Video: 'Documentary Nixon by Nixon In His Own Words'

(Tuesday, February 16, 1971, unknown time between 7:56 a.m. and 8:58 a.m. EST) — The first recording by a taping system secretly installed by the United States Secret Service, at the request of U.S. President Richard Nixon, was made today at the White House.

The first conversation, made sometime after 7:56 in the morning, was between Nixon and White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield and is saved as “Conversation 450-001” by the Nixon library.

The sound-activated taping system had been installed in the Oval Office, including in Nixon’s Oval Office desk, using Sony TC-800B open-reel tape recorders to capture audio transmitted by telephone taps and concealed microphones.

The first devices were also installed the Cabinet Room. Over the course of the next 16 months, the system was expanded to include other rooms within the White House and Camp David.

The system was turned off on July 18, 1973, two days after it became public knowledge as a result of the Senate Watergate Committee hearings.