Noted Nixon tapes expert Dr. Luke Nichter presented a lecture on “A Decade With The Nixon Tapes: What We’ve Learned and What We Have Yet To Learn”. The presentation was held on April 12, 2016 at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Nichter is an Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University – Central Texas who is a noted expert on the Nixon tapes. He is also the author or co-author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller “The Nixon Tapes, 1971 – 1972”.

From February 1971 to July 1973, President Richard Nixon secretly recorded over 3,400 hours of his phone calls, conversations, and meetings that took place across his executive offices. The public became aware of the tapes during the Watergate Scandal, and they played an instrumental role in Nixon resigning from office in August 1974.

As a public service on his website nixontapes.org, Nichter has provided the over three thousand hours of publicly available Nixon tapes, fully digitized and free. His mission is not to sway anyone’s opinion on Nixon by providing the tapes, but simply wanted to have them publicly available.

As Nichter looked at researching Nixon and his tapes 12 years ago, he initially felt that the topic had been studied and analyzed to the point that there were shelves and shelves of books already on Nixon, the Watergate Scandal and the tapes.

What he learned though was that only 5% of the tapes had been transcribed, and that there was still much to learn.

The story of the Nixon tapes started when President Lyndon B. Johnson gave Nixon a tour of the White House following Nixon winning the 1968 Presidential Election. Outgoing President Johnson walked incoming President-elect Nixon throughout the White House showcasing his taping mechanisms.

While Nixon was not the first President to tape record his conversations and meetings, what makes Nixon stand out is that he recorded the most of any President before him.

Nixon also had the most advanced technology of his time for his recording devices, which included sound activation. With anyone starting a conversation or even dogs barking, the recordings would begin, which was different than those of John F. Kennedy and other Presidents that would start and stop the recordings manually.

There were difficulties when Nichter started this venture; the poor quality of the audio tapes being one of them. Given the poor quality, at times it was difficult to identify who was speaking. When Nichter submitted requests to publicly release the tapes, many were still in the process of being declassified or had not been declassified at the time. To date, Nichter has put in over 1,000 public record requests.

Nichter played two audio clips with Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. The first was President Nixon’s phone call with U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tip O’Neill and Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford. The three men were discussing normal business between the White House and U.S. House of Representatives before Congress took their recess in October 1972 to campaign. The second phone call was in the midst of the Watergate scandal in June of 1973. President Nixon and Congressman Ford previewed the upcoming Congressional hearings on the Watergate Scandal.

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