...gap:
Watergate Tape Gap Still A Mystery
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2003
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Audio experts trying to recover what was said were not allowed to do tests on the original tape, which is stored at 65 degrees in a vault at the archives in College Park, Md. They had to prove they could retrieve voices from test recordings that have been erased without damaging the test tapes, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the archives.
The first test tape, distributed to experts in February 2002, consisted of erased test tones and spoken words. Results included partial identification of test tones, but none of the spoken words were recovered.
A second test tape was sent to experts in August 2002. This tape was recorded using blank 0.5-millimeter tape confiscated from the Nixon White House. It contained speech similar in quality to speech heard before and after the gap on the tape. None of the experts recovered any intelligible audio from the second test tape.
"We were really hopeful that there would be some technology out there to recapture the sound, but we'll have to put the tape away and possibly re-examine newer advances at a later date," Cooper said.
<more>
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/27/politics/main565298.shtml....also, take the poll at this site to express how you feel about '18-minute gap' in the Watergate tape:
<link>
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa081301a.htmDo you really want to know what is recorded on the '18-minute gap' in the Watergate tape?
Yes (596) 62%
No (337) 35%
Undecided (21) 2%
Total Votes: 954