In tapes, LBJ accuses Nixon of treason

Johnson thought meddling derailed planned Vietnam peace talks on eve of 1968 election, according to final recordings made public.

By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, December 05, 2008

Just days before the pivotal 1968 presidential election featuring Vice President Hubert Humphrey's bid to succeed him, President Lyndon Baines Johnson suspected Humphrey's Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, of political sabotage that he called treason, according to the final recordings of Johnson's presidency to be publicly released.

As Johnson tried to arrange peace talks between North and South Vietnam on the eve of the election, he and his closest advisers received information indicating that Nixon allies had asked that South Vietnam avoid peace talks until after the election, the tapes show.

Johnson and his advisers, Humphrey included, kept their concerns secret at the time. But given that Nixon defeated Humphrey by just 500,000 votes out of 73 million cast and that Nixon's suspected perfidy involved the unpopular war in Vietnam, there is ample cause to wonder how history might have been changed had the concerns Johnson voiced 40 years ago been made public.

The LBJ Library made those conversations public Thursday with the release of 42 hours of recordings made from May 1968 until the Johnson family left the White House in January 1969. Johnson's daughters, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb , were on hand to listen to and comment on the tapes and their father.

Harry Middleton, the first director of the LBJ Library and the original overseer of the LBJ tape project, said Thursday that he was satisfied that the body of material complied with Johnson's wish that the American people be given the opportunity to see the 36th president of the United States "with the bark off."

Betty Sue Flowers, the current director, praised Middleton's decision 15 years ago to countermand the wishes of his old boss that the tapes be kept private for 50 years after his death. Johnson died in 1973.

"He had the foresight to say no to President Johnson," Flowers said at a news conference Thursday.

"It was easier to do when he was dead," Johnson Robb shot back from her seat in the small audience.

The final recordings take their place alongside more than 600 hours that have been released as they were processed and archived by the library over the past decade. The conversations span the breadth of Johnson's ascendancy after the assassination of President John Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 , until January 1969.

In these last months of 1968 alone, Johnson is heard offering to Sen. Edward Kennedy and his family condolences after the assassination of his brother, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy; discussing his reasoning for the continued bombing of North Vietnam; and reacting to the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia.

With an election hanging in the balance, however, there is added drama in the flurry of calls in late October and early November concerning Johnson's attempt to bring the North and South Vietnamese governments together for the first time to discuss peace.

On March 31, under heavy pressure from the anti-war wing of his Democratic Party, Johnson shocked the American people by saying he would not run for re-election or accept his party's nomination. Instead, Johnson endorsed Humphrey, who inherited the warmonger label critics had hung on Johnson.

Luci Baines Johnson recalled the agony of her father, who she said sincerely wanted a just end to the war. She said she and her sister were stung by the protesters who picketed outside the White House.

"The last thing you would hear before you went to bed at night were protesters chanting, 'Hey, hey LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?' " Johnson said as her sister dabbed at tears.

To test the good faith of the North Vietnamese, Johnson ordered that all bombing in the north cease on Oct. 31 , six days before voters were to go the polls. The cease-fire gave the Humphrey campaign an immediate jolt — polls showed Nixon's 8-percentage-point lead had shrunk to 2 points.

The precise nature of any communication between Nixon's allies and the South Vietnamese government isn't revealed in the tapes — nor is the way Johnson and his advisers learned of them.

In the tapes, Johnson tells Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "It's pretty obvious to me it's had its effect."

In a segment aired at the news conference, Johnson tells Sen. Everett Dirksen , the Republican minority leader, that it will be Nixon's responsibility if the South Vietnamese don't participate in the peace talks.

"This is treason," LBJ says to Dirksen.

"I know," Dirksen replies, very softly.

Confronting Nixon by telephone on Nov. 3, Johnson outlines what had been alleged and how important it was to the conduct of the war for Nixon's people not to meddle.

"My God," Nixon says to Johnson, "I would never do anything to encourage the South Vietnamese not to come to that conference table." Instead, Nixon pledged to help in any way Johnson or Rusk suggested, "To hell with the political credit, believe me."

For Johnson and his top advisers, it wasn't a matter of whether Nixon was telling the truth but whether accusing Nixon of meddling would give the appearance that Johnson — rather than Nixon — was using the war to influence the election.

In the end, the South Vietnamese stayed away from the proposed peace talks. And Johnson listened to his advisers and suggested to Humphrey that he not use what he had learned.

"For God's sake, you want everybody to know you don't play politics with human lives, that we did what's right," Johnson tells Rusk on one of the recordings.

In several of the recordings, Johnson wonders what will become of a Democratic Party so riven by the war that it would not unite behind Humphrey.

"I'm sorry I let you down a little," Humphrey tells Johnson.

"No, you didn't; no you didn't," Johnson replies. "A lot of other folks (did), not you. You fought well and hard."