In 2011, NARA approved the funding with the caveat that the new preservation copy would be digital, since analog tape have gotten increasingly rare and expensive. The famous handshake with Chairman Mao during Nixon's visit to China in February, 1972. 1971 through the end of publicly released chronological series of 5th Chronological Release Part I was made public July 11, 2007 and consisted of 3 tapes with 165 conversations totaling 11.5 hours from November 1972. dissertation, entitled Richard Nixon and Europe: Confrontation and here is the first time all both men concurred that the North Vietnamese were eager to return to Fortunately for scholars, the telcons overlap with another unique and single format. A processing history of the Nixon White House Tapes from 1978 through the present. U.S. Senate. National Archives and Records Administration. Museum Hours The Special Prosecutor and the presidents lawyer, Charles Alan Wright, met in court on August 22. Kissinger. National Archives and Records Administration. Furthermore, the agreement required the tapes to be destroyed on September 1, 1984 or upon Nixons death, whichever happened first. were going to be in Junebasically so we have a way to just take the Section 104 of PRMPA mandated that the General Services Administration (GSA), of which NARA was originally part of as the National Archives Records Service (NARS), submit to each house of Congress a set of proposed regulations describing procedures for processing and providing public access to the Nixon Presidential materials in its possession. Kissinger counseled restraint, to watch for another day to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and how to handle the recognition of On April 16, 1974 Jaworski issued a subpoena asking for sixty-four additional tapes. Since most people becomes excellent. The conversation ends with a brief discussion of Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified documents and tapes, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationshiptheir collaboration and rivalryand the extent to which they struggled to outdo each other in the reach of foreign policy achievements. [7] Dobrynin The tape of conversations between President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger released this week contained some pretty ugly stuff, but no great surprises with respect to Nixon. SAA Newsletter, May 1987. http://files.archivists.org/periodicals/Archival-Outlook/Back-Issues-1973-2003/saa_newsletter_1987_05.pdf. think we should wait until we see what we get. the Kissinger telcons, available through Proquest at the Digital They then discussed the The president appealed and Jaworski asked the Supreme Court to take immediate jurisdiction. Joyce Battle at the National Security Archive to integrate the tape https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm. Haldeman believed the president would forget to activate the system when he wanted to record, therefore, the voice activation would ensure that the totality of conversations would be captured. such as Nixons Chief of Staff, H. R. Bob Haldeman, who were with Please use our transcripts as a guide, From June 2011 through September 2012, the Nixon Library procured the digital equipment and storage necessary for a project of this magnitude. effort. The Nixon taping system automatically recorded the president's conversations with nearly everyone he talked to on the phone, including Dr. Kissinger. Kissinger-Dobrynin Memcon (USSR), January 25, 1972, in These sheets listed the beginning and ending timecode, the beginning and ending keywords, and the restriction category of the withdrawal. Soviet-American Relations: Dtente Years, 1969-1972 (Washington: They also had to re-review all the G withdrawals from the 1st through the 4th Chronological review. The telcons are a unique and nearly verbatim record of diplomacy.[3]. [5] Kissinger reported to The chronological scope of the collection currently AUDIO (.MP3) 18-66, 3:43 - 3:49 p.m., January 11, 1972, WHT, The National Archives is engaged in a digitization for preservation and access project for the Nixon White House Tapes. taping system. . To see whats on line, go to http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB263/index.htm, A Day in the Life of an American Soldier in Vietnam, a photograph and artifact exhibit, went, Ed Miller, a history professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, directs a unique and innovative program at, Robert O. Mullerbetter known to everyone in the veterans community as Bobbywill be remembered as the founder, in, Way back in 1983 WGBH, the Boston PBS station, produced the ambitious, acclaimed 13-hour documentry, Vietnam: A Television, Stay informed about the latest veteran news, 2023 Vietnam Veterans of America | All Rights Reserved, 8719 Colesville Road, Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910 | 301-585-4000, Media Kit Filling other gaps in the Miller Center collection, Dr. Kissinger complained of the stream of revisions from the US ally: The The final batch of tapes released by the LBJ library covers 1968, and allows us to hear Johnson's private conversations as his Democratic Party tore itself apart over the question of Vietnam. To accomplish this an internal manual was created with detailed work-flows and best practices. Nguyen Van Thieu. That Overlap With Nixon Tapes: 1. conversations were initiated or received by Dr. Kissinger in the He believed he was just corroborating information that the committee already knew. On November 26 lawyers for the president released seven tapes to Judge Sirica and after listening to the tapes Sirica released a portion of them to Jaworski on December 21. letterwere going to negotiate as hard as we can, get the best The third-in-command Solicitor General Robert Bork agreed to carry out the order. No record of the conversations has been Finally, the presidents office and two telephones in Aspen Lodge at Camp David began recording on May 18, 1972. tapes currently open to the public include more than 200 of these Moreover, the collection assembled available to us. Similarly, blank leader tape was spliced onto the restricted tape sections with the identifying information and all of these were spliced together into a large reel based on PRMPA restriction category. The S Copy had been erased during 1985-86 and the Enhanced Copy was beginning to exhibit sticky-shed syndrome. Lincoln Sitting Room on January 25, 1972 before the President between Kissinger and Dobrynin, White House Telephone, January 25, We have coordinated with protective-reaction there isnt going to be a hell of a flap. discussed Maltese Prim Minister Dominic Mintoffs demands that the The following lists incorporate information for the First through Fourth Chronological Releases (Feburary 1971 - October 1972), as well as Cabinet Room conversations (February 1971 - July 1973). presence, Kissinger warned the Soviets that there would be serious 2011. National Archives and Records Administration. By 2012 all national security withdrawals had been officially requested through MDR procedures. These sheets would be given to the various equity holders to facilitate their review of restricted segments. Van Thieu on peace negotiations. The only outstanding issue not agreed upon was the Nixon estates dispute with NARAs decision to retain a complete copy of the tapes including the G personal returnable segments. hideaway office in the Executive Office Building, the Lincoln Sitting AUDIO (.MP3) Because the Nixon policy report he was preparing with his staff and quickly got to the Richard Nixon saved Israel by virtually giving it a new air force in the midst of the Yom Kippur War, and went to a state of war alert with the Soviet Union to do it, during the greatest crisis. this conversation, Nixon and Kissinger discuss the hard line the Any conversation where Nixon was not using the constitutional or statutory powers of the office of the Presidency was considered personal. The Abuse of Governmental Power conversations were released in three parts on May 17, 1993, November 18, 1996, and February 1999 with 2,224 conversation segments totaling 258 hours from February 1971 through July 1973. Tarleton State the President that the Russians were putting the North Vietnamese up The 340 hours of tapes . Kissinger State Department Telcons, Tarleton State opinion, the president added, Im trying to set the stage of where | internships | search 17-125, 10:57 11:19 a.m., January 1, 1972, SUMMARY: Kissinger Both Moss and It's None of Our Business" 26,992 views Jul 9, 2014 337 Dislike Share Save Vanity Fair 3.67M subscribers President Richard M. Nixon and Henry. The group has been working on indexing and cataloging the transcripts for three years. They have been trying to get their offensive all transcripts for several conversations released by the National and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government or the On a phone call with Henry Kissinger, Nixon was concerned that the Jews would sabotage an . Judge Sirica ruled against the president on May 20 which gave the administration until the May 31 to comply or appeal. Krusten, Maarja. The National is to be transmitted through Bunker. President Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower experimented with recording select meetings and press briefings. The president appealed and Jaworski asked the Supreme Court to take immediate jurisdiction. but loaned the DATs to the Presidential Recordings Project at the Furthermore, a process was created for the Nixon estate and other individuals who were recorded to object their release. Kissinger noted, I think [the North Vietnamese] have their own Service soon expanded it to include the White House telephone [9] Now that archivists could accurately pinpoint segments of the tapes they began a comprehensive review of the tapes. letterwere going to negotiate as hard as we can, get the best The country now faced a full-blown constitutional crisis. This project involved taking analog determination sheetswhich document the SMPTE timecode beginning and end of each conversation, room noise, and withdrawalsand digitizing them. The last Much of tape review remains the same. tapes currently open to the public include more than 200 of these Nixon regarded Kissinger as his truest aide, although he also noted, in another tape released recently, the "latent insecurity" of Kissinger and his other Jewish advisers. just whack em in there, and, you knowon the basis of scheduling, the State of the Union message, and the Presidents If the file passed quality control MD5 checksums were embedded and two clones of the files were created and placed on different servers. that they, in Februarycan overshadow your trip to Peking. Kissinger courses on the history of Asia. They do not include information from the Fifth Chronological Release (November 1972 - July 1973). SUMMARY: Kissinger Kissinger. Judge Sirica eventually sided with the Special Prosecutor and the administration appealed the decision stating they would only comply with a decision from the highest court in the land. Those conversations could now be reviewed and released to the public. Nixontapes.org did not transcribe this conversation, but has included initial taping system was limited to the Oval Office, but the Secret Monday - Sunday 10:00am-5:00pm accuracy. The finding aidwhich has been created at different times, with different technology, and different standardsneeded to be brought up to modern archival standards. Kissinger Previous eras, inserted a 10 sec 1 kHz tone into every withdrawal. know it didnt mean a goddamned thing in terms of that, and it damned Archivists retired the E-DATs and began to use one of the P-DAT copies for review work. have been due to the Presidents and his NSC Advisors independent Archive Celebrates Archives in College Park, MD. SUMMARY: to speakers. All photos courtesy of the White House Photographic Office Collection, Richard Nixon Presidential Library, except where otherwise noted. shorthand notes. Staff have worked to move away from abbreviations and toward full names. The next stage of the project was the digital transfer of the P-Analog tapes. format, such as .WAV or .AIFF, or a lossless compressed file On April 16, 1974 Jaworski issued a subpoena asking for sixty-four additional tapes. Therefore, conversations with his family and conversations where he was acting as the head of the Republican Partyand speaking purely in his private political rolewere to be returned. With the publication of his magisterial biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, Robert Dallek cemented his reputation as one of the greatest historians of our time. "Researchers' Nightmare: Studying the Nixon Presidency. The most specific listing of information on a tape remains the Tape Subject Log. These segments are known as room noise and while they are not released to the public archivists review the content to ensure there is no conversation or withdrawn material on them. Nixon's open contempt for human rights and India on the tapes is cringe-worthy-he didn't care at all. SUMMARY: Each tape had a processing folder which held all documentation regarding that tape. This practice was later refined and Nixons political opponent, Hubert Humphrey, Nixon proclaimed, Lets Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified documents and tapes, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationship and the extent to which they struggled to outdo each other in the quest for foreign policy achievements. n.d. White House Tapes Scope and Content Note. White House Tapes Scope and Content Note. Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. The Cabinet Room Conversations were released to the public in two parts on October 16, 1996 and February 28, 2002 and consisted of 83 tapes with 436 conversations totaling 154 hours from February 1971 through July 1973. This controversial decision led to a large turnover in staff who disagreed with NARAs decision to re-review the tapes. South Vietnam. [10] on his efforts to mollify conservatives (Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and Upon receiving the reviewed tape, Archives Specialists used the reviewers decisions to physically delete the restricted content from the tape and splice in 10 seconds of blank leader tape. earlier. Transcripts created by the Special Prosecutor during the course of the investigation. summaries of conversations. Two years into his presidency, Nixon, had still not discovered a solution for documenting meetings. Previously, the logs marked these withdrawals only with [unintelligible] but no other identifiable information or duration. realize that we will not be subjected to pressure or harassment on position that we can, and that were on this course, and that he must Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974.A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.His five years in the White House saw reduction of U.S. involvement in the . The 2nd Chronological Release was made public on October 26, 2000 and consisted of 143 tapes with 4,140 conversations totaling 420 hours from August through December 1971. We encourage you to listen to the audio, As a last resort, the administration sought to enlist Lt. General Vernon Walters, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), known for his phenomenal memory, to work for the White House as President Nixons personal note-taker. was made to preserve the fidelity of the included audio, which is Listening to Nixon: An Archivists Reflections on His Work with the White House Tapes.. In addition to the PRMPA categories, archivists also withheld certain portions of conversations that they could not adequately review for release at the time because they were unintelligible. necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government or the Department In this long phone conversation, Nixon and Kissinger discussed a South Vietnam. The goal of the project was to be a complete digital preservation transfer, conforming to NARA preservation standards and practices, of the P-Analog copy of the tapes for digital review, editing, and release. Ford, government officials, foreign leaders and ambassadors, summaries of conversations. Conway-Lanz, Sahr. Both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition, driven by their own inner demons, and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals. TRANSCRIPT (PDF), 2.White House Telephone Conversation No. The Nixon administration tried a number of solutions to keep an accurate record of conversations and meetings. to thank Bill Burr, Joyce Battle, Marry Curry, Carlos Osorio, Maria back channel diplomacy in U.S.-Soviet relations, 1969-1972. As discussed above, during the Chronological Review era all of the tape reels were processed and had signal boosting in order to improve audibility. year. The offensive, which became known as the Easter Offensive, Telephone Conversation No. with telcons. National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger as captured by the Nixon However, over the next few years Nixon changed his mind about a recording system in response to a number of challenges in fully documenting his presidency with the accuracy he desired. his telephone conversations, or telcons, with presidents Nixon and which were a collection of transcripts of Kissinger's phone conversations made Simultaneously, archivists are updating and standardizing the tapes finding aid. With the preservation process underway archivists began working to develop the next steps for processing national security information. At times, Nixon used a National Security Council (NSC) staff member, who understood the language, but did not attend as a translator. The DATs were imported into the SADiE system which staff could use to edit and output conversations to CD. The . The Nixon tapes currently open to the public include more than 200 of these Kissinger conversations, some of which were independently transcribed as telcons by Kissinger's staff. 22-62, 8:02 8:07 p.m., March 30, 1972, SUMMARY: Although the audio quality of this conversation is poor the capacity. the official finding aid published online by the National Archives and This copy, known as the Enhanced Masters, had additional technical processing which included spectrum analysis, signal boosting, noise removal, and each tape was stamped with Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) timecode. Analog copies of these missing Towards the 50th minute of the 54-minute, 42-second tape, Nixon says: "Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women. The Nixon (Previously, some transcripts were created by the FBI and the Special Prosecutor during the Watergate investigations.) The Nixon tape, which is at a low volume and not easy to follow, begins with a discussion of diplomatic strategy, including Kissinger's talks with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin that day (which are reported in detail in the State Department historical volume, Soviet-American Relations: The Dtente Years ). The tapes cover from April 9 to July 12, 1973 a stressful time for Nixon. Johnson mentioned how helpful the recordings were in preparing his memoirs and how the Nixon Administration was mistaken in dismantling the system. His Many of these have been replaced or supplemented by additional archival work. Nixontapes.org and the National Security Archive are pleased to bring Reports had been coming into the White Nixon Taping System Secretly Recorded The article, published Friday, is based on declassified audio tapes accessed by researcher Gary J. Bass. [1], During his tenure as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Lastly, thank From January 1969 to . Access to the tapes was now governed by the regulations under PRMPA, the 1996 Tapes Settlement Agreement, and the 2007 deed of gift. With those threats now removed, archivists had the time to standardize the language and update decision-making processes to more closely align the entire collection with current archival standards. got to be handled on the basis that weve already suggested. SAA Newsletter 1987-01. All of these changes were made to the Enhanced Masters and the S-Copy remained untouched. research was based on the Nixon tapes, as well as sixteen government 1 (February July 1971) and 200 DATs (350+ hours) for the Soon afterwards the Special Prosecutor was informed that two tapes requested were missing and that the tape for June 20, 1972 had an 18 minute gap. Kissinger had all of his phone conversations taped and then had his secretary transcribe them. To aide in review archivists used a plethora of historical sourcesincluding the Presidential Daily Diary, Public Papers, staff memorandum, and any other pertinent primary and secondary sourcesin order to ensure historical context for the conversations. U.S. Senate: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. Accessed August 7, 2018. Four new copies were created including a new preservation analog, the P-Analog, on 1.5 mm on inch open reels at 3.75 ips. accuracy. fallout over the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 that had ended weeks As 1972 began, Richard M. Nixon was on the verge of scaling the highest peaks and descending into the lowest valleys of his presidency. information on the Kissinger Telcons collection at the National Nixon tape recordings alone have preserved conversations that On July 8 the Special Prosecutor and the presidents lawyer, James St. Clair, presented their arguments before the Supreme Court. All Tape Subject Logs are available in our PDF Index. Thats the way its to be done. Presidents would often use their papers to write their memoirs and when finished, traditionally gave their papers back to the American people in the form of a deed of gift. Despite gaining more intellectual control over the collection archivists needed a solution for quickly and consistently navigating the tapes to find specific conversations and restrictions in order to comply with PRMPA and the various legal decisions. Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) of 1974. n.d. National Archives and Records Administration. content can be ascertained. On August 9 the committee sued the president in federal court. Worsham, James. resulted in verbatim transcripts transcribed from secretarial He was a. "I don't give a goddam about repression, do you?" "No," said Kissinger. The backchannel contacts, journalists, friends, and others. However, because of ongoing legal disputes, at this time, NARA was not permitted to listen to the tapes and instead had to complete the duplication process by monitoring signal levels on the machines. The near won the election for Humphrey. Then men concluded by discussing Sept. 3,. With these issues settled archivists began the process of getting every national security withdrawal reviewed. Whenever the voice operated relay microphones detected sound the machines began recording. can be found online at: The 2007). Records Administration, Initially, secretaries listened in on calls Sahr. Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, White House Telephone Secretary of State Tapped Own Phone Calls, The Nixon came to bitterly regret his decision after the Supreme Court ordered the release of the "smoking gun tape" linking him to the Watergate coverup. Nixons political opponent, Hubert Humphrey, Nixon proclaimed, Lets The presidents new Chief of Staff, Alexander M. Haig, proposed the idea of using John C. Stennis to verify the presidents transcripts. are virtually unintelligible. Startling light has been shed on the darkest hours of the Cold War with the release of . Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan). Compare to other telephone recordings, the audio quality of the tape A new book reveals former President Richard Nixon's surprising feelings about women, gay people and Henry Kissinger, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports. Often, when the president was in those rooms, even if he was not speaking, the machines continued, because of ambient noises, television, music, and other noises. Ford, government officials, foreign leaders and ambassadors, prepared a transcript to show the differences between telcons prepared During this period the existence of seven blank reels of tape was discovered: 171, 173, 175, 187, 600, 680, and 950. Those tape segments proved helpful in corroborating the case against the administration. Kissinger conversations, some of which were independently transcribed [4] Security Archive Publish this Collection for the First Time, All Kissinger Tape Recordings backchannel contacts, journalists, friends, and others. Mainly, this was done because of the limited space available on CDs and audiocassettes. This series of events, known as the Saturday Night Massacre, may have delayed the release of the tapes for a time, but the event ensured they would eventually be released. Monday - Sunday 10am-5pm, Digitally Re-Reviewed and Re-Released Tapes, Terms and Conditions for Using Our Website, 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd, Yorba Linda, CA 92886. North Vietnam, launched an offensive against American-ally South Conversation No. Five days into the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, with the superpowers on the brink of confrontation, President Nixon was too drunk to discuss the crisis with the British prime minister, according to newly released transcripts of telephone calls. The National Archives has completed the digitization of the Tapes and is now focused on declassification, re-review and public access. This copy is known as the S-Copy. Furthermore, the Nixon Administration only wanted to allow the Special Prosecutor to receive tapes regarding the break-in and cover-up, and Cox wanted tapes that were relevant to other areas of interest in the investigation. dissertationbut we hope scholars use this collection as a starting President Thieu, and that all communications were to go through the US 34-114, 10:49 11:11 a.m., December 17, Accessed August 7, 2018. Nixon and Kissinger provides a startling new picture of the . 3. Kissinger had all of his phone conversations taped and then had his secretary transcribe them. The Nixon taping system 2007. Since the taping system operated automatically around President Nixon, Nixon could access the materials for judicial cases and the tapes would become government property on September 1, 1979.