How did rosemary woods become a central figure in the Watergate Scandal?

Answer 1

Rose Mary Woods, President Richard Nixon's personal secretary, became a central figure in Watergate for two reasons. First, she received a copy of a list of secret contributors of illegal donors to the Committee to Re-elect the President. The original had gone to Maurice Stans, but he destroyed it when the scandal became public. Woods's copy was never destroyed and the Special Prosecutor at that time, Archibald Cox, wanted it. The list became known as "Rose Mary's baby." The second reason is that she transcribed many of the tape recordings Nixon made in the Oval Office. When Congress demanded Nikon turn over the tapes, he refused, but agreed to releases transcripts of them instead. One tape had a gap of several minutes, which was an obvious erasure. Woods claimed that she had made the erasure by mistake during the transcription process. This was doubted but never proved a lie. In order for the erasure to have occurred as she said it had, she would have had to contort her body across her desk in an almost impossible manner. Ironically, Rose Mary Woods lived at the Watergate Hotel at the time of the break-in.