I don't care if he's dead, I'm Pitting Nixon

[BrainGlutton]

Based on new evidence, so there.

A favorite saying of Official Washington is that “the cover-up is worse than the crime.” But that presupposes you accurately understand what the crime was. And, in the case of the two major U.S. government scandals of the last third of the Twentieth Century – Watergate and Iran-Contra – that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Indeed, newly disclosed documents have put old evidence into a sharply different light and suggest that history has substantially miswritten the two scandals by failing to understand that they actually were sequels to earlier scandals that were far worse. Watergate and Iran-Contra were, in part at least, extensions of the original crimes, which involved dirty dealings to secure the immense power of the presidency.

Shortly after Nixon took office in 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover informed him of the existence of the file containing national security wiretaps documenting how Nixon’s emissaries had gone behind President Lyndon Johnson’s back to convince the South Vietnamese government to boycott the Paris Peace Talks, which were close to ending the Vietnam War in fall 1968. In the case of Watergate – the foiled Republican break-in at the Democratic National Committee in June 1972 and Richard Nixon’s botched cover-up leading to his resignation in August 1974 – the evidence is now clear that Nixon created the Watergate burglars out of his panic that the Democrats might possess a file on his sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968.

And then it got worse. (No, really. The rest of the story is worse.)

Some Quaker he was . . .

[the_diego]

It was to punish America for voting Kennedy instead of him, mainly on the basis of good looks and stirring rhetoric. I thought Nixon won that debate.

[elucidator]

I have heard quite a bit about Nixon sabotaging the peace talks, but I doubt he took any direct hand in it. Can’t really doubt that the S. Vietnamese regime regarded him as a much more friendly prospect, and keeping America in the war was the whole ball game for them. So I think the probably caught a hint or two, a nod and a wink, and figured, what the hell, if they scotched the talks and their guy lost, they weren’t any more doomed than they were before. And if Nixon won, all gravy.

[magellan01]

I see this OP is up to your usual sad standards. Well done.

[BrainGlutton]

@elucidator

I have heard quite a bit about Nixon sabotaging the peace talks, but I doubt he took any direct hand in it.

I’ve read the same thing in Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, by Rick Perlstein. A big doorstopper of a book, but well worth the time. You, elucidator, would particularly appreciate it.

[The_Second_Stone]

The transcript indicates that Nixon personally ordered a break in at Brookings. The allegations about the screwing around with Vietnam and Iran negotiations have long been around. I consider them entirely plausible based on who the accusations are against, but unproven. But for that matter, I consider it far-fetched, but unproven, that Oswald did not act on his own. People will do desperate things for power, and Nixon’s cronies were the kind to do it. So were Reagan’s.

[Frank]

@the_diego

I thought Nixon won that debate.

Nixon could win 9000 debates, discover the lost continent of Atlantis, and rescue Tess Trueheart from the train tracks, and he’d still be . . . you know . . . Nixon.

[Bridget_Burke]

Always glad for a chance to link to Hunter S Thompson…

Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing – a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that “I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon.”

I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together…

[John_Mace]

“Indeed, newly disclosed documents have put old evidence into a sharply different light and suggest…”

Emphasis added. Why the weasel wording here? Why “suggest” and not “prove”?

Can we see the contents of this “secret file” ourselves?

[RickJay]

What the heck is the relevance of the TVTropes page?

[John_Mace]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that Nixon had committed treason in an effort to sway the election and LBJ was just too much of a nice guy to bring that to light.

[TriPolar]

@John_Mace

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that Nixon had committed treason in an effort to sway the election and LBJ was just too much of a nice guy to bring that to light.

Yeah, that part is a little hard to swallow. If the general facts are correct, there must be more to this story about Johnson’s motivations.

[John_Mace]

I think the Washington Post explains things a little better:

Allegations of Nixon’s influence in the peace conference have been reported before, but the tapes provide a look at how Johnson handled the issue behind the scenes, said Bruce Buchanan, an expert on the presidency and a professor of government at the University of Texas in Austin.

“I think what’s new here is the way Johnson characterizes it as ‘treason’ in his private conversations,” Buchanan said.

So, no actual new evidence, just insight into how LBJ reacted to the rumors at the time.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bridget_Burke

Always glad for a chance to link to Hunter S Thompson…

Better still, from Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72:

There is almost a Yin/Yang clarity in the difference between the two men [Nixon and McGovern], a contrast so stark that it would be hard to find any two better models in the national politics arena for the legendary duality – the congenital Split Personality and polarized instincts – that almost everybody except Americans has long since taken for granted as the key to our National Character. This was not what Nixon had in mind when he said, last August, that the 1972 presidential election would offer voters “the clearest choice of this century,” but on a level he will never understand he was probably right . . . and it is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie doll president, with his Barbie doll wife and his box-full of Barbie doll children is also America’s answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts, on nights when the moon comes too close . ..

At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and the head of a giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the South Wing of the White House and leaps fifty feet down to the lawn . . . pauses briefly to strangle the Chow watchdog, then races off into the darkness . . . towards the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue, and trying desperately to remember which one of those four hundred identical balconies is the one outside Martha Mitchell’s apartment . . .

[BrainGlutton]

@TriPolar

Yeah, that part is a little hard to swallow. If the general facts are correct, there must be more to this story about Johnson’s motivations.

Perhaps he was simply indifferent as to whether Nixon or Humphrey succeeded him.

[ElvisL1ves]

@John_Mace

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that Nixon had committed treason in an effort to sway the election and LBJ was just too much of a nice guy to bring that to light.

Johnson withdrew early in the primary season.

[TriPolar]

@BrainGlutton

Perhaps he was simply indifferent as to whether Nixon or Humphrey succeeded him.

That thought did occur to me. Possibly he disliked Humphrey enough to let Nixon take the election. There could be many motivations, and some involving matters never yet uncovered.

[John_Mace]

@ElvisL1ves

Johnson withdrew early in the primary season.

Yes, I know. But everything isn’t about politics. Treason is a serious thing, and if the allegations are true, it would be treason. He needn’t have wanted to help Humphrey, just America. I hope he hadn’t given on that!

[BrainGlutton]

Some choice Nixon quotes:

“This administration has proved that it is utterly incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of their government employees.” (1951 – he meant the Truman Administration. :p)

“The Jewish cabal is out to get me.”

“The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.”

“You know, it’s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists.”

“Many Jews in the Communist conspiracy. … Chambers and Hiss were the only non-Jews. … Many thought that Hiss was. He could have been a half. … Every other one was a Jew — and it raised hell for us. But in this case, I hope to God he’s not a Jew.”

“The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards.”

“Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

“I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don’t. The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic. And emotional.”

“As long as I’m sitting in the chair, there’s not going to be any Jew appointed to that court. [No Jew] can be right on the criminal-law issue.”

“Nixon: The only place where you and I disagree … is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.”
“Kissinger: I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.”

“What are our schools for if not for indoctrination against communism?”

“I have the greatest affection for them [Negroes] but I know they’re not going to make it for 500 years. They aren’t. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they’re dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.”

“You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin’ the nuns; that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don’t let 'em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.”

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape.”

[TriPolar]

^^ Gotta love that Nixon and his way with words.