Richard Nixon had "blood on his hands".

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Holy... this makes Watergate look like Bible study.

BBC News - The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'

It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser.

At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign. If any message needed to be passed to the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, it would come via Chennault.

In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris - concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared.


The Paris peace talks may have ended years earlier, if it had not been for Nixon's subterfuge
Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out.

He was also told why. The FBI had bugged the ambassador's phone and a transcripts of Anna Chennault's calls were sent to the White House. In one conversation she tells the ambassador to "just hang on through election".

Johnson was told by Defence Secretary Clifford that the interference was illegal and threatened the chance for peace.

In a series of remarkable White House recordings we can hear Johnson's reaction to the news.

In one call to Senator Richard Russell he says: "We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee, our California friend, has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends both, he has been doing it through rather subterranean sources. Mrs Chennault is warning the South Vietnamese not to get pulled into this Johnson move."

He orders the Nixon campaign to be placed under FBI surveillance and demands to know if Nixon is personally involved.

When he became convinced it was being orchestrated by the Republican candidate, the president called Senator Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the Senate to get a message to Nixon.

The president knew what was going on, Nixon should back off and the subterfuge amounted to treason.

Publicly Nixon was suggesting he had no idea why the South Vietnamese withdrew from the talks. He even offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table.

Johnson felt it was the ultimate expression of political hypocrisy but in calls recorded with Clifford they express the fear that going public would require revealing the FBI were bugging the ambassador's phone and the National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting his communications with Saigon.

So they decided to say nothing.

The president did let Humphrey know and gave him enough information to sink his opponent. But by then, a few days from the election, Humphrey had been told he had closed the gap with Nixon and would win the presidency. So Humphrey decided it would be too disruptive to the country to accuse the Republicans of treason, if the Democrats were going to win anyway.

Nixon ended his campaign by suggesting the administration war policy was in shambles. They couldn't even get the South Vietnamese to the negotiating table.

He won by less than 1% of the popular vote.

Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968.

[DanGarion]

Considering Johnson knew this happened, you really have to place part of this blame on him as well.

[Dutch]

The entire article seems to be based around the quote "just hang on through the election" which does not mean treason. It means the deal on the table being offered by the Democratic President was considered weak, short-sighted, and designed simply for his own re-election while throwing the South Vietnamese people under the bus (or in front of it, as it were with the impending North Vietnamese invasion once American forces left).

If we remember our history, the North Vietnamese were never interested in a divided nation, once the bombings were halted and the US was out, they were going to conquer the entire nation under their communistic rule.

[Dutch]

EDIT: Sorry, not Johnson's re-election...I meant the Democratic Parties re-election.as Johnson did not run again.

[Warhammer]

Agreed. While I don't agree with what Nixon did, Johnson or Humphrey easily could have put a stop to it.

[Shepp]

Sounds like business as usual for american politicians accross the board.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

not to mention nixon became a politician by ANSWERING AN AD IN THE PAPER. let that bounce around your coconut for a bit. an organization put an ad in the paper looking for a good clean boy, preferably a veteran, whom they could groom for political office.

yes, he's a machiavelian geius

i'm far more suspicious of johnson's political career particularly precinct 13 and his texas hijinks

[JPhillips]

This is more supporting evidence than we've previously known, but this story has been rumored for decades.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

to be clear i don't question the validity of this story. just saying that if this gets your hackles up you should be angry with the factions not the figureheads

[molson]

Evil power-hungry Republicans, spineless and ineffectual Democrats, seems about right. Can we ever blow this up and start over?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by molson

Evil power-hungry Republicans, spineless and ineffectual Democrats, seems about right. Can we ever blow this up and start over?

We did, it was called the Civil War.

[bigdawg2003]

Originally Posted by NorvTurnerOverdrive

not to mention nixon became a politician by ANSWERING AN AD IN THE PAPER. let that bounce around your coconut for a bit. an organization put an ad in the paper looking for a good clean boy, preferably a veteran, whom they could groom for political office.

yes, he's a machiavelian geius

i'm far more suspicious of johnson's political career particularly precinct 13 and his texas hijinks

Just finished the second book of Caro's LBJ biography. To put it mildly there were hijinks in the '48 Senate race.

[AENeuman]

The super great book, "presidents club" goes into lots of fun detail on this event.

both Nixon and lbj had massive insecurity over being the less popular and beloved man to their counterpart- Ike and JFK.

It seems both very early on decided a Machiavellian approach was the way to go in politics. The result is you have two ruthless politicians going at it and using whatever means possible, including prolonging a war.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by bigdawg2003

Just finished the second book of Caro's LBJ biography. To put it mildly there were hijinks in the '48 Senate race.

Working on this one too. LBJ has been a pretty fascinating character for me. Not one I admire ideologically.

Nixon was a swine, but so was LBJ.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

We did, it was called the Civil War.

And Bucc was there.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

the good old boy network and the entire cast of characters that orbited hl hunt is fascinating and illuminating

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by molson

Evil power-hungry Republicans, spineless and ineffectual Democrats, seems about right. Can we ever blow this up and start over?

Except the evil LBJ was anything but spineless and ineffectual. He was one of the dirtiest politicians ever to become president, along with Nixon.

[tucking fypo]

We had two of the most conniving, paranoid, profane, and ruthless (but nonetheless fascinating) politicians from 1963-74 during a tremendous period of social and cultural upheaval in the United States.

Both sides have blood on their hands.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Except the evil LBJ was anything but spineless and ineffectual. He was one of the dirtiest politicians ever to become president, along with Nixon.

They were definitely cut from the same filthy cloth.

[Senator]

Probably know more about LBJ than I do any other subject on earth. In my early political days, I met just about everyone associated with him, and spent many days at the LBJ ranch.

This story reminds me a little bit about when the hostages were released right after Reagan defeated Carter, and the rumors were flailing that the Reagan people had made a deal to wait until the election to release them.

Politics is a contact sport.

[AENeuman]

Further proof lbj and Nixon were two sides of the same coin:

Upon hearing that Nixon had an operative working to undermine the peace talks, lbj told the FBI to wiretap the suspects phone. The illegal wiretap took place at, you guessed it, the Watergate.