The
Tapes
The Nixon White House Tapes consist of some 3,700
hours of recorded conversations between the President
and his staff and visitors in various locations,
including the President's Oval Office in the White
House, his hideaway office in the Executive Office
Building (EOB), the Cabinet Room and Camp David,
as well as taped telephone conversations made from
telephones in the White House. The recordings were
produced surreptitiously, without the knowledge
of most of the participants. There are currently
about 1,779 hours of Nixon White House tape conversations
available to the public.
It was Richard M. Nixon's predecessor in the White
House, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who first suggested
to Nixon that he install a secret taping system.
Johnson himself had used recording equipment to
tape his telephone conversations (now preserved
in the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas); the idea,
he told Nixon, would be to create a historical record
that would supplement whatever written diary Nixon
used.
In February 1971, the Secret Service, at the request
of the President, installed listening devices in
the White House. They placed seven microphones in
the Oval Office: five in the President's desk, and
one on each side of the fireplace. They placed two
microphones in the Cabinet Room under the table
near the President's chair. The Secret Service technicians
wired all the devices to central mixers that were
then connected to recorders in an old locker room
in the White House basement.
In April 1971, Secret Service technicians installed
four microphones in the President's office in the
EOB. These microphones were located in the President's
desk; wires led to a mixer and recorders in an adjoining
room. The Secret Service also tapped the telephones
in the Oval Office, the President's EOB office,
and the Lincoln Sitting Room. These telephone conversations
were recorded by tapping the telephone lines from
the White House switchboard and relaying the conversations
to recorders in a closet in the basement of the
residence. Finally, in May 1972, the Secret Service
set up a taping system in the President's study
in Aspen Lodge at Camp David.
The entire taping system was secret, and was maintained
by the Secret Service. Only President Nixon, H.R.
Haldeman, and a few of the President's close personal
assistants knew the system existed. One of its key
features was that the recording equipment in the
Oval Office, the EOB office, at Camp David, and
on the telephones was sound activated, operating
automatically without a conscious decision by the
President to tape specific conversations. Most participants
were unaware that their conversations were being
recorded. The system was tied to the Presidential
Locator System and would only activate if the President
was present in the room. It was designed to continue
recording for fifteen to thirty seconds after the
President left the room.
Processing
the Nixon Tapes
Unlike previous Presidents, who donated their Presidential
papers and other historical materials to the National
Archives after leaving office, President Nixon fought
throughout his lifetime to maintain control of the
White House tapes and prevent their release to the
public. In 1973 and 1974, the Watergate Special
Prosecution Force (WSPF) subpoenaed 60 hours of
Watergate tape excerpts (covering the resignation
of John Dean, the "cancer on the Presidency",
the "smoking gun" and other conversations).
The WSPF prepared transcripts for those tapes segments.
In May 1980, the Nixon Staff released 12 ½
hours of tapes that were introduced as evidence
in the Watergate Trials. In June 1991, the Nixon
Staff opened to the public about sixty hours of
conversation segments subpoenaed by the WSPF for
use in its investigations: 47 ½ hours that
the Special Prosecutor did not use as evidence in
open court, as well as the 12 ½ hours of
previously released Watergate Trial tapes. In May
1993, three hours of "Abuse of Governmental
Power" tape segments from May and June 1972
were released.
In July 1993, former President Nixon obtained a
court order forbidding the release of any of the
recordings until the National Archives had finished
reviewing all of them and returned private or personal
materials. But a lawsuit by historian Stanley Kutler
and the advocacy group Public Citizen helped accelerate
the review process and on April 12, 1996 the Archivist
of the United States, the Nixon Estate, and Public
Citizen reached an agreement to facilitate the review
and release of the remaining Nixon White House tapes
in a systematic manner.
The first tapes release after the 1996 Tapes Settlement
Agreement occurred in October 1997, when approximately
154 hours of Cabinet Room conversations were opened.
The first chronological release of the Nixon White
House tapes followed in October 1999, with approximately
442 hours of recordings covering February to July,
1971. There have been two other chronological releases
since then. The second chronological release in
October 2000 included 420 hours of tape conversations
from August through December 1971. The third chronological
release in February 2002 included 425 hours of tape
conversations from January through June 1972. A
fourth release of tapes is expected some time in
the fall of 2003, which will include conversations
from July 1972 through October 1972.
The
Mexico Project
Using the extremely helpful guides to the recordings
produced by the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff,
the National Security Archive's Mexico Project searched
all tapes opened to date and found 127 conversations
that mentioned Mexico, 39 that mentioned
Luis Echeverría Alvarez and 3
that mentioned Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.
We listened to all 169 of them. Out of those conversations,
many were repetitious or contained insignificant
references to Mexico. We transcribed 45 of them
- the most interesting transcripts (32) as well
as 8 of the original taped conversations may be
found here.
