JFK SECRETLY TAPED WHITE HOUSE TALKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600036-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: February 4, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600036-5
A `=r` ='~ = == THE WASHINGTON POST
ON P ~G 4 February 1982
FK Secret
19f . The Wuhiogroa PaM
By Bob Woodward and Patrick E. Tyler
Washington i oatStall Wrllas
President, John F-:.: Kennedy secretly
recorded about 600 of hisr.r.White House
meetings and telephone conversations during,,
the last 16 months of his presidency-ap-
parently. without the knowledge. of other par
ticipants.
It has been known'lor several years that',
Kennedy recorded some meetings and phone..
conversations from his White House days,
but the extent of the recordings, the names.
of the participants and the subject matters-
have never been disclosed. `'
A 29-page log obtained by The Washing-
ton Post from the Kennedy Library in Bos-
ton shows the recordings were made from
July, 1962, until November; 1963, the month
Kennedy wa?` assassinated. The tapes con
tain a vast amount of unreleased informa-
tion, including many highly classified meet-
ings of the National, Security - Council on
such subjects as the Cuban missile crisis,.
Berlin and Vietnam, and high-level discus-,
sions of domestic controversies such as the
'1962 integration of the University of Missis-
sippi.
There are recordings of 325 meetings in,--
the Oval Office or'the Cabinet room and an-
other 275 personal telephone conversations;
Kennedy had with family members, his Cab-
inet, White House staff, former presidents,
legislators, world leaders and diplomats.
The disclosure of a secret Oval Office tap-
ing system maintained by President Richard
M. Nixon became a . sensational element in
the Watergate scandal. Those tapes eventu-
ally provided evidence for the impeachment
proceedings that-, led to Nixon's resignation
in 1974. At least two other presidents;.
-Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin .D. Rd -_
. sevelt, also taped private conversations in
the White House, but the full scope of JFK's -
taping system has not been widely known.
"It is'bound to become the primary source
on how John F. -Kennedy's mind worked,",
said Dan H.--Fenn Jr.,,,- director the Ken-
.nedy'Library in Boston where the recordings.;
OUSe
and preliminary transcripts, made-by archiv-
ists?over the last several years, are kept. The
Washington Post has over the last several
years requested access to the tapes but it has
been denied because of classification and
privacy considerations.. Fenn said that some
of the tapes and transcripts of the record-
ings, donated to the library by the Kennedy
family in 1976, will be made available in the
near future. Burke Marshall, a former assist,
.-ant attorney generaL in the Kennedy admin.
istration and head of a three-member com-
mittee that controls release of material from'
the ~ Kennedy Library, said last night: "Our.
position is going to be that we should open
this material in an orderly fashion." .
He said he could not set a time frame for-
this process, but added.that transcripts are:
being made and that many will have to un-.
dergo a declassification review by the Na
tional Security Council.
Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's., personal
White House secretary, and several Secret
Service agents who installed and maintained
the system of recordings were the only -ones
who knew the full details of the secret.re
cording system, according to-well-informed
officials.
"I was the engineer," Lincoln said in a re-_
cent interview:: Lincoln said, Kennedy had ,a
switch in his office that activated. a red light
,.at her desk. That was the signal, she said, tct
begin the recording system:,, According to-
Lincoln, if the red light went on when Ken
nedy was on the phone, she was to record'
the conversation on the dictabelt system
hooked into his phone. If the light went on
when he was in the Oval office or the -Cab=
inet room, she was to start the regular taping,
system for those rooms: The log.
from the Kennedy Library ,. indicates
there may also have beeirtsome re:
cordings made 4n "a, study in the
president's. residence.- But one per-
son knowledgeable about the.. taping
'system:-said-:he believed}there was
,such a'system bat: no actuaL record-
ings. were made of' ennedy4 con'
M.:yersations there ,r ".r
"He' was very: conscious 'of histo
ry," Lincoln said. "He was always
wanting to get exactly what was said'
to pinpoint precisely what. was
said.-These were -for history:, and , he
wanted to have them for that; and he
never once went back and listened to
one."
Theodore `C Sorensen; ,special
,counsel to Kennedy and probably
-his closest aide, was shown a copy of
the, log last', month. "I'm' dumb-
founded,'! Sorensen said, adding that
he had no idea whatsoever that such.
recordings were being made.
The log- listing each recording
reads like a Whos Who of the early
'1960s. It includes'. recordings made
"between Kennedy and the following:
his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, his
brothers Robert - F. Kennedy, and
'Edward M. Kennedy; former pres-
idents Dwight D. Eisenhower- -and
Harry S. Truman; his vice president,
'Johnson; Sens. Barry Goldwater,
Hubert H. Humphrey, Henry' M..
-Jackson and J. William Fulbright;.'
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mans-
'field, House Speaker John.' W.
"McCormack, ` Secretary of State.
-Dean )Rusk,, Secretary of Defense
Robert S." McNainara, national se-
curity adviser McGeorge Bundy,
'CIA Director John A. McCone var-
-ious military leaders,., including
Chairman of the Joint. Chiefs of
Staff Maxwell 'Taylor and., Gen:
Douglas MacArthur;,-,- ....
Like presidents who came 'after
him. Kennedy discussed the "use of
polygraphs in tracing defense leaks"
with- his defense secretary according
-to one log entry and he appeared
-concerned about "keeping the CIA
out of the Peace Corps" according to
J
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600036-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600036-5
TELEPHONE LOGS ,
Belt
Coover.atioa
1r.
Date
Number
16
../../..
1.
03/26/63
2
03/26/63
3
,0410:V63
Participants
President Kennedy
President Kennedy
Robert P. Kennedy
President Kennedy
Robert S. McNamara
Robert P? aQy
General Subject Latter
Ta.13 ing to a group (MIT Sloan
Pellowsl) about economics
Saoething about.e, hearing
[not at all clear from test)
TPX hearings
President Kennedy TPZ hearings; Cuban e=ila raid,
President Zennedy `Prospective meeting with H7arola
Robert Y$oosa
?. =Presiden r aesaeQ r
A4111Tyler
Eugene Blaolt
!President Kennedy Keeping CIA, out of the Peace Corp
Preeiden.!e edy;. Use of polygraphs in tracing
; President,renneQy Polling on various subj ecta
'DELETED BY KENNEDY LIBRARY)
Lunidentified]
W.H. Operator
Presidential statement on wags-
price matter [fragment)
Announces call'to E.L. tro:a Reber
Troutman in Atlanta [not records
x}11 -u,: --Z E
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600036-5