Classified Richard Nixon documents released

Around 1,00,000 pages of classified documents from the time of late US president Richard Nixon were released Friday, which would offer an insight into his personality as well as his handling of politics.

Most of the documents were taken from the files of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former senator and Nixon's counsellor for urban affairs from January 1969 to December 1970, who helped shape the Republican president's policies.

The papers released at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, detail his perspectives on welfare reform, population control, civil rights, the environment and drugs.

"On the substance, president Nixon's personal focus was on political affairs and foreign policy," Matt Beckmann, an assistant professor of political science at UC Irvine was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum also released 5,000 pages of earlier classified national security records, including US intelligence assessments on erstwhile Soviet Union and Israel, correspondence between Nixon and former British prime minister Edward Heath, and on the Vietnam War.

"The Nixon administration is an especially interesting one. This is so because the issues were particularly important, the personalities particularly intriguing. The materials released will provide a wonderful look at both," Beckmann said.

The new material is part of the ongoing effort to move Nixon's archives from Washington, after the library came under federal control in 2007.