Nearly 35 years after President Richard M. Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal, the Nixon Presidential Library last week released more than 150 hours of secret Oval Office recordings covering January and February of 1973. While much of the attention to the newly disclosed material focused on Mr. Nixon’s expressing his prejudices and discussing the cease-fire in Vietnam, other conversations offer a glimpse of his thinking about presidential decision making and the exercise of power. There is also a reflection on prospects for democracy in the developing world — a reminder that during the cold war, the United States did not shrink from supporting repressive allies. Excerpts, as transcribed by The New York Times from tapes with poor audio quality, follow....