The Old Executive Office Building enters the Watergate narrative through a moment that turns on the uncertainty of privacy. In John Dean’s account, Richard Nixon went to a corner of an office there and spoke so quietly that Dean wondered whether the room might be bugged. Later disclosure of the presidential taping system made that suspicion consequential, though the account does not establish whether this particular exchange was recorded.

The Office in Dean’s Account

Dean described the encounter while discussing his April 15 meeting with Nixon. Near the end of their conversation, Nixon rose from his chair, went behind it to a corner of the Old Executive Office Building office, and spoke in a barely audible tone. He said he may have been foolish to discuss Howard Hunt’s clemency with Charles Colson. Dean’s thought that the room might be bugged places the office at the intersection of a confidential exchange and the possibility of surveillance.

From Suspicion to Disclosure

The office’s significance sharpened when Alexander Butterfield was questioned about Dean’s account. The interviewers had read an excerpt of Dean’s testimony; Butterfield was reluctant to reveal what he knew, recognizing that the President would not want the information made public. Under questioning, he disclosed that a system monitored Nixon’s conversations. Until then, knowledge of the system had been confined to Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, several other aides, and the Secret Service agents who maintained it. The information was initially off the record.

Narrative Significance

The book gives little physical description of the office beyond the chair and the corner to which Nixon moved. Instead, the location acquires meaning through the sequence of testimony and disclosure: Dean’s suspicion anticipates the revelation that presidential conversations were monitored. The scene does not prove that the exchange about Hunt was captured, but it changes how the reader understands the limits of privacy in the President’s office.