White House Tapes . Presidential Recordings Program

The Kennedy pre-presidential series is a small series consisting mainly of Kennedy's dictation of speeches, letters, and notes for his book, Profiles in Courage. All of the surviving recordings date from 1954 and 1955, when Kennedy was in the Senate. The original recording media were Dictabelts.

Download Sound Files

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.