This series contains sound recordings of meetings held by President Richard Nixon in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. These recordings document many of the major events and decisions of the Nixon Administration from February 16, 1971 to July 18, 1973 are commonly labeled the "Nixon Tapes" or "Nixon White House Tapes."
The Cabinet Room taping system recorded 436 conversations between President Nixon and a wide variety of participants, including Cabinet officers, foreign leaders and dignitaries, United States Congressmen and Senators, businessmen, Republican Party leaders, Republican and Democratic legislators, United States governors and mayors, White House aides and staff members (including the Domestic Council), special interest and constituent groups, agricultural and industry officials, labor and civil rights leaders, military and veterans groups, and others. Recording devices also captured Presidential bill signings, meetings of Presidential Committees and Commissions, and, occasionally, White House tour groups.
The taping system recorded meetings between President Nixon and such notable foreign dignitaries as Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet statesman Andrei Gromyko, Pakistani diplomat Aziz Ahmed, Pakistani politician Ghulam Mustafa Khar, President of Mauritania Moktar Ould Daddah, and Sisowath Sirik Matak, Prime Minister of the Khmer Republic.
Cabinet members include Vice President Spiro Agnew; Secretary of State William P. Rogers; National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger; Secretaries of the Treasury David M. Kennedy, John B. Connally, and George P. Shultz; Secretaries of Defense Melvin R. Laird, Elliot L. Richardson, and James R. Schlesinger; Attorneys General John N. Mitchell, Richard G. Kleindienst, and Richardson, Postmaster General Winton M. Blount, Secretaries of the Interior Walter J. Hickel and Rogers C. B. Morton; Secretaries of Agriculture Clifford M. Hardin and Earl L. Butz; Secretaries of Commerce Maurice H. Stans, Peter G. Peterson, and Peter J. Brennan; Secretaries of Labor Shultz, James D. Hodgson, and Brennan; Secretaries of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) Richardson and Caspar W. ("Cap") Weinberger; Secretaries of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) George W. Romney and James T. Lynn; and Secretaries of Transportation John A. Volpe and Claude S. Brinegar.
Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders include Hugh Scott, Gerald R. Ford, George H. W. Bush, Allen J. Ellender, J. William Fulbright, John C. Stennis, Margaret Chase Smith, Robert J. Dole, Gordon L. Allott, Peter H. Dominick, George D. Aiken, Robert P. Griffin, Milton R. Young, Robert C. Byrd, Michael J. Mansfield, Thomas Hale Boggs, Leslie C. Arends, Robert T. Stafford, Richard H. Poff, Barber B. Conable, Jr., Robert C. Wilson, H. Allen Smith, William S. Mailliard, Frank T. Bow, F. Edward Hebert, Thomas E. ("Doc") Morgan, Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill, Jr., and George H. Mahon.
The Cabinet Room recordings captured representatives from the National Security Council, State Department, the Domestic Council, various Cabinet Committees, Pay Board and Price Commission, Cost of Living Council, President's Commission on Financial Structure and Regulation, Construction Industry Collective Bargaining Commission, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, President's Advisory Committee on Labor-Management Policy, President's Science Advisory Committee, Congressional Black Caucus, Council on International Economic Policy, President's Commission on School Finance, President's Commission on Financial Structure and Regulation, Finance Committee of the Committee to Re-elect the President, National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse Prevention, U.S. Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities, AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades, and Citizens' Committee for Government Reorganization.
Topics of conversations include a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues, planning for Presidential trips and head of state visits; United States and world economics, and military operations.
Discussions of domestic policy include the economy, drugs, travel and the budget. Topics related to the economy include the Economic Stabilization Act, wage and price controls, revenue sharing, inflation, the Pay Board and the Federal and Defense budgets. Additional policy and planning discussions involve enforcement of illegal drug policy, busing, railroads, and the energy crisis.
A wide variety of foreign policy conversations took place in the Cabinet Room. These conversations include in-depth discussions relating to Vietnam, including troop deployments, planning, and peace negotiations. Foreign relations topics include planning for the President???s trips to China and the Soviet Union, United Nations votes, the International Monetary Fund, free trade, the trade bill, import/export controls, the World Economy. Negotiations with foreign countries include the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), Foreign Aid, and peace treaties. Countries and regions of interest include Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Canada, Turkey, Japan, Korea, Spain, France, New Zealand, the Middle East, South America and Africa.
