Archives To Proceed with CSI-ish Watergate Test

[babsbunny]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/11/archives-proceed-csi-ish-watergate-test

By David Corn | Wed November 18, 2009 11:14 AM PST

In July, I was the first to report that the National Archives was considering conducting high-tech forensic tests on two pages of presidential records that could provide key clues to one of the great political mysteries in US history: what was on the 18 1/2 minutes of White House tapes suspiciously erased during the Watergate scandal? Last year, Phil Mellinger, a one-time National Security Agency systems analyst and Watergate researcher, made an intriguing discovery—that meeting notes written by H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon's chief of staff, seemed to contain a gap corresponding to the gap in the recording of the infamous June 20, 1972 conversation during which Nixon and Haldeman discussed the Watergate break-in. Mellinger asked the Archives to test other pages of Haldeman notes from this meeting to determine if indented writing could be found on these pages. The goal would be to find impressions indicating what Haldeman had written on possibly missing pages that covered the part of the conversation obliterated from the tapes. On Wednesday, the National Archives announced it was proceeding with the testing Mellinger requested.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Best of luck!

That 18½-minute gap has intrigued people like nothing else about Watergate. It must have been some horrific shit, considering the other stuff that Nixon saw fit to keep on tape. I suspect it had to do with Nixon ordering a 'hit' on someone.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. This is very cool...

Almost as cool as the tests on Lizzie Borden's axe... :bounce:

Now, if we could just put the questions about the Kennedy assassination to rest, once and for all. :-(