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View Full Version : George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason by Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman



Nbadan
05-04-2015, 11:39 PM
Obama is benign compared to his GOP cohorts....

Richard Nixon was a traitor.


The new release of extended versions of Nixon's papers now confirms this long-standing belief, usually dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by Republican conservatives. Now it has been substantiated by none other than right-wing columnist George Will.

Nixon's newly revealed records show for certain that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them to refuse a cease-fire being brokered by President Lyndon Johnson.

Nixon's interference with these negotiations violated President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official government negotiations with a foreign nation.

Published as the 40th Anniversary of Nixon's resignation approaches, Will's column confirms that Nixon feared public disclosure of his role in sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks. Will says Nixon established a "plumbers unit" to stop potential leaks of information that might damage him, including documentation that he believed was held by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank. The Plumbers' later break-in at the Democratic National Committee led to the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down.

Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was confirmed by transcripts of FBI wiretaps. On November 2, 1968, LBJ received an FBI report saying Chernnault told the South Vietnamese ambassador that "she had received a message from her boss: saying the Vietnamese should "hold on, we are gonna win."

As Will confirms, Vietnamese did "hold on," the war proceeded and Nixon did win, changing forever the face of American politics—with the shadow of treason permanently embedded in its DNA.

The treason came in 1968 as the Vietnam War reached a critical turning point. President Lyndon Johnson was desperate for a truce between North and South Vietnam.

LBJ had an ulterior motive: his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, was in a tight presidential race against Richard Nixon. With demonstrators in the streets, Humphrey desperately needed a cease-fire to get him into the White House.

Johnson had it all but wrapped it. With a combination of gentle and iron-fisted persuasion, he forced the leaders of South Vietnam into an all-but-final agreement with the North. A cease-fire was imminent, and Humphrey’s election seemed assured.

But at the last minute, the South Vietnamese pulled out. LBJ suspected Nixon had intervened to stop them from signing a peace treaty.

In the Price of Power (1983), Seymour Hersh revealed Henry Kissinger—then Johnson’s adviser on Vietnam peace talks—secretly alerted Nixon’s staff that a truce was imminent.

According to Hersh, Nixon “was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government [of South Vietnam] making it clear that a Nixon presidency would have different views on peace negotiations.”

Johnson was livid. He even called the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen, to complain that “they oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.”

“I know,” was Dirksen’s feeble reply.

Johnson blasted Nixon about this on November 3rd, just prior to the election. As Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com has written: “when Johnson confronted Nixon with evidence of the peace-talk sabotage, Nixon insisted on his innocence but acknowledged that he knew what was at stake.”

Said Nixon: “My, I would never do anything to encourage….Saigon not to come to the table….Good God, we’ve got to get them to Paris or you can’t have peace.”

But South Vietnamese President General Theiu—a notorious drug and gun runner—did boycott Johnson’s Paris peace talks. With the war still raging, Nixon claimed a narrow victory over Humphrey. He then made Kissinger his own national security adviser.

In the four years between the sabotage and what Kissinger termed “peace at hand” just prior to the 1972 election, more than 20,000 US troops died in Vietnam. More than 100,000 were wounded. More than a million Vietnamese were killed.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-vietnam-treason

When Daddy Bush negotiated with Iranians to not release hostages until after the election of Reagan, (he was running as Reagan's V.P). I saw a documentary with all sorts of footage about a meeting in France for this purpose. You can really draw a criminal line right along from Nixon (this, secret bombings of Cambodia &, of course, Watergate) to Ford ( pardoning Nixon) to Reagan (Iranian hostage deal and then Iran-Contra arms trading) to George Bush Sr. to W with his trumped up weapons of mass destruction and war in Iraq. Not one of them is clean....

boutons_deux
05-04-2015, 11:44 PM
I'll drink to ALL THAT.

m>s
05-04-2015, 11:45 PM
who gives a fuck about these traitors hang them next to the dems

ChumpDumper
05-04-2015, 11:47 PM
Don't know about the Iran stuff, but Nixon was the Wilson Fisk of US presidents.

Wild Cobra
05-04-2015, 11:50 PM
Common Dreams.

Need not say any more...

ChumpDumper
05-04-2015, 11:58 PM
Common Dreams.

Need not say any more...Common Dreams is just repeating what George Will said about Ken Hughes' book Chasing Shadows.

As such, I would tend to believe Hughes and, by extension, Will and Common Dreams on this one. After all, Hughes has spent ten years listening to and documenting Nixon's tapes.

Is there any reason I shouldn't, WC?

Wild Cobra
05-04-2015, 11:59 PM
Common Dreams is just repeating what George Will said about Ken Hughes' book Chasing Shadows.

As such, I would tend to believe Hughes and, by extension, Will and Common Dreams on this one. After all, Hughes has spent ten years listening to and documenting Nixon's tapes.

Is there any reason I shouldn't, WC?
Should use a better source than Common Dreams.

ChumpDumper
05-05-2015, 12:00 AM
Should use a better source than Common Dreams.The source is Hughes and Nixon's tapes.

Is there any reason I shouldn't believe the actual source?

Wild Cobra
05-05-2015, 12:03 AM
The source is Hughes and Nixon's tapes.

Is there any reason I shouldn't believe the actual source?
I read another link on the subject, and it's not completely clear. Could just be revisionist history, where those being talked about can no longer defend themselves.

Believe as you wish. Hearsay evidence isn't strong enough.

ChumpDumper
05-05-2015, 12:07 AM
I read another link on the subject, and it's not completely clear.Cite your source. I will look at it.


Could just be revisionist history, where those being talked about can no longer defend themselves.

Believe as you wish. Hearsay evidence isn't strong enough.What else would he have wanted from the Brookings Institution at that time?

Here's the tape from June 17, 1971:

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Here's Ken Hughes talking about it:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s4064104.htm

I'll wait for your interpretation and links.