 Three days following the release of the tape, Nixon resigned from his presidential office.This event focused the nation's attention on the problem of government secrecy fostering illegal and immoral behavior and it has been suggested by the political scientist Ira H. Carmen that this motivated the scientists at the Asilomar Conference to bring science into the public eye to ensure that they would not be accused of a cover-up.Additionally, according to Dr. Berg and Dr. Singer, by being forthright, scientists avoided restrictive legislation due to the development of a consensus on how they were to conduct their research.