LBJ Tapes Show Richard Nixon May Have Committed Treason
http://www.ibtimes.com/lbj-tapes-show-richard-nixon-may-have-committed-treason-sabotaging-vietnam-peace-talks-1131819
International Business Times
March 17 2013 3:18 PM
LBJ Tapes Show Richard Nixon May Have Committed Treason
By Sabotaging Vietnam Peace Talks
By Eric Brown
Newly released tapes recorded during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency have confirmed longheld rumors that in 1968, then-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon worked to sabotage
Vietnam War peace talks.
The LBJ tapes were recently declassified and released by the Johnson library in Austin,
Texas. According to the BBC’s summary of the tapes, not only did Nixon possibly commit
treason, but LBJ knew about it and decided not to expose him in the closing days of an
election that Nixon barely won.
While Nixon became infamous for his tendency to record nearly every conversation during
his presidency, which proved to be his undoing, he wasn’t the first commander in chief to
document everything so thoroughly. In fact, Nixon seems to have gotten the idea to keep an
extensive set of recordings from LBJ himself. John F. Kennedy also taped some of his
meetings.
In the summer of 1968, the Paris peace talks were under way, working to find a diplomatic
solution to the Vietnam War. While the talks seemed to be going well, by October, South
Vietnam had dropped out, just as Johnson was about to negotiate an end to all bombings in
North Vietnam. The Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, belatedly
called for a bombing halt, and closed the gap with Nixon in the final days.
The reason for the Saigon government's withdrawal? Richard Nixon had convinced the South
Vietnamese delegates that they would get a better peace deal under his presidency. Nixon’s
campaign relied heavily on the war continuing, and he saw an end to the bombings as a grave
threat to his campaign.
And while Nixon sabotaged the talks, he publicly denied any knowledge or involvement in
the South’s withdrawal, ultimately prolonging the war for five more years. His actions could
have conceivably resulted in treason charges if Johnson had made the news public.
Nixon had been suspected of sabotaging the talks for years, but the new tapes released by the
LBJ library prove that Johnson was aware of his actions.
"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,” Johnson told Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., in one taped phone
call. “Mrs. Chennault is warning the South Vietnamese not to get pulled into this Johnson
move."
Anna Chan Chennault, the Chinese-born widow of World War II aviation legend Claire
Chennault, was a Republican activist and Nixon's emissary to the South Vietnamese. She is
still alive at age 87.
Why did Johnson refuse to break the news? In part, it would mean admitting that he had
bugged several ambassadors’ phones, which also might not sit well with the American public.
Johnson informed Humphrey of Nixon’s actions, though he ultimately decided not to make
the announcement in the vain hope that he was on track to win anyway.
In the end, Nixon used Johnson’s “failure” to end the Vietnam War as a major selling point,
even citing the South’s withdrawn from peace talks as a black mark against Johnson. Nixon
won by an extremely small margin and once in office, escalated the war for years before
negotiating for peace in 1973.
While the confirmation of Nixon’s behavior is shocking enough, the LBJ tapes also reveal
that the Democratic president at one point had a secret plan to re-enter the 1968 presidential
election at the last second. In the spring, after strong showings by the antiwar candidates
Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson abruptly announced that he would not run
for a second term, and Humphrey entered the race in his place.
However, Johnson began to doubt his decision and secretly decided to make a surprise
appearance at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, which had decended into a series of
increasingly violent protests and riots. Ultimately, Johnson backed out of the plan due to the
Secret Service’s concerns for his safety at the convention. As a result, Humphrey became the
Democratic candidate and Nixon became president.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668
16 March 2013 Last updated at 01:09 GMT
The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'
By David Taylor
Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into
his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic
Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the
Vietnam peace talks... but said nothing.
After the Watergate scandal taught Richard Nixon the consequences of recording White
House conversations none of his successors has dared to do it. But Nixon wasn't the first.
He got the idea from his predecessor Lyndon Johnson, who felt there was an obligation to
allow historians to eventually eavesdrop on his presidency.
"They will provide history with the bark off," Johnson told his wife, Lady Bird.
The final batch of tapes released by the LBJ library covers 1968, and allows us to hear
Johnson's private conversations as his Democratic Party tore itself apart over the question of
Vietnam.
The 1968 convention, held in Chicago, was a complete shambles.
Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters clashed with Mayor Richard Daley's police,
determined to force the party to reject Johnson's Vietnam war strategy.
As they taunted the police with cries of "The whole world is watching!" one man in particular
was watching very closely.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was at his ranch in Texas, having announced five months earlier that
he wouldn't seek a second term.
The president was appalled at the violence and although many of his staff sided with the
students, and told the president the police were responsible for "disgusting abuse of police
power," Johnson picked up the phone, ordered the dictabelt machine to start recording and
congratulated Mayor Daley for his handling of the protest.
The president feared the convention delegates were about to reject his war policy and his
chosen successor, Hubert Humphrey.
So he placed a series of calls to his staff at the convention to outline an astonishing plan. He
planned to leave Texas and fly into Chicago.
He would then enter the convention and announce he was putting his name forward as a
candidate for a second term.
It would have transformed the 1968 election. His advisers were sworn to secrecy and even
Lady Bird did not know what her husband was considering.
On the White House tapes we learn that Johnson wanted to know from Daley how many
delegates would support his candidacy. LBJ only wanted to get back into the race if Daley
could guarantee the party would fall in line behind him.
They also discussed whether the president's helicopter, Marine One, could land on top of the
Hilton Hotel to avoid the anti-war protesters.
Daley assured him enough delegates would support his nomination but the plan was shelved
after the Secret Service warned the president they could not guarantee his safety.
The idea that Johnson might have been the candidate, and not Hubert Humphrey, is just one
of the many secrets contained on the White House tapes.
They also shed light on a scandal that, if it had been known at the time, would have sunk the
candidacy of Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon.
By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the
Vietnam war peace talks – or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on
his hands".
The BBC's former Washington correspondent Charles Wheeler learned of this in 1994 and
conducted a series of interviews with key Johnson staff, such as defence secretary Clark
Clifford, and national security adviser Walt Rostow.
But by the time the tapes were declassified in 2008 all the main protagonists had died,
including Wheeler.
Now, for the first time, the whole story can be told.
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.
Nixon went on to become president and eventually signed a Vietnam peace deal in 1973
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.
The White House tapes, combined with Wheeler's interviews with key White House
personnel, provide an unprecedented insight into how Johnson handled a series of crises that
rocked his presidency. Sadly, we will never have that sort of insight again.