All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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The latest release of Richard Nixon's secretly recorded White House tapes shows that as his campaign buttons proclaimed, "Nixon's the One," he's still the one who keeps providing stunning surprises nearly 14 years after his death and 34 years after he resigned in disgrace. For reporters, historians and presidential scholars, the extensive Nixon tapes are the gifts that keep on giving.

The latest Nixon Library tape release amounts to an audio version of his famous "enemies list." Most politicians would relish the kind of landslide victory that Nixon enjoyed in 1972. Yet a month after defeating George McGovern, Nixon had other enemies on his mind. On one of the tapes he told his national security adviser Henry Kissinger, "Never forget. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy." Almost shouting he repeated, "professors are the enemy!" He told former Harvard professor Kissinger, "Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it....

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The National Archives today added another heap of about 90,000 pages of documents to the mountain of paper from the Nixon administration. With it, some 200 hours of tape shine additional light on Richard Nixon's presidency.

It's the 12th time more Nixon documents have been opened to the public since 1980. They include, according to the Nixon Library and Museum: "file segments for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President Collection; White House Special Files, Staff Member & Office Files; White House Central Files, Staff Member & Office Files; and the National Security Council File series, including the Henry A. Kissinger Office Files and the National Security Council Institutional Files."

Sound dry? It isn't. Our justice and homeland security correspondent, Bob Orr, has a great piece on tonight's Evening News with highlights, including what Henry Kissinger said to the president after the notorious 1972 "Christmas Bombing" of Hanoi, and what Nixon did to portraits of former presidents in his offices.

You can see a selection of the paper documents here, but most are only in libraries. The library is working on putting the tapes online, and quite a few already are.

Listen to them here.

Despite that Nixon conducted much business in great secrecy ...

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Bill Plante is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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It's hard to deny the guilty pleasure inherent in listening to other peoples' private conversations, particularly when you know most of them had no clue they'd be overheard for history.

On one hand, we profess to believe in privacy and the laws which protect it -- statutes forbidding wiretapping and eavesdropping.

On the other, the historical value of a real-time conversational record is priceless -- and listening in is fascinating.

The Nixon Library, as part of its transfer from the former President's estate to the National Archives, has just released 11 and one half hours of taped conversations and 78,000 documents. It's all available on the web right here.

The tapes are from the period November 3 - 19, 1972 - just before and after the Presidential election of November 7th.

On election night, President Nixon - who had just won a landslide victory over Senator George McGovern - was nonetheless still annoyed at McGovern for claiming that Nixon wasn't doing enough to end the Vietnam war.

In a telephone conversation early the next morning with political aide Harry Dent, the President, referring to McGovern, says, "The son-of-a-bitch - didn't you think we about the worst candidate?"

The raw material of history is sometimes VERY raw...

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This week marks the 35th anniversary of Title IX, which opened doors for young women, especially in the world of sports.

But are girls really healthier as a result?

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"I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." – film critic Pauline Kael, in an oft-repeated quote that, it turns out, she never really said.

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In many ways, the political world we live in now began in 1960, with the first debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

For today's Notebook, Katie looks back on that historic moment, 46 years ago today. Just click the monitor to watch.

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For today's Notebook, Katie looks back at a significant moment in history. It happened 32 years ago this week. And it changed everything. Click on the image and watch.

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