WASHINGTON — Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon's loyal secretary who took initial responsibility for erasing part of a key White House audiotape during the Watergate investigation, has died. She was 87.
Woods died Saturday night at a nursing home in Alliance, Ohio, about 60 miles south of Cleveland. The cause of death was not reported.
A photo of Woods showing how the erasure could have occurred -- stretching backward to answer the phone with her left hand while inadvertently hitting the "record" button and keeping her right foot on the tape recorder's pedal -- became a searing image of the scandal.
Woods worked for Nixon for nearly 25 years, joining his staff after the young Republican was elected to the Senate from California in 1950. She remained with him during his years as Dwight Eisenhower's vice president and through his unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign, followed him to private law practice in New York, then returned with him to Washington when he won the White House in 1968. Ironically, at the time of the scandal, she lived in the Watergate complex, not far from the Democratic National Committee offices that GOP operatives had hoped to bug.
After Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974, Woods remained in Washington for several years and eventually returned to her native Ohio. During her service to Nixon, as personal secretary and in a much broader way as one of his closest gatekeepers, Woods was always held dear by the president.
Indeed, Nixon asked Woods to tell his wife and two daughters that he had decided to resign, and she stood with them Aug. 9, 1974, as he boarded a helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House and became the first chief executive in U.S. history to step down.
"Rose," Nixon said once, "is as close to us as family."
Nixon's daughters, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Tricia Nixon Cox, said Sunday in a statement that Woods "was a cherished friend to us and to all who knew her."
"None of us," they said, "will forget how she served her country with unswerving loyalty and dedication throughout her entire career."
Woods will forever be remembered by the American public for the demonstration photo taken at the height of the Watergate scandal of her reaching for the phone with her foot still on the recorder pedal. She said she was startled by the ringing telephone and "inadvertently" hit the record button, erasing some of the tape in what famously became known as the "18 1/2 -minute gap."
