On this edition of Free Culture Radio: A conversation with drug policy activist and researcher Kurtis Hanna.
In 2002, to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Shafer Commission, I did some research on the report and Nixon. Back then, to listen to any of the Nixon tapes, you had to go to the National Archives out in Maryland, register as a researcher, go through the paper records to find the recordings you wanted to request from the librarian, then you could sit there and listen and, so long as you brought along blanks, you could make copies.
Thank god for the internet.
There were a total of 1,512 hours of tapes available to the public in 2002. A lot more have been released since then, in fact currently there are 2,719 hours of Nixon recordings available. The most recent tape release was in August 2013, by which time the tapes were starting to be digitized into audio recordings to be posted online for the public.
I listened to a lot of Nixon back in 2002, and did a lot of transcribing. I never went back to check out the newer releases and dig more deeply. Thankfully, someone finally has. That someone is Kurtis Hanna.
- KBOO