The Nixon tapes have been out there a while and Thom Hartmann has actually pointed this out before, but this is the first time that I have seen it in print to share it.
Tapes dating back to the last days of the Johnson administration reveal that Lyndon Johnson knew of a plan by Richard Nixon to thwart Vietnam peace talks so the war wouldn’t end until he could get into office.
According to the tapes, Johnson learned through FBI wiretaps that Nixon had played a role in getting South Vietnam to withdraw from peace talks in Paris that would effectively end the Vietnam War, and was therefore guilty of treason…Johnson found out that Nixon had reached out to Anna Chennault, one of his senior campaign officials, to convince South Vietnam Ambassador Bui Diem to pull out of peace talks until after the election, according to the BBC.Accusations of Nixon’s influence in the peace conference have been reported before, but the tapes provide a look at how the situation was handled by Johnson.Without an end to the Vietnam War by Election Day, Nixon was voted into the White House.Johnson could be heard saying on one particular recording that Nixon, another fan of White House audio recordings who would resign the presidency in 1974, had ‘blood on his hands.’During a conversation with Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Johnson, referring to people close to Nixon, and said, ‘This is treason.’ Dirksen was the Republican leader in the Senate.n a call to Sen Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson 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.’
I wonder how many of the 58,282 dead Americans would have been able to survive if not for Richard Nixon and the rights blind ambition. I personally would like to see everywhere we have his name on a Government building, get the Joe Paterno treatment!
I think it is safe to say Worst! President! EVER!
22,000 service-persons died in Vietnam during Nixon's reign.
ReplyDeletealso interesting is when nixon is on tape proposing that teamsters be enlisted to beat up antiwar protesters. any other taped conversations come to mind?
ReplyDeletethere were also accusations that the 1980 reagan campaign arranged for iran to delay the release of the hostages in exchange for missiles, never definitively proven.
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