3 of the “burglers” were Cuban Nationalists” who fought at the Bay of Pigs and they knew of secret and current CIA operations under consideration. Nixon was worried theyd spill what they knew if they were prosecuted. Remember, at that time, Cuba was still a very hott spot in the battle with the Soviets and expansion.
btw, ALL Presidents recorded secretly. They also ALL talked very frank about certain things that were meant to stay private. Nixon used racial slurs and attacked the gays. JUST LIKE LBJ did. Heck, JFK secretly taped his own brother RFK. But again, the media started a narrative that this was ALL illegal and sinister. Just like the FBI and media created with this Trump/ Russia Collusion nonsense. Exact same playbook.
From a “Politico” article, referring to Haldeman’s book “The Ends of Power”:
Haldeman suggested that Nixon used the phrase, “the whole Bay of Pigs thing,” as a coded reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. It was, he wrote, “the president’s way of reminding Helms, not so gently, of the cover-up of the CIA assassination attempts on the hero of the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro, a CIA operation that may have triggered the Kennedy tragedy and which Helms desperately wanted to hide.”