The National Archives and its Nixon Presidential Library released a transcript of the testimony Thursday, a rare look inside grand jury proceedings. The 18 1/2 missing minutes of a conversation between Nixon and his chief of staff were considered crucial in determining the president's role in covering up the Watergate scandal that drove him from office.
– The public finally got to hear Richard Nixon’s long-sealed grand jury testimony regarding Watergate today—and what they heard didn’t amount to much. Asked to explain the infamous 18½ missing minutes of tape, Nixon said it was probably just erased by accident. “I practically blew my stack” when I found out how much had been lost, he said. The AP concludes that he “was no help to investigators” in reconstructing the missing conversation. Nixon gave the testimony 10 months after leaving office. Typically such testimony is kept sealed, but historian Stanley Kutler sued to have it released, arguing that it was too historically significant to keep sealed away, the New York Daily News explains.