Robert Parry: Richard Nixon’s Darkest Secret

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Richard Nixon’s Darkest Secret
November 11, 2011

Exclusive: In just-released Watergate grand jury testimony from 1975, ex-President Richard Nixon complained that his 1968 campaign was bugged by the Johnson administration. But there was little curiosity then – or now – as to why that surveillance was justified, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


Thirty-six years ago, as former President Richard M. Nixon dodged grand jury questions about his illegal wiretapping of political enemies, he briefly referenced a dark secret about his 1968 campaign’s sabotaging of Vietnam War peace talks, actions which President Lyndon Johnson at the time privately labeled “treason.”

Without providing that historical context, Nixon complained that he and his 1968 campaign had been victims of surveillance and wiretapping, too, as he tried to persuade Watergate prosecutors and the grand jury that bugging opponents was just part of hardball politics.

“In 1968, for example, we learned that not only was … Vice President (-ial nominee Spiro) Agnew’s plane under surveillance, and he himself was under surveillance by the FBI, but that the FBI was at one point directed to bug my plane,” Nixon said, according to secret grand jury transcripts released by the National Archives on Thursday.

During that testimony on June 23, 1975, the prosecutors failed to follow up on his reference to the 1968 bugging, such as why it would be ordered. And after the transcripts were released this week, the major U.S. news media also missed the comment’s significance. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/11/richard-nixons-darkest-secret/

[Scuba]

1. Not Dicky and J. Edgar smooching in a closet?

[Old and In the Way]

2. This is how the Republicans play.

How different was this from 1976 election when Reagan/Bush secretlt negotiated with the Ayatollah (see Iran/Contra) and their successful attempt to have the US hostages in Iran held until after the 1976 election? They are willing to gamble with American lives if it helps them win elections. They will do the same with Afghanistan...they'll do whatever they can to keep US forces there so they can use it as a club against Obama in 2012 - if that wastes more soldiers lives to help win the election, so be it. Too bad people who vote Republican don't open their eyes and take a critical look at recent US political history.

[unblock]

4. 1980, but your point stands.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Thanks for the correction!

I knew that! :-)

[bemildred]

3. Our political system is corrupt to the core, and it has always been so.

It is so corrupt that it thinks corruption is normal and indeed the proper way to do things. And it hates populist movements of all stripes.

[starroute]

6. Nixon was deeply entangled with the China Lobby

And that entanglement extends to other dark areas -- many of them involving the CIA.

Anna Chennault was the widow of the founder of the CIA's Air America, E. Howard Hunt had been with the OSS in China before the joined the CIA and then wound up in the middle of the Watergate scandal. And heroin smuggling winds through the story as well.

The China Lobby in its day was as powerful as the present-day Israel Lobby in its ability to influence US foreign policy -- but it went much further in that it had sources of wealth to draw upon that made it an active source of political corruption.

Parry may have titled this story "Nixon's Darkest Secret" -- but there are darker ones yet, and I'm sure he knows it.

[MisterP]

7. also, there were very strong Trujillo and Somoza Lobbies