Inside the Oval Office: The White House Tapes from FDR to Clinton

by William Doyle

Traces taping history

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

365 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Reviews

[Damon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've got to give this book something of a break since it was published pre-Snowden and so some of the final points about the growth of communications recording seem naive now. However, my main issue with this book is that the focus - the impact of presidential self-taping - is distorted by the author's desire to tell a coherent narrative from FDR to Clinton. The problem is that many of those Pval Office occupants didn't tape themselves. So the scope is broadened to other forms of recording, and then to just general discussions about what each of them did and how their staff worked. In the latter it's just not as complete or insightful as other books.

[Steve Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually more about the style of governing than actual taping but really fascinating. LBJ and Nixon seem to be the main ‘taping’ presidents. Reagan was a great delegator and Carter the great micro manager. JFK doesn’t come out well due to his past inexperience as an executive but I’d certainly want to read more about Truman

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not focal to the concept of "White House secret recordings" whatsoever... Still though, the book was good. The actual concept of the book is; behind the scenes looks at presidents, and an analysis of their individual styles of governing, their strong-suits and mistakes.

[Steven Yenzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this account of the executive styles of the modern presidents, which used tape recording transcripts to guide and support the analysis. At times I felt that Doyle's editorializing was not necessarily backed up by the recordings he cited, but that was not often. And the behind-the-scenes accounts of men whose public images are so finely tuned were fascinating. Learning that LBJ called Ford's economics "the worst thing that's happened to this country since pantyhose ruined finger-fucking" was worth the price of admission, but getting deeper insight in the successes and failures of Carter's unique style was also interesting (and made me wonder what fellow technocrat Michael Dukakis might have done in the Oval Office).

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise here is to tell the story of the modern White House through the (mostly clandestine) taped conversations that have taken place through the years. The problem is, though, that only LBJ and certainly Nixon made liberal use of their taping systems. Every president after Nixon has been quite rightly afraid to touch a tape recorder. Still, there were plenty of interesting anecdotes, mostly drawn from interviews with insiders.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice overview of Presidential management styles, from FDR to Clinton. However, the title is misleading. The tapes are used to support the author's arguments and are not in any way the subject of the book. Only Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon taped enough to warrant book length studies. Still, a good read overall.

[Jeanne]

using historical tapes, a rather intimate view of life inside the oval office over several presidencies.