LBJ tapes on Nixon treason on Vietnam
In Saigon, however, the Thieu regime informed U.S. diplomats that it would not send a delegation to Paris. As it did so, the President learned that representatives of Nixon’s campaign had contacted the South Vietnamese embassy in the United States to encourage Saigon’s recalcitrance. Johnson phoned long-time advisor Richard Russell to inform him of the news. The Georgia senator was gravely ill, however, and this October 31 excerpt showed him ill-suited to give advice.
President Johnson: Well, I’ve got one this morning that’s pretty rough for you.
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—our allies and the others. He’s been doing it through rather subterranean sources here.
He has been saying to the allies that “you’re going to get sold out. Watch Yalta, and Potsdam, and two Berlins, and everything. And they’re [the Johnson administration] going to recognize the NLF. I [Nixon] don’t have to do that. You better not give away your liberty just a few hours before I can preserve it for you.”
One or two of his business friends divulged it first a couple of days ago, about the time he [Nixon] made the statement that he had rumors that the staff was selling out, but he did not include me in it.
[Break.]
President Johnson: The next thing that we got our teeth in was one of his associates—a fellow named [John] Mitchell, who is running his campaign, who’s the real Sherman Adams [Eisenhower’s chief of staff] of the operation, in effect said to a businessman that “we’re going to handle this like we handled the Fortas matter, unquote. We’re going to frustrate the President by saying to the South Vietnamese, and the Koreans, and the Thailanders [sic], ‘Beware of Johnson.’”
“At the same time, we’re going to say to Hanoi, ‘I [Nixon] can make a better deal than he [Johnson] has, because I’m fresh and new, and I don’t have to demand as much as he does in the light of past positions.”
Now, when we got that (pure by accident, as a result of some of our Wall Street connections), that caused me to look a little deeper.
President Johnson: Mrs. [Anna] Chennault is contacting their [South Vietnamese] ambassador from time to time—seems to be kind of the go-between, the Chiang Kai-Shek deal. In addition, their ambassador is saying to ‘em that “Johnson is desperate and is just moving heaven and earth to elect Humphrey, so don’t you get sucked in on that.” (He is kind of these folks’ agent here, this little South Vietnamese ambassador.) - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/60446#sthash.FrPw74BL.dpuf
