Rose Mary Woods

The epitome of tact and discretion, Rose Mary Woods passed away today from unstated causes. She was 87.

For those of you too young to remember, Ms Woods was the secretary to President Richard M. Nixon. She was the one who was accused of erasing 18 1/2 minutes of tape while transcribing it. This bit of tape would have been crucial to prove what President Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in three days previously and when he knew it.

She freely admitted that she had accidently erased about five minutes of tape, but not all of it. The diagram of how she had to be positioned to do this still sticks in my mind.

She started working for Nixon when he was a Congressman. Up to the day she died she never made any statement about her knowledge of the Nixon family or the Watergate break-in and cover-up, even though it would have made her a very rich woman.

She was principled. She was discreet. She seems to have been about the last of a dying breed.