Alexander P. Butterfield (M.S. ’67) was a career officer in the United States Air Force when he was called by H. R. Haldeman on January 1, 1969. At the time, Colonel Butterfield was serving as the senior military official in Australia and had been in the Air Force since 1948. Having studied at the National War College and GW’s School of Public and International Affairs, he had no expectation of leaving the military and enjoyed foreign affairs.

Haldeman, who he had known casually when he was a student at UCLA, called representing the Nixon presidential transition team and expressed the administration’s interest in appointing Butterfield to a position within the White House. With ten days to decide whether to continue his career in Australia or move to Washington, he hopped on a plane, retired from the military and was sworn in as Deputy Assistant to the President on January 20, 1969.

When first approached by the Nixon administration, Butterfield thought that he was being considered for the position of military assistant to the national security advisor, a position that General Alexander Hague would eventually fill. He instead served in a capacity equivalent to a deputy chief of staff, where he worked closely with the president and supervised the administrative aspects of the White House for four-and half-years with Haldeman as the chief of staff.

After Nixon won reelection in 1972, Butterfield became the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was pleased to take on the FAA assignment, which would utilize both his administrative and military expertise.

On July 13, 1973, he was questioned by the staff of the Senate special committee investigating the Watergate cover-up. It was only after being asked directly that he revealed that there was a taping system within the White House that recorded everything that was said when the President was in the room.

“It never occurred to me to lie,” said Butterfield. “It occurred to me to not answer, but not to lie.”

One of only eight people that knew about the tapes, Butterfield was well aware of the importance that his secret held.

“There was not a sinister purpose. The taping system was for the obvious historical purpose and to help Nixon write his memoirs, but it was ultimately embarrassing for the president and those that met with him,” he said.

Three days after his initial testimony, he was called before the full Senate committee’s televised hearing and revealed for the official record that the taping system existed, which proved that the root of the Watergate cover-up could be solved by simply listening to key tapes. This set off the legal wrangling over whether Nixon could assert executive privilege over the tapes, and ultimately led to his resignation on August 8, 1974.

“The pity of Watergate is that Nixon had the best credentials of anyone who had run for president in some time. But he had so many hang ups and internal conflicts,” Butterfield said. “The whole Watergate experience could happen again easily, and we can’t stop that, but the chances are slim because it is unlikely that we will elect someone with a Nixon-type personality again.”

In 1975, Butterfield left the FAA in search of his first job outside of the government.

“I was an enigma,” he said. “Hardcore Republicans thought I was a horse’s ass and Democrats thought I was part of a bigger ploy.”

After a year long speaking tour on ethics in government, he moved back to his native California, worked for an aviation company and became the president of a financial holding company. He eventually started an international consulting company, Armstead and Alexander, where he worked for 11 years before retiring.

Now, nearly 80 years old, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in American history from the University of California-San Diego. When he finishes his dissertation on presidential pardons, he hopes to publish it as a book and to revise and publish his memoirs.