The Abuse of Governmental Power (AOGP) conversations tapes consist of excerpted portions of conversations that documented evidence of abuses of governmental power. These excerpted portions were recorded between February 1971 and July 1973.

These conversations, released on May 17, 1993, comprise the first of three releases.

Participants

In addition to President Nixon, participants include:

• H. R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff
• Charles W. Colson, Special Counsel
• John Ehrlichman, Domestic Policy Advisor and Staff Assistant
• John Dean, White House Counsel
• Ronald L. Ziegler, Press Secretary

Topics

The main topics include:

• administration efforts to plant erroneous information in the apartment of Arthur Bremer
• who shot Presidential candidate George Wallace
• misuse of government agencies
• illegal fundraising activities
• discussions of the "Watergate" break-in and planning the cover-up and public relations strategy
• This group also contains the 18½ minute gap conversation

Release History  [See Also:  1996 Tapes Settlement Agreement]

Following this release, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced its intention to release additional AOGP segments in monthly increments, beginning with the July 1972 AOGP conversations. However, attorneys for President Nixon obtained a District Court injunction blocking future releases.

Professor Stanley Kutler and Public Citizen Litigation Group sued for additional public releases. The injunction was finally lifted and the suit settled when the NARA, the Estate of President Nixon, and Public Citizen announced the Tapes Settlement Agreement in 1996.

The Settlement Agreement established a chronological order for the processing of all the Nixon White House Tapes in five installments. Under the terms of the agreement, the AOGP conversations would be released, not by the month, but in one large installment.

About the Tapes  [See Also:  AOGP Conversations Subject Logs]

There are no transcripts for these conversations.

• spans May 1972 - June 1972
• totals approximately 3 hours
• consists of approximately 41 conversation segments
• conversation recorded in various locations
• released on May 17, 1993
• available on 6 reference cassettes (E-191 - E-196)