George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
Richard Nixon was a traitor.
The
new release of extended versions of Nixon's papers now confirms this
long-standing belief, usually dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by
Republican conservatives. Now it has been substantiated by none other
than right-wing columnist George Will.
Nixon's
newly revealed records show for certain that in 1968, as a presidential
candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam
government, to persuade them refuse a cease-fire being brokered by
President Lyndon Johnson.
Nixon's
interference with these negotiations violated President John Adams's
1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official
government negotiations with a foreign nation.
Published
as the 40th Anniversary of Nixon's resignation approaches, Will's
column confirms that Nixon feared public disclosure of his role in
sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks. Will says Nixon established a
"plumbers unit" to stop potential leaks of information that might damage
him, including documentation he believed was held by the Brookings
Institute, a liberal think tank. The Plumbers' later break-in at the
Democratic National Committee led to the Watergate scandal that brought
Nixon down.
Nixon's
sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was confirmed by transcripts of FBI
wiretaps. On November 2, 1968, LBJ received an FBI report saying
Chernnault told the South Vietnamese ambassador that "she had received a
message from her boss: saying the Vietnamese should "hold on, we are
gonna win."
As
Will confirms, Vietnamese did "hold on," the war proceeded and Nixon
did win, changing forever the face of American politics—with the shadow
of treason permanently embedded in its DNA.
The
treason came in 1968 as the Vietnam War reached a critical turning
point. President Lyndon Johnson was desperate for a truce between North
and South Vietnam.
LBJ
had an ulterior motive: his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, was in a
tight presidential race against Richard Nixon. With demonstrators in the
streets, Humphrey desperately needed a cease-fire to get him into the
White House.
Johnson
had it all but wrapped it. With a combination of gentle and iron-fisted
persuasion, he forced the leaders of South Vietnam into an
all-but-final agreement with the North. A cease-fire was imminent, and
Humphrey’s election seemed assured.
But
at the last minute, the South Vietnamese pulled out. LBJ suspected
Nixon had intervened to stop them from signing a peace treaty.
In
the Price of Power (1983), Seymour Hersh revealed Henry Kissinger—then
Johnson’s advisor on Vietnam peace talks—secretly alerted Nixon’s staff
that a truce was imminent.
According
to Hersh, Nixon “was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu
government [of South Vietnam] making it clear that a Nixon presidency
would have different views on peace negotiations.”
Johnson
was livid. He even called the Republican Senate Minority Leader,
Everett Dirksen, to complain that “they oughtn’t be doing this. This is
treason.”
“I know,” was Dirksen’s feeble reply.
Johnson blasted Nixon about this on November 3, just prior to the election. As Robert Parry of consortiumnews.com has
written: “when Johnson confronted Nixon with evidence of the peace-talk
sabotage, Nixon insisted on his innocence but acknowledged that he knew
what was at stake.”
Said
Nixon: “My, I would never do anything to encourage….Saigon not to come
to the table….Good God, we’ve got to get them to Paris or you can’t have
peace.”
But
South Vietnamese President General Theiu—a notorious drug and gun
runner—did boycott Johnson’s Paris peace talks. With the war still
raging, Nixon claimed a narrow victory over Humphrey. He then made
Kissinger his own national security advisor.
In
the four years between the sabotage and what Kissinger termed “peace at
hand” just prior to the 1972 election, more than 20,000 US troops died
in Vietnam. More than 100,000 were wounded. More than a million
Vietnamese were killed.
But in 1973, Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the same settlement he helped sabotage in 1968.
According
to Parry, LBJ wanted to go public with Nixon’s treason. But Clark
Clifford, an architect of the CIA and a pillar of the Washington
establishment, talked Johnson out of it. LBJ’s close confidant warned
that the revelation would shake the foundations of the nation.
In
particular, Clifford told Johnson (in a taped conversation) that “some
elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m 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 think it would be inimical to our country’s best
interests.”
In
other words, Clifford told LBJ that the country couldn’t handle the
reality that its president was a certifiable traitor, eligible for legal
execution.
Fittingly,
Clark Clifford’s upper-crust career ended in the disgrace of his
entanglement with the crooked Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI), which
financed the terrorist group Al Qaeda and whose scandalous downfall
tainted the Agency he helped found.
Johnson
lived four years after he left office, tormented by the disastrous war
that destroyed his presidency and his retirement. Nixon won re-election
in 1972, again with a host of dirty dealings, then became the first
American president to resign in disgrace.
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