Video: 'Richard Nixon-Address to the Nation About the Watergate Investigations (August 15, 1973)'

(Wednesday, August 15, 1973, 9:00 p.m. EDT; during the Watergate scandal) — In a nationwide radio and television address from the Oval Office, U.S. President Richard Nixon denied anew tonight any involvement in the Watergate conspiracy, road-tested the executive privilege argument about the Watergate tapes, decried a “backward-looking obsession” with the scandal, and appealed for Americans to help him “get on with the urgent business of our nation.”

Video: 'August 15, 1973: Address to the Nation About the Watergate Investigations'

Nixon said that he had no prior knowledge of the attempt to place listening devices in Democratic Party headquarters and that he had no knowledge of an attempt to cover up the scandal until March 21, 1973.

Video: '"Watergate: The Secret Story" - 1992' (Aug. 15, 1973, at 1:12:22)

He said also that he would not turn over his tape recordings of White House conversations because to do so “would set a precedent that would cripple future Presidents by inhibiting conversations between them and those they look to for advice.”