Alexander Butterfield

Born in Pensacola, Florida, in 1926 and raised in Coronado, California, Alexander Porter Butterfield enrolled at UCLA, where he pledged the Epsilon Pi Chapter of Sigma Nu in 1946. He left before graduating to pursue a career in the United States Air Force — one that would span two decades and carry him to the highest levels of the American government.

As an Air Force officer, Butterfield flew 98 combat missions in Vietnam, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His organizational acumen brought him to the attention of H.R. Haldeman, his UCLA friend who had become Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff, and who tapped Butterfield for a senior White House staff role.

From 1969 to 1973, Butterfield served as Deputy Assistant to President Nixon, responsible for the internal operations of the White House. In this capacity, he arranged for the Secret Service to install a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office — five microphones embedded in Nixon’s desk, others tucked into fireplace lamps. The system was known to only a handful of people: Nixon, Haldeman, Butterfield, fellow Epsilon Pi brother Larry Higby (EP 665), and a few Secret Service technicians.

On July 16, 1973, Alexander Butterfield appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee. Minority counsel Fred Thompson asked a seemingly routine question about whether any listening devices existed in the Oval Office. Butterfield’s answer — four words that confirmed the existence of the Nixon tapes — set in motion the chain of events that led to President Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974.

Butterfield later described the experience as carrying a heavy responsibility. “He stood up and told the truth,” former White House counsel John Dean reflected upon Butterfield’s passing. The revelation of the taping system is widely considered one of the pivotal moments of 20th century American political history.

Following the Watergate hearings, Butterfield served as Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration from 1973 to 1975. He later built a career as a business executive in California, and remained a frank and unsparing voice on the Nixon era. He considered his former boss “not an honest man,” and upon Nixon’s resignation said he found himself cheering because “justice had prevailed.”

In 2015, author Bob Woodward published The Last of the President’s Men, drawing extensively on Butterfield as his primary source and cementing his place in the historical record. Butterfield also completed a master’s degree in history at UC San Diego in his later years, a testament to the intellectual curiosity that defined him throughout his life.

Alexander Porter Butterfield passed away on March 9, 2026, at his home in La Jolla, California. He was 99 years old. His death prompted tributes from historians, journalists, and public officials who recognized the singular role he played in American democracy.

He is remembered by Epsilon Pi not only for his historic testimony, but for the integrity that defined it. Initiating at 601 Gayley in 1946, Butterfield carried the values of Love, Honor, and Truth into the highest offices of the land — and when it mattered most, he chose truth.

Notable Nu’s is a series celebrating distinguished members of the Epsilon Pi Chapter of Sigma Nu at UCLA.
Love · Honor · Truth