Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands"

[SlyPokerDog]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668?SThisFB

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Now, for the first time, the whole story can be told.

It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser.

At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign. If any message needed to be passed to the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, it would come via Chennault.

In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris - concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared.

Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out.

He was also told why. The FBI had bugged the ambassador's phone and a transcripts of Anna Chennault's calls were sent to the White House. In one conversation she tells the ambassador to "just hang on through election".

Johnson was told by Defence Secretary Clifford that the interference was illegal and threatened the chance for peace.

In a series of remarkable White House recordings we can hear Johnson's reaction to the news.

In one call to Senator Richard Russell he says: "We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee, our California friend, has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends both, he has been doing it through rather subterranean sources. Mrs Chennault is warning the South Vietnamese not to get pulled into this Johnson move."

He orders the Nixon campaign to be placed under FBI surveillance and demands to know if Nixon is personally involved.

When he became convinced it was being orchestrated by the Republican candidate, the president called Senator Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the Senate to get a message to Nixon.

The president knew what was going on, Nixon should back off and the subterfuge amounted to treason.

 

[BigGameDamian]

Now lets find out what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. You know that the government knows. What about JFK?

 

[3RA1N1AC]

when you have millions of lives to spend, a couple thousand are just pocket change

 

[Denny Crane]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedev-idUSBRE82P0JI20120326

 

[RR7]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedev-idUSBRE82P0JI20120326

I rarely post just a link. ..... it's intention is to provide background info about the subject.

It's funny how a thread on Nixon leads to a link on.....Obama. Maybe you can start a thread on that link if you want. Or discuss Nixon, I suppose. But your links are always so fun. Thanks for the extra reading material!

 

[Denny Crane]

It's funny how a thread on Nixon leads to a link on.....Obama. Maybe you can start a thread on that link if you want. Or discuss Nixon, I suppose. But your links are always so fun. Thanks for the extra reading material!

I wanted people to click to read to find out what I was pointing out.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I wanted people to click to read to find out what I was pointing out.

Don't you get tired of beating the same drum over and over? I'm no fan of Obama but come on, not everything has to lead back to how terrible he is.

Johnson insisting on calls being record, the 1968 Democratic convention, Nixon, Roof top helicopters, FBI, NSA, Vietnam. There is a lot of history and a lot of fun in the article I posted.

 

[Denny Crane]

Don't you get tired of beating the same drum over and over? I'm no fan of Obama but come on, not everything has to lead back to how terrible he is.

Johnson insisting on calls being record, the 1968 Democratic convention, Nixon, Roof top helicopters, FBI, NSA, Vietnam. There is a lot of history and a lot of fun in the article I posted.

I didn't say he was terrible. I just am amused that one guy is guilty of treason and has blood on his hands while the current guy does the same things and few people say anything about it.

My link was to give people the opportunity to read what Reuters wrote without even the tiniest hint of my own spin on it.

 

[RR7]

I wanted people to click to read to find out what I was pointing out.

Yeah, you do all the time. Why not try adding some shit to it. Instead, I click, thinking oh, he's actually adding to the story at hand....nope. Just derailing this thread. Start a new one if you want to talk about what Obama did.

You referencing what Obama has done similar to any bad thing done in an OT thread is the equivalent of others saying Bush did something similar that you and the other libertarians on the board flip out about.

 

[Denny Crane]

Yeah, you do all the time. Why not try adding some shit to it. Instead, I click, thinking oh, he's actually adding to the story at hand....nope. Just derailing this thread. Start a new one if you want to talk about what Obama did.

"adding shit to it" would more likely derail the thread.

SPD seems to think my point was me saying Obama is terrible. I think my point was "it's what our leaders do." Or "why isn't this treason, too?" Maybe you'd read the link and get angry about what Obama did. Or maybe you'd shine on what he did as if it were nothing wrong.

Look at the title of this thread. Nixon was in no way guilty of treason. That is one of the most absurd claims imaginable. The guy was a bad bad man. Say that and I wouldn't have a beef with it. But treason? In what way did he try to overthrow the US government to our enemies?

My beef is the loaded language.

Merriam-Webster defines treason:

"The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family"

 

[RR7]

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort

I'd say helping to circumvent peace talks could be argued as levying war against.

 

[RR7]

As for your article, Obama didn't "potentially"(I'll put in in quotes, because we don't know if peace would have been achieved) allow thousands of US citizens to die in an attempt to get elected. I dunno how you think those two are similar, and similar enough to link without adding anything at all to your article. Other than both saying wait until after an election for something.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Look at the title of this thread. Nixon was in no way guilty of treason. That is one of the most absurd claims imaginable. The guy was a bad bad man. Say that and I wouldn't have a beef with it. But treason? In what way did he try to overthrow the US government to our enemies?

My beef is the loaded language.

Merriam-Webster defines treason:

"The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family"

The title to this thread was a line from the article.



The idea that Johnson might have been the candidate, and not Hubert Humphrey, is just one of the many secrets contained on the White House tapes.

They also shed light on a scandal that, if it had been known at the time, would have sunk the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon.

By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands".

 

[huevonkiller]

Um in practice most presidents are extremely alike. It is usually Congress that determines what will get accomplished.

Denny's point is sound.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

if some minny troll posts some shit like

"lillard, horrible shooting percentage"

ill post a link to rubios shooting percentage

and i win

so i see what denny was doing

except, this is some old school shit, comparing obama to nixon is like comparing lillard to world b free

 

[Denny Crane]

The title to this thread was a line from the article.



The idea that Johnson might have been the candidate, and not Hubert Humphrey, is just one of the many secrets contained on the White House tapes.

They also shed light on a scandal that, if it had been known at the time, would have sunk the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon.

By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands".

I see. (I read the article).

LBJ lied us into war (Gulf of Tonkin ring a bell?), a warmonger, incited the worst riots in the nation since the Civil War, and motivated people to leave their homes and jobs and camp outside the white house to protest his being president at all.

So what he thought about a political enemy means what, exactly? Worthy of a bomb-throwing style headline?

Like I said, Nixon was a bad man. You can find all sorts of things to vilify him for. Knock yourself out. I probably won't disagree with much of it.

I do think there were positives to come from Nixon's presidency. The end of the Vietnam war. Detente. Normalized relations with China.

In fact, less than half a decade before Nixon became president, JFK was threatening to use nukes against China and considered nuking Laos and Vietnam. He took the world to the brink of extinction in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

LBJ authorized the military to use nukes without presidential authority in 1964. HE considered using nukes against Vietnam. And that was after running his famous nuke ad against Goldwater.

Yet the "war criminals" Kissinger and Nixon engaged in diplomatic talks with our two most threatening nuclear armed enemies. Nixon negotiated the first SALT (strategic arms limitation treaty) with the USSR, which ran from 1969-72 and SALT II in his second term.

If you don't appreciate the link to Obama doing exactly the same thing Nixon is accused of in this article, how about this one:
http://www.3rdmarines.net/Vietnam_jane_fonda_in_vietnam.htm

References:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...na-if-62-war-had-resumed/Article1-980353.aspx
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JD17Ae01.html
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1998/L...-Revealed/id-188a02c30f1c05d845b1c01e91aa4b62
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/Dictabelt.hom/highlights/jan-apr68.shtm (Citation No.: 12723 among others)

 

[Denny Crane]

As for your article, Obama didn't "potentially"(I'll put in in quotes, because we don't know if peace would have been achieved) allow thousands of US citizens to die in an attempt to get elected. I dunno how you think those two are similar, and similar enough to link without adding anything at all to your article. Other than both saying wait until after an election for something.

Nixon didn't allow anything to happen. He wasn't president and had no authority to do squat. There was no guarantee he'd be elected. In no way does the article even claim Nixon communicated with our enemies in North Vietnam.

 

[jlprk]

Now, for the first time, the whole story can be told.

It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser.

Reagan did the same thing. After Carter negotiated the release of the hostages, Iran mysteriously dragged its feet until Reagan gave them the word. It's called the October Surprise. Those in Reagan's backchannel to Iran have admitted it.

 

[jlprk]

Reagan then used his backchannel to set up arms sales to Iran, while it was American policy that Iran was the enemy. Oliver North, Gen. Secord, and the whole crew admitted it in the Iran-Contra Hearings. CIA lawyers got them off.

 

[RR7]

Reagan did the same thing. After Carter negotiated the release of the hostages, Iran mysteriously dragged its feet until Reagan gave them the word. It's called the October Surprise. Those in Reagan's backchannel to Iran have admitted it.

hmmm, that would have been a great one for Denny to link to to show a lot of presidents do this. I wonder why he didn't

 

[Denny Crane]

hmmm, that would have been a great one for Denny to link to to show a lot of presidents do this. I wonder why he didn't

The Democrats in congress investigated October Surmise and found it was a conspiracy theory without foundation. They had an agenda to prove it was true, to hang it around GHW Bush's neck during the 1992 election.

There's nothing in jlprk's newspaper story suggesting there was any deal with the Iranians beforehand.

If jlprk's conspiracy theory were true, I might have linked to it and probably would have. It would have been one of the more famous examples.

But I'd also point out that the Iranians had no guarantee that Reagan would win to fulfill any bargain he struck. And that Carter had publicly offered arms for hostages in as sweet a deal as any Reagan would have likely offered. Why would the Iranians not take the sure thing?

See (regarding arms for hostages, closeness of election):

http://godfatherpolitics.com/7925/1980-carter-reagan-race-too-close-to-call-on-eve-of-election/
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...FZIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ykwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5648,2991040

And see (regarding october surmise):

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/h920224-october.htm

And

http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id53.htm

Over the past five years, the October Surprise has become the hottest conspiracy theory in Washington....The sheer weight of the coverage, and the unanswered questions it raised, prompted Congress to investigate....Last November, the Senate's limited investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy. Its findings were corroborated in mid-January, when the House task force released a phone book-sized report in which it concluded there was "no credible evidence" to support any of the principal allegations. In the words of one senior investigator, "The conspiracy was a hoax."

....Aside from debunking the conspiracy, the evidence amassed by the task force laid out in embarrassing detail how the October Surprise myth was created, sustained and enhanced almost entirely by the news media's uncritical acceptance of allegations made by less-than-credible sources.

...

In April 1992, Frontline broadcast a second documentary on the alleged conspiracy, Reported and co-written by Parry, it acknowledged that evidence had turned up since the first documentary showing that Ben-Menashe, Brenneke and another source, Oswald LeWinter, were not credible. It suggested, however, that Casey met with the Iranians in Madrid during the same time frame of the London conference. It also suggested that the Reagan administration had given the Hashemi brothers, who had been indicted in 1984 for illegally selling weapons to Iran, special treatment to ensure their silence about the October Surprise. The House task force later found that there was no evidence of special treatment....

On January 13, after spending $1.35 million, the House task force issued its full report. The 16-member staff, led by former federal prosecutors E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. and Richard Leon, conducted more than 230 interviews and depositions in more than 10 countries....The investigators obtained more than 100,000 classified documents, raw intercepts, wiretaps and intelligence reports...and acquired tens of thousands of personal documents of officials and journalists. The FBI also provided the task force with more than 21,000 recorded conversations of Cyrus Hashemi. The result was a 968-page report, which included thousands of footnotes.

...


In fact, the House report not only concluded there is "no evidence" that Casey participated in meetings in Madrid or Paris, but that calendars, eyewitness accounts, telephone logs and credit card receipts showed that he was in the United States and London at the time of the alleged meetings. Moreover, witnesses, documents and FBI wiretaps indicate that the man Casey allegedly met, Cyrus Hashemi, was in New York and Connecticut when Sick alleges he was in Madrid and Paris....

 

[jlprk]

Denny, your reports just claim that it was unprovable. People who label "conspiracy theories" never use the alternative, "coincidence theories."

So your coincidence theory says that it was just bad luck for Carter, darn it, that Iran dragged its feet (rumors during that delay said the reason was to help Reagan) until Reagan could take credit. For the next 8 years, the media told us that everything good emanated from his sunny glow. It was a cult of personality and he was the decade's Mao.

 

[Denny Crane]

Denny, your reports just claim that it was unprovable. People who label "conspiracy theories" never use the alternative, "coincidence theories."

So your coincidence theory says that it was just bad luck for Carter, darn it, that Iran dragged its feet (rumors during that delay said the reason was to help Reagan) until Reagan could take credit. For the next 8 years, the media told us that everything good emanated from his sunny glow. It was a cult of personality and he was the decade's Mao.

My reports debunk the very foundations of your conspiracy theory. You know, stuff like "George Bush attended a meeting with Iranians in Paris" at a time the Secret Service records showed he was in the USA and the men he was supposed to meet were photographed and in newspaper stories anywhere but Paris.

I don't think there was any coincidence. I think the Iranians simply hated Carter and wouldn't do squat for him under any circumstance. As long as there was no threat to them militarily, they were happy to watch Carter squirm.