White House Tapes . Presidential Recordings Program

The Meeting Recordings series is the largest series in the Kennedy collection. The recordings all date from between July 30, 1962, and November 7, 1963, and were all recorded in either the Cabinet Room or the Oval Office. For the most part, this series consists of meetings on various subjects, but there are also long sections of general office noise. The sound quality of these recordings varies. 

Download Sound Files

Users should consult the Kennedy Library's Finding Aids.
The numbering system conforms to that first used by the Secret Service agents maintaining the recording system with some later alterations made by the Kennedy Library. The Kennedy Library has two types of public releases of these tapes. The chronological release, still in progress, relates to the numbered tapes. The Kennedy Library has also issued some thematic releases on topics such as Civil Rights, Vietnam, and the tax cut. These thematic releases are listed after the chronological tapes.
All of the recordings below, with the exception of the Railroad Workers' dispute thematic series, for which the Kennedy Library does not keep DAT masters, are digital copies of DATs provided by the Kennedy Library and therefore have much higher sound quality than the analog cassettes generally available from the Kennedy Library. We thank the Kennedy Library for making these DATs available to us.

Which Audio Format?

The sound files can be downloaded in two formats: FLAC and MP3. Each has benefits for different uses.

MP3: good sound reproduction, smaller files, universally compatible. Very good for telephone or Dictabelt recordings and for general listening. If in doubt, try the MP3 versions first.

FLAC: excellent sound reproduction, larger files, growing compatibility. Recommended for meeting recordings and transcribing where the highest sound quality is required. In terms of sound quality, FLAC files are identical to WAV or AIFF files.

More detailed information is available here.