Nixon White House Tapes - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• In an updated version of his song "Alice's Restaurant", performed shortly after Nixon's death in 1994, musician Arlo Guthrie recalls learning that Chip Carter had found a copy of the original LP in the Nixon library, and later wondering whether it was a coincidence that both the original "Alice's Restaurant" track and the infamous gap in the Nixon tapes was "exactly 18 minutes and 20 seconds long."

• Joe Strummer references the Watergate Tapes in the lyrics of the song "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A." by the Clash

• In the 2007 film National Treasure: Book of Secrets, protagonist Riley Poole mentions the missing segment of the tapes in his conspiracy theory novel.

• In the film Dick, Arlene records a love message to Nixon and sings a song for 18½ minutes, which Nixon later erases for fear of people thinking he was having an affair with a minor.

• In the "Day of the Moon" episode from the television show Doctor Who, the Doctor tells Nixon he must record all conversations in his office in case he is under the influence of the Silence, aliens that could use post-hypnotic suggestion to make him do what they wanted. At the end of the episode the Doctor informs Nixon, who now believes the human race to be safe, that there are still other aliens out there wanting to destroy Earth, indicating this is the reason the tapes began and continued, in fear of aliens influencing him.

• In "The Obsolescent Cryogenic Meltdown", an episode of the ABC Family series The Middleman, a previous Middleman is at a high-stakes card game where the only items in the pot are priceless objects; he stakes an old-fashioned tape recorder, claiming that it holds "the missing eighteen minutes".