3rd Floor Gallery Telephone Conversations

“The telephone was an extension of Johnson’s personality—a powerful appendage that

preserved for posterity his indomitable will.” Harry Middleton, LBJ Speechwriter and the former

Director of the LBJ Presidential Library who opened LBJ’s telephone recordings to the public.

Shortly after he became President, Lyndon Johnson had a Dictaphone belt recorder installed in

the Oval Office. He recorded more than 643 hours of telephone conversations—to have both a

record of his administration and a chronicle for posterity. The recordings offer an unparalleled

look into a modern Presidency. In the captured words and tones of voice, the recordings also

reveal the more personal side of Lyndon Johnson.