Secret John F Kennedy’s Oval Office recordings revealed in new book

Talking to Harry Truman about sex, and Eisenhower about war

The practice of recording in the oval office first began with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, and remained largely unknown until the Nixon tapes were revealed in 1973 amid the Watergate hearings. JFK’s recordings were self-administered - as in, he had to press record on the Dictaphone as opposed to being continuously recorded.

The Kennedy family held on to the tapes until 1976 when they handed them over to the National Archives. Later, The Kennedy Library acquired the tapes and began making them available to historians in 1983. Following a long process including declassification and transcriptions, the final 45 hours of tape were only made available this year.

The book, which features a foreword by daughter Caroline Kennedy and introduction by Ted Widmer, a presidential historian at Brown University, is now available for sale online.

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Nster.com