Word: taping
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Sirica has asked a panel of experts to examine the tapes. Selected by both the White House and the prosecutors, the panel includes some of the nation's most sophisticated sound and recording experts.* Last week the controversial June 20 tape reel was carried to New York City in a steel box to prevent any possible interference by magnetic fields. Six fully armed U.S. marshals escorted it on a train. It will be examined at the laboratories of the Federal Scientific Corp. in West Harlem. Also transported were the Uher tape recorder and Miss Woods' Tensor lamp and electric typewriter...
Some other experts consulted by TIME are confident that the skills of scientists in detecting tape alterations run well ahead of the talents of all but the most ingenious tamperers. Particularly through the use of spectral analysis techniques, in which various sound frequencies on a tape can be separated and studied, these experts believe that any heavy handed deception can be exposed...
...group of scientists at the University of Arkansas reports in a paper that "any alteration of the White House tapes could be detected in a timely fashion." The ear can be fooled and so can the oscilloscope (a device that can depict sound waves as electronically-generated graphs). But the spectral analysis may well determine whether a given recorder produced a specific recording, whether a tape has been cut or edited, whether it is an original or a copy. Any change in microphones or acoustical conditions would be suspect. Since a recorder gradually heats up as it plays, any sudden...
...happened. "They'll nail her right down," he predicts. Other experts are not so certain. Kenneth Stevens, a professor at M.I.T., agrees that "an amateurish" tampering job could be readily detected, but he is not sure that the panel will be able to say with certainty whether a specific tape has been altered...
There is a remote possibility that the Haldeman conversation might even be retrieved through computer-aided "signal enhancement" techniques. The erase mechanism on portable recorders is relatively weak, and a magnetic imprint of the original recording could remain on the Haldeman tape and might be amplified to intelligibility. But Buzhardt said that he had asked a National Security Administration expert about this and was told that such a recovery was "very remote." It clearly would be if the tape had been deliberately passed through a strong magnetic field to ensure total erasure...