The Presidential Recordings Program, chaired by David Coleman, was established by the Miller Center in 1998 to make the secret White House recordings accessible through transcripts and historical research. These recordings constitute an extremely rich historical resource, but one that cannot be unlocked without considerable time and experience in working with the tapes. Once unlocked, the tapes can, are, and will make significant contributions to our understanding of recent political history and how the U.S. government works. To that end, the PRP brings together historians, journalists, and a talented team of student interns to work with these materials to transcribe, annotate, interpret, and share them.
The PRP's work is funded in part by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
David Coleman. Associate Professor. Chair of the Presidential Recordings Program.
Guian McKee. Associate Professor.
Marc Selverstone. Associate Professor.
Ken Hughes. Research Fellow.
Pat Dunn. Copyeditor.
Kent Germany. Research Associate. Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, University of South Carolina.
Dr. Erin Mahan. Research Associate.
Dr. Patrick Garrity. Research Faculty Affiliate.
Keri Matthews. Editorial and Program Assistant.
This site was launched in February 2003 as a way to share our work and the tapes sound files. The launch of the website marked the first time that the sound files themselves were available online, freely, en masse, for download, a service that the National Archives still does not provide. This audio collection comprises several thousand hours of sound files for all six presidential recordings collection: Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. As the National Archives releases more tapes, they are added to the site.
Just as importantly, this site provides a central portal for transcripts, research materials, and news related to the White House tapes. The site now includes thousands of pages of transcripts and related historical resources, along with classroom materials. New material is being added regularly.
We're particularly grateful to the presidential libraries and the National Security Archive for their help in procuring various materials for this site.