Baliles became the Miller Center's fifth director in April 2006, and before his retirement on December 31, 2014 developed the "American Forum" television program (which ran for 6 years). Known for his civility and bipartisanship, Baliles also oversaw the publication of more than a dozen transcript volumes of White House tapes from the John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon presidencies and fostered its oral history program, including of presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as well as the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project (released in 2015) and laid the groundwork for the Barack Obama Presidential Oral History Project. Earlier, the Miller Center in 2002 held a conference focusing on his governorship, which led to a 2003 documentary.