The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
These transcripts document two years of the Richard Nixon presidency and take you directly inside the White House: “A treasure trove” (The Boston Globe).
These are the famous—and infamous—Nixon White House tapes that reveal for the first time President Richard Milhous Nixon uncensored, unfiltered, and in his own words.
President Nixon’s voice-activated taping system captured every word spoken in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, other key locations in the White House, and at Camp David—3,700 hours of recordings between 1971 and 1973. Yet less than five percent of those conversations have ever been transcribed and published. Now, thanks to historian Luke Nichter’s massive effort to digitize and transcribe the tapes, the world can finally read an unprecedented account of one of the most important and controversial presidencies in US history.
This volume of The Nixon Tapes offers a selection of fascinating scenes from the period in which Nixon opened relations with China, negotiated the SALT I arms agreement with the Soviet Union, and won a landslide reelection victory. All the while, the growing shadow of Watergate and Nixon’s political downfall crept ever closer. The Nixon Tapes provides a never-before-seen glimpse into a flawed president’s hubris, paranoia, and political genius—“essential for students of the era and fascinating for those who lived it” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When he was departing office, President Lyndon Johnson suggested to the incoming Ppresident Richard Nixon that he consider secretly taping conversations within the White House, a presidential practice since F.D.R. Nixon initially declined, but. Then, in February 1971, he changed his mind, installing. He had recording devices installed throughout the White House, which activated when someone began speaking. This volume from acclaimed historian Brinkley (Cronkite) and Nixon tape-specialist Nichter is a collection of selections from of those recordings, from 1971 to February 1973., is The recordings are not restricted limited to Watergate and scandal, but and presents a broader portrait of Nixon as strategist, diplomat, and president, at the height of his powers. The selections feel like a mishmash of C-SPAN, excerpts from plays, and conversations overheard in public, with Brinkley and Nichter's's TV Guide-"like episode" summaries laying out the scenes as such:: "Nixon and Kissinger continued to read the political tea leaves as they considered their approaches to talks with the Soviet Union." (52). From masterful dealings with the Chinese, to the Nixon's remarkably petty insults of, like Nixon referring to Indira Gandhi as a bitch (308) andor Kissinger's noting remarks about how American intellectuals "They don't mind loosenlosing. They don't like America," (54). there isSpecial guests provide both insight and eyebrow-raising commentary., such as theOther noteworthy figures appear, like Rev.erend Billy Graham on the phone with Nixon, referring tocalling Nixon about Vietnam and noting "I'm putting all the blame of this whole thing on Kennedy." (55). This Brinkley and Nichter book isoffer an intimate, fascinating, strange, and essential primary source of the inner workings of the Nixon Presidency.