Thanks for all the info.

I've got sound forge 7.0, and I found the graphic compressor.
It does seem like sound forge is lacking in noise reduction capability, but I'm not authorized to buy, borrow, or steal any other software to use so i'm stuck with it. As for plugins, I found out that I would have to apply to get a plugin and it could take months, which is longer than the timeframe for this project.

There is a vinyl restoration function which removes clicks and claims to reduce noise (but it doesn't seem to work especially well at that).

I haven't started the project yet, I'm getting the tapes next Monday. All I know about it is that it's an african american news show that began running on detroit public tv in the 60's and ran up through the 90's and just recently went off the air.
Having just finished editing old people talking about quilting, it will probably be awesome in comparison.

I'm sure Sound Forge alone will probably be ok. The vinyl restoration function may not be very good since it will probably be a median filter or something similar which will be designed for click removal rather than white noise or hiss. If you are allowed to install additional plugins, then get yourself some shareware or freeware ones from the net. There are a huge number of professional quality plugins out there which are worth a try.

Have a look here for free plugins:

http://www.sonicspot.com/daplugins.html