Complete Nixon Tapes Recorded between February and July 1971 Can Be Heard Online for the First Time

445 Hours Originally Released By The National Archives in 1999

For the first time, the complete set of conversations taped between February 16, 1971, and August 16, 1971 are freely available to the public. Representing the first chronological release of Nixon tapes ("Chron 1"), the recorded conversations took place across the Executive offices, including the Oval Office, the Executive Office Building, and various White House telephones. 

These audio files were originally released by the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Archives II at College Park, Maryland, in 1999, but were made available to onsite researchers only, and only in analog cassette format. With the assistance of the National Security Archive, these files are now available here, on nixontapes.org, and at the time of the creation of this page this complete collection is not available anywhere else outside of the reading room at NARA's Archives II.

Below is a complete list of all "Chron 1" tapes, including 1) the range of dates that each tape recorded, 2) the president's daily diary for that tape, 3) a NARA-prepared summary of the conversations contained on the respective tape, 4) the time codes of the conversations contained on the tape, and 5) and the audio files available for download, free of charge, as a service to researchers and the public. While it will be years more before scholars and researchers transcribe these recordings, this release marks the first time that the complete collection has been made readily accessible to the public.

Note: there is one conversation summary for each tape reel, e.g. there is one summary for reel 1, which includes tapes 1a, 1b, and 1c. Likewise, the dates recorded refer to all conversations taped on a reel, e.g. reel 1 includes conversations recorded between 4/6/71 and 4/18/71. Also, a "full" tape recorded approximately 2 hours, and the corresponding mp3 size of a full tape is generally between 110 and 115 megabytes. Tapes smaller than 110 to 115 megabytes contain less than two hours of recordings.

Also of interest may be the President's Daily Diary, for:

February 12-28, 1971 (5.2m)

March 1-31, 1971 (8.7m)

April 1-30, 1971 (8.0m)

May 1-15, 1971 (4.7m)

May 16-31, 1971 (4.2m)

June 1-15, 1971 (3.9m)

June 16-30, 1971 (4.4m)

July 1-31, 1971 (8.4m)

August 1-31, 1971 (6.4m)