Nixon Tried to Spoil Johnsons Vietnam Peace Talks in 68, Notes Show
Source: MSN News
Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly monkey wrench peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes.
In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep working on South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.
The Nixon campaigns clandestine effort to thwart President Lyndon B. Johnsons peace initiative that fall has long been a source of controversy and scholarship. Ample evidence has emerged documenting the involvement of Nixons campaign. But Mr. Haldemans notes appear to confirm longstanding suspicions that Nixon himself was directly involved, despite his later denials.
Theres really no doubt this was a step beyond the normal political jockeying, to interfere in an active peace negotiation given the stakes with all the lives, said John A. Farrell, who discovered the notes at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library for his forthcoming biography, Richard Nixon: The Life, to be published in March by Doubleday. Potentially, this is worse than anything he did in Watergate.
Mr. Farrell, in an article in The New York Times Sunday Review over the weekend, highlighted the notes by Mr. Haldeman, along with many of Nixons fulsome denials of any efforts to thwart the peace process before the election.
His discovery, according to numerous historians who have written books about Nixon and conducted extensive research of his papers, finally provides validation of what had largely been surmise.
While overshadowed by Watergate, the Nixon campaigns intervention in the peace talks has captivated historians for years. At times resembling a Hollywood thriller, the story involves colorful characters, secret liaisons, bitter rivalries and plenty of lying and spying. Whether it changed the course of history remains open to debate, but at the very least it encapsulated an almost-anything-goes approach that characterized the nations politics in that era.
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After being seriously wounded by small arms fire while leading my Army Infantry rifle platoon I was dusted off to an evac hospital. Left on a gurney waiting for an OR to be free, I passed out and stopped breathing. I survived only because a conscientious nurse came back to check on me and they did a tracheostomy on the spot.
I went through a lot with the physical trauma, hospitals, and operations, but that was the least of it compared to the psychological trauma. Survival guilt is just one part of the psychological baggage, and that alone can really kick your ass. It still amazes me that I'm still here.
I'm sorry for your dad and you and your family. The casualties beyond the battlefield are staggering--and tragic.
Your friendship and your resilience.
Aloha no Pinboy3niner
The number changes over time. Initially, most changes were due to errors in service branch databases and changes in the definition of the war zone or theater.
These days changes are primarily the addition of names of veterans who die, even after decades, when the cause of death is from war injuries (but only injuries from combat wounds).
When additions are made officially by DoD, those names are added to the Wall. The engraving on the Wall is done as close as possible to where the names should have appeared in the chronological order, and the Wall additions are formally made official there each year on Memorial Day.
R.I.P. 
I thought everyone knew this. this info came out about 5 years ago.
But trying to squelch it is inhuman. 
LBJ had Nixon's plane bugged, from what Hitchens said in his book.
Good move on his part.
