Nixon administration wiretapping during its 1969–1971 news-leak investigation

The Nixon administration’s 1969–1971 news-leak investigation wiretaps were a covert surveillance program targeting government officials and journalists, conducted in the name of finding the sources of leaked information. Their exposure in 1973 showed that the probe had reached beyond officials to members of the press, and that evidence relevant to Daniel Ellsberg’s defense had not been disclosed. The investigation also raised a distinct, unresolved question: how many taps Henry Kissinger had personally authorized.

Purpose and Scope

The wiretaps were part of the administration’s effort to investigate news leaks during 1969–71. In May 1973, the new acting FBI director, William D. Ruckelshaus, announced that 17 taps had been ordered during that period. The surveillance involved 13 government officials and four reporters, although Ruckelshaus did not identify them publicly. The tally made clear that the inquiry had crossed institutional lines: it was directed not only at people inside government but also at journalists who received or reported leaked material.

One tap had a particular bearing on the Ellsberg case. Ruckelshaus said that Daniel Ellsberg had been overheard at least once on the home telephone of Morton Halperin, a former National Security Council staff member. The tap was not on the telephone of either New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan or Hedrick Smith, whose names had been raised in the leak inquiry. Halperin’s phone, however, had been tapped for 21 months. That duration turned a general claim about leak investigations into a concrete example of sustained surveillance, while the discovery that Ellsberg had been overheard connected the investigation to the prosecution then underway in Los Angeles.

Discovery and Disclosure

The existence and extent of the program emerged through a sequence of reporting and official disclosures. The government had been insisting at Ellsberg’s trial that no taps involving him existed. Judge Matthew Byrne asked it to search its records again after reporting raised the possibility that Ellsberg had been overheard. Ruckelshaus then disclosed that his aides had found one instance: Ellsberg had been overheard on Halperin’s home line. The relevant logs were missing, but the information provided to Ruckelshaus by his aides was enough to establish that a tap had occurred.

Several days later, on May 14, Ruckelshaus disclosed the broader total of 17 wiretaps ordered between 1969 and 1971. The missing logs had been located in John Ehrlichman’s safe in his White House office. Their location placed records of the leak investigation inside a senior White House official’s office, even as Ruckelshaus withheld the names of those monitored. The disclosure established the program’s breadth but did not answer who had authorized each tap or identify the four reporters and 13 government officials whose phones were targeted.

The Question of Authorization

Reporting pointed toward Henry Kissinger, but the evidence described in the account does not establish the scope of his personal role. A senior FBI official told Bob Woodward that some authorizations had reached the bureau from Kissinger, either orally or by letter. A former FBI official separately confirmed that Kissinger had given some authorizations. These accounts supported the claim that he had participated in the process, while leaving open how many taps he authorized and what form each authorization took.

When Woodward called Kissinger, Kissinger said, “I frankly don’t remember.” He allowed that he might have given the FBI the names of people who had handled leaked documents, and that the bureau might have construed such information as authorization. He also suggested that he could have passed information about document handlers to his deputy, General Alexander Haig, who might then have relayed it to the FBI. When Woodward told him that two sources said he had personally authorized taps, Kissinger responded, “Almost never.” His answers did not provide a categorical account of the authorizations; they offered possible explanations for how information he supplied might have become the basis for surveillance while contesting that he had personally authorized it in most cases.

Ellsberg Case and the Wider Pattern

The disclosure had an immediate consequence for the Ellsberg prosecution. The government had failed to disclose all its wiretap information to Ellsberg’s defense attorneys, even though Ellsberg had been overheard on Halperin’s phone. On May 11, before the public announcement of the full total of 17 taps, Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg, stating that government misconduct had “incurably infected the prosecution.” The episode demonstrated that the leak investigation was not merely a separate political controversy: undisclosed surveillance information had become relevant to the fairness of a criminal case.

On May 17, the day the Senate Watergate hearings were scheduled to begin, The Washington Post published a longer account placing the wiretaps alongside other White House operations dating back to 1969. The story also described the Secret Service forwarding information about a Democratic presidential candidate’s private life to the White House, Senator Eagleton’s health records reaching John Ehrlichman’s office before their leak to the press, and H. R. Haldeman personally ordering an FBI investigation of CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr in 1971. Those actions were not all wiretaps, but the article presented them as elements of a broader campaign of illegal and quasi-legal activity. In that frame, the 17 taps were both a specific surveillance program and one part of a wider pattern of executive efforts to investigate leaks and gather politically sensitive information.