Richard Nixon, right, and Nikita Khrushchev debating at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959, part of what came to be known as the Kitchen Debate. Photo: Thomas J. O’Halloran, via Wikimedia Commons
WNYC has mined some Overseas Press Club gems from its audio archives, digging up recordings of OPC programs that were broadcast from 1940 to the mid-1970s.
The archives were recently curated into an online collection, with OPC speeches, awards programs and forums related to international news on offer.
In one 1966 recording, two years before his second presidential campaign, Richard Nixon talks with the OPC about Vietnam policy and throws barbs at his Democratic opponents.
Introducing the discussion is OPC President Victor Riesel, who served from 1966 to 1968. You can listen to the interview using the embedded audio player below.
The archive includes many other noteworthy programs, including a 1965 interview with female pilots in the Angel Derby air race from New York to the Bahamas.
The discussion provides a window into a different era in gender equality, with the moderator asking sometimes cringe-worthy questions about the pilots’ husbands and marital status as the group’s spokesperson appeals for commercial airlines to hire more women.
This web archive was completed with help from the National Endowment for the Humanities and produced by WNYC with the courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.
Many more featured episodes of this archive can be found on the WNYC website.
It Worked in Theory: Richard Nixon on Strategy in South Vietnam, 1966 >>
Girls Who Fly: 1965 Angel Derby Pilots Are Told Sexism Doesn’t Exist >>