The Nixon Tapes

August 3, 2015
In this conclusion to their two volume transcription of President Richard Nixon’s secret White House recordings, following 2014’s The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972, historians Brinkley and Nichter skillfully abridge and comment on over 3,000 hours of conversation: a priceless, if largely unreadable, historical document. The book opens with Nixon still glowing from his 1972 re-election yet irritated by fallout from the Watergate burglary six months earlier. Nixon had no direct role in the break-in, but he worried that an investigation might uncover his pervasive program of domestic intelligence and harassment of political enemies. The transcriptions make dismally clear that his clumsy, cynical, and often illegal efforts to keep the burglars quiet led to his downfall. Though Watergate dominates the proceedings, many sections recount Nixon’s achievements: opening relations with China, easing tensions with the U.S.S.R., and creating the modern financial system. Unlike Hollywood-style representations of crystal-clear secret recordings, these real-life conversations are rambling, turgid, choppy, garbled, and often incomprehensible. Jewels turn up, but searching for them is a job only scholars could love. Readers will enjoy the editors’ insightful introductions to each section, but may want to skim the actual transcript.

August 11, 2014
When he was departing office, President Lyndon Johnson suggested to incoming President Richard Nixon that he consider secretly taping conversations within the White House, a presidential practice since F.D.R. Nixon initially declined, but in February 1971 changed his mind, installing recording devices throughout the White House which activated when someone began speaking. This volume from acclaimed historian Brinkley (Cronkite) and Nixon tape-specialist Nichter is a selection of those recordings from 1971 to February 1973. The recordings are not limited to Watergate and scandal, but present a broader portrait of Nixon as strategist, diplomat, and president at the height of his powers. Brinkley and Nichter’s “episode” summaries lay out the scenes as such: "Nixon and Kissinger continued to read the political tea leaves as they considered their approaches to talks with the Soviet Union." From masterful dealings with the Chinese to Nixon’s petty insults of Indira Gandhi or Kissinger’s remarks about how American intellectuals "don't mind losing. They don't like America," there is both insight and eyebrow-raising commentary. Other noteworthy figures appear, like Rev. Billy Graham calling Nixon about Vietnam and noting "I'm putting all the blame of this whole thing on Kennedy." Brinkley and Nichter offer an intimate, fascinating, strange, and essential primary source of the inner workings of the Nixon Presidency.