Woodward questions Thompson role in Watergate.

Former senator Fred Thompson was the Senate Watergate Committee’s chief minority counsel in 1973 and 1974, and is often credited with asking a question during the Watergate hearings “that led to the disclosure of the fact that President Nixon had installed recording devices in the Oval Office.” But in an online chat yesterday, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward disputed this history:

The veteran journalist, whose early reporting was instrumental in uncovering the scandal, said that when Thompson asked the question, he already “knew the answer — because three days before the public testimony, lawyers and investigators for the committee got Butterfield to reveal the existance of the secret tape-recording system. Though Thompson seems to get public credit for asking this critical question, it was the work of others on the committee staff who dug out Butterfield’s revelation in a lengthy interview on a hot Friday afternoon on July 13, 1973.”