Oregon Journal front page: 'Where's D.B. Cooper?' reward and serial list launch
Document date 27 November 1973
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Id: Cooper-Part-53:238-238
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-53:238-238 Document: Oregon Journal front page: 'Where's D.B. Cooper?' reward and serial list launch Id: Cooper-Part-53:238-238 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-53%3A238-238 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
A person reads every report. Corrections are made by hand, to the data — titles, dates, names, which pages belong together — never to the scans, and they can take a while to appear.
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 53 p. 238 (DB Cooper-22576), News clipping, dated 27 Nov 1973 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-53%3A238-238
Secretary's Tape Story Challenged
LOS ANGELES (UPI) — Experts familiar with the recorder involved say Rose Mary Woods' version of how a key White House tape was erased describes an accident that is either technically impossible or highly unlikely.
One of Nixon's Watergate tapes—marred with whistles, hums and garbled noises, — was played for the first time in public Tuesday in the court of Federal Judge John J. Sirica.
The tape contained conversations Nixon had with his former key aides, John D. Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, on June 20, 1972. The judge ordered it played to try to determine if the re- cording had been altered in any way.
Sirica granted prosecution's request that Miss Woods' typewriter and lamp be brought to court for safekeeping. He balked at a suggestion from her attorney that all her office furniture be brought in.
Several representatives of the communications industry challenged Miss Woods' account of how the tape was erased.
The Los Angeles Times questioned technicians and executives in the audio industry, who deal with the Uher 5000.
Miss Woods, President Nixon's secretary, told a federal judge that she had accidentally punched the "record" key instead of the "stop" key while transcribing from the tape, but kept her foot down on a pedal control that allows secretaries to control the tape by foot movements while typing. That forced the tape through with the recording head activated, she said, erasing the recording of the first meeting between President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman after the Watergate break-in.
A mysterious 18-minute "hum" apparently is all that remains of the conversation Nixon had with Haldeman on June 20, 1972.
The President's fourmouth court battle to keep the recordings secret ended [guess: Monday] afternoon when his lawyers carried 10 of them to Judge Sirica's chambers for safekeeping while the judge decides, among other things, if any, should go to the Watergate grand jury to examine for "possible criminal conduct" among the White House high command.
"I don't believe that can be done," said George Munyan, service manager for Magnetic TVI Corp., a firm selling the German-made Uher, after hearing Miss Woods' explanation.
Carl Bonnett, service manager for Martell Electronics of Los Angeles, the chief U.S. importer of Uher machines, said the mistake described by Miss Woods was theoretically possible, but the chances she would make such a mistake "are very, very low because of the way it (the recorder) is designed." He said there "is no reason at all" for any competent secretary to make such an error.
Frank Larkin of Audio Video Craft, Inc., who has sold Uher recorders for many years, said "It's not something a person could do accidentally. They make it very difficult to put the machine in the erase position just so people won't accidentally erase their recordings."
Bonnett noted that the erased portion was described as containing a humming sound that puzzled him, he said, because if the tape had been erased by the Uher's own recording head "there shouldn't be anything but a slight hissing noise."
The technicians said the humming noise might have resulted if a microphone had been plugged into the recording circuit at the time Miss Woods says it was accidentally switched on, but then the mike should have picked up external sounds, such as a telephone call.
William Lindsay, a salesman for Magnetic TVI, said he doubted that the accident described by Miss Woods could have happened that way because features designed into the machine, precisely to prevent such accidents, would have stopped her.
(Related story on Page 7, Northwest Living Section)
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Where's D.B. Cooper? Journal Reward Aids Search
Have You Seen Him?
HERE ARE artist's composite sketches of parachuting hijacker Dan Cooper who disappeared with $200,000 from a Northwest Orient Airlines jet Nov. 22, 1971, after he flew at his orders between Seattle and Reno.
The FBI is still looking for him and money. The Journal is offering $1,000 for first $20 of that money to be turned in, if money matches serial numbers of any of 10,000 bills that were ransomed with Cooper. Some of [guess: serial] numbers are to be found on page 2.
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Tuesday, November 27, 1973
OREGON Journal Portland, Oregon
Final Sports/Stocks
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FUEL SHORTAGE BLAMED [guess: UAL] To Lay Off [cut off]
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DB Cooper-22576