Experts

Ken Hughes

Fast Facts

  • Bob Woodward called Hughes "one of America's foremost experts on secret presidential recordings"
  • Has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes
  • Expertise on Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Secret White House Tapes, abuses of presidential power, Watergate, Vietnam War

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • Governance
  • Leadership
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Bob Woodward has called Ken Hughes “one of America's foremost experts on secret presidential recordings, especially those of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.” Hughes has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes and unearthing their secrets. As a journalist writing in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, and Boston Globe Magazine, and, since 2000, as a researcher with the Miller Center, Hughes’s work has illuminated the uses and abuses of presidential power involved in (among other things) the origins of Watergate, Jimmy Hoffa’s release from federal prison, and the politics of the Vietnam War. 

Hughes has been interviewed by the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and other news organizations. He is the author of Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate and Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War and the Casualties of Reelection.

Hughes is currently at work on a book about President John F. Kennedy’s hidden role in the coup plot that resulted in the overthrow and assassination of another president, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. 

 

Ken Hughes News Feed

In the years since, the extent of the U.S. role in the Diem coup and assassination has been hotly debated and disputed.
Ken Hughes National Security Archive
As we mark the Miller Center’s 50th anniversary, join us for a conversation about the impact of the Center’s transcription and analysis of the once-secret White House tapes.
Guian McKee, Kent Germany, Ken Hughes, and Marc Selverstone Miller Center Presents
This thought-provoking documentary series examines the harrowing consequences of the Vietnam War, from the Gulf of Tonkin incident to the fall of Saigon.
Ken Hughes, Marc Selverstone Netflix
Turning Point: The Vietnam War, which premieres on this anniversary, is a new five-part Netflix documentary series.
Ken Hughes Slate
Ken Hughes, a researcher with the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, as well as the author of two books on Nixon, said there were three groups Nixon fixated on in particular: Jews, Ivy Leaguers and intellectuals. "He believes that members of all those groups are arrogant, and that they put themselves above the law."
Ken Hughes Salon
Ken Hughes is a master researcher of the White House tape recordings of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. His two books, Chasing Shadows and Fatal Politics, are among my favorites on the subject of Nixonian malfeasance. In our podcast conversation, he delved into why Nixon is important in the Age of Trump. “The enemies list is unfortunately all too relevant. The enemies list was one way Richard Nixon tried to weaponize the federal government against people who got in his way politically,” Hughes says.
Ken Hughes History As It Happens