@@nguyendailam6703 Nixon was as brilliant as he was flawed and intelligent. He was deeply complex and really quite a surprising person to have picked a political career for such an introvert. I've read a lot about the modern Presidency and find it facinating even if the USA is an oiligarchy today. What are you studying Nixon for-a degree or just a project? I recommend you watch Oliver Stone's 'Nixon' from the 1990s. All the best. Garry
I was raised in Dirkson’s district. at age 12 he explained politics to me for about 45 minutes. My dad kept watching. thought I was keeping him to long but Dirkson said I had great questions. I will never forget that.
How refreshing, if only for a moment. Just look at the how deceitful The Dick Nixon was, while leading our country and the world into his presidential (lower-case "P" IS more appropriate) term of torture. How many more ten's of thousands of American troops, and millions of innocent Vietnamese citizens died for his fucking ego. NOW, look at the deceit of the pig-in-chief (with my sincerest apologies to the porcine community), and how so many American's have their heads planted so firmly up their asses that they can not even feel his teeny peeny fucking them every day. That demon is The Dick Nixon cubed. For you tRUMP lovers, that is a mathematical term, and you are all too fucking stupid to understand it. In simple terms, we are all fucked. "I love the poorly educated!" - d. tRUMP. SEE: dcreport.org
@@bfan6032 : The McGovern who said: "It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful unwillingness to let the executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us." Is that the McGovern you are talking about?
@@carljoseph8355 I love to burst your bubble, and Trump is pulling US forces out of the Middle East, just like Nixon pulled them out of SE Asia. Trump also did not do a Watergate.
Absolutely agree. And to shamelessly piggyback... Don't fool yourselves, people. These men were good at politics. They did not like each other. Just 6 days earlier LBJ had an irate call with Everett Dirksen, accusing the Nixon team of treason. "They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war!"
Amazing, insightful conversation that it is rare to be privy to between a President and a President-elect (between opposing parties no less). Would NEVER happen today, and will probably never happen again. I mean being able to actually hear the conversation as the general public, AND never having a Republican consult a Democrat for advice. Extremely interesting, and gives me a greater respect for LBJ than I've ever had. Thank you for posting.
Is what happened hear really representative of better government though? Nixon is lying through his teeth, denying that he'd sabotaged the peace talks to help himself get elected (which he did). Meanwhile Johnson is pretending to be fooled, because he can't accuse Nixon of treason openly without also revealing the USA's efforts to spy on their allies.
@@SLAPPEDbyAhat You got it all right! LBJ was a lame dead duck at this point, just trying to cover his ass on the way out. Nixon was about to be elected. It was game over for the Democrats, and American soldiers continued to die needlessly, doe to the war machine stopping and starting over and over for political games. You want another war, so that parties can chat across party lines on a phone about how to hand over a war in a November? The situation was crap for LBJ, and he knew Nixon was going to keep it crappy so he could fuel the economy with military spending. He was just trying to say anything to get some humanity out of the monster that America had just put on the precipice of power.
amazing contrast in personalities. Johnson is in control and clear in his thinking and plans - Nixon has just won and sounds a bit insecure about engaging. H e thinks out loud about getting others to make calls or statements, while LBJ keeps prodding him to be firm and unambiguous. great conversation between two giants.
@Just think You really want us to believe that Johnson was more capable of a conspiracy assassinating the President than Nixon was in covering up a break-in? Oswald acted alone.
@kpny1961 LBJ was froze out . Nixon knows what an animal LBJ was. Those are Nixon's description. LBJ didn't give a hoot about electing a Democrat in 68. Hell they kill the real leaders.
Such a different time seemingly in Post WW2 era where politicians of two parties actually put country first ahead of anything else, And you will never know for 55 years whether Biden and Trump had a similar conversation over foreign policy during transition??
Yeah but lbj fucked up because he could only have known all this by have heard what nixon and his campaign staff said in private either on the phone or in person between themselves….. Revealing he wire tapped nixon’s and his campaign staffers phones possibly bugged his house and his campaign hq….which is fucking hella illegal lol So Nixon sabotaged the peace deal….lbj wiretapped and bugged was illegally spying on Nixon So both were pieces of shit. Lbj wanted the withdrawal and end the war not because it was the right think to do but because of his legacy and to help the democrats in the presidential election….Nixon sabotaged the talk’s because it helped his campaign but he was right….South Vietnam, our allies, and possibly our intelligence agencies and military personnel stationed there or were prisoners of war stuck in nv cells…. Lbj said he’d risk leaving them to end the war which Nixon pointed out we’d be leaving our boys behind….
Johnson calling out Nixon on dirty deeds done dirt cheap? Come on LBJ, it's not like you never done anything like that at all, right? Two of the biggest mistakes we ever had for President right here
Interesting because in a years later recorded conversation between them I just heard, Nixon did most of the talking and hardly let LBJ say anything. Must be an "I'm the President" perogative I guess. But my guess is LBJ is angry here and really thinks Nixon is sabotaging the war, and is trying to catch some kind of confession out of him.
@@c.rutherford In those later recordings, part of LBJ's comparative reticence is that Nixon was indeed now president, and some of it was LBJ's declining health.
Johnson worried about killing Soviet civilians who were assisting the Vietnamese, and violating the territory of officially neutral countries by bombing Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nixon was more ruthless.
LBJ Texas oil backers wanted Nixon. They play both sides. They rode LBJ for 30 years and he paid off. Once LBJ lost his big backers he was toast. That's why he can look after Nixon's political interests so easily.
We are lucky to have recordings like this. I would imagine that many nations do not. The cordiality and respect shown among them, which is the same as their predecessors, says a lot when it comes to how successful the USA was after WW2 until the 80s. It wasn't so damn partisan. They were able to speak to one another, make deals, and both come away feeling that they got something out of it. Now both sides are so damn afraid to give the other side ANYTHING, that neither side accomplishes anything without an overwhelming majority in the house and senate.
Cordiality and respect? Not sure how you can use those words and connect them to anything that was said while they discussed Nixon's traitorous and deceitful actions in torpedoing the Paris Peace Talks - thereby delaying the chance for peace in Vietnam by another 7 years, and causing the deaths and suffering of millions more. Yes, they quietly and politely discussed this over the phone - which in my eyes makes it even more cold hearted and horrible.
That wasn't respect in Nixon's voice: it was terror. Nixon knew that if Johnson went public with the breach of the Logan act by Nixon and his people, lbj would've destroyed Nixon. Nixon was on eggshells during this phone call: listen how many times he tries to get off the phone.
Who's in New Mexico? He says, "he has just talked to New Mexico, and he has just talked to the Nixon people." In another call where he is talking about this same subject with Everett Dirksen he says something like, "she talked to the boss in New Mexico." The subtitles say he is talking about Nixon, but in this call it sounds like New Mexico and the "Nixon people" are different people. Anybody know?
It's a reference to Spiro Agnew, who was in Albuquerque on that date. From "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968 Volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968-January 1969, Document 212" [link: history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d212] "In a telephone conversation on November 12, 1968, President Johnson discussed the Anna Chennault affair with FBI Deputy Director Cartha Dekle "Deke" DeLoach. Johnson told DeLoach that he had "some pretty good information" and "hard" evidence that the most significant directive from the Republican campaign to the South Vietnamese Government occurred by way of a November 2 communication between Vice Presidential candidate Spiro Agnew and Anna Chennault. The President therefore requested that DeLoach check all of the telephone calls originating from the telephone connection in Agnew's chartered campaign plane at the Albuquerque airport."
I love how President Johnson has no problem with Nixon getting involved in foreign policy even before he was president. It puts to an end all this talk about a president-elect meddling. A president-elect has a right to involve himself and his advisors so they can pick up without a beat on Jan. 20.
Stephen Michaels yes it makes you wonder why today people can't work civil instead of trying to gut Trump. But can you imagine how Johnson would have handled the media today. Hahahaha he would have destroyed them.
A President elect has absolutely NO right to involve himself in foreign policy - what they are discussing is treason. However, Johnson had done some dirty deeds, and Nixon knew of them, and Johnson knew that Nixon knew. And Johnson did not have proof positive that Nixon had done this - only that Nixon's "people" had done it. Also, how is lame duck Johnson going to bring this treason out into the open just days before the inauguration. That would tear the country apart, and these were different times. This phone call was a warning from LBJ to Nixon to knock it off. A President elect keeping informed about ongoing events so that he can pick up where the previous President left off is one thing - getting actively involved in foreign policy and influencing peace talks to hurt your political opponent - that is completely different, completely unacceptable, and completely illegal.
@@ronniebishop2496 Part of the problem is Trump not helping himself . He might be different and more pragmatic in private , but his public persona which seems to work for him and gain him support is to be almost abusive not just to his political opponents , but also to allies who he deems to have crossed him .
@@scooby1992 Yes you’re exactly right. He’s not a good politician, at all, because he’s a businessman type. To be a great politician you have to lie so good not even you know when you’re telling the truth. But I’ve seen him say things about vets and even gold star parents that’s just plain stupid.
Whether the Nixon campaign interfered with negotiations between the Johnson administration and the South Vietnamese by engaging Anna Chennault, a fundraiser for the Republican party, remains a controversy. It is not clear whether the government of South Vietnam needed encouragement to opt out of a peace process they considered disadvantageous.
When we look back on all this today, given our series of complex involvements in the Mideast, it now seems inconceivable we didn't utilize France more, as well as input from French military people in the form of guidance about such things as tenable military positions and the like. I recall it being recognized at the time that holding northern provinces was something probably negotiable--during Khe Sahn and Hue during Tet. France had insight on the whole area. Negotiations to neutralize the northern provinces with Buddhist support and Laotian and French assistance, could have led to massive seaborne evacuations of Vietnamese Catholics out of DaNang. The French had offered to provide ocean liners for such efforts and a temporary "Laotian corridor" expanding Laos---a seaport-less nation---in a narrow corridor to the coast at DaNang, could have been formally added to the Laos talks also still underway since the days of JFK. (The idea had been floated to all sides in Laos talks setting up the coalition government there, but was never in documents at the conference table.) Such a corridor would have been problematic in a longer run, since it divided the far Northern Provinces of South Vietnam from Saigon. However, setting up a Buddhist-controlled province there could have added to the buffer between the two nations for at least awhile and built back some of the good will lost in the post-Diem deposal of Buddhist Duong van Minh after his short takeover in immediate aftermath of Diem's death. Withdrawal to a line much closer to Saigon, running from HaTien on the Cambodia coast to Qui Nhon on the southern coast, would have provided a breathing space for U.S. forces as we began our phased withdrawal, and the staffing of that line--not vulnerable to outflanking by the Ho Chi Minh Trail---not via Vietnamization but by Non-Aligned Movement forces, could have provided a more peaceful outcome that would provide the reunited Vietnam, stronger in the face of potential and historically traditional and expected Chinese hegemony, envisioned by France originally in its temporary division of the two. In all these undercurrent peace positions that never made it to the conference table or policy, largely due to Nixon and other Cold War ideologues as well as lack of imagination on the part of Johnson and through no lack of effort by France, could have come real peace and a sparing of bloodshed for Vietnam. A key figure would have been Duong van Minh, but by the time the U.S. turned to him again, it was far too late. At the time, even, of this recorded conversation, leaders on both sides here still regarded him as untenable.
Well, aren't you a little nation builder. A corridor further dividing Viet Nam so that Laos could have a seaport in Da Nang? Total nonsense. Why should Viet Nam accept that? How about we establish a "corridor" for Canada to have access to Mexico? You speak as though China, France, Japan, Russia, and the US hadn't messed around enough with something that was not theirs, and that you think they should have felt free to do even more. And while France may have had some insight in Viet Nam, their disastrous and utterly barbaric behavior showed zero ability or interest in understanding the people over which they ruled and exploited. The French would be the last people that we should have talked to. Instead, we should have been talking to the Vietnamese themselves.
Nixon had been sabotaging LBJ's attempt to end the war for several months at this point, and LBJ was trying his damnedest to let Nixon know he knew without openly accusing him of treason because LBJ just wanted the war to end at this point.
yeah, and in this case those things they were "getting done across party lines" were hiding the treachery, deceitfulness, and the further delay to the end of the war, causing the killing of millions more in Viet Nam in the ensuing 7 years.
2 men from different political parties one about to leave office and the other coming into office having respect for one another and the outgoing democratic president giving the incoming republican president advice and Nixon agreeing. Don’t see that much now
You totally miss the purpose and message sent by this phone call. This was LBJ telling Nixon that he knew what had happened, and essentially telling Nixon to knock it off.
Oh, please. LBJ was as corrupt and devious as any politician in history. Ridiculous for him to criticize Nixon for the same things (and worse) that he did.
He was always well known for that. That's exactly how he gained his power in politics, behind the scenes, wheeling and dealing on the phones and behind closed doors, getting commitments and making bargains. It was his political trademark, it worked for him, he was a master at it.
+The4preston Both Nixon and Johnson were personally friendly with Bebe Rebozo, who was something of a political dabbler with anyone in power who might listen to him.
+thomas thompson Thanks. I know Rebozo had friends on both sides of the political divide. He socialized with the Kennedy family when they wintered at their Palm Beach estate. But my question was more about the back story behind Johnson's statement "he (Rebozo) gave me a lot of comfort when I needed it lots." This could mean anything from moral support for Johnson's Vietnam policy to financial support, which Bebe was also known to provide. I guess we'll never know.
They are repeating the same stuff for 20mn. Yes, we get it : no NLF support, talk to that ambassador, support peace talk. What's surprising is that they seem genuinely want peace.
A lot of profit was made off the war in Viet Nam; however, much more profit could have been made if it was not for the involvement of politicians. This conversation and its historical context clearly shows why it was necessary that in order to maximize profit wars must be run by the cia and the military/industrial/financial complex with politicians only playing the supporting roles of buffoon and ideolog.
Yep that's why it didn't matter who you voted for it's the same people. Trump threw a monkey wrench in that shit that's why they are goin after him real hard
METAL HEAD That’s exactly right and the liberal women can’t understand that do they just go by their emotions and they don’t like him boo boo hooo. And Trump isn’t tactful at all. Which he should be.
all the skipping of words and unstructured speech.. it's as if they are speaking on things that they conversed about in public and are only saying things across the wire that they want people to hear. code.
