Nixon tapes capture private meeting with Soviet leader Brezhnev in Oval Office
Posted August 21, 2013 11:54 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
YORBA LINDA, Calif.- The final installment of secret recordings from President Richard Nixon’s White House reveals the president chatting warmly with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the run-up to a major summit.
The Oval Office conversation from June 18, 1973, was released Wednesday along with 340 hours of tape and more than 140,000 pages of documents.
Nixon and Brezhnev met one-on-one with only an interpreter present for an hour and chatted about personal topics, including their families.
The conversation happened before the start of a historic seven-day summit.
The tapes also include Nixon speaking with Ronald Reagan after delivering a public address on the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s impeachment.
Nixon made 3,700 hours of tape between February 1971 and July 1973 using a covert recording system.
