Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 898 › Conversation 898-020
Nixon with unidentified visitors in the Oval Office on Watergate
Tuesday, April 17, 1973 · 2:40 PM–2:46 PM ET · Oval Office · 11 sec
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen to discuss ongoing developments regarding the Watergate investigation. The brief interaction served as a logistical coordination point for the high-level legal discussions taking place during this period of the scandal. No substantive policy or legal decisions are preserved in the available audio for this specific meeting fragment.
- Watergate
- Henry Petersen
- Legal Investigation
- White House Meetings
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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NARA Description
On April 17, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:40 pm and 2:46 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 898-020 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 898-20
Date: April 17, 1973
Time: Unknown between 2:40 pm and 2:46 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with an unknown man.
[A transcript of the following portion of this conversation was also prepared Richard Nixon’s
Special White House Counsel for Watergate Matters and submitted to the Committee on the
Judiciary of the House of Representatives. This transcript can be found in Submission of
Recorded Presidential Conversations (SRPC), page 1060 (1). Please refer to the logging below.]
President’s schedule
-Meeting with Henry E. Petersen
The unknown man left at an unknown time before 2:46 pm.Also recorded on April 17, 1973
- 898-013 2:20 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
- 898-014 2:20 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
- 898-015 2:20 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
- 898-016 2:20 PM · 23 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
- 038-085 2:30 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:30 pm and 2:39 pm.
- 038-086 2:39 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone from 2:39 pm to 2:40 pm.
- 898-019 2:39 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:39 pm to 2:40 pm.
- 898-021 2:46 PM · 1 hr 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry E. Petersen, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:46 pm to 3:49 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 898-020, April 17, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/898-020 (accessed October 12, 2026).