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

Ken Hughes talked with C-SPAN's Washington Journal about the history of past presidents secretly recording conversations in the Oval Office.
Ken Hughes C-SPAN
“Nixon was much more circumspect than Donald Trump and, frankly, much more aware of what his own legal exposure was,” said Ken Hughes, a scholar at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “I was stunned when President Trump suggested that he might have tapes of his meetings with director Comey, because those would become the subject of subpoenas. They would be seen as evidence.”
Ken Hughes Washington Post
Miller Center expert Ken Hughes talks about the controversy around alleged ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Ken Hughes Rundschau (Germany)
U.S. President Donald Trump is igniting more controversy with his latest Twitter tirade. This as he faces more questions over his recent firing of the FBI Director. It's a situation that is reminding many of the Richard Nixon scandal. Ken Hughes is one of America's leading experts on secret Presidential recordings and is the author of 'Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, The Chennault Affair, And The Origins Of Watergate.' He is also a Presidential Historian with the Miller Center in Charlottesville Virginia. He joins us with more.
Ken Hughes CTV (Canada)
Miller Center expert Ken Hughes is interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on the Secret White House Tapes
Ken Hughes CBC (Canada)
While Nixon’s tapes are likely the most well known, he is hardly the only president driven to record daily activities and interactions. Six consecutive presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt through to Nixon, are known to have secretly taped meetings and telephone conversations. Thanks to the work of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, the public can now listen to and read transcripts of these presidential recordings online.
Ken Hughes, Marc Selverstone UVA Today