The original October surprise

National, Politics 1 Minute

I completely missed the story last week about the release of LBJ tapes regarding Nixon.  But Robert Parry didn’t.

In effect, the 1968 case in which Nixon’s operatives undermined President Johnson’s desperate bid to end the Vietnam War – and thus helped ensure Nixon’s electoral victory over Vice President Hubert Humphrey – may have been the original “October Surprise.”

[…]

The newly released audiotapes offer a dramatic story of an embattled President angered over intelligence intercepts revealing that emissaries from Nixon’s campaign, including right-wing China Lobby figure Anna Chennault, were carrying messages to the South Vietnamese government urging them to boycott planned peace talks in Paris.

[…]

The U.S. participation in the Vietnam War continued for more than four years at a horrendous cost to both the United States and the people of Vietnam. Before the conflict was finally brought to an end, a million or more Vietnamese were estimated to have died along with an additional 20,763 U.S. dead and 111,230 wounded.

Has there ever been a time in the nation’s history when politicians put the people before their own interests?

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5 thoughts on “The original October surprise”

  2. No. That’s why I actively resist placing my faith in any politician. Even the ones I tend to agree with. For that matter, it’s also why I actively resist placing any faith in government, no matter what form it takes.

    It’s a very liberating feeling to be outside the cult of the state.

  3. Nothing in the linked to article provided evidence that Richard M Nixon torpedoed LBJ’s peace attempts. It only describes how LBJ might have thought Nixon was against him.

    Would those that supposedly conspired with him (Nixon) been willing to risk it all on his less then certain victory?

    We’re not talking about the 1972 race here but the one that happened in 1968.

  4. No. That’s why I cannot figure out why people want the government to have control of their health care, their retirement, and their money. And they want the government to have all the guns, too.

    What happened to the ’60s liberals whose mantra was, “Don’t trust the government”?

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