Richard Nixon - Presidential Recordings

Between February 16, 1971 and July 18, 1973 Richard Nixon secretly recorded roughly 3,700 hours of conversations and meetings in five different locations. With the exception of the manually-operated equipment in the Cabinet Room, Nixon's recording system was sound-activated and recorded a wide range of conversations of varying audio and substantive quality. The original Nixon recordings are housed at the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Archivists there are currently processing the recordings. To date, they have released:

• Cabinet Room conversations from February 16, 1971 to July 18, 1973
• All other recording locations--Oval Office, Camp David, Old Executive Office Building (EOB), and White House telephone--from February 16, 1971 to October 1972
• Excerpts of conversations dealing with Watergate and Abuse of Governmental Power from February 1971 to July 1973

The Nixon Staff plans to release its last installment of tapes from the period November 1972 to July 1973 some time in 2008 or 2009.

For information about how the National Archives processed the Nixon White House tapes, for tapes FAQ, and for information about the history of the Nixon tapes, including litigation surrounding them, please visit the Nixon Staff’s website

In 1998, the Miller Center began work on the secret White House recordings produced between 1940 and 1973 through the Presidential Recordings Project (now the Presidential Recordings Program or PRP). The PRP is dedicated to making presidential recordings accessible through accurate transcriptions, helpful annotations and downloadable audio files.

The Miller Center is in the process of making the complete collection of Nixon recordings available. Because of the size of the collection, this effort will continue for some time. If you already know which conversations you would like to listen to, or if you would simply like to browse the collection please, use the links below to navigate.

A number of finding aids exist to help researchers navigate the Nixon recordings. Visit our Presidential Recordings Help Page to search the finding aids.

• WH Telephone (Tapes 1-46)
• Cabinet Room (Tapes 47-129)
• Camp David (Tapes 130-244)
• Executive Office Building (Tapes 245-449)
• Oval Office (Tapes 450-)