From what I understand, the issue of playing back Nixon tapes is periodically (every few years?) revisited to see if magnetic microscopy technology has advanced enough to warrant an attempt to extract audio from the erased portions. A few years ago it was decided this was not yet the case.

http://www.thic.org/pdf/July06/nist.dpappas.060718.pdf

Marcos Sueiro Bal
Senior Archivist, New York Public Radio
646 829 4063

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lou Judson
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2017 10:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] RIP Jim Wheeler

My condolences to all who knew him as well.

This makes me wonder - has digital tech progressed enough to be able to find the erased recording down in the murk? It would still be fascinating to know what it was... and why erased!

<L>
Lou Judson
Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Jun 17, 2017, at 6:59 PM, Brewster Kahle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Sorry that he has passed.
> 
> At a Christmas party at our house years ago, I was a fly on the wall 
> as he was talking with John Markoff of the New York Times.  He worked on
> the Nixon missing 20 minutes of tape being erased.   As I remember, his
> theory was that it was a conversation with Howard Hughes.   This was not
> an official finding of the government however, and I think was informal.
> 
> -brewster