Latest tapes reveal Nixon scuttled peace deal hoping for 1968 election advantage.
by Ish Theilheimer
The release of former US President Lyndon Johnson's final tapes revealed shocking secrets, including a cynical political decision that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
An excellent report from the BBC's David Taylor analyzes information in the last batch of of LBJ's secret tapes. These archives reveal that forty-five years ago, LBJ, Richard Nixon, and even Hubert Humphrey made decisions that extended the Vietnam War five years – and increased the body count by hundreds of thousands.
The tapes reveal mind-boggling facts, including:
- LBJ had a secret plan to run for re-election in 1968, which included a last-minute entry into the race for Democratic nomination, if he could be delivered safely to the convention centre by helicopter past the throngs of angry protestors and police violence.
- North Vietnam requested a cease-fire and peace talks in 1968. This in itself, is an amazing piece to add to the historical puzzle of which the world has, until now, been totally unaware.
- Richard Nixon learned of North Vietnam's offer and successfully dispatched Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser, to kill these talks by telling the South Vietnamese they'd get a better deal if the war dragged on, allowing Nixon to win the election. So South Vietnam walked out on the talks, and the war lasted another five years.
- LBJ found out about Nixon's treason — but said nothing. Later, Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey found out — but said nothing, because it was nearly Election Day. Pollsters told him he was ahead, and he didn't want to stir things up.
This month marked the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, which began with so many lies from trusted sources, such hype, and resulted in so much carnage and instability. At this very moment, heads of state are making political decisions as secretively about matters with equally grave consequences.
Intelligence services are targeting drones on suspected terrorists. Right-wingers are beating the drums for a new counter-insurgency campaign in Mali, to follow on the dubious success of Afghanistan. The Koch brothers are pushing bitumen pipelines with devastating environmental consequences. Rights that people fought and suffered for a thousand years to gain and protect are falling before officially-sanctioned snooping, arrest and detention on the vaguest of grounds.
This grandfather has heard enough lies already. As the bumper sticker says, I'm already against the next war.
About Ish Theilheimer
Ish Theilheimer is founder and president of Straight Goods News and has been Publisher of the leading, and oldest, independent Canadian online newsmagazine, StraightGoods.ca, since September 1999. He is also Managing Editor of PublicValues.ca. He lives wth his wife Kathy in Golden Lake, ON, in the Ottawa Valley.
eMail: ish@straightgoods.com
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