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Polar bear with carrot

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Nixon's Treason?


As if we needed more evidence of Nixon's perfidy. Did Richard Nixon send Anna Chennault to Paris to offer a better deal in the coming administration and torpedo LBJ at the peace talks? Was Johnson planning a grand re-entry? Shawn sends over a thought provoking piece from the BBC, The Lyndon Johnson Tapes: Richard Nixon's treason. New information from declassified Johnson tapes and interviews compiled by the deceased BBC correspondent Charles Wheeler.
"...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".
From Marilyn Young's The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990:



1 comment:

Richard Carpenter said...

I am in utter disbelief that this story is unearthed with recordings and the press gives it hardly any coverage. I guess the 'liberal media' is just an illusion. How do you let this slide? Tens of thousands of Americans die or are permanently scarred for life so that this man and his backers can get power. Peace could have been made in 1968.If you had a friend or relative who died after 1968 how do you feel now???? How do Republicans get away with Treason? Cheney outs an active CIA agent. Nothing happens. Reagan delays Iranian hostage release to secure his election against Jimmy Carter. No big deal for Grandpa.Too big to be tried. Maybe Sarah Palin can explain it. How about Ted Cruz??? For anyone who lived through these times, the Vietnam war, let alone the veterans, this is unforgivable. Henry Kissinger where are you??