Nixon Library to Release White House Tapes, Documents and Oral Histories
Press Release · Monday, December 6, 2010

Washington, DC

On Thursday December 9, 2010, the National Archives Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, will open 265 hours of White House Tapes, over 140,000 pages of presidential records and 75 hours of video oral histories. The materials will be available in the Nixon Library research room at 9 a.m. PDT. The Library is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. All of the White House tapes and selected documents will be available online at: www.nixonlibrary.gov.

The released White House tapes cover conversations from February and March 1973 and a few from early April 1973. There are no transcripts for these tapes, but the Library has produced a detailed subject log for each conversation. These tapes will all be available at www.nixonlibrary.gov and in the Library’s research room. These tapes cover a large number of subjects including the ceasefire in Vietnam, the release of American Prisoners of War, Watergate, U.S. policy in the Middle East, the assassination of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan by the Black September Organization, the state visits of King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel, the Wounded Knee incident, and Wage and Price controls.

Also in this release are nearly 2,500 pages of formerly classified national security records including documents on US policy toward Chile and formerly classified materials from the files of White House aides H. R. “Bob” Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

The bulk of the newly released documents come from the collection of Sanford Fox, the chief of the White House’s Social and Entertainment Office. The collection includes materials on State Dinners. Materials from the Bryce Harlow and Lawrence Higby files will also be released.

The Library will also release 43 video oral histories. These will be available in the Library’s research room. This is the second release of materials from this collection, which was begun in November 2006 after Timothy Naftali became the director of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project and director-designate of the National Archives-administered Nixon Library.

Included in this opening are interviews conducted with former Senators George McGovern and Lowell Weicker, former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Earl Silbert, George Elsey, Peter Flanigan, David Gergen, Morton Halperin, Lee Huebner, Terry Lenzner, Dana Mead, Jerry Schilling and Gerald Warren.

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For press information, contact the National Archives Public Affairs staff at 202-357-5300 or the Nixon Library at 714-983-9120.

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