My father and others at that time asked themselves why Nixon did not just destroy the tapes. To this day they do not understand why he didn’t.
Throughout the century, in cases like this, presidents always got away with claiming "executive privilege". They still do. Nixon's tapes is the only example in which this was denied.
“My father and others at that time asked themselves why Nixon did not just destroy the tapes. To this day they do not understand why he didn’t.”
My opinion and my opinion only: President Richard Milhous Nixon did not destroy the tapes because he and others in his administration truly believed that the whole Watergate issue WAS, in fact, about national security.
They were, after all, trying to keep a known communist, ( namely, McGovern ) out of the White House.
I have heard others say that that can’t be the case because Nixon won the election. His administration did not know, during the Watergate time-frame, that he was going to win.