Here is a sampling of some of the best known "abuse of power" conversations. The summaries were composed by the staff of the Richard Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives.

AP File Photo		The Smoking Gun President Nixon and H.R. Haldeman June 23, 1972 This conversation occurred six days after the arrest of the burglars at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex.
AP File Photo		Cancer on the Presidency Nixon and John W. Dean March 21, 1973 John Dean explains that there is a growing "cancer" within the White House regarding the Watergate burglary.
AP File Photo		Protecting ITT Nixon and Richard G. Kleindienst April 19, 1971 In this telephone conversation, the president orders Kleindeinst, the deputy attorney general of the United States, to not file a sensitive legal brief.
AP File Photo		Ambassadorships for Sale Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, Charles W. Colson and Peter M. Flanigan July 2, 1971 The president and his staff are discussing possible ambassadorial appointments for key supporters.
AP File Photo		Discrediting Kennedy Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman Oct. 8, 1971 John Ehrlichman, the president's chief domestic adviser, tells Nixon that he hopes to receive information on the assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963.
AP File Photo		Breaking Into Brookings Nixon, H.R. Haldeman and Henry A. Kissinger July 1, 1971 In the aftermath of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the president was incensed that the press was blaming him for the Vietnam conflict.
AP File Photo		Investigating the L.A. Times Nixon and John N. Mitchell Oct. 7, 1971 The president responds to reports in the Los Angeles Times that an illegal alien had worked at his San Clemente house.
AP File Photo		Milk and Money Nixon and H.R. Haldeman March 23, 1971 The president and Haldeman are discussing a plan to increase the price of milk in exchange for campaign contributions from various milk producer associations.
AP File Photo		The Politics of the IRS Nixon and H. R. Haldeman Sept. 13, 1971 Nixon is angry that the Internal Revenue Service is auditing his political supporters, such as Billy Graham, Robert Abplanalp and John Wayne.

Many more tapes are available at the National Archives at College Park. You can make your own copies of the high points – and low points – of his presidency, and listen whenever you like as history is being made. With the approval of the Nixon estate, the National Archives is allowing anyone interested to obtain copies of once highly secret discussions on Vietnam, the Watergate scandal and the countless other topics that occupied the president on a given day – shouts and cusswords included.

Not all the tapes have been released yet. Those numbered 1 through 46 reflect White House telephone conversations; 47 through 129 are Cabinet room meetings; 130 through 169 are conversations on the table telephone in Nixon's study at Camp David; 170 and 171 are blank; 172 through 186 are remarks on the desk telephone at Camp David; 188 through 244 are meetings in the Camp David study; 245 through 448 are conversations in Nixon's Executive Office Building (EOB) suite and 449 through 950 are meetings in the Oval Office. The conversations in the EOB are the most difficult to make out.

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