An Uher audio tape recorder in the Oval Office (TV: The Impossible Astronaut [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 6 (BBC One, 2011).)
The Nixon tapes were a series of audio recordings of President of the United States Richard Nixon's conversations.
History[]
During the presidency of Richard Nixon, much of his conversations were recorded with his knowledge. These included phone calls (TV: The Impossible Astronaut [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 6 (BBC One, 2011).) and in-person conversations in the Oval Office. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Justin Richards, BBC Books (2014).)
When the US Senate Watergate Committee investigated the Watergate scandal, much of these tapes were transcribed and made available to the Senate committee. Included in these transcriptions were a phone conversation between Nixon and an "unknown child" and a recording of the Eleventh Doctor's arrival in the Oval Office. Nixon refused to identify the Doctor, citing international security reasons, and the transcription only identified him as "male voice". (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Justin Richards, BBC Books (2014)., TV: The Impossible Astronaut [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 6 (BBC One, 2011).)
To avoid the influence of the Silence, (TV: Day of the Moon [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 6 (BBC One, 2011).) the Doctor advised Nixon to "tape everything and trust no one". Eventually, these tapes implicated Nixon in the Watergate scandal, as evidence emerged of his attempts to cover up his own involvement in the burglary at the centre of the scandal. Nixon resigned as a result in 1974. (PROSE: Tricky Dicky [+]David Llewellyn, The Brilliant Book 2012 fiction (BBC Books, 2011).)
Some of the Nixon tapes remained classified in order for future Presidents to know of the Doctor. The President of Earth, Vera Fusek, made the connection between the Doctor and the Nixon tapes when she encountered the Eleventh Doctor herself. (COMIC: Air Force Gone [+]Christopher Cooper, DWA comic stories (BBC Magazines, 2011).)
Behind the scenes[]
In the real world, the "Nixon tapes" were a real series of audio recordings that were significant to the Watergate scandal. However, unlike what Tricky Dicky [+]David Llewellyn, The Brilliant Book 2012 fiction (BBC Books, 2011). implies, the taping system in the White House did not begin with Nixon. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, much of the White House conversations were taped, with the first practical taping system being installed by John F. Kennedy.[1] Nixon initially had this system removed, but later reinstalled it two years later in 1971.[2] At the time The Impossible Astronaut [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 6 (BBC One, 2011). takes place, the taping system had been removed.
The Doctor's urging of Nixon to record everything in the Oval Office to track the influence of the Silence is a reference to real world gaps in the Oval Office tapes, the most infamous of which is an eighteen and a half minute gap made in a tape recorded days after the Watergate break-in.[3]
