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President Richard Nixon and the Presidents

The Telephone Conversations between President Nixon and former President Johnson, House Minority Leader Ford, Governor Reagan, and Ambassador Bush

The presidency of Richard Nixon is famous, or infamous, for many things. However, one of the lesser known tidbits of information about the Nixon administration is that the president regularly consulted with four other individuals who called the White House home at some point in their careers. How many other presidents can say that? In the case of Nixon, these individuals included former President Lyndon Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, then Minority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, California Governor Ronald W. Reagan, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations George H.W. Bush.

The collection is truly one of a kind. After all, how many presidents consulted with four other presidents? One would have to go back among the earliest presidents to find a similar instance. Besides that, for how many of those conversations do we have verbatim records? To answer that question, one would have to agree that this is yet another case where the secret recordings of President Nixon are a truly unique record.

While a small portion of the conversations remain excised for national security or personal privacy reasons, the quality of the majority of the audio that is available below is good. The topics discussed include the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, family, and many other subjects. Besides the audio files below, you will also find National Archives-prepared summaries, copies of Nixon's presidential daily diary (PDD) for the respective dates, as well as basic information about each conversation.

Although there were additional conversations between these men, this collection below focuses on 26 conversations, recorded between April 6, 1971 and February 23, 1973, which are among the highest quality recordings between these "presidents."

The participants are as follows:

P = President Richard Nixon
GHWB = U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations George H.W. Bush
GRF = House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford
HAK = Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry A. Kissinger
HRH = Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman
LBJ = President Lyndon B. Johnson
RJD = Republican National Committee Chairman Robert J. Dole
RWR = Governor Ronald W. Reagan

Conversation

Date

Time Participants Presidential Daily Diary Audio

Summary

WHT 042-009 04/06/1971 9:59 - 10:06 am P, GRF pdf (364k) mp3 (5.1m) pdf (16k)
WHT 002-104 05/06/1971 9:20 - 9:26 am P, GRF pdf (336k) mp3 (4.9m) pdf (16k)
WHT 002-143 05/10/1971 7:15 - 7:22 pm P, GRF pdf (301k) mp3 (5.6m) pdf (11k)
WHT 003-014 05/12/1971 3:33 - 3:34 pm P, GRF pdf (232k) mp3 (1.5m) pdf (10k)
WHT 003-023 05/12/1971 4:30 - 4:32 pm P, GRF pdf (232k) mp3 (2.2m) pdf (15k)
WHT 003-080 05/20/1971 11:50 - 11:53 am P, GRF pdf (328k) mp3 (1.3m) pdf (10k)
WHT 004-103 06/09/1971 4:50 - 4:55 pm P, RWR, HAK pdf (217k) mp3 (4.6m) pdf (15k)
WHT 005-121 06/17/1971 8:21 - 8:24 pm P, GRF pdf (288k) mp3 (2.8m) pdf (10k)
WHT 007-097 08/11/1971 8:24 - 8:28 pm P, RWR pdf (165k) mp3 (4.2m) pdf (16k)
WHT 010-064 10/06/1971 8:21 am P, GRF pdf (239k) mp3 (1.6m) pdf (10k)
WHT 013-008 10/26/1971 11:13 - 11:25 am P, RWR pdf (211k) mp3 (11.3m) pdf (11k)
WHT 016-016 12/06/1971 9:37 - 9:42 am P, HAK, GHWB pdf (475k) mp3 (3.8m) pdf (10k)
WHT 016-048 12/08/1971 11:06 - 11:14 am P, GHWB pdf (155k) mp3 (7.9m) pdf (12k)
WHT 017-015 12/24/1971 2:16 - 2:21 pm P, RWR pdf (390k) mp3 (3.2m) pdf (10k)
WHT 017-068 12/25/1971 10:06 - 10:08 am P, LBJ pdf (243k) mp3 (2.3m) pdf (10k)
WHT 017-086 12/25/1971 11:29 - 11:31 am P, GRF pdf (243k) mp3 (1.5m) pdf (10k)
WHT 017-121 12/31/1971 9:22 - 9:24 pm P, GHWB pdf (389k) mp3 (1.8m) pdf (11k)
WHT 019-101 01/26/1972 12:56 - 1:02 pm P, RWR pdf (289k) mp3 (5.4m) pdf (11k)
WHT 023-109 05/02/1972 11:16 - 11:17 am P, LBJ pdf (300k) mp3 (870k) pdf (10k)
WHT 026-037 07/01/1972 11:28 - 11:29 am P, RWR pdf (284k) mp3 (1.2m) pdf (10k)
WHT 027-044 07/24/1972 12:19 - 12:37 pm P, LBJ pdf (205k) mp3 (17.1m) pdf (11k)
WHT 027-071 07/26/1972 9:15 - 9:16 am P, GHWB pdf (193k) mp3 (1.2m) pdf (10k)
CDHW 156-016 11/29/1972 Unknown time between 10:10 am and 1:47 pm P, GHWB pdf (223k) mp3 (2.3m) pdf (17k)
WHT 034-035 12/11/1972 Unknown time between 11:08 am and 11:15 am HRH, GHWB, P, RJD pdf (134k) mp3 (1.7m) pdf (15k)
WHT 035-067 01/02/1973 4:46 - 4:51 pm P, LBJ pdf (143k) mp3 (2.8m) pdf (22k)
WHT 043-194 02/23/1973 3:38 - 3:44 pm P, GRF pdf (302k) mp3 (3.6m) pdf (14k)
 

 

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