June 20, 1972: Nixon and Haldeman assess the political fallout from the arrests at the Democratic National Committee headquarters — one of the earliest recorded Watergate discussions.
Nixon White House Tapes › Start here
Famous conversations from the Nixon tapes
The recordings people ask about most — the "smoking gun", "a cancer on the presidency", the 18½‑minute gap — each with audio, an AI transcript, the archivists' subject log, and a permanent link.
Context notes below were written for orientation and are kept deliberately brief; the finding aid on each conversation page is the authoritative description. Transcripts are machine-generated and unreviewed.
Watergate
From the first days after the June 17, 1972 break-in to the spring 1973 meetings that ended the cover-up. Codes are tape-conversation numbers; all are Oval Office or EOB recordings unless noted.
The 18½-minute gap59 min
June 20, 1972, EOB office: the Nixon–Haldeman meeting whose recording contains the famous erased stretch. The finding aid notes the discontinuities are in the original recording; the gap itself remains unrecovered.
June 23, 1972: Haldeman tells Nixon of the plan to have the CIA ask the FBI to limit its Watergate investigation, and Nixon agrees. Its release on August 5, 1974 ended remaining congressional support for the President, who resigned four days later.
Easy Nixon does not have the audio for this conversation yet — the Nixon Library still lists it as being processed. The finding aid and summary are on its page.
September 15, 1972, the day of the first Watergate indictments: John Dean joins Nixon and Haldeman; the President praises Dean’s handling of the matter and discusses using the government against political enemies.
March 13, 1973: Dean briefs Nixon1 hr 25 min
Nixon, Haldeman and Dean coordinate the response to the Senate Watergate Committee and the confirmation hearings for L. Patrick Gray as FBI director.
“A cancer on the presidency”1 hr 42 min
March 21, 1973: John Dean warns Nixon that the cover-up is “a cancer … growing” on the presidency and lays out the blackmail demands from the Watergate defendants. Haldeman joins for the second half. Roughly 100 minutes.
“Stonewall it”1 hr 32 min
March 22, 1973, EOB office: Nixon meets Mitchell, Dean, Ehrlichman and Haldeman about executive privilege and the Senate committee; this is the meeting in which Nixon says he wants them to “stonewall it… plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up.”
April 30, 1973, telephone, 10:16 pm: hours after announcing on television the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, Nixon calls Haldeman with the first reactions to the speech — “you're a strong man, God damn it, and I love you… keep the faith.”
Before Watergate: abuses of power
Conversations from 1971 that later investigators — the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and the House Judiciary Committee — treated as part of the same pattern: political favors for donors, pressure on the Justice Department, and the push to break into the Brookings Institution that led to the Plumbers.
April 19, 1971, telephone: Nixon orders Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to abandon the government's antitrust appeal against ITT — “The IT&T thing, stay the hell out of it. Is that clear? That's an order.” A 70-second call that became part of the record of the Watergate investigations.
The milk price decision32 min
March 23, 1971, Oval Office: hours after meeting dairy industry leaders, Nixon hears John Connally's political case and agrees to raise federal milk price supports, overriding his Agriculture Department. The dairy cooperatives' campaign pledges made the decision a subject of the Watergate investigations; the Special Prosecution Force had this conversation transcribed.
June 17, 1971, Oval Office, four days into the Pentagon Papers crisis: told that a file on Lyndon Johnson's 1968 bombing halt may be at the Brookings Institution, Nixon tells Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Kissinger, “I want it implemented on a thievery basis. God damn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.” The break-in never happened, but the impulse led to the Plumbers.
The Pentagon Papers and the war on leaks
The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers on Sunday, June 13, 1971. The taping system captured the White House reaction hour by hour.
June 13, 1971, telephone: Alexander Haig tells Nixon about the Times story; the President’s initial reaction is relatively calm.
Kissinger on the leak13 min
June 13, 1971, telephone: Henry Kissinger frames the publication as a grave breach and begins to press for a hard response.
The morning after56 min
June 14, 1971: Nixon, Haldeman and staff on the political fallout from the Papers and how to respond publicly.
Strategy against the leakers1 hr 5 min
July 1, 1971: Nixon with Haldeman, Haig and Kissinger on going after those responsible for leaks — part of the sequence of meetings that led to the creation of the White House “Plumbers.”
Foreign policy
China, Vietnam, South Asia and the Soviet Union, in the President’s own words.
October 26, 1971, telephone: Governor Ronald Reagan telephones Nixon the day after the UN voted to expel Taiwan and seat the People’s Republic. A portion of this call withheld until 2019 drew wide attention for Reagan’s remarks about African delegates.
The India–Pakistan war1 hr 3 min
December 1971: Nixon and Kissinger on the war in South Asia, a cease-fire, and the administration’s “tilt” toward Pakistan.
Home from China8 min
February 28, 1972, telephone: Nixon and Kissinger debrief the reception of the President’s trip to the People’s Republic of China.
“A decent interval”27 min
August 3, 1972, Oval Office: weighing a Vietnam settlement against the election, Kissinger asks whether the United States can have a viable foreign policy “if a year or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam” — and argues that it can if the collapse looks like South Vietnam's own doing: “we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two,” after which “no one will give a damn.” Historians cite it as evidence of a “decent interval” strategy.
The Christmas bombing10 min
December 18, 1972, Camp David: Nixon and Kissinger on the renewed bombing and mining campaign against North Vietnam (Operation Linebacker II).
Announcing the Vietnam settlement1 hr 1 min
January 23, 1973: Nixon with Colson and Kissinger on how to present the Paris agreement ending American involvement in the war, announced on television that evening.
Brezhnev in the Oval Office2 hr 47 min
June 18, 1973, Oval Office: the opening of the Washington summit. Alone with Nixon and his interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev, Leonid Brezhnev talks about the Politburo's backing for the visit, his grandson's exams and the cigarette case with a timer that rations his smoking, and calls Nixon's San Clemente house, Casa Pacifica, a “house of peace”; Kissinger, Rogers, Gromyko and Dobrynin then join for the first session. Nearly three hours, a week before John Dean's Senate testimony.
Politics, protest and the President’s circle
May 4, 1971: Nixon, Haldeman and Ziegler on the mass arrests of anti-war demonstrators in Washington and how to frame them — and on the return of sick and wounded prisoners of war.
After the “Nixon shock”1 hr 14 min
August 16, 1971: the morning after Nixon’s televised address ending the dollar’s convertibility to gold and imposing wage and price controls, he and Haldeman gauge the reaction.
Billy Graham in the Oval Office1 hr 35 min
February 1, 1972: a long meeting with the evangelist and Haldeman, ranging over politics, the press and the election year; portions released in 2002 attracted attention for the remarks about Jews and the media.
May 2, 1972, Executive Office Building: Haldeman tells Nixon that J. Edgar Hoover died in the night — “Kleindienst called to report that J. Edgar Hoover died last night” — and they plan the announcement and the succession at the FBI. Telling Haig, Nixon says, “Well, he died at the right time, didn't he?”
The Wallace shooting6 min
May 15, 1972, telephone: hours after George Wallace is shot in Laurel, Maryland, Secret Service Director James Rowley gives Nixon, Haldeman and Charles Colson the first identification of the gunman, Arthur Bremer — and the talk turns at once to whether he will prove “a left-wing nut” or a right-wing one.
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