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.