This collection of 20 recordings captures approximately 3 hours of private conversation between President Ronald W. Reagan and foreign leaders from the years 1982 to 1986. It includes frank exchanges between Reagan and figures such as British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Pakistani president Muhammed Zia ul-Haq, Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, and Mexican president Miguel de la Madrid. These tapes differ from the secret recordings made by presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Richard M. Nixon, whose taping regimens were more surreptitious and often more extensive. Reagan’s taping, which involved telephone calls routed through the White House Situation Room, sought instead to provide the administration with a supplemental record of conversations that often depended on real-time translations into and out of English. As a result, these tapes are less revealing of administration practices and policies than those of earlier administrations, particularly those of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, whose recordings regularly feature exchanges with White House aides, Cabinet officials, legislators, media figures, and private individuals.

Nevertheless, the Reagan tapes, whose existence came to light in 1986, offer an extraordinary window into several episodes during the Reagan years. They include a conversation in which Reagan apologized to Prime Minister Thatcher for not providing her with advanced notice of the October 1983 U.S. military operation in Grenada; a June 1985 exchange with President Zia in which Reagan sought Pakistan’s assistance in freeing hostages taken by terrorist groups Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in the hijacking of TWA flight 847; and efforts in the fall of 1983 to forestall the withdrawal of Israeli troops from positions in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. In all, these tapes provide a revealing snapshot of President Reagan addressing imminent crises and long-term challenges as he cultivated and sustained relationships with leaders abroad.