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This way, there was no interruption in the recording of a conversation. Each Dictaphone machine held two Dictabelts, and the machine would automatically switch to the second belt and begin recording before the first belt ended, resulting in an overlap. However, most of Johnson's Dictabelts are blue. The earliest Dictabelts were red in color, the same color as the Dictabelts used to record Kennedy's conversations. Physically, all the Dictabelts are made out of a transparent plastic material. The archivists believe that, early in 1964, he switched to a machine that used 15-minute long belts. Johnson Library archivists believe that President Johnson initially used a Dictaphone machine which could record up to 30 minutes worth of conversations on a single belt. President Johnson only used the IBM system for two days, replacing it with a Dictaphone system. The few magnetic belts that the Johnson Library has are largely unintelligible, containing machine hiss and static that obscure the conversations.

The IBM machine used magnetic belts and, like Dictabelts, recorded conversations as the belt spun in the machine. The new IBM system was apparently set up in his vice Presidential office in the Old Executive Office Building (EOB) around the time of his return to the White House after President Kennedy's assassination. For unknown reasons, the Edison Voicewriter system he used while vice President was removed. President Johnson experimented briefly with an IBM magnetic belt system for the first two days of his administration, recording twenty-four conversations onto seven belts. The 1968 Cabinet Room recordings primarily pertain to the Vietnam War peace negotiations and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, although there are a few recordings of meetings dealing with legislative matters, such as the 1968 Tax Bill. They include: foreign policy, the Vietnam War and peace negotiations, legislation, civil rights, the economy, politics, labor issues, appointments, and press relations. The recorded telephone conversations cover a variety of topics. In this series, there are 143 analog tapes, documenting seventy-seven different meetings. īeginning in early 1968, Johnson had the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) install a conventional reel-to-reel analog recording system in the Cabinet Room and in his small private office next to the Oval Office. While President, Johnson recorded approximately 9420 telephone conversations, totaling over 643 hours. He began recording his telephone conversations from other locations, such as in the master bedroom in the residence section of the White House and at the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Texas. Gradually, President Johnson expanded his use of the Dictaphone system. Apparently, when he moved into the Oval Office four days later on November 26, 1963, he initially used Kennedy's Dictaphone system. Following President Kennedy's assassination, he began recording his telephone conversations in his Old Executive Office Building (EOB) office using an IBM system. He began mechanically recording his telephone conversations while Vice President, using an Edison Voicewriter Recorder which used small, plastic circular discs.

He had his chief aide, Walter Jenkins, listen in on the conversation and take shorthand notes. Johnson actually began "recording" his telephone conversations while in the Senate. Stegall also transferred custody of reel-to-reel analog tapes of many meetings held in the Cabinet Room in 1968. The boxes contained recordings of some of Johnson's telephone conversations from November 22, 1963, through January 2, 1969. She stated that Johnson considered the materials contained in the FRC boxes to be very sensitive and that he had instructed they were to remain sealed for fifty years after his death. Johnson Library custody of eight sealed Federal Records Center (FRC) boxes.

One week after President Johnson's death on January 22, 1973, his longtime personal assistant Mildred Stegall transferred to the Lyndon B. Processing of the Meetings (Cabinet) series is ongoing.Įxtract from John Powers, "The History of Presidential Audio Recordings and the Archival Issues Surrounding Their Use" (1996). Processing Status: The Telephone series has now been completely processed.