Under court order, the National Archives August 10 began cutting up the original audiotapes related to Watergate and returning portions that contain private conversations to the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. About 820 hours out of 3,700 are expected to be expunged.
Archivist of the United States John Carlin has asked the privately financed library to maintain a full "master preservation copy" of the tapes so that a complete record in context will be preserved. The archives has been fighting a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that the private conversations had to be returned.
The Associated Press reported August 7 that Nixon estate executor John Taylor, who runs the library, indicated personal outtakes from the original tape would probably be destroyed. He called the long dispute "entirely an emotional and symbolic issue."
Posted August 24, 1998.