That is, they secretly recorded conversations with friends, staff, advisors and unsuspecting political visitors. Doyle achieved access to a great, hitherto-unheard archive of such tapes. And here they are, from FDR to LBJ. Some of the content of these conversations is amusing – but more of it is revealing and one or two items generate astonishment.

From Pericles and Cicero to Churchill and Roosevelt, David Zarefsky, a specialist in the oratorical dimension of historical process, examines the nature of the art. We listen to and analyze sections of speeches as recorded or – for the older great figures – as read by us from the available annals. This program was done on the eve of the mid-term elections of 2006.

The First Division was one of the two that landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Here, from the 60th anniversary in June, 2004, is an information-rich discussion of the action that began the western invasion of Germany. Col. John Votaw held a high command in the postwar First Division and Flint Whitelock had just authored “The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day.”

In a conversation from 2005 we talk with “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss about the struggle, in Roosevelt’s last year, over what future should be planned for, or imposed on, Germany. Some historical sound clips heighten the narrative and the discussion raises the counter-factual question: What would have happened if the “Morgenthau Plan” to reduce Germany to an “agricultural nation” had been implemented?

The broadcasters, stations, talent, programs and sponsors of early radio – with lots of illustrative sound clips, and beginning with the coverage of the national election of 1920!