The Nixon administration took the things people had done circa that era and went to a greater extreme than anyone had. It wasn't just boys being boys. And it was systemic and they were constantly pushing it and kept doing it. No other White House sabotaged peace negotiations of a bloody and useless war for personal gain (I think over half of the deaths in the Vietnam war were after 1968). No other White House discussed how to murder Jack Anderson. They did things, got away with them, and kept doing them. Had Johnson had more cajones, Nixon would have been shamed by 1968; he knew from wiretaps that Nixon had sabotaged the negotiations. But he, one, did not want the country to become (more) disillusioned, and two, he thought it would reveal that he was wiretapping.
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And there's the coup against Salvador Allende. I'll give you that other American administrations had overthrown foreign leaders in droves, but Allende was someone even those sort of people saw no reason to overthrow; coming back to the point of doing things more extreme than anyone else was doing. And it put a vicious and corrupt tyrant into power, lead to mass murders and tortures, and ruined Chile for decades.
OK, this is going to be a little bit of a diversion, but I need to answer this after spending a lot of time studying Nixon and his administration.
Actually, under half. Around 22000. Half of which happened in 1969, in which any other realistic administration would still be in Vietnam as well for simple logistical/geopolitical realities, not to mention the looming threat of a right wing backlash. I know, a lot better right?
It might also reveal that, aside from the lack of a smoking gun implicating Nixon, that LBJ was making a completely unrealistic peace implication with his bombing halt to throw the election to Humphrey. I don't think the American people would have been too impressed with that, and Nixon can easily deny everything to hell and turn the tables on LBJ, saying that he is trying further to influence things and distract people from his own misdeeds with inneundo. Or worse, attempting to sell out an ally for political gain. Now, to be fair, I don't think he was for a variety of reasons. LBJ, for one thing, could be very loyal to those constituencies-if not certain members of them-that he considered his own, be they the downtrodden in general(look at the impoverished Mexican farmers he visited after his Presidency and what he said to and about them) , Texas in general, blacks, the Democrat Party but also the South Vietnamese, which to the end the peace wing of his party didn't understand. And I don't think Nixon would seriously believe that he would after investing so much effort into them and basically destroying his career over them. But Nixon could-and would, being just as wily and slick as Johnson-imply or argue that if Johnson wanted to play the "treason" card. Especially since LBJ did something clearly illegal, whereas nothing proves that Nixon did. Legal, not moral. Johnson probably realized that there wasn't anything he would probably gain by doing this.
At length, there was no chance of peace in 1968, and Johnson knew it-Thieu was going to shoot down everything, for starters. He was PISSED at Johnson for the bombing halt. The only reason Hanoi had suddenly agreed to conditions in the first place was for the election-Hanoi and Saigon were not STUPID. They paid attention to US politics. More than we did to theirs. They both wanted a certain candidate in October 1968. No sign that they wouldn't go back to arguing about the shape of the peace table afterwards. And also, why would Hanoi logically go for anything less than victory? The US and the South are in turmoil. As for Saigon, I really think Chennault's influence is heavily overstated-I address this in my (now infinitely held up due to school) TL. Now, does this make Nixon some angel or mean he isn't trying to play politics with peace? No.
But you cannot sabotage something that doesn't exist. I wonder even how seriously Nixon took Chennault or how close he was to the day to day operation once he had introduced her to Bui Diem. To quote Ambrose-"Nixon knew Thieu would not go to Paris, with or without that rather silly woman whispering in his ear". Chennault even stated herself that Nixon wasn't aware of the phone call that was tapped. This doesn't make it less despicable, nor did Johnson (or I) believe that Nixon was innocent-Nixon did anticipate that Johnson would try something in the last couple weeks of the election-but Johnson doesn't have a lot to go with, and he probably realized that once he calmed down.
To quote another person on another forum on the subject, Nixon made the fact that he viewed the role of the future SV regime differently known publicly, partially for the SV's benefit before and during this time. These views were shared by a large section of the US populace. This was self serving, but hardly unexpected in political history. This, along with his reputation as a Cold Warrior, more than anything that Chennault did, made the South Vietnamese back him. The SV also knew that there was a good chance that he would win.
Moreover, I take issue with the idea that LBJ lacked "cajones". That's, to put it mildly, not true. At times, he could be as amoral, cruel, and nasty as Nixon was, but he didn't lack balls, nor did he lack a soul. Disillusioned? More like he didn't want more violence and chaos. 1968 didn't need another match lit near it. Frankly, I don't blame him. He was NOT being a coward.
G. Gordon Liddy discussing it != the White House. And the person who has attested to this is... G. Gordon Liddy. I trust Liddy with the facts, not at all.
Allende also helped do himself in. He was running the economy into the ground, with our help, but also with the help of his own incompetent policies. He wanted social change too fast, and had a lot of enemies. He didn't have the necessary wiliness/intelligence, base of support, or ruthlessness to get it through as quick as he wanted-frankly, I'm not sure anyone would. Allende was also becoming more authoritarian, and was against a lot of his legislative branch, the military, the landowners, etc. They thought he was becoming another Castro. It was a dangerous game to play in 70s South America when you have far more than the 35 percent of the vote than he did, and he lost. Again, America had a hand in destabilizing things, and this was horrible, but in the end, Chileans took down Allende for Chilean reasons. Same as Diem, Lumumba, Trujillo, Sukarno, and a lot of others-not all(Mossadegh, Arbenz, and the failed attempts on Castro), but a lot. We really tend to overlook the more important indigenous factors during the Cold War-it wasn't always Moscow and Washington puppeteering everything.
I don't buy for a second that another Cold War President, from FDR to Bush I and everyone in between except maybe Carter, wouldn't have helped or wouldn't have wanted to subvert him. Maybe they would have been less paranoid than Nixon and decided it wasn't worth it in the context of 1973, but I have my doubts. It just... goes so severely against their recorded behavior. We overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala at the behest of a private COMPANY, for Pete's sake-that's sickening. National interest is one thing, but companies in foreign policy... but anyway, the point stands as to how little it took. The fact that Allende started out as a democratically elected socialist meant little in this atmosphere, in this hemisphere. Democratically elected or revolution or coup, it didn't matter if someone was perceived to be a threat or against the interests of the USA, regardless of reality. Ironically, Allende proved much more useful for Moscow dead than alive.
Pinochet was a bastard of the highest order. Villa Grimauldi and the DINA says all that needs to be said. He didn't "ruin" Chile though. I don't subscribe to the view that he caused the economic miracle, but he didn't prevent it from happening either.