"This is treason!" "I know." Did candidate Nixon interfere with peace talks?

[eppur_se_muova]

New Johnson tapes shed more light
December 9, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward likes to call the Nixon White House tapes, as the Hallmark greeting card slogan puts it, "The Gift That Keeps on Giving." The same certainly can be said of the latest batch of Lyndon Johnson tapes released by the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.

They shed considerably more light on what might have been one of the most significant turning points in American politics and history -- concerning the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and all that followed thereafter, including the Watergate scandal itself.

The tapes record President Johnson telling Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen five days before the election that Nixon supporters were guilty of "treason" in interfering with Vietnam peace negotiations then going on. LBJ suggested to Dirksen that disclosure "would shock America" and possibly cost Nixon the election.

Johnson referred to administration surveillance on a Nixon supporter, Chinese-born Anna Chennault, during visits to the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington that suggested she had passed the word that the Saigon regime would get a better deal if it held off on such talks until Nixon was president.

"They ought not to be doing this, this is treason," LBJ told Dirksen, who is heard replying, "I know." Johnson goes on: "It would shock America if a principal candidate (for president) was playing with a source like this on a matter this important." He adds: "If Nixon keeps the South Vietnamese away from the conference table, that's going to be his responsibility."
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more: http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20081209/OPINION01/812090325

A REPUBLICAN playing politics with our national defense policy? Say it ain't so, J... uh, Dick.

[Cleita]

1. Apparently he did and LBJ let him get away with it because he felt

that if Nixon won, it would hinder his ability to govern as President. What about slapping him in jail and charging him with treason before he became President? I can't imagine how different things might be today if LBJ had done the difficult, but right thing.