Classified Tapes Reveal LBJ Knew About Nixon’s Treason And Said Nothing

Recently revealed classified tapes give supporting evidence that LBJ knew about Nixon's treason in trying to keep the South Vietnamese from negotiating with President Johnson in order to keep the war going.

Richard Nixon was running for President in 1968 against Democrat Hubert Humphrey. The Nixon campaign was relying heavily on the war continuing while his opponents campaign was calling for an immediate end.

President Johnson was not opposed to having his phone calls recorded. LBJ felt it would give the American people the chance to judge his actions as President using all of the relevant information.

One of the recorded LBJ tapes reveals that the President knew about Nixon's treasonous actions in trying to keep the South Vietnamese away from the negotiating table. Nixon promised them a better deal if they waited to see if he was elected before ending the war.

In November of 1968 the South Vietnamese mysteriously pulled out of the peace talks days before President Johnson was due to announce the war was over.

Publically Nixon feigned ignorance as to way the Southern Vietnamese pulled out of the talks. However the LBJ tapes give evidence that the President knew about Nixon's plan. Johnson ordered that the Nixon campaign be monitored and the FBI bugged the phone of the Southern Vietnamese ambassador.

The BBC has a sound bite of the LBJ tapes in which Johnson says, "We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee, our California friend, has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends both, he has been doing it through rather subterranean sources."

Johnson later goes on to say that Nixon's senior campaign adviser Anna Chennault was warning the South Vietnamese not to get pulled into Johnson's plan for peace.

When Nixon's treason was revealed to Johnson the President did not do anything with the information. Had LBJ gone public he would have stopped the Nixon campaign in its tracks.

The president did not go public because he did not want it to become known that the United States Government had bugged an ambassador's phone.