal — in all, a very dubious act that some dubbed the “Mary Rose Stretch.” Some suggested Nixon himself erased the tapes — whether purposefully, or accidentally (the president was notoriously bad with technology) no one could say for certain.