President Johnson Spied on Nixon During the '68 Election

I'd never heard of this and found it to be quite interesting and pertinent to what's going on right now. President Johnson was in peace talks with the Vietnamese and Nixon looked to sabotage those talks as he believed they would hurt him in the election:

The Intercept
During the 1968 contest between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, President Lyndon Johnson was attempting to negotiate a peace deal to end the Vietnam War. Nixon was worried that if this happened just before the election it would help Humphrey, who was Johnson’s vice president. Recently discovered notes by one of Nixon’s top campaign aides show that Nixon asked him to “monkey wrench” the peace talks.

Via Anna Chennault, a top Republican fundraiser, the Nixon campaign sent messages to the government of South Vietnam not to go along with Johnson’s plans. Johnson knew that this was happening at the time, and believed that it constituted “treason.” He ordered the FBI to wiretap the embassy of South Vietnam in Washington, which picked up Ambassador Bui Diem communicating with Chennault. (Presidents could and did directly order wiretaps prior to the establishment of the FISA court in 1978 to prevent executive branch abuses of its surveillance power.) The FBI also began conducting general surveillance of Chennault.

Nixon directly interfered with the sitting President's peace talks for political capital. Johnson and his Cabinet were conflicted about how to proceed and ultimately opted out of disclosing this information to the general public. This is a phone conversation between President Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Sec. Def. Clark Clifford:

history.state.gov...
President: Now, I don’t want to have information that ought to be public and not make it so. At the—on the other hand, we have a lot of—I don’t know how much we can do there and I know we'll be charged with trying to interfere with the election. And I think this is something that's going to require the best judgments that we have. I'm rather concerned by this Saville Davis conversation with the Embassy this morning.

President: Now, what he gets from Saigon is well and good and fine. But if he gets it from us, I want to be sure that A, we try to do it in such a way that our motives are not questioned and that if the public interest requires it, and two—and that's the only thing I want to operate under, I'm not interested in the politics of it—the second thing is I want to be sure that what we say can be confirmed.

Rusk: Well, Mr. President, I have a very definite view on this, for what it's worth. I do not believe that any President can make any use of interceptions or telephone taps in any way that would involve politics. The moment we cross over that divide we are in a different kind of society.

Clifford: Well, I would think that there would be a good deal of merit to that. I'd go on to another reason also. And that is, I think 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 to have a certain individual elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubts that I would think it would be inimical to our country's interests.

When Clark Clifford says, "It could cast his whole administration under such doubts that I would think it would be inimical to our country's interests", would that be what a politician would care about in this day and age of hyper-partisan politics? I wish we still lived in a time when statesmen were statesmen.

Looking back, however, this would have been valuable information to the voter as to what Nixon was capable of. This is worse than Watergate, IMO.

a reply to: PistolPete
Somewhere in my collection of Watergate memoirs (but it would take a while to track it down), Nixon is described remarking on the fact that his Democrat predecessors bugged as well.
Do you think Humphrey bugged? muses his interlocutor (Haldeman? Dean?)
"Hell no- why Johnson bugged Humphrey! "
And Nixon is chuckling at the thought that the "wily old Johnson" was bugging his own Vice-President.

originally posted by: gription
a reply to: PistolPete

Lyndon Johnson is your #ing excuse?

I didn't make excuses for anything. I just thought this was an interesting bit of conspiracy history - this is a conspiracy website still.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: PistolPete
Somewhere in my collection of Watergate memoirs (but it would take a while to track it down), Nixon is described remarking on the fact that his Democrat predecessors bugged as well.
Do you think Humphrey bugged? muses his interlocutor (Haldeman? Dean?)
"Hell no- why Johnson bugged Humphrey! "
And Nixon is chuckling at the thought that the "wily old Johnson" was bugging his own Vice-President.

And J. Edgar Hoover probably had them all bugged.

a reply to: PistolPete

Thanks for the walk on history sadly many here have no clue what it means because they don't even know what history means at all.

I am sure that many administrations had spied on political figures, but the key is to do it without been caught.

originally posted by: PistolPete
And J. Edgar Hoover probably had them all bugged.

Somewhere in those books there's a quotation about that as well. Wasn't he supposed to be unremovable for that reason?

originally posted by: gription
a reply to: PistolPete

Lyndon Johnson is your #ing excuse?

I don't understand this comment at all.

You youngsters know so little of history.



Buck

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: PistolPete
And J. Edgar Hoover probably had them all bugged.

Somewhere in those books there's a quotation about that as well. Wasn't he supposed to be unremovable for that reason?

Yep:

www.nytimes.com...
Tape Shows Nixon Feared Hoover By MICHAEL WINES, Published: June 5, 1991
FA June 4— Richard M. Nixon chose in 1971 not to remove J. Edgar Hoover as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in part because he feared that Mr. Hoover would "bring down the temple" by releasing damaging information about him, according to newly released transcripts of the former President's White House tape-recorded conversations.

originally posted by: flatbush71
You youngsters know so little of history.

It's so great that all this stuff is publically available now. The characters are all long dead so the politics can be stripped out and we can see the bull# that goes on behind the curtain of government.

a reply to: PistolPete

Lyndon B. Johnson
36th U.S. President
Born: August 27, 1908, Stonewall, Texas, United States
Died: January 22, 1973, Stonewall, Texas, United States

He is dead, he is beyond prosecution unless you dig up his corpse and arrest him. Are you suggesting (just curious) that because Johnson did it, it's okay for Obama? The difference between Obama and Johnson is that Obama is alive and can be brought to justice.

I think it's just more evidence and time to consider that anyone in power is capable of doing whatever they need to, to go along with whatever it is their best interests are.

You'd be foolish to think that someone with 90% of technology available within a phone call is not likely to use some of it.

Great presidents, # presidents, all the ones in between have done something one way or another that the public doesn't agree with. Some of these very things help us out as well.

We are in greasy times. I'm hardly surprised of any news anymore, haha.

Gentlemen, what I'm trying to explain, is inside the oval office, things are done much different than what is perceived by the general public.

In this example, Johnson and Hoover alone decided to create the Warren Commission as well who will be appointed to it.

Bugging is SOP ( Standard Operating Procedure ) for everything and its always been that way.

Buck

The topic is "President Johnson Spied on Nixon During the '68 Election". Please stick to the topic or move on.

Do not reply to this post.

a reply to: SoulSurfer

Yes, if Obama did something illegal he should be prosecuted for it. So should have Nixon and so should Trump if it turns out he did something illegal. This was pre-FISA Court and what Johnson did wasn't at that time even illegal:

(Presidents could and did directly order wiretaps prior to the establishment of the FISA court in 1978 to prevent executive branch abuses of its surveillance power.)

a reply to: SoulSurfer