Jim Burt: “In your litany of horrible things the Republicans have done in their pursuit of political advantage – e.g., the War on Drugs [Nixon Policy Advisor Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress ‘Anti-War Left and Black People’] – you forgot to mention that in 1968 LBJ’s diplomats had negotiated a peace settlement with North Vietnam which was indistinguishable from the one Kissinger won a Nobel Prize for five years and countless deaths later . . . but that Nixon’s team told South Vietnam’s leaders to refuse to go along with it, promising them a better deal once Nixon was president. LBJ knew of this because of wire taps on those leaders — and knew that revealing it would destroy Nixon’s chances of election — but kept it secret because of the scandal which would have attached to wiretapping allies. I suggest that there are enough incidents of this sort to indicate a pattern. You can’t just say, ‘Well, sure, that Nixon was a bad boy,’ if he’s only one of a long string of Republican politicians who have dealt with the devil for political advantage to the detriment of the country.”
☞ For more on this Nixon/LBJ history, click here . . . and here (bonus: a riveting account of how LBJ almost crashed the tumultuous 1968 convention in Chicago to run for reelection after all) . . . and here (peace before the election “was exactly what Nixon feared”). Thanks, Jim!
*”On the other hand,” Jim goes on to note, “it does not appear that Reagan actively connived with the Iranians to put off the hostage release during the 1980 campaign. The Iranians just hated Carter with a white hot passion.”
