Lost in the (well-deserved) shower of regret and admiration created by the death of Johnny Carson, the passing of another figure (of much lesser acclaim but, for a brief moment anyway, a key player in a major National scandal) has been pushed somewhat to the side. Rose Mary Woods was Richard Nixon's fiercely loyal (and doggedly protective) personal secretary and she will be best remembered for her footnote role in the Watergate scandal the brought down the Nixon Presidency (and remembered thusly, I would guess, much to her chagrin.)
Miss Woods (she never married) is notable for having fallen on her sword by taking responsibility for the infamous "18 1/2 minute gap" in one of the key recordings related to the coverup of the sad Watergate affair. (Some of you of a younger age probably don't know what I'm talking about but it really doesn't matter so much now...)
Though her explanation for the erasure of the tape (at what seemed to some to be an especially incriminating portion of the conversation between the President and his Chief of Staff) was always suspect, I had to admire her unflagging dedication to her boss (President Nixon was, by many accounts, a hard man to know or like, making her steely support all the more remarkable.) True believers, whether you agree with them or not, are not that easy to find in our increasingly cynical times.
Rose Mary Woods was 87 when she died this past Saturday in Ohio.
1 comment:
Some of us noticed, my friend. Of course, I think we're contemporaries, or close to it, so the name of Rose Mary Woods has more meaning to us than to the next generation.
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