“How on Earth am I going to find the Nixon Tape I want?”

by Ken Hughes

How am I going to find the Nixon tape I want?

Easy. The Presidential Recordings Program has created an online search engine based on NARA’s finding aids. You kids don’t know how good you have it.

Your prodigious research has provided you with certain key words, names, dates, etc. that you type into the search engine. The results of your search will link to Nixon Library/National Archives-produced logs for each Nixon tape. The logs include dates and times of each conversation, names of participants, and the location of the conversation. Most useful is the list of topics that came up in the conversation. The lists are comprehensive, but not exhaustive. In other words, not every topic is listed, but almost. If you know that something was discussed during a certain meeting, but the key words you’re looking for do not appear in the log, listen to the conversation anyway.

Once you have located the conversation(s) you are looking for, you need the conversation numbers. In the far left column at the top of each conversation under “Conv.” you will see two numbers separated by a dash. Before the dash is the number of the tape; after the dash is the number of the conversation.

This is easy?

Easy is a relative term. Go back to the Nixon tapes page and look under :: FLAC :: for a list of all of the digital audio files that we currently have. They are all sorted by tape number, and some of them are sorted by conversation number as well.

Here’s the format of the file names: rmn_eTTT_CC. (“T” stands for tape number and “C” stands for conversation number. The number of the tape is always three digits, so tape 2 is designated 002. The number of the conversation is either two or three digits.)

This is not easy at all.

It’s easier than it used to be.

Some easy examples:
1. Suppose you are doing research on Nixon’s “decent interval” exit strategy from Vietnam. You have read that an important conversation took place on August 3, 1972. If you put “August 3, 1972 decent interval Vietnam” in the search engine, you get nothing. However, if you type “August 3, 1972 Nixon Kissinger 1972 election Vietnam collapse,” you get conversation 760–6.

You go to the Nixon tapes page and look under :: FLAC :: for rmn_e760_06. You find it easily.

2. Now suppose you wanted to listen to Nixon’s first discussion with Kissinger on February 18, 1971. In the search engine, you type: “‘February 18, 1971’ Nixon Kissinger” and get the log for Oval Office tape 451. You see that the first conversation between Nixon and Kissinger that day was 451–4.

Next, you go to the Nixon tapes page and look under :: FLAC :: for rmn_e451_04, but instead you just find three files: rmn_e451a, rmn_e451b and rmn_e451c. It is my sad duty to inform you that all the digital audio files from February 1971 to June 1972 are sorted by tape number alone, not by conversation number. This means you have to hunt for the conversation on the file.

I have grown hardened by adversity. But why are there three files for one tape?

The maximum size of a Nixon tapes was six hours, but the maximum size of a digital audio file is two hours, so a single Nixon tape can take up to three audio files.

Which ones are sorted by tape and conversation number?

The ones from July-October 1972.

How long does it take to “hunt” for the conversation you want if all you have is the tape number?

The best way to cut down on hunting time is to use the finding aids provided by the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff. There is an individual finding aid for each tape number. You can use these finding aids to gauge how far into the tape the individual conversation you want is.

You didn’t quite answer the question.

Once you get the hang of it, hunting doesn’t take that long.

Where’s that search engine, again?

Here.

And the sound files?

Here.