One day that month, Times photographer Mike Lien poked his head into the morning meeting and said that he’d been out drinking the night before with some Secret Service agents. “They told me something interesting: They said the president has a whole taping apparatus in the Oval Office—it’s run by the Secret Service. They tape everything that goes on there,” Lien explained. His tip was met with only silence. “Thanks a lot,” someone finally said. No one bothered to follow up the tip.
