The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By David Taylor
Archive On 4

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.
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The final batch of tapes released by the LBJ library covers 1968, and allows us to hear Johnson's private conversations as his Democratic Party tore itself apart over the question of Vietnam.
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They also shed light on a scandal that, if it had been known at the time, would have sunk the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon.

By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands".

The BBC's former Washington correspondent Charles Wheeler learned of this in 1994 and conducted a series of interviews with key Johnson staff, such as defence secretary Clark Clifford, and national security adviser Walt Rostow.

But by the time the tapes were declassified in 2008 all the main protagonists had died, including Wheeler.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668




Read the whole article to get all the sordid details (and they are sordid indeed).

The revelations in these tapes are astounding and shocking -- perhaps W wasn't the most treasonous POTUS we've had, after all. So much for Nixon being the last "reasonable" Repug.

[KoKo]

1. And...don't forget the deal Reagain supporters made with Iran

about not releasing the Hostages until after the election. That hostage situation brought down the Carter Presidency. (bad economy didn't help either...but, that wasn't his fault but what went on before.

[House of Roberts]

2. I've been hearing the LBJ-Dirksen tape

on Thom Hartmann for years now.
If LBJ had let it be known at the time, it would have tipped the South Vietnamese that we had an ear on all their private discussions.

[yurbud]

3. I don't think that would have been a particular advantage to them and they didn't need it anyway

[Doctor_J]

4. The entire Republican party has been made up of traitors

for at least 50 years - maybe all the way back to Prescott Bush (Hitler's Banker). Any psychologist will tell you that we're not going to recover unless

1. We face it, completely, and
2. The ones who are still active are brought to justice, in a very public way.

It would be remarkably therapeutic for the nation as a whole to see Bush & Cheney either get sent to prison or go for the big swing. Or sent to The Hague or Iraq for international justice. Our current leaders get no respect and have no moral authority as long as these traitors and felons are left alone.

[OKNancy]

5. kick

[Uncle Joe]

6. But, but, but...gulp, wouldn't this be a conspiracy theory?

A President could, would never betray the American People, for the sake of power and ambition.

That would be...




Thanks for the thread, eppur_se_muova.