It's just confirmation. I can't recall exactly where I first heard it, but IIRC Perlstein mentions it in Nixonland and even then it wasn't a surprise.
There are a bunch of references in the relevant section of the wikipedia article on the Paris Peace Accords, and they're all 2009 or before.
Suspected quite strongly at the time. The 50-70s era of reactionary dictators good fer bidness was in a lot of ways quite interesting. Neo-liberalism and the triumph of global capitalism has I think lessened some kinds of freedom and opportunity. Fukuyama's End of History has a point.
Ok, a lot less of the dying stuff. But still, to watch the Cypriots just kind of whimper and grovel to the banks feels scary to me. We may not really know what we have lost until after it's gone. We may never know.
Probably overblown as a story with benefit of partisan hindsight, much like the "Kennedy was going to pull out" myth Has anymore asked zombie Ho if peace was at hand? I remember General Ky as a scary player, until he escaped to his KFC franchise in SoCal or whatever.
And the purpose of this story might to be to limit the options of political shenanigans to what is public, and within the rules. I mean we all must play by the rules now, even heads-of-states and world-historical assholes, right? Nobody rules, everybody serves...what?
I'd heard it too, but probably not with the (appropriate) label treason.
It's more corroboration of news that broke as early as 2008:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/121110.html
and:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/120808.html
Number of Republican candidates committing treason to prevent an October surprise: 2.
Number of actual October surprises: 0.
I don't think it is treason, unless you consider Chennault, Ky, and Thieu America's enemies at the time.
Those three had a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle.
God knows we hated Nixon in 1968, but we also hated the Democrats. Hard to say who we hated more.
Which is the difference. Mostly by means of emphasis rather then falsehood, I feel there is a generation or two of American analysis and historiography that wants to blame all past evils on the Republicans, or Southrons and racists.
Interesting from the link in 7 that one of the reasons the administration didn't disclose it was they thought it would hurt the image of authority in general.
Also interesting that per the link the OP another reason they were hesitant to disclose was that it would reveal that they were tapping everyone's phones.
Which I guess is pretty much the same concern.
I'm hurt again. But I'll get over it again.
Hitchens documented it in The Trial of Henry Kissinger, which was 2001.
I'd heard about Nixon's perfidy before, but, this was the first I heard that Johnson knew.
This is the first I'd heard of it, I admit.
7
It's more corroboration of news that broke as early as 2008:
I believe there were accusations along the same general lines at the time. And a tape of LBJ ranting about something isn't really proof.
There were such allegations at the time, though most people dismissed them as sour grapes coming from the Humphrey campaign after the election. That said, LBJ isn't ranting. He's talking to Richard Russell in just about the way he talked to all of his colleagues. And the reasons LBJ gave for not going public make sense -- though they also leave me thinking that he was mostly useless by 1968. Humphrey's reason for not going public on the eve of the election also makes sense -- and leaves me feeling like he completely craven.
13: I think we've got fodder-crossed-wires. But at least you'll get over it.
Hitchens documented it in The Trial of Henry Kissinger, which was 2001.
That was where I first read it. I believe he was drawing on (anonymously sourced?) Seymour Hersh reporting.
That said, LBJ isn't ranting. He's talking to Richard Russell in just about the way he talked to all of his colleagues.
Among the great things about the redesign of the public exhibits at the LBJ library is the ability to listen to a bunch of these phone call recordings.
I might have heard of this, but didn't know what evidence there was for it. Nixon was an evil person, but a socialist by today's political standards, and I wonder whether he was ousted by worse elements in his party. Deep Throat was probably a Republican, and Woodward has proven to be an asshole himself.
These were not exactly real countries. South Vietnam's government (Nguyen, Catholic not Buddhist) had no support, no capacity to run anything but a small compound and a bank account.
Nixon did not seem to care at all about deaths in SE Asia-- 100, a million, no faces, no importance. A monster controlling a puppet.
hitchens also wrote it up in vanity fair -- not sure I remember when but i pretty much stopped reading him after 2001
I too knew the allegation from Hitchens's Kissinger book, and not from before.
A few years back there was some town in NM that similarly selected an official by lot after a tie vote.
Hitchens wrote about it for the LRB in 98, including much on how much of a catastrophic ego dick Kennedy was for good measure.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n04/christopher-hitchens/brief-shining-moments
On the subject of presidential dickery, kind of, I'm surprised this story hasn't got more play. Seems a pretty big deal. Of course it will presumably end up in the Supreme Court, but it's great news even so.
22 was basically my understanding as well, but it is still striking how different up to the present North and South Vietnam feel from each other -- when I was there about 10 years ago, there was a very visible change in prosperity, attitude, etc once you crossed the former DMZ "border," with the South much richer-seeming than the North. I guess in classic "Quiet American" mode I found myself thinking "it was such a shame that that> anti-communist government didn't work but surely there must have been some anti-communist government that could have done the trick ....
30: Yeah, but you'd probably have to unwind and replay 20+ years of history prior to the '60s to get to a counterfactual that really even made sense. Or even to a mid-50s unification. Instead it was all footnotes to stupidly prolonged colonialism, and Cold War posturing by (mostly) distant powerful nations.
Or, you know, Truman could've answered his mail.
A footnote to a footnote: Nixon was aware that Johnson had put his 1968 campaign plane under surveillance at somepoint before 1972, and at one point trid to get Congressional Republicans to hold hearings about it, to distract attention from Watergate. Nobody bit.
discussed at
http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2013/01/january-8-1972.html
The plainblog Watergate posts are a fascinating series, "liveblogging" with a 40 year delay.
33: Those do look nice. I was intrigued by Nixon (re: Hunt): We'll build, we'll build that sonafabitch up like nobody's business. We'll have [William] Buckley write a column and say, you know, that he, he should have clemency.
An insight to Nixon's view of the malleability of someone like Buckley (whether true or not). Reminds me of the item from the Bush administration where they liked to go on "Meet the Press" because they felt they could control the message there.
34.last:: When it was Tim Russert hosting.
18
... That said, LBJ isn't ranting ...
LBJ talking calmly isn't really proof of anything either.
And there is the whole question of what constitutes "treason". If Nixon had given a speech in which he claimed LBJ was giving insufficient weight to the interests of South Vietnam would that have been treason?
Wow, I just went down a rabbit hole of internet "could we have won Vietnam" speculation. Someone recommend something more sane to bring me back to reality!
37: I just started reading this http://www.nickturse.com/books.html
Thich Nhat Hanh is OK. Anger was an interesting read.
I liked this book, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace also.
I have Thich Nhat Hanh's kid's book, which is pretty weird. The message is that if you go hiking in the mountains and then get lost and find a pool of water that's refreshing, that's the Buddha -- inside of you! My kid likes it.
37: Probably more focused on the US side of things than you might want, but I found Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam a good read back when it came out (late '80s). I must say that The Quiet American itself should win some kind of award in the prescient fiction about a significant foregin policy mishap that plays out in the immediately following decade category.
41: OH SURE, YOU LIKE IT WHEN IT'S THICH NHAT HANH SAYING IT.
I remember reading a straight dope column as an almost-adult (perhaps it was re-printed) in which he was explaining about chinese and vietnamese family names, that the first part was the family name and the latter parts the "first" name so to speak, from the american point of view, and that maybe we should have learned that before we invaded vietnam. I was like--wha? we didn't know this when we invaded vietnam? it's true that my h.s. classmates and I mispronounced a korean friend's personal (not family) name for so long that she felt shy to correct everyone until one day when she got up in front of an open mic and did it to audible gasps. but we were all totally clear on her family name being kim, despite its being first. did people think "uncle ho" was like "uncle bob" or something?
So to put it a little more succinctly, you read a column once suggesting that Americans didn't know that Asian cultures often put the family name first. And if that were true, boy howdy.
No one in America knew anything about Lon Nol - the press didn't know anything about Lon Nol except "Lon Nol" spelled backwards spelled "Lon Nol"
44:OTOH I just finished a book on Korean film and noticed a page wherein three directors named "Lee" were discussed and the convention of first mention full name and then family name only was a complete fail.
Anime report!
Animenetwork is on a good run
1) Tried the very popular Fate/Stay Night. Got to a scene where Saber says "Youy have no move against my invisible weapon, and your Crimson & Clover Spear of Destiny even with its Crystal Blue Persuasion Death Point..."
Click. OMG I don't do shounen
2) OTOH, Bodacious Space Pirates, or Mouretsu Pirates, or Miniskirted High School Girls go Arrrrr is a hoot. This is shojo as far as I can tell. Good production values, tons of fun
3) And they have started up a rerun of Kino's Journey 2000. On most aesthetes top twenty, connected to the people of Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmai. More like the latter, but still a little edgy. Philosophical, Bronson meets Twilight Zone, but profound rather than trite. Fucking masterpiece.
4) And started Monster. Why is this anime? Cause anime may be cheaper, maybe. But I generally like my anime to use its tools, and improve on realism. Have to watch carefully, because it definitely is anime. Anime excites the imagination, cinema wants to kill imagination.
What I have noticed so far is that the series is neither episodic nor cliffhangers but skillfully like inexorable. You never feel an individual episode is incomplete or cheated you, none are boring filler, yet you aren't quite on the edge of your seat wanting to find out what happens next. That level of tension would be unsustainable for such a long series. So just step-by-step. Excellent pacing and writing.
I remember reading a straight dope column as an almost-adult (perhaps it was re-printed) in which he was explaining about chinese and vietnamese family names, that the first part was the family name and the latter parts the "first" name so to speak, from the american point of view, and that maybe we should have learned that before we invaded vietnam. I was like--wha? we didn't know this when we invaded vietnam?
Not that I was alive then, but I always assumed we didn't know, because we referred to Ngo Dinh Diem as Diem, but then it turns out even though the surname comes first, in Vietnam (not China) with 70% of people having one of 5 surnames, the last syllable is used as the distinguishing name, so he really was Diem there.