Product Details

• Published on: 2008-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From Amazon.com
Richard Nixon was not the first president to tape-record conversations inside the Oval Office--that was Franklin Roosevelt. Nor was he the last, although one would think after Nixon's disastrous experience with taping that the succeeding occupants of the White House would have learned better. Since they didn't, we have Inside the Oval Office, "a cockpit voice recorder of the presidency" written and compiled by William Doyle. Doyle combines transcripts of taped Oval Office conversations--from FDR to Bill Clinton--with his assessment of each president's executive abilities. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, John F. Kennedy showed what Doyle calls a pragmatic leadership style: "self-control, a call for multiple opinions, the discipline to think several steps ahead, and the ability to put himself in 'the other guy's shoes.'"

Among the book's highlights: Franklin Roosevelt briefing cabinet members and congressional leaders after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; Dwight Eisenhower talking to the British prime minister during the Suez crisis; John F. Kennedy talking to Mississippi governor Ross Barnett during the fight over integration of the University of Mississippi; Lyndon Johnson meeting with military advisors about U.S. involvement in Vietnam; Richard Nixon talking with Chuck Colson about monitoring Henry Kissinger's calls to the press (and the "smoking gun" tapes in which Nixon discusses the Watergate cover-up with John Dean and H.R. Haldeman); and the transcripts of videotaped meetings held by Ronald Reagan on the Soviet Union. Anyone interested in history and the presidency will no doubt find Inside the Oval Office full of revealing and fascinating material. --Linda Killian

From Publishers Weekly
Seven of the 11 U.S. presidents since the Depression have secretly recorded meetings and telephone conversations in the White House. Many of these recordings have been locked away in official archives, lost or forgotten. Doyle, who won a Writer's Guild award for a documentary on the same subject, uses these recordings to present an impressive, illuminating account of how presidents from FDR to Clinton managed the day-to-day operations of "the world's most dangerous office." Combining interviews, meticulous historical research and transcripts of the tapes themselves, Doyle peeks behind the wizard's curtain to show us the nation's chief executives at work: FDR thundering at the "damn Jap" who demanded that the U.S. evacuate Hawaii; Eisenhower sternly prodding the British prime minister to cease hostilities in the Suez; Johnson browbeating a senator into serving on the Warren Commission. We learn what time presidents woke up (in Truman's case, 5:30 a.m.), if they took naps (Reagan, every day) and what time they went to sleep (well past midnight for Johnson). We see them trading quips with the White House press corps and dispatching troops to international hot spots. We also see them digging their own graves, via Johnson and Nixon transcripts on Vietnam and Watergate. Doyle's running commentary on the transcripts provides a plethora of instructive and sometimes disheartening insights into the hidden machinery of the Oval Office. Quoth Bill Clinton: "I get treated like a mule. Whenever I'm at my desk I end up with these lists of people to call. I'm supposed to call every junior congressman about every vote.... I don't have time to think." Reading this book is a little like peering through a keyhole at history.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The control and abuse of electronic surveillance began with Franklin Roosevelt, who, feeling miffed at being misquoted during White House press conferences, installed a recording machine for the Oval Office. But, according to Doyle, who won the 1998 Writers Guild Award for Best Documentary for A&Es The Secret White House Tapes, Richard Nixon debased the presidency more than any other chief executive. Doyles thoroughly researched, finely written investigation is primarily about how recordings can describe management style and show how effectively a president fulfills the constitutionally defined role as head of the Executive Branch. Presidents mostly taped to protect themselves, although Truman, Ford, Carter, and Bush did not use tapes because of personal ethical doubts, while Clinton recklessly recorded conversations describing campaign finance, law exploitation, and sex. The best safeguard, notes Doyle, is to elect honest presidents, and he sensibly recommends that only the business operations of the White House be taped for clarifying conversations and policy proposals. Strongly recommended for public and academic collections.Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Inside The Ultimate Cockpit
It's a little mindblowing to realize such a historical resource exists: Recordings of presidents in the Oval Office discussing matters of state, negotiating with world leaders, and offering often-candidly caustic opinions of their contemporaries.

While William Doyle's "Inside The Oval Office" is subtitled "The White House Tapes From FDR To Clinton," this is a misnomer. As others here point out, there's really only a trio of presidents that taped themselves at work with any regularity, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and four more (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Ford) that did so even at all. Reagan and Clinton both had video crews film some of their formal meetings, but Bush 41 and Carter avoided anything more involved than private diary tapings in recording the doings of their administrations.

Despite the uneven nature of this record, Doyle tries his best to analyze each president's administration from a purely executive-managerial level, sometimes using the tapes as a guide but just as often relying on contemporaneous accounts and even interviews with people who were in the room with the various chief executives. The result is some fascinating portraits in miniature of the vastly different leadership styles America have elected to its helm.

Doyle manages effective profiles of each man, but delivers the goods best on the ones, not surprisingly, who did the most taping. LBJ verbally bludgeons cowering senators to pass aggressive civil rights legislation and tells a pants manufacturer to give him some slacks with more room for his testicles, employing some decidedly earthy terminology in both instances. Kennedy and his Best and Brightest advisor team listen in on reports from Ole Miss while James Meredith is enrolled as a student there and the campus erupts into a combat zone. Nixon makes bizarre and angry pronouncements, half-commands and half-rantings, urging aides to spy on Kissinger when he suspects his chief diplomat is talking to the press.

"Even with all their limitations, the Oval Office tapes do offer something no other source can: A real-time record of the presidents as executives in action as they manage the business of American history," Doyle writes.

I heard my first Oval Office tape a couple of months ago at whitehousetapes.org, the first one ever made which features FDR holding a press conference in August 1940 and then, after the room is cleared, slyly slipping an aide some dirt on his Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie, apparently having forgotten he was wired for sound. That whole tape, just under an hour, is fascinating listening, even during that sometimes dry press conference where Roosevelt talks about American military preparedness and then apologizes to the lone female reporter before using the term "BVD," a brand of men's underwear the troops were being outfitted with.

It would have been nice to read about filigree like that in this book, if it had been written as a tour guide of the mounds of tapes out there and all the strange secrets and bits of trivia they contain. You can't listen to all the tapes; Nixon alone made more than 3,000 hours of them. But something attempting to give shape to the vast treasure trove of Presidential tapings would have been more worthy of the title of this book.

Please don't read that as a knock: Doyle does write a solid historical overview, complete with voluminous footnotes that should please the scholar as well as the casual reader. He manages the feat of presenting a very political setting in a way that is non-partisan yet zesty. He offers some interesting tidbits about each president you won't find in any other book, particularly Johnson, who agonized about Vietnam long before most anyone else did and was in many ways the Oval Office's most complicated man.

"He was King Lear, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Captain Ahab, Moses, and Grendel, all stuffed into a scratching, belching, blustering, six-foot two-inch 220-plus pound explosive package," as Doyle memorably puts it, yet Johnson was also a passionate humanitarian and patriot who, as caught on tape, once exclaimed the one thing he ever wanted in the world was "a little love."

A good book, at times very very good, but one with a poorly-chosen subtitle.

NOT ABOUT RECORDINGS
The "saskatoonguy" description of the book dated 24 April 01 pretty much nailed it on the head. The book is more about the personal and management styles of Presidents Roosevelt through Clinton. The reference to tape recordings is more of a come-on to attract readers. The recordings are more of a sidelight in this description of the administrative styles of the referenced presidents.

In fairness, though, recordings were used minimally by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower and the post-Nixon administrations shied away from recordings as well (although video recordings of certain events started under President Reagan). Only Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon made extensive use tape recordings and the first two still exercised control over what was recorded -- a practice that Nixon did not adopt and later regretted. The most memorable examples used were a couple of Johnson's recordings. A somewhat humorous recording, in spite of the tragic circumstances, was President Johnson's arm twisting his mentor, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, into serving on the Warren Commission. Senator Russell despised Earl Warren. The second was a meeting to determine whether the Administration would commit 200,000 more troops to Vietnam where President Johnson finally decided to reverse his policy and start pulling back from that unpleasant and costly adventure.

As for the descriptions of the administrations themselves, the book, in my opinion, is a testimonial to how too much emphasis is put on "qualifications" to be President. Each individual who has served in the Oval Office, including the current occupant and his successors, will have certain strengths and weaknesses that may prepare them well for the challenges that confront them, or not prepare them well at all. I always felt that in terms of "qualifications", Herbert Hoover was one of the most qualified men to serve as President. Under normal circumstances, his qualifications may have been adequate. But an economy plunging into a depression is not "normal". As much as I disliked President Carter, there is no disputing his intelligence. But he was so bogged down in learning what to do that he scarcely did anything at all (I do not agree with Mr. Doyle's revisionist attempt to portray the Carter Administration as being more than what it was, a failure). As Hoover was replaced by a visionary, so too was Carter. In terms of intellect, President Reagan does not rank very high. But he was successful in ways that his more "qualified" successor, George Bush Sr., could never understand. I also do not attribute the Clinton's Administration lack of cooperation with investigators to poor management practices that resulted in evidence being lost and unavailable until, conveniently, the investigation was over. I think deliberate obstruction of justice was a bigger factor.

Although I supported George W. Bush in 2000 and would never, ever even consider voting for his opponent, I am not one of those who now claim how fortunate we are that he was president on 11 September 2001 and not Al Gore. I doubt anybody knows how a Gore Administration would have responded -- even Al Gore himself. No knock intended as it even took some time for the Bush Administration to recover and respond. If Al Gore was president, people would find certain aspects about his background and style that would be right for that crisis -- just as they did for George W. Although his response may have been different, the public would have supported his response if it was a strong response -- something considerably stronger than lobbing a few cruise missiles at an aspirin factory in a third world country.

Bottom line: A good summary of the administrative and personal styles of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton. However, if you are looking for more substance in terms of recordings, you will be disappointed.

Facinating content but lacked enough recordings
After reading and listening to "Taking Charge," which was about LBJ's secret tapes, I was expecting the audio version of "Inside the Oval Office" to use many more actual recordings. Instead, the reader reads transcripts of conversations. The tapes contain a few actual recordings but very few, about one per president. Inexplicably, it presents no actual recordings of Reagan, Bush or Clinton. This was a disappointment since I knew from listening to "Taking Charge" that actual recordings contain great insights into the men who inhabited the White House. A reader cannot possibly capture the nuances of language used by our 20th century presidents. There is a great difference between hearing a president's actual words and having them read from transcripts. However, the content of the book and audiotapes provide a facinating glimpse inside the oval office.