The 18½ Minutes That Helped END a Presidency

The only US president ever to resign left behind a mystery no one has solved: eighteen and a half minutes of silence.

Richard Nixon secretly taped his own White House conversations. When the Watergate scandal exploded, federal investigators demanded he hand the tapes over.

One recording, made days after the break-in, held a crucial conversation. But when it was handed over, investigators found a gap. Eighteen and a half minutes had been erased, replaced by a low electronic hum.

Nixon's secretary said she may have erased part by accident. Experts said that was nearly impossible, and that the gap took several deliberate erasures. To this day, no one has proven what was on it, or who deleted it.

Facing certain impeachment over Watergate, Nixon resigned in 1974. But that erased silence is still the most famous gap in American history.

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