For Immediate Release: November 8, 2005
Further information: Brent R. Carney (617) 514-1662, Brent.Carney@JFKLFoundation.org
Boston, MA – The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum today announced that it has declassified and made available for research approximately twelve hours of tape recordings of White House meetings that took place between May 15 and June 1, 1963. The release coincides with the 45th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 victory in the November 8 presidential election. Kennedy was the youngest man ever elected to this office and the first President born in the 20th century.
The conversations on these recordings (tapes 87-90) between President John F. Kennedy, his advisors and foreign officials such as Netherlands’ Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister Paul Henri Spaak, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, cover various topics including arms limitations in the Middle East, planning for the President’s upcoming trip to Europe, US-European relations and civil rights.
Researchers should be aware that tapes #87-90 run 12 hours and 10 minutes. Approximately 73 hours of meeting tapes remain to be reviewed for declassification prior to release. Processing of the presidential recordings will continue to be conducted in the chronological order of the tapes. Additional tapes will be opened in the near future.
Tape 88 excerpt (1:17 min.) is from Tape 88's NATO meeting: This May 20, 1963 meeting centers on NATO force requirements, the multi-lateral force (MLF) and NATO financing. There is very little paperwork available on this meeting. The meeting begins with a brief Cuba discussion. In addition there is an interesting exchange later in the meeting concerning the Civil Aeronautics Board and a memorandum that President Kennedy had written on some recent issues of concern. The excerpt deals with the President's upcoming trip to Europe.
The first items from the presidential recordings were opened to public research in June of 1983. Since that time the Library staff has reviewed and opened all of the telephone conversations and a large portion of the meeting tapes. The latter are predominantly meetings with President Kennedy in either the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room. While the recordings were deliberate in the sense that it required manual operation to start and stop the recording, it was not, based on the material recorded, used with daily regularity nor was there a set pattern for its operation.
The tapes represent raw historical material. The sound quality of the recordings varies widely. Although most of the recorded conversation is understandable, many tapes also include passages of extremely poor sound quality with considerable background noise and periods where the identity of the speakers is unclear.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library’s Archives include 48 million pages of documents from the collections of 340 individuals, organizations, or government agencies; oral history interviews with 1,300 people; and more than 30,000 books. The Audiovisual Archives administers collections of more than 400,000 still photographs, 7,550,000 feet of motion picture film, 1,200 hours of video recordings, over 7,000 hours of audio recordings and 500 original editorial cartoons.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through scholarship, educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.
The Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with the exception of Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. The Research Room is open 8:30 am – 4:30 pm each weekday, and is closed on weekends and federal holidays. Appointments may be made by calling (617) 514-1629. The recordings and finding guide are available for purchase at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, or by calling the Audiovisual Department (617) 514-1614.
The Library is located in the Dorchester section of Boston, off Morrissey Boulevard, next to the campus of the University of Massachusetts/Boston. Parking is free. There is free shuttle-service from the JFK/UMass T Stop on the Red Line. The Museum is fully handicapped accessible. For more information, call (866) JFK-1960.