Did Richard Nixon Have a Drunken Phone Conversation With Ronald Reagan?

    A recently released tape from 1973 features Nixon slurring his words as Reagan pledges to stand behind him in the midst of the Watergate Scandal.

    On April 30, 1973, less than a year after the Watergate break-in, President Richard Nixon received a call from the then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan.

    It had been a rough day for Nixon: He had just announced that his two top White House staffers -- HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman -- had resigned along with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst,. The White House counsel, John W. Dean III, had been fired.

    As Mediaite points out, during Nixon's phone conversation with Reagan, he sounds suspiciously upbeat, slurring his words at times, and even jokingly asking him, "How, how'd you ever manage to marry such a pretty girl?"

    After Reagan pledged his support, he reassured Nixon that "This [the Watergate scandal] too shall pass."

    To which Nixon replied, "Everything passes." But of course it did not.

    Nixon resigned the presidency 16 months later, on Aug. 8, 1974.

    Listen to the phone conversation between Nixon and Reagan:

    View this video on YouTube