WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who disclosed Richard Nixon's secret audio taping system, providing the "smoking gun" of the Watergate scandal that brought down the president, has died at age 99.
The death of Butterfield, whose revelation about the listening devices and recording system set off a roaring legal battle over the president's right of executive privilege, was confirmed by his wife Kim to The Washington Post and the New York Times.
Both newspapers said he died a month shy of his 100th birthday at his home in the seaside La Jolla area of San Diego, but no cause of death was cited.
Butterfield once told journalist Alicia Shepard he disliked being known as the man who exposed the existence of the tapes because it made it seem as if he had "eagerly and breathlessly" told
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