AUBURN — Chris Beam plans to give a talk about Watergate and The Nixon Tapes at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 14, in the Androscoggin Community Room at Auburn Public Library at 49 Spring St.

Beam worked from 1977-88 at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and from 1978-82 was on the staff that processed the Nixon tapes. Of the estimated 3,700 hours of conversation in the collection, he has listened to about 1,500 hours, mostly in the 1972-73 period, when the scandal was unfolding, according to a news release from the library.

From 1988 to 2005, he was director of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at Bates College and, since 1989, has taught U.S. history at Bates and other local institutions in an adjunct capacity. Every year until his retirement in 2020 he has led a course on the Vietnam War, of which he is a veteran.

He has been interviewed many times by local and national media on the Nixon tapes and related topics and published many commentaries on the Nixon presidency and the White House tapes. His slide presentation will cover the setup of the taping system, its technical characteristics including its many deficiencies, and the historical significance of its contents.

A resident of Lewiston and native of Brunswick, Beam graduated from Williams College, served in the U.S. Marine Corps including a tour in Vietnam, and earned a doctorate in U.S. History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

No registration is required.

For more information, visit auburnpubliclibrary.org.

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