Experts

Ken Hughes

Fast Facts

  • Bob Woodward called Hughes "one of America's foremost experts on secret presidential recordings"
  • Has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes
  • Expertise on Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Secret White House Tapes, abuses of presidential power, Watergate, Vietnam War

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • Governance
  • Leadership
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Bob Woodward has called Ken Hughes “one of America's foremost experts on secret presidential recordings, especially those of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.” Hughes has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes and unearthing their secrets. As a journalist writing in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, and Boston Globe Magazine, and, since 2000, as a researcher with the Miller Center, Hughes’s work has illuminated the uses and abuses of presidential power involved in (among other things) the origins of Watergate, Jimmy Hoffa’s release from federal prison, and the politics of the Vietnam War. 

Hughes has been interviewed by the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and other news organizations. He is the author of Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate and Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War and the Casualties of Reelection.

Hughes is currently at work on a book about President John F. Kennedy’s hidden role in the coup plot that resulted in the overthrow and assassination of another president, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. 

 

Ken Hughes News Feed

President Trump is flashing his pardon power like a pocketful of Get Out of Jail Free cards. Not only is he musing on Twitter about pardoning boxer Jack Johnson, he actually pardoned Scooter Libby, an aide to former vice president Richard B. Cheney who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Ken Hughes The Washington Post
n Monday, the FBI raided the Manhattan offices of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The agents raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room to seize tax returns, financial records and communications between the lawyer and his clients, including Trump. They were executing a search warrant on behalf of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York after a referral from Robert S. Mueller III, a 1973 UVA Law graduate who is the special counsel in the Russia investigation. It was an extremely unusual move, according to presidential historian Ken Hughes.
Ken Hughes UVA Today
In 2014, Ken Hughes, a diligent researcher at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, confirmed the story in exhaustive detail in his book on the Chennault affair, as did Nixon biographer John A. Farrell in his book last year.
Ken Hughes The Baltimore Sun
Ken Hughes talks with WUVA News about the Secret White House Tapes
Ken Hughes WUVA News
Ken Hughes is an expert on secret presidential recordings, especially those of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Hughes has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes and unearthing their secrets. As a journalist writing in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, and Boston Globe Magazine, and, since 2000, as a researcher with the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, Hughes’s work has illuminated the uses and abuses of presidential power involved in (among other things) the origins of Watergate, Jimmy Hoffa’s release from federal prison, and the politics of the Vietnam War.
Ken Hughes Talk Nation Radio
“The biggest theme is people were in an apocalyptic mood in 1968 because it seemed like so many things that had seemed dependable in their worlds were crumbling,” said Ken Hughes, a historian with the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
Ken Hughes The Virginian Pilot