Lost Recordings of 'Kitchen Debate'

From the invention of the first practical videotape recorder by Ampex Corporation in 19561until approximately 1979 virtually all broadcast television was recorded on a format known as Quadraplex or Quad. Of the tens of thousands of recordings that were made during that period of time, very few remain. Of those that do remain, some historical recordings like the famous Nixon-Khrushchev "Kitchen Debate" are in questionable condition. This paper will explore a few of the reasons for the large loss of these early videotape recordings and briefly discuss efforts to assemble a "restored version" of the Nixon-Khrushchev "Kitchen Debate" videotape recorded on July 25, 1959.2

Although one could generally categorize the loss of Quad recordings as "system obsolescence," the real reasons for the loss of so much information over such a long period of time lies much deeper. From a 1998 perspective, the total loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of "visual assets" seems inconceivable. From a business perspective alone, how could such a huge inventory of product that could be marketed for many years, creating a significant cash flow, be permanently lost? Indeed, how could so much culturally and historically important material be gone? Even from a microscopic perspective, one must wonder how a single major historical and media event (both in its own time and from a historical perspective3) such as the Nixon-Khrushchev "Kitchen Debate" could exist only in very damaged pieces?

There are many reasons for the loss of the vast majority of television broadcasts originally recorded on Quad. While some of the reasons are peculiar to an early implementation of a technology that was destined to become ubiquitous, most of the reasons relate to the economics of a new technology and its operation in a business environment. As such, many of the reasons for the loss of the information are as valid today as they were in the dawn of television video recording from the 1950s to 1970s.