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The secret audio recording system maintained in the White House during Richard Nixon’s presidency provided critical evidence that shaped the outcome of the Watergate investigation. Its disclosure in July 1973 transformed the ongoing inquiry, creating a definitive constitutional confrontation over access to presidential records. The tapes became the objective record at the center of a legal struggle that reached the Supreme Court and ultimately documented the president’s involvement in obstructing justice. This analysis examines the system’s operation, the constitutional conflict it generated, the evidentiary significance of its content, and the institutional consequences, assessing how a mechanism for preserving administrative history…