White House Tapes . Presidential Recordings Program

The Nixon tapes constitute by far the largest collection of presidential recordings--and the most famous. Between February 16, 1971, and July 12, 1973, Nixon secretly recorded over 3,700 hours of his meetings and conversations. While there are some telephone conversations, most of the collection consists of meeting tapes recorded in several locations. Microphones were installed in seven locations ranging from the White House to Camp David. Nixon believed that recording conversations and meetings was an excellent way of ensuring historical accuracy and was the one way of ensuring that people he met with were on record. Nixon also wanted an accurate record of his presidency for use in preparing his memoirs and for general historical legacy. In 1971, the Secret Service designed and installed a voice-activated recording system that operated automatically in conjunction with the presidential locator system. Since this system was automated, many non-presidential conversations, meetings and sounds were recorded accidentally. As a result of all of these factors, the overall sound quality of the various meeting collections is relatively poor. The telephone recordings are generally of much higher sound quality. Additionally, several recordings related to the Watergate scandal are included in the collection. More detailed information is available here. A chronology of releases of Nixon tapes is available here.

Transcripts

Transcripts of some of the Nixon tapes are available here.

Download Sound Files

We now have the Nixon Tapes Finding Aids online in searchable format.

"How on Earth am I going to find the Nixon Tape I want?" by Ken Hughes. This is the recommended place to start for those unfamiliar with the archival organization of the Nixon tapes. Ken Hughes, the coordinator of the PRP's Nixon Project, has written a walk-thru for finding conversations in the Nixon tapes.

More information on the Nixon tapes is available at Nixon Library. We're grateful to the National Security Archive and the Nixon Library for their help in acquiring these recordings.

Which Audio Format?

The sound files can be downloaded in two formats: FLAC and MP3. Each has benefits for different uses.

MP3: good sound reproduction, smaller files, universally compatible. Very good for telephone or Dictabelt recordings and for general listening. If in doubt, try the MP3 versions first.

FLAC: excellent sound reproduction, larger files, growing compatibility. Recommended for meeting recordings and transcribing where the highest sound quality is required. In terms of sound quality, FLAC files are identical to WAV or AIFF files.

More detailed information is available here.