Reply #17: wrong [View All]

[G_j]

some research would help dispel RW spins on American history

October surprise of 1968

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/111300a.html

From:

November 13, 2000

Who Should Concede?
The Secret History of Modern U.S. Politics
By Robert Parry

<snip>
The Vietnam War was raging and was creating deep divisions within the Democratic Party. In October 1968, President Lyndon Johnson was maneuvering to achieve the framework for a peace settlement with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong through negotiations in Paris.

At the time, 500,000 American soldiers were in the war zone, and civil strife was tearing the United States apart. Nixon feared that a pre-election peace agreement could catapult Humphrey to victory.

According to now overwhelming evidence, the Nixon campaign dispatched Anna Chenault, an anti-communist Chinese leader, to carry messages to the South Vietnamese government of Nguyen van Thieu. The messages advised Thieu that a Nixon presidency would give him a more favorable result.

Journalist Seymour Hersh described the initiative sketchily in his biography of Henry Kissinger, The Price of Power. Hersh reported that U.S. intelligence “agencies had caught on that Chennault was the go-between between Nixon and his people and President Thieu in Saigon. … The idea was to bring things to a stop in Paris and prevent any show of progress.”

In her own autobiography, The Education of Anna, Chennault acknowledged that she was the courier. She quoted Nixon aide John Mitchell as calling her a few days before the 1968 election and telling her: “I’m speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It’s very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you made that clear to them.”

Reporter Daniel Schorr added fresh details in The Washington Post’s Outlook section . Schorr cited decoded cables that U.S. intelligence had intercepted from the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington.

<snip>