Historian William Doyle first requested the recordings in 1996 . The tapes were made by a man named John F. Kennedy who was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson and later became chief of staff for his brother Robert Kennedy. In a conversation with Pakistan 's Zia-ul-Haq , Reagan discusses the sensitive nature of hostage negotiations after a Trans World Airlines flight from Cairo was hijacked by radical Islamists . Doyle 's findings were published in the New York Post on Saturday .
Historian William Doyle first requested the recordings in 1996 . The tapes were made by a man named John F. Kennedy who was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson and later became chief of staff for his brother Robert Kennedy. Doyle 's findings were published in the New York Post on Saturday .