Alexander Butterfield

Alexander Butterfield, born in 1926, White House official under President Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) and key figure in the revelation of information during the Watergate scandal. As a deputy assistant to President Nixon, Butterfield stunned the American public in 1973 when he revealed to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities that Nixon had tape-recorded virtually every meeting in his White House offices since 1971. The tapes proved to be vital in documenting that high-ranking White House officials were involved in efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal and that those officials had orchestrated a series of political 'dirty tricks' that included wiretapping, burglary, and disruption of Democratic Party activities.

Alexander Porter Butterfield was born in Pensacola, Florida. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland in 1956 and a master's degree from George Washington University in 1967. Butterfield served in the U.S. Air Force from 1949 until 1969, when he retired as a decorated officer to become the top aide to H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff.

At the White House, Butterfield was responsible for setting the president's schedule and for maintaining historical records. Among those records were about 4000 hours of secret tape recordings. Few other people, even top Nixon aides, knew of the elaborate taping system that had been installed in the president's White House offices. On July 13, 1973, Butterfield told the staff members of the special Senate committee about the tapes. The staff kept the explosive revelation quiet until Butterfield testified before the committee in a televised hearing on July 16. Butterfield's testimony meant that the United States Senate and the nation could determine who was being truthful about what the president knew and when he knew it by simply listening to key tapes. The revelation set off months of legal wrangling as Nixon attempted to assert 'executive privilege' to keep the tapes private. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument, and Nixon eventually turned over the tapes, which clearly established that he was involved in the Watergate cover-up almost from its beginning.

In 1995 Butterfield served as a technical advisor during the filming of Nixon, a motion picture directed by Oliver Stone.