This conversation occurred six days after the arrest of the burglars at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex. Here, the president and Haldeman, his closest aide and chief of staff, discuss a plan to stop the FBI's investigation into the break-in. They plan to have Vernon Walters, deputy director of the CIA, ask L. Patrick Gray, the acting director of the FBI, to "stay the hell out" of the Watergate investigation because it involved CIA national security operations. This conversation is called the "Smoking Gun" because it proved that Nixon was aware and helped plan the cover-up from almost the very beginning.

This conversation, originally subpoenaed by the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in the fall of 1973, was not turned over to the prosecutor until Aug. 2, 1974. The transcript of the tape was made public on Aug. 5 and the president resigned on Aug. 9.