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.


The Paris peace talks may have ended years earlier, if it had not been for Nixon's subterfuge
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.


Nixon went on to become president and eventually signed a Vietnam peace deal in 1973
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.


Publicly Nixon was suggesting he had no idea why the South Vietnamese withdrew from the talks. He even offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table.

Johnson felt it was the ultimate expression of political hypocrisy but in calls recorded with Clifford they express the fear that going public would require revealing the FBI were bugging the ambassador's phone and the National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting his communications with Saigon.

So they decided to say nothing.

The president did let Humphrey know and gave him enough information to sink his opponent. But by then, a few days from the election, Humphrey had been told he had closed the gap with Nixon and would win the presidency. So Humphrey decided it would be too disruptive to the country to accuse the Republicans of treason, if the Democrats were going to win anyway.

Nixon ended his campaign by suggesting the administration war policy was in shambles. They couldn't even get the South Vietnamese to the negotiating table.

He won by less than 1% of the popular vote.

Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968.

He committed TREASON just like the PRESIDENT IN SEASON FIVE of 24, this is so shocking. Millions of people lost their lives because of NIXON!!

Nixon had this scandal, Reagan sold weapons to Iran to fund insurgency in Nicaragua, Bush invaded Panama illegally, Clinton refused to act on the one million people genocide in Rwanda, Bush junior entered Iraq with a lie to spend over 2 Trillion Dollars on an unnecessary war and Obama continued the battles in Afghanistan.

Now Drones are in NIGER,be afraid, be very afraid!!

It's all about MONEY AND POWER!!!

citizenisb: Nixon had this scandal, Reagan sold weapons to Iran to fund insurgency in Nicaragua, Bush invaded Panama illegally, Clinton refused to act on the one million people genocide in Rwanda, Bush junior entered Iraq with a lie to spend over 2 Trillion Dollars on an unnecessary war and Obama continued the battles in Afghanistan.

Now Drones are in NIGER,be afraid, be very afraid!!

It's all about MONEY AND POWER!!!

Dats all very on point

hmm

I hope the global elite are not planning something for Nigeria with all this instability in the North!!

Well wat can we ordinary nigerians do wen our RULERS decided to be a puppet to d western countries.d us was reportd saying nigerias silence on d drone base in Niger was taken as approval dats a product of d cluelessness of our presidency do dey know d implication or are just ignorant make i just dey look