Lyndon B. Johnson became president on the death of John F. Kennedy on 22nd November, 1963. He immediately decided to secretly tape all his telephone conversations. All told he recorded over 800 hours of discussions on the telephone. He told close aides that he did this for two main reasons. (i) It would help him write his memoirs; (ii) He could use this information to apply pressure (blackmail) on politicians and businessmen. Johnson informed his longtime personal assistant Mildred Stegall that if he died unexpectedly, she must destroy the tapes and their transcripts). However, when died of a heart attack at San Antonio, Texas, on 22nd January, 1973, Stegall did not carry out his instructions. Instead, she placed them in sealed boxes and sent them to the LBJ Presidential Library with the instructions that they must not be opened until at least January 2023.
