Lyndon Johnson Tapes - Richard Nixon's "Treason"

Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's "treason"

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.

To read the whole BBC article:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668

A liberal friend of mine thoughtfully sent me this provocatively charged BBC News article dated March 15, 2013 about Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 just before the Democratic national convention. It stated that, "By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks (which caused more casualties while the peace accords were delayed) - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands."

Although my friend wasn't born yet or maybe a toddler then, knowing what is passed out as facts today I think he has only read the latest textbooks and articles about those olden days through progressive liberal authors. This is one reason for my "History Matters" column - hopefully it challenges the liberal  revisionists who take history out of context to suit their agenda to reeducate the masses.

President Nixon at Johnson Library Dedication 1971The sardonic twist to our American party politics always means two big dogs are in the race and these are veteran politicians: President Richard Nixon, Senator Joe McCarthy's vicious, anti-communist attack dog and President Lyndon Johnson, Senator Speaker Sam Rayburn's arm-twisting, deal-broker, junkyard dog. 

So now, Which of these "honest" politicians had "questionable" political motives?  Which act caused more bloodshed? - To Enter or Leave a War?  Which is Treasonous? ...LBJ is the pot calling the kettle black.

1. "Landslide Lyndon" Johnson to enter the Vietnam War who covertly orchestrated the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incidents as actual "attacks on US vessels as act of war" to push through Congress the 1964 Tonkin War Resolution authorizing the U.S. legally to enter the Vietnam War? 
   
2. "Tricky Dick" Nixon to end the Vietnam War who covertly orchestrated Paris peace talk delays beyond the 1968 Presidential election to win? 

Note: Google their nicknames to find out how they earned them - quite entertaining.

This is another "History Matters" moment. I must add in Richard Nixon's defense that a paltry single line paragraph in the BBC News commentary about the presidential election results did not imply to the reader the correct conclusion. If you did not know the historical facts in their context, it gave out a false impression of a very close race that Hubert Horatio Humphrey lost:

He won by less than 1% of the popular vote.

The historic truth is George Wallace was a strong third party candidate and if he had not been in the race, an overwhelming majority of the popular votes would have gone Republican. The southern states were still mad about the 1964 Civil Rights Act pushed by Johnson and the Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, the Civil Rights Bill's manager who ended the Civil Rights Bill debate and the filibuster to pass it in spite of over 95% of southern senators who voted Nay.  Ironically, the southern Republicans voted 100% Yea.  Also, 93% of the northern Democrats voted Yea too which split up their Democrat partyline vote.

The southern voters supported their Alabama Governor in protest, otherwise it could have been for Nixon a 35 million to 40 million popular vote win and a 347 to 191 Electoral vote win too. As it was, without the Wallace statistics, Nixon still handly won the key electoral states to win over 60% = 301/(301 + 191)

	Candidate		Party		Electoral Votes		Popular Votes
	Richard M. Nixon		Republican		301		31,710,470
	Hubert H. Humphrey		Democratic		191		30,898,055
	George C. Wallace		American Independent		46		9,906,473

The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's "treason"

To read the whole BBC article:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668

Additional information to my article:

I do remember the Presidential war of politics well in 1968.  I was a twenty-two year old college student Protester Buttonswho had friends demonstrating there while the Chicago  7 were doing their incendiary, fiery violence at the National Democratic Convention Center that hot summer.  Ironically, and it came out later at the trial that Abby Hoffman explained it was never them or their own groupies and followers that planned to cause the riot leading to the damages. They originally organized a demonstration staged  a few blocks away at Lincoln Park to bring national media attention to their lifestyle ways and political views. Instead various large groups of local Chicago urbanites milling around had mixed in with the bused-in outside political group's excitement in downtown Chicago and that grew it into 1968 Democrat Convention Riotsan unruly mob that attacked the convention venue, creating general mayhem while looting stores too. 

Hmn... none of the national news media chose to report or focus on those people or reasons for any peripheral property damages, except to state it had happened.  With the black civil rights act of 1964 issues and their race charged demonstrations still burning in the American public psyche, the last thing to do was even whisper these obvious improprieties racially.

Tom Hayden, an over-the-top radical and Jane Fonda's ex-husband today, and Abbie Hoffman, part of the celebrity American Left counterculture rage that was a part of the sideshow antics in the courtroom where the trial devolved into a kangaroo court style proceedings.  In the end, they all were found not guilty or pled out to various charges and penalties which were never meted out. The American people were worn down, out and really could have cared less by then about it.

That era instantly all went away five years later as the Vietnam War, like a supernova exploded and imploded into a black hole, it just disappeared.  That era ended in a whimper. I remember Conrad, a very left-wing editorial cartoonist in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, who did a cartoon in the Vietnam treaty accords edition.  It had a military graveyard with crosses all over the rolling hills.  Two crosses in the foreground had helmets. Below them a ticker tape is typing this: "Paris Peace Accords - Henry Kissinger now says that we should have never been in that war!".  Then below that, the  one helmet says to the other, "And now he tells us!"  That said it all for me on how real war is, it's 100% political and will always be that way.  

I don't find anything more revealing or surprising about the Johnson tapes over Nixon tapes except that I wish we could have had the tapes started under the Eisenhower administration when the US went covertly into the Vietnam "Conflict" to assist the French as they left in 1959 and Kennedy picked up his political agenda a few notches by sending in more US troops in 1961 into his undeclared Vietnam "War" and then JFK was killed before he had a chance to grow it more himself.

Johnson and Nixon never declared "War" really themselves although  the 1964 Tonkin War Resolution 1898 Newspaper Headlinesbecame the US legal basis for our involvement in the Vietnam War because of a US war ship battle that was started by Vietnam in late August, 1964 and then a few days later again.  Johnson rushed the Resolution Bill pronto, and voila, we were legally at war. Everyone knew that the last attack was BS even according to some Navy buddies of mine and was Johnson's legal excuse for the Vietnam war.

It seemed Teddy Roosevelt Rough Ridersas if it was like the 1898 "Remember the Maine" unknown explosion incident to a  US Battleship in the Havana, Cuba harbor while it was protecting American interests from Spanish rule as a bitter, bloody revolution by Cubans against Spain was going on too. It was Teddy Roosevelt's excuse for US entry into the Spanish American War which was his campaign slogan to win his 1901 Presidency as a Heroic Rough Rider charging up San Juan Hill. His volunteer regiment did not play a decisive role in the U.S. victory in Cuba, but images like this left the impression that the Roosevelt was a bold and talented leader. It was more like American big business investments like sugar cane and rum distilleries were at stake while forcing Spain into ceding Guam, Philippines and Puerto Rico to the US as our territories while under the pretext of helping the Cubans win their independence. 

It was erroneously reported, some feel deliberately so, as 1976 Newspaper Headlinesa mine explosion by the powerful print mogal, William Randolph Hearst whose newspapers spewed out the yellow journalism, sensational and exploitive news of the day like the National Enquirer now. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the first politicians and as later President to use the media to appeal directly to the people, bypassing the political parties and career politicians.  

In 1976, a team of American naval investigators concluded that the Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that ignited its ammunition stocks, not by a mine or act of foreign sabotage. [Another source says an exploded boiler caused the tragedy.] Others still attributed it to an "unknown origin" for the history books...Yeah right!

I have a a lot more memories when I travelled to the Haight Ashbury District in San Francisco and the Hollywood Strip during the 1960s to see and hear first hand about the "people's unrest and civil disobedience".  I almost got to the 1969 Woodstock concert but had to work for a living and am happy I did after a buddy of mine talked up the great outdoor toilet Jimi Hendrix at Woodstockfacilities, trash, unwashed crowds, cold food and sleeping arrangements - not to mention the over-the-top drugs with no idea on where it was cooked or what was really going into their bodies.  It was free love, sex and drugs pre-HIV or just not reported widely as yet until 1985 with Rock Hudson.

As a side note, I remember when Mario Savio was in the Free Speech Movement who was the first ahead of other activists that came on line nationally at UC Davis Sproul Hall in 1964.  Google him and see how he fits into all of this - interesting stuff. 

تسخیر لانه جاسوسی امریکا is the movie Argo on steroids!

In Persian: تسخیر لانه جاسوسی امریکا‎, literally the "Conquest of the American Spy Den," but usually translated as the "Occupation of the American Embassy" was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution.  President Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy," adding that the "United States will not yield to blackmail."  This sure sounds like a line in a script for a 2013 Oscar Best Picture winner!

Ever heard of the Wahabi Islamic Religion? I have and remember when I first heard about it in November, 1979.  Jimmy Carter was in office and it was day three of the Iranian hostage crisis when all Hell broke loose behind the scenes in another country.  It foretold our huge Islamic terror mess we are in today!  ...Oh really?

What some call regular mainstream "Moderate Muslims" as if that modifier means being anything different than "Radical Muslims" then that really would be significant since they would be standing up to protest instead of quietly standing by and watching their Radical Muslim brothers do harm and create tumult in general, but read on.

We hear a lot of qualifying statements about “moderate Muslims” when “radical Islam” is mentioned. Now, certainly, one can imagine that the majority of Muslims, are most likely people who just want to get on with their lives and that in western countries in particular, many keep a low profile and just live their lives with a low current of religiosity. Like people everywhere, they are trying to get through the day, and not start a revolution or ignite a war. Even so, some are sympathetic to radical concerns or issues, even if they are not entirely seized with passion for the cause. That moderate passive attitude feeds the passions of radical Islamics which just encourages them further. 

Other Muslims are completely against radicalism, but stay on the down low and don’t make waves. Then, there are the Muslims who become leaders and actually attempt to impress some kind of moderate change on the current situation within Islam. Many of these high-profile moderates or liberal Muslims don’t get as much press as the radicals, but they do exist, and often they live their lives under threat of death from their co-religionists.

So, ever heard about the origins of Wahabi Islam from Saudi Arabia spreading to the rest of the world?  Apparently, the Saudi royal family has been exporting Wahabi for some time into Europe, Canada and the USA — partially to free themselves from an imminent threat to their own power.

This began with the 1979 siege on Mecca and the royal family by Wahabists and a deal actually forged with the royal Saudi Arabian family. I knew about Wahabi, but I certainly have since learned more about its spread worldwide and the influence of so many radical Imams, even in places like Phoenix, Arizona or San Diego, CA!


You think the Oscar's Best Picture Award for Argo was exciting? Well, they left out a powerfully interesting parallel storyline - read about it below in the book review!

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda

by Yaroslav Trofimov

On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. The same morning—the first of a new Muslim century—hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam’s holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global jihad in modern times.

Led by a Saudi preacher named Juhayman al Uteybi, they believed that the Saudi royal family had become a craven servant of American infidels, and sought a return to the glory of uncompromising Islam. With nearly 100,000 worshippers trapped inside the holy compound, Mecca’s bloody siege lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslim rage against the United States and causing hundreds of deaths.

Despite U.S. assistance, the Saudi royal family proved haplessly incapable of dislodging the occupier, whose ranks included American converts to Islam. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini blamed the Great Satan—the United States —for defiling the shrine, prompting mobs to storm and torch American embassies in Pakistan and Libya. The desperate Saudis finally enlisted the help of French commandos led by tough-as-nails Captain Paul Barril, who prepared the final assault and supplied poison gas that knocked out the insurgents.

Though most captured gunmen were quickly beheaded, the Saudi royal family responded to this unprecedented challenge by compromising with the rebels’ supporters among the kingdom’s most senior clerics.  The Saudi royal family was helping them nurture and export Juhayman’s violent brand of Islam around the world - Wahabi Islam.

This dramatic and immensely consequential story was barely covered in the press in the pre-CNN, pre–Al Jazeera days, as Saudi Arabia imposed an information blackout and kept foreign correspondents away. Yaroslav Trofimov now penetrates this veil of silence, interviewing for the first time scores of direct participants in the siege, including former terrorists, and drawing on hundreds of documents that had been declassified on his request.

Written with the pacing, detail, and suspense of a real-life thriller, The Siege of Mecca reveals how Saudi reaction to the uprising in Mecca set free the forces that produced the attacks of 9/11, and the harrowing circumstances that surround us today.

Sequestration like The Schlieffen Plan - No Plan B?

What is Obama's Plan while sequestration, rhymes with castration, is done to reduce our country's active troop levels and defense armament throughout the world? Do we have a Plan B to even put on the table along side the cuts?

Robert Burns, the scot poet opined, "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft(en) go astray." It basically means no matter how well you plan, do expect the unexpected, always have a Plan B. It turns out someone did not tell Hitler about a Plan B.

Plans for the next war was seen by many as inevitable after given the conflicting ambitions of the major powers following World War I. This idea was not lost on Hitler who enbraced General Alfred Von Schlieffen's Plan for World War I. The vulnerable point, however, in the German's 1914 operation was not manpower, it was logistics. The Germans had failed to make realistic plans for supplying their advance at the pace it needed to move to succeed and were defeated.

Hitler doing a jig upon hearing Paris defeated.Hitler reimplemented the Schlieffen Plan as his tactical blueprint for Germany's invasion of both France and Russia in World War II.  His strategy was to knock France out of the war first to eliminate it as an ally of Russia and once France had been dealt with the armies in the west would be redeployed to the east to face the Russian menace. The weakness of the plan laid less in the rigidity of the time scale for the German army nearly succeeded by capturing Paris and then marching on Moscow within the time allotted. Hitler's major error was the underestimation of the difficulties of supply and communication in forces so far advanced from command and supply lines. 

A sobering sight, German soldiers frozen to death in Russia.More importantly though, Hitler did not make realistic provisions for the onset of the  cold, harsh Russian winter months. The Germans were then beginning to understand the great harm the unforgiving Russian winter was doing.  

Without a Plan B contigency his troops were freezing, starving, dieing or dead.  It was one of the major factors for the defeat in Russia as they capitulated a humiliating surrender to the Russian army.

We Will Bury You! - 2012 Obama Rewrite

Everyone remembers Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's United Nations speech in 1959?  Yeah, right!  LOL!  (I do clearly remember the big stink though)

Mr. Khrushchev famously said to the United States, "We will bury you!"... and during the course of another UN meeting he took his shoe off and beat it to protest others!  Khrushchev's long-time interpreter, Viktor Sukhodrev, who sat with Khrushchev during the event that was in response to Filipino UN delegate, Lorenzo Sumulong's speech concerning how the Soviets had taken over Eastern Europe. Viktor reported his boss pounded on his delegate-desk so hard his watch stopped, which only infuriated him further and prompted the switch to the shoe as he called Sumulong “a jerk, a stooge, and a lackey of imperialism.”

 The Campaigns and Reigns of King Obama has spawned an

"Opportunity for Historical Revisionism"!

What really happened when JFK met with Khrushchev?

By Richard Larsen

Idaho State Journal Politics

History oftentimes is whitewashed through the lens polished by hindsight. People and events of any given time can seem inconsequential, but in retrospect, loom large in identifying causal events from a historical perspective.

The administration of JFK has been largely whitewashed as a “Camelot” presidency due in large part to its tragic premature termination. Some of that revisionist history is justified in light of subsequent events, but some is not.

Obama speaking to the UN Assembly casting a huge shadow of US military strength and resolve.The continuing flap over Sen. Barak Obama’s assertion that, "I would be willing to meet unconditionally, yet with preparation, with any world leader, including those who seek to harm the United States", prompted Obama one such "opportunity for historical revisionism".

Obama defended his position, “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.” Obama went on to state, “When Kennedy met with Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war.”

Historically, this is incorrect. The tendency is to envision a handsome, youthful President Kennedy facing the enemy of freedom, the premier of the Soviet Union. However, the historical reality is far different. Kennedy’s face-off with Nikita Khrushchev in June of 1961 was disastrous and actually caused an escalation of the Cold War, the erection of the Berlin Wall and led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as an escalation of the Vietnam War.

Just months into his administration, President Kennedy wanted desperately to visit face to face with the Soviet premier. In his inaugural address in January 1961, Kennedy declared, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” With that as his foreign affairs theme, Kennedy was convinced that he could approach the totalitarian leader in a way not done before, and that he could have success in bridging some of the ideological chasms separating the two because of his intellect and eloquence.

Most of Kennedy’s senior advisors counseled the president not to meet with Khrushchev. Dean Rusk, then secretary of state, queried, “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?” George Kennan, Truman’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, counseled Kennedy to not rush so quickly without qualifications into such a meeting. Kennan argued that Khrushchev had ramped up his rhetoric against the U.S., appeared to be more aggressively confrontational, and that the current pressing issues between the two countries should be handled by diplomats through the State Department.

As Nathan Thrall and Jesse Wilkins recently wrote, “Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, and cautioned America against supporting ‘old, moribund, reactionary regimes.’ Khrushchev used the opportunity to warn … that his country could not be intimidated and that it was ‘very unwise’ for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.”

The face-to-face with the Soviet premier was an unmitigated disaster. Diplomats on both sides of the table offered the same assessment. One of Khrushchev’s aides recorded that Kennedy seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev himself said of the two-day meeting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak,” and returned to Moscow elated at his new found elevated position of advantage, and extremely unimpressed at the naïveté and seeming impotence of the new president.

Kennedy’s self-appraisal was no less severe.  He said of Khrushchev, “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts.”

The consequences of this humiliating diplomatic effort could not have been foreseen. Just a few months later, Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a few more months after that, authorized the shipping of nuclear missiles to Cuba to, as he phrased it, “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants.”\

There can be no doubt that Kennedy’s weakness contributed significantly to Khrushchev’s perception that he could build the wall and install nuclear missiles off our southern coast. As a result, Berlin was divided by a wall for nearly 30 years and we were brought to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon in spite of Kennedy’s intelligence and articulation.

It could therefore be argued that these events were precipitated because of Kennedy’s hubris and his self-perceived ability to persuade. To counter this weakness, Kennedy resolved that he wouldn’t get pushed around by the Soviets any more and decided to make his stand in Southeast Asia. The rest is regrettable history.

A profound reminder to those who seek political office: “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Source:  Richard Larsen of Pocatello is the president of the brokerage firm Larsen Financial. He graduated from Idaho State University with degrees in history and political science.

http://www.pocatelloshops.com/new_blogs/politics/?p=4246

Obama's Money Shot - One Million to One

 The Obama Weimar Republic Transformation

President Obama gave all of the United States voters the straight facts - No Lies!  Obama said, I'm going to transform the United States" and he has done it by gaming a second term.  Now all of you people get ready to pay the piper: Gas, Grass, Ass - No One Rides For Free! Admission to this circus is your freedom, rights, possessions and lives. You are now owned lock, stock and barrel by Barack Hussein Obama - Get Used to It! "Four more years!" "Four More Years!"  "Four More Years!"

For roughly half of the country, or least those who strongly following both politics and Germany Weimar Mark Notehistory, the 2012 election serves as a harbinger of the massive fundamental transformation expedited by Barack Obama that will, ultimately, cause the sun to set on America and its exceptionalism. Those who recall the not-so-distant past recognize a number of similarities in present-day America and European countries that ultimately succumbed to the devices of Socialism or Fascism particularly as it relates to the Weimar Republic.

Hitler's Brown Shirts SquadsFor those unfamiliar, the term “Weimar Republic” refers to Germany between the years 1919 and 1933 when the country was a parliamentary democracy, governed by a true constitution which had been drafted in the city of Weimar. While the Weimar Constitution technically survived until 1945, its last vestiges were truly snuffed out with the installation of Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich.  In 1920, under the banner of the NAZI party, Hitler formed a private group of thugs that he used to quash disorder at NAZI party meetings, and later to break up rival parties' meetings. That group subsequently became the Sturmabteilung (SA) - Hitler's brown-shirted storm troopers.

Under the Weimar Republic, German citizens enjoyed rights not so dissimilar to those found in modern-day America, including the freedom to vote. Thus, Weimar was Germany’s first foray into the concept of democracy. Before World War I, Germany was relatively prosperous, with a gold-backed currency and a burgeoning manufacturing industry.

The German Hyperinflation, 1923

Even from the start, however, the Weimar’s days were likely numbered, as by 1923 the country was in the throes of severe hyperinflation. While difficult to imagine, by this time, the currency exchange rate between the dollar and the German Mark was one million to one. As wheelbarrows replaced wallets for simple trips to market, the German government printed its currency in "more convenient" denominations.

(Click on the link One Million to One to read detailed histories from the PBS Commanding Heights Series that examined in-depth reports of various countries. The reports summarize the economic development of each nation from 1910 up to the PBS 2002 series and can be explored by category and by year timeline too)