Election Treason

[Star]

1)LBJ was furious with Nixon, audiotapes of telephone conversations now show, over the likelihood that Nixon meddled with Johnson’s attempts to get negotiations moving to bring the Vietnam war to a swift conclusion in 1968. In a heated diatribe, when referring to Nixon’s actions during the waning days of the ’68 presidential campaign, LBJ tells Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen, “This is treason (click here to listen) .” In a separate, historically key conversation, LBJ directly warns Nixon that his “people” appeared to be bent on sabotaging LBJ’s peace overtures to Hanoi. In a conversation on November 3, 1968, two days prior to the presidential election, Johnson confronted Nixon on the issue, but Nixon told LBJ point-blank, “I’m not trying to interfere.”





At about 4:25 of the tape, LBJ says to Everett Dirksen, “This is treason (click here to listen) Senator Dirksen responds, "I know"-----but the Vietnam money laundering scheme continued for another 8 years-----then...
...the Reagan team negotiated a deal with the Iranians-----then...
...the SCOTUS forced Florida to stop counting votes and appointed the guy that came in second in the Florida vote count POTUS-----then...
...in 2012 the Republicans...

 

[Old Rocks]

Kind of like Reagan and Iran.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

LBJ?

The "I sunk the USS Liberty and had MLK and Malcolm X whacked" President?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

“Son, when I appoint a ****** to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a ******.” -- Dem Civil Rights "Hero" LBJ on Thurgood Marshall

 

[Staidhup]

So let me understand this, LBJ blamed Nixon for extending the war in Vietnam and interfering with the peace process, the one and only RMN of lets further expand the conflict and gain a truce fame? Yep, right on, and all along I thought Nixon suffered from a case of extreme paranoia, apparently LBJ had some serious issues of his own. Oh well, when you escalate into a full war that was being run and commanded by those in the senate and congress and not those in the field I guess the ghosts come back to haunt you. Must have been an epiphany of sort, right?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Star is flailing badly because what the fuck else is he going to do, talk about all the good Obama's done lately?

Nixon?

Reagan?

LOL

 

[Sallow]

Kind of like Reagan and Iran.

Ayup.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Remember when Bush got on that SR-71 Blackbird and negotiated the release of the hostages? Oh, right, that never happened. Right

So maybe turning Iran over to Islamic Fundies was not the best idea Carter ever had

 

[g5000]

1)LBJ was furious with Nixon, audiotapes of telephone conversations now show, over the likelihood that Nixon meddled with Johnson’s attempts to get negotiations moving to bring the Vietnam war to a swift conclusion in 1968. In a heated diatribe, when referring to Nixon’s actions during the waning days of the ’68 presidential campaign, LBJ tells Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen, “This is treason (click here to listen) .” In a separate, historically key conversation, LBJ directly warns Nixon that his “people” appeared to be bent on sabotaging LBJ’s peace overtures to Hanoi. In a conversation on November 3, 1968, two days prior to the presidential election, Johnson confronted Nixon on the issue, but Nixon told LBJ point-blank, “I’m not trying to interfere.”

Context:

Johnson was trying to negotiate a peace settlement of the Vietnam conflict before the November 1968 US election, which was just weeks away.

Johnson had decided not to run for re-election due, for the most part, to that war. He wanted to leave a peace settlement as a gift to whoever won the election (Humphrey or Nixon). He also had a private understanding with the two candidates that they would keep their noses out of anything to do with the negotiations.

Johnson had the major parties involved in the conflict close to coming together for a meeting to negotiate the peace. The US, China, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam.

At the last minute, the President of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, backed out of the peace conference.

Johnson found out Thieu had backed out because the Nixon camp had told Thieu it would be a bad idea to go to that conference.

Nixon's belief was that Johnson was so desperate to wrap up Vietnam before November that he would sell South Vietnam down the river. He referred Thieu to the fate of Eastern Europe after the Yalta and Potsdam conferences held by the Allied powers.

Nixon told Thieu he could get South Vietnam a better deal than Johnson since he would not be under time pressure the way Johnson was.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

And Vietnam got sold to the communists anyway

 

[Star]

And Vietnam got sold to the communists anyway

It can never be known for sure if LBJ's peace initiative would have been successful, but LBJ's peace initiative was well on it's way to being successful when Nixon sold us down the (Mekong) river.

LBJ and Everett Dirksen were in bi-partisan agreement: Nixon committed treason and the Vietnam war continued for 8 years.



The next day, Oct. 29, [1968] national security adviser Walt Rostow received the first indication that Nixon might actually be coordinating with Thieu to sabotage the peace talks. Rostow’s brother, Eugene, who was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, wrote a memo about a tip from a source in New York who had spoken with “a member of the banking community” who was “very close to Nixon.”

The source said Wall Street bankers – at a working lunch to assess likely market trends and to decide where to invest – had been given inside information about the prospects for Vietnam peace and were told that Nixon was obstructing that outcome.

“The conversation was in the context of a professional discussion about the future of the financial markets in the near term,” Eugene Rostow wrote. “The speaker said he thought the prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim, because Nixon was playing the problem … to block. …

“They would incite Saigon to be difficult, and Hanoi to wait. Part of his strategy was an expectation that an offensive would break out soon, that we would have to spend a great deal more (and incur more casualties) – a fact which would adversely affect the stock market and the bond market. NVN [North Vietnamese] offensive action was a definite element in their thinking about the future.”

In other words, Nixon’s friends on Wall Street were placing their financial bets based on the inside dope that Johnson’s peace initiative was doomed to fail. (In another document, Walt Rostow identified his brother’s source as Alexander Sachs, who was then on the board of Lehman Brothers.)