Thinking About Rose Mary Woods

One of former president Richard Nixon's most loyal employees has died at age 87. Rose Mary Woods was his secretary for almost 25 years. She worked for him when he first went to Washington as a senator, and stayed through the vice-presidency, his unsuccessful runs for president in 1960 and governor of California in 1964, and his very eventful presidency. The Watergate scandal tested her loyalty, and she passed the test with flying colors. When an 18 1/2 minute gap was found on one of the Oval Office tapes, Miss Woods stepped up and took the blame for it. She claimed she'd done it accidentally while transcribing the tape: the phone had rung, and she'd hit "record" instead of "pause"... She demonstrated the position she had to be in to do this, and it looked like something in an Olympic floor exercise routine. That photo became one of the most famous images from Watergate. Along with analysis of the tape which revealed that the one gap was actually several gaps, that photo proved Rose Mary Woods was lying for her boss' sake.

Now I have no use for Richard Nixon. In my opinion he was a crook, and a dirty fighter, and a nasty piece of business. But though I don't admire him, I do admire his secretary's loyalty and integrity. She was a secretary out of the old school. I worked with a few of those when I was learning the clerical trade, back in the early 1970s. They were a dying breed even then. They were the classic stereotype secretaries of movies and TV; they wouldn't have wanted to be called "administrative assistants". They knew everything about their boss' business, and they guarded his secrets more closely even than their own. Their bosses trusted them with absolutely everything, and delegated some surprisingly personal duties to them. When Nixon made the decision to resign the presidency, he had Miss Woods tell his wife and daughters.

Rose Mary Woods never married: she was married to her job. After Nixon's resignation she retired, slipped into private life, and was never heard from again until her death. She never told who really erased the tape, or who told her to erase it. She never disclosed what was in that conversation, obviously explosive, that had to be obliterated. She could have written a book and hit the talk-show circuit. She owned one of the biggest, most important secrets of the Watergate scandal... and she took it to the grave. Now that's loyalty.