This came from the release of
Richard Nixon's
White House tapes, during the
Watergate investigations. The transcripts of his
conversations would be a national best-seller in those days, but they were highly-edited for
public consumption. Nixon, who apparently swore like a sailor when he was in hardball-
politician mode, had many of his
bons mots expunged, with "(expletive deleted)" put in their place. It would become a national
catchphrase.
Another, less catchy, word was "(unintelligible)" - used, it was said, because Dick or Bob or John weren't speaking close enough to the microphone, but it may have been because some really offensive stuff was being said, as some of the tapes released in recent years have been uglier at times than the tapes released in the early 70s.