1968: Perfidy In DC

Lyndon Johnson had the goods on Richard Nixon. But he couldn't use it.

The Democratic Party convention in Chicago was a disaster. Johnson even considered appearing at the last minute and putting his name forward for nomination.

Bad idea.

Peace talks were going on in Paris, and North Vietnam had made a promising offer.

Richard Nixon feared that prospects for peace would scuttle his campaign. He sent Anna Chennault as his intermediary with the South Vietnamese ambassador, pleading with them to put off negotiations and wait for a better deal after the election.

The FBI bugged Chennault and the National Security Agency monitored the Ambassador's communications with Saigon.

Johnson knew what was going on. In private he called it treason. But he couldn't make it public without revealing the monitoring. It's generally considered bad form to bug embassies and read ambassadorial communications - and to reveal it in public.

Of course, it's even worse form not to monitor and to get caught flat footed.

So Johnson kept his mouth shut in public.

Nixon won by less than 1%. Had Nixon's perfidy become public, he may well have lost by a landslide.

Here is the story. All captured on Lyndon Johnson's White House tapes.

It wouldn't be the last time a presidential candidate meddled in international negotiations to the detriment of national interests. It may well have been the last time such actions were so clearly documented.