August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo: Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THE FBI\u2019S SEARCH on Monday of former President Donald Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago home has rightfully been huge news. According to the Washington Post<\/a>, the FBI took action because Trump had left the White House in January 2021 with government documents, and while Trump returned 15 boxes of items to the National Archives earlier this year, officials had come to believe that \u201ceither the former president or people close to him held on to key records.\u201d Following the recent search, the FBI took away another 12 boxes of material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remarkably, however, none<\/a> of the voluminous news coverage about this has mentioned a parallel to Trump\u2019s behavior: When Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s presidency ended in 1969 and he was replaced by Richard Nixon, Johnson ordered an underling to surreptitiously take highly classified material with him on his administration\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/o.prod.theintercept.com\/checkout\/template\/cacheableShow?aid=hsZyoAWmIE&templateId=OTEXERHVRCE9&templateVariantId=OTVEIU52VT7IF&offerId=fakeOfferId&experienceId=EX3LBE28N473&iframeId=offer_d95877cf7d9b23ea09ec-0&displayMode=inline&pianoIdUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fid.tinypass.com%2Fid%2F&widget=template&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n The silence about this may be because the whole episode makes both political parties look horrendous. Democrats appear as feckless cowards who believed that Americans couldn\u2019t handle the truth about their own country. Republicans seem to be criminals and quasi-traitors who were happy to see tens of thousands of American soldiers die if it suited their purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story dates back to the 1968 presidential campaign. The GOP nominee was Nixon, who had served as Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s vice president. The Democratic candidate was Hubert Humphrey, Johnson\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By that time, about 30,000 Americans had been killed in the Vietnam War. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were dead. Anti-war protests in the U.S. and across the world were intense, and polls<\/a> showed that a majority of Americans had come to believe sending troops to Vietnam had been a mistake. The war was a key factor in Johnson\u2019s decision not to run again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n James Risen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Peter Maass<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jamie Kalven<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as the November 5 election drew closer, Johnson believed that there was a significant chance to reach an agreement to end the war on terms acceptable to the U.S. Johnson also knew that any signs of momentum toward such an agreement would boost Humphrey\u2019s chances of winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nixon was, of course, also well aware of this. We now know that Anna Chennault, a top GOP fundraiser and head of \u201cRepublican Women for Nixon,\u201d had been in touch since at least August with the South Vietnamese government, urging it not to go along with any peace efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On October 22, 1968, top Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman jotted down orders from Nixon. \u201c! Keep Anna Chennault working,\u201d Haldeman wrote<\/a>. \u201cAny other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Johnson\u2019s national security adviser, Walt Rostow, received a tip<\/a> about the Republican meddling from his brother Eugene on October 29. A Wall Street friend, Eugene Rostow reported, had told him that Nixon\u2019s efforts had been discussed at a luncheon for bankers that included an unnamed financial figure close to Nixon. \u201cThe prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim,\u201d the figure said, \u201cbecause Nixon was playing the problem \u2026 to block.\u201d In what would seem to confirm every left-wing belief about how the world works, the bankers, in possession of this tip that Nixon was preventing an outbreak of peace, held a \u201cprofessional discussion\u201d about how the situation would \u201caffect the stock market and the bond market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, Johnson ordered his factotums to have the FBI monitor Americans in contact with the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C. The next day, October 30, the FBI told the White House that its wiretap revealed<\/a> that Chennault had spoken with the South Vietnamese ambassador, who told her that something \u201cwas cooking\u201d but asked her to come by the embassy because he wisely didn\u2019t want to speak about it on the phone. Chennault said that she would visit after a lunch for \u201cMrs. Agnew,\u201d the wife of Nixon\u2019s running mate, Spiro Agnew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim, because Nixon was playing the problem \u2026 to block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On November 2, the FBI further reported<\/a> to the White House that Chennault had contacted the South Vietnamese ambassador with a message from \u201cher boss\u201d: \u201cHold on, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d The bureau then said that Chennault had left Washington for New York and that it would \u201cundertake discreet surveillance\u201d while she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question for Johnson then became what his administration should do in response. On November 4, he spoke with national security adviser Rostow, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. They all agreed that they should take no action at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? Because, as Clifford argued, \u201csome elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I\u2019m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have [Nixon] elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I would think it would be inimical to our country\u2019s interests.\u201d Johnson responded: \u201cI have no doubt about that.\u201d (You can read the entire conversation and even listen to the scratchy recording of it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, Nixon was indeed elected president. He barely beat Humphrey in the popular vote, 31.8 million to 31.3 million, a margin of 0.7 percent of the total votes cast. A few days later, the FBI sent the Johnson administration a memo<\/a> describing a meeting between an informant and a South Vietnamese military attach\u00e9 at the embassy in D.C. The attach\u00e9 had said that the goal of \u201cSaigon was to help presidential candidate Nixon, and that had Saigon gone to the conference table, presidential candidate Humphrey would probably have won.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969, and moved into the White House. But before Johnson vacated the premises, Rostow, at Johnson\u2019s request, gathered up the incendiary documentation of Nixon\u2019s treachery and how it had been proved by surveillance of Americans ordered by the president himself. Then Rostow walked out the door with it. Johnson, he later wrote, \u201casked me to hold [it] personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, \u201clegal,\u201d given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they\u2019d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI\u2019s spying \u201cwould be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don\u2019t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. \u2026 I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance<\/a> on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans\u2019 innocence about how politics works was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Johnson\u2019s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened \u201cnot earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.\u201d In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should \u201cre-close the file for another fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he\u2019d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon\u2019s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn\u2019t count anything out just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon\u2019s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance. Jon Schwarz August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com) Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. Photo: Bettmann Archive THE FBI\u2019S… Continue reading MOST READ<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/4d455cfd-5bf7-4a55-984a-7ba65018eb0c\/4d455cfd-5bf7-4a55-984a-7ba65018eb0c.jpeg?auto=compress,format&cs=srgb&dpr=2&h=440&w=440&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Cedges&_=8f6ce17e37a35c2666d88c58f59d8d35\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nCould Trump Go Down Like Al Capone?<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/80703cff-5df1-404a-a115-abe33565543b\/80703cff-5df1-404a-a115-abe33565543b.jpeg?auto=compress,format&cs=srgb&dpr=2&h=440&w=440&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Cedges&_=4ef9f42629ba862ef227907170d4c1ce\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAn Accused War Criminal Trained Florida Cops in \u201cNew Concepts of Shooting\u201d<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/41264272-042e-4df5-8868-6ea402cc7ca6\/41264272-042e-4df5-8868-6ea402cc7ca6.jpeg?auto=compress,format&cs=srgb&dpr=2&h=440&w=440&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Cedges&_=8689b8560fa7e61a71dcfb97c4a46ace\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the Aftermath of a Police Killing, the Justifications Begin Immediately<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![a tip<\/a> about the Republican meddling from his brother Eugene on October 29. A Wall Street friend, Eugene Rostow reported, had told him that Nixon\u2019s efforts had been discussed at a luncheon for bankers that included an unnamed financial figure close to Nixon. \u201cThe prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim,\u201d the figure said, \u201cbecause Nixon was playing the problem \u2026 to block.\u201d In what would seem to confirm every left-wing belief about how the world works, the bankers, in possession of this tip that Nixon was preventing an outbreak of peace, held a \u201cprofessional discussion\u201d about how the situation would \u201caffect the stock market and the bond market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn response, Johnson ordered his factotums to have the FBI monitor Americans in contact with the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C. The next day, October 30, the FBI told the White House that its wiretap revealed<\/a> that Chennault had spoken with the South Vietnamese ambassador, who told her that something \u201cwas cooking\u201d but asked her to come by the embassy because he wisely didn\u2019t want to speak about it on the phone. Chennault said that she would visit after a lunch for \u201cMrs. Agnew,\u201d the wife of Nixon\u2019s running mate, Spiro Agnew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim, because Nixon was playing the problem \u2026 to block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn November 2, the FBI further reported<\/a> to the White House that Chennault had contacted the South Vietnamese ambassador with a message from \u201cher boss\u201d: \u201cHold on, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d The bureau then said that Chennault had left Washington for New York and that it would \u201cundertake discreet surveillance\u201d while she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe question for Johnson then became what his administration should do in response. On November 4, he spoke with national security adviser Rostow, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. They all agreed that they should take no action at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy? Because, as Clifford argued, \u201csome elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I\u2019m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have [Nixon] elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I would think it would be inimical to our country\u2019s interests.\u201d Johnson responded: \u201cI have no doubt about that.\u201d (You can read the entire conversation and even listen to the scratchy recording of it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe next day, Nixon was indeed elected president. He barely beat Humphrey in the popular vote, 31.8 million to 31.3 million, a margin of 0.7 percent of the total votes cast. A few days later, the FBI sent the Johnson administration a memo<\/a> describing a meeting between an informant and a South Vietnamese military attach\u00e9 at the embassy in D.C. The attach\u00e9 had said that the goal of \u201cSaigon was to help presidential candidate Nixon, and that had Saigon gone to the conference table, presidential candidate Humphrey would probably have won.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nNixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969, and moved into the White House. But before Johnson vacated the premises, Rostow, at Johnson\u2019s request, gathered up the incendiary documentation of Nixon\u2019s treachery and how it had been proved by surveillance of Americans ordered by the president himself. Then Rostow walked out the door with it. Johnson, he later wrote, \u201casked me to hold [it] personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, \u201clegal,\u201d given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they\u2019d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI\u2019s spying \u201cwould be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don\u2019t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. \u2026 I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance<\/a> on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans\u2019 innocence about how politics works was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter Johnson\u2019s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened \u201cnot earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.\u201d In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should \u201cre-close the file for another fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he\u2019d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon\u2019s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn\u2019t count anything out just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon\u2019s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance. Jon Schwarz August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com) Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. Photo: Bettmann Archive THE FBI\u2019S… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23268,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions\/23268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0462-e1462808185230.jpg\"){kind=link}
![revealed<\/a> that Chennault had spoken with the South Vietnamese ambassador, who told her that something \u201cwas cooking\u201d but asked her to come by the embassy because he wisely didn\u2019t want to speak about it on the phone. Chennault said that she would visit after a lunch for \u201cMrs. Agnew,\u201d the wife of Nixon\u2019s running mate, Spiro Agnew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim, because Nixon was playing the problem \u2026 to block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn November 2, the FBI further reported<\/a> to the White House that Chennault had contacted the South Vietnamese ambassador with a message from \u201cher boss\u201d: \u201cHold on, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d The bureau then said that Chennault had left Washington for New York and that it would \u201cundertake discreet surveillance\u201d while she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe question for Johnson then became what his administration should do in response. On November 4, he spoke with national security adviser Rostow, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. They all agreed that they should take no action at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy? Because, as Clifford argued, \u201csome elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I\u2019m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have [Nixon] elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I would think it would be inimical to our country\u2019s interests.\u201d Johnson responded: \u201cI have no doubt about that.\u201d (You can read the entire conversation and even listen to the scratchy recording of it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe next day, Nixon was indeed elected president. He barely beat Humphrey in the popular vote, 31.8 million to 31.3 million, a margin of 0.7 percent of the total votes cast. A few days later, the FBI sent the Johnson administration a memo<\/a> describing a meeting between an informant and a South Vietnamese military attach\u00e9 at the embassy in D.C. The attach\u00e9 had said that the goal of \u201cSaigon was to help presidential candidate Nixon, and that had Saigon gone to the conference table, presidential candidate Humphrey would probably have won.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nNixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969, and moved into the White House. But before Johnson vacated the premises, Rostow, at Johnson\u2019s request, gathered up the incendiary documentation of Nixon\u2019s treachery and how it had been proved by surveillance of Americans ordered by the president himself. Then Rostow walked out the door with it. Johnson, he later wrote, \u201casked me to hold [it] personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, \u201clegal,\u201d given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they\u2019d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI\u2019s spying \u201cwould be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don\u2019t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. \u2026 I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance<\/a> on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans\u2019 innocence about how politics works was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter Johnson\u2019s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened \u201cnot earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.\u201d In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should \u201cre-close the file for another fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he\u2019d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon\u2019s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn\u2019t count anything out just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon\u2019s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance. Jon Schwarz August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com) Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. Photo: Bettmann Archive THE FBI\u2019S… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23268,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions\/23268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0450-e1462808312301.jpg\"){kind=link}
![reported<\/a> to the White House that Chennault had contacted the South Vietnamese ambassador with a message from \u201cher boss\u201d: \u201cHold on, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d The bureau then said that Chennault had left Washington for New York and that it would \u201cundertake discreet surveillance\u201d while she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe question for Johnson then became what his administration should do in response. On November 4, he spoke with national security adviser Rostow, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. They all agreed that they should take no action at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy? Because, as Clifford argued, \u201csome elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I\u2019m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have [Nixon] elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I would think it would be inimical to our country\u2019s interests.\u201d Johnson responded: \u201cI have no doubt about that.\u201d (You can read the entire conversation and even listen to the scratchy recording of it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe next day, Nixon was indeed elected president. He barely beat Humphrey in the popular vote, 31.8 million to 31.3 million, a margin of 0.7 percent of the total votes cast. A few days later, the FBI sent the Johnson administration a memo<\/a> describing a meeting between an informant and a South Vietnamese military attach\u00e9 at the embassy in D.C. The attach\u00e9 had said that the goal of \u201cSaigon was to help presidential candidate Nixon, and that had Saigon gone to the conference table, presidential candidate Humphrey would probably have won.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nNixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969, and moved into the White House. But before Johnson vacated the premises, Rostow, at Johnson\u2019s request, gathered up the incendiary documentation of Nixon\u2019s treachery and how it had been proved by surveillance of Americans ordered by the president himself. Then Rostow walked out the door with it. Johnson, he later wrote, \u201casked me to hold [it] personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, \u201clegal,\u201d given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they\u2019d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI\u2019s spying \u201cwould be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don\u2019t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. \u2026 I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance<\/a> on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans\u2019 innocence about how politics works was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter Johnson\u2019s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened \u201cnot earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.\u201d In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should \u201cre-close the file for another fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he\u2019d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon\u2019s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn\u2019t count anything out just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon\u2019s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance. Jon Schwarz August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com) Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. Photo: Bettmann Archive THE FBI\u2019S… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23268,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions\/23268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0437-e1462808333762.jpg\"){kind=link}
![a memo<\/a> describing a meeting between an informant and a South Vietnamese military attach\u00e9 at the embassy in D.C. The attach\u00e9 had said that the goal of \u201cSaigon was to help presidential candidate Nixon, and that had Saigon gone to the conference table, presidential candidate Humphrey would probably have won.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nNixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969, and moved into the White House. But before Johnson vacated the premises, Rostow, at Johnson\u2019s request, gathered up the incendiary documentation of Nixon\u2019s treachery and how it had been proved by surveillance of Americans ordered by the president himself. Then Rostow walked out the door with it. Johnson, he later wrote, \u201casked me to hold [it] personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat the Johnson administration had done was, in a sense, \u201clegal,\u201d given that there were essentially no laws governing the U.S. surveillance state before reforms in the 1970s. Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware that what they\u2019d done could be seen as scandalous. On the November 4 phone call, Rusk said that revealing the fruits of the FBI\u2019s spying \u201cwould be very unwise. I mean, we get a lot of information through these special channels that we don\u2019t make public. I mean, for example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen. \u2026 I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Vietnam War eventually ended in 1975, essentially on the same terms as had been available in 1968. Tens of thousands more Americans died, as did a far higher, uncountable number of Vietnamese. During this time, the war further metastasized to Cambodia, where the Nixon administration ramped up a bombing campaign that dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance<\/a> on that poor, rural society. This was more than the 2 million tons of bombs the U.S. had used during all of World War II. The extraordinary devastation plausibly led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Cambodian genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s the downside. The upside is that Nixon got to be president, and Americans\u2019 innocence about how politics works was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter Johnson\u2019s death, Rostow put his documents in a sealed envelope and gave them to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, with instructions that the envelope was to be opened \u201cnot earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.\u201d In other words, if Rostow had gotten his way, we would only be finding out about this conspiracy next year, in 2023, or even later. Rostow told the library that if it felt 2023 was too hasty, it should \u201cre-close the file for another fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFortunately, the library opened the envelope in the 1990s, although some of the material has yet to be declassified. Nixon lied about what he\u2019d done over and over again until his death in 1994, with many partisans deriding the facts as a preposterous conspiracy theory. It was only in 2016 that Nixon\u2019s direct involvement was finally proved beyond a doubt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt seems unlikely that the public records Trump took with him on his way out the door could be as momentous as those Johnson tried to excise from history. But given the degree to which U.S. presidents are willing to deceive us, we shouldn\u2019t count anything out just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson wanted to stop Americans from learning about Nixon\u2019s Vietnam treason and his own lawless surveillance. Jon Schwarz August 11 2022, 6:49\u00a0a.m. (TheIntercept.com) Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and his successor, Richard Nixon, ride together to the so-called Western White House on Aug. 27, 1969. Photo: Bettmann Archive THE FBI\u2019S… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23268,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23267\/revisions\/23268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_0525-e1462807968703.jpg\"){kind=link}