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
|
Date
|
Time
|
Participants
|
Presidential Daily Diary
|
Audio
|
|
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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|
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