 | irishgit (148) 09/25/2008 | Nixon's long time personal secretary, Woods became a person of interest after the release of the secret White House tapes and the discovery that a 18.5 minute gap existed in one of them, the critical June 20, 1972 tape.
Woods told a grand jury that she had inadvertantly erased up to five minutes of the gap her claiming that she had done so stretching to simultaneously press controls several feet apart (what the press dubbed the "Rose Mary Stretch") Her claim was met with skepticism because it seemed the erasures were deliberate. Later investigation identified up to nine separate erasures. The missing contents of the "gaps" remain unknown.
Woods was fiercely loyal to Nixon, having worked for him from the beginnings of his career. Whether she erased the tapes herself, lied about it, or really did erase them in error, she bears at least some minor burden of guilt.
She was never charged, and died at the age of 88 a few years ago.
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