Johnson goes to Chicago

In part 6 of Ken Burns' documentary on the Vietnam war, it's mentioned that during the uproar of the Democrats' convention in 1968, Lyndon Johnson gave consideration to going to the convention and getting back in the race. At the time, the Secret Service dissuaded him, declaring that given the situation, they could not guarantee his safety.

Now: suppose Johnson says the hell with that; I gotta do this? What happens when he gets to Chicago:
  • The delegates split even more widely, with perhaps Humphrey and McCarthy uniting in an anti-war faction backing a compromise candidate (they can't both be on the ticket given they were both from Minnesota) and what I'll call a regular faction backing Johnson? This would result in what would amount to a three way split among the Democrats, allowing Nixon to win in a walk (and presumably he might not subvert the talks in this case).
  • The convention breaks down into a near-riot and is forced to adjourn without nominating a candidate, only to reconvene later? This would also pretty much hand the election to Nixon, IMO.
  • Someone takes a shot at Johnson and misses, getting either Humphrey or McCarthy instead?
  • Someone takes a shot at Johnson and succeeds, putting Humphrey in the Oval Office?
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
If he gets back into the race, then he probably wins re-election, despite Vietnam, he was still quite popular.
 
I was quite surprised LBJ chose not to publicize Nixon's efforts to collude with South Vietnam and sabotage peace talks to win the election. The GOP has a pattern of doing this: Reagan with Iran on delaying hostage release, and Trump's many collusions. At least twice now the Democrat incombant knew but chose to do nothing because they were confident of winning anyways.
 
I was quite surprised LBJ chose not to publicize Nixon's efforts to collude with South Vietnam and sabotage peace talks to win the election. The GOP has a pattern of doing this: Reagan with Iran on delaying hostage release, and Trump's many collusions. At least twice now the Democrat incombant knew but chose to do nothing because they were confident of winning anyways.
That's not quite the full story: Johnson opted not to do so because the next comments would have been, "Fascinating. How did you come to know this?" And at that point, the illegal bugging, wiretaps, etc., would have been made embarrassingly public, so he would have wound up with egg on his face big time. Please recall that during the vignette on the program that showed the reel-to-reel recorder with the voices of Johnson and Nixon that the narrator pointed out that the information was obtained illegally in so many words.

In the spirit of balance, I need to check Conrad Black's biography of Nixon and see what a scholarly work has to say about this episode: one wonders whether it's a few grains of truth, a semi-trailer full, or a silo full of grains of truth. One more thing to consider also: if I recall the times correctly (I was 16 in 1968), Johnson hated Nixon's guts cordially. I believe it may have been mutual.
 
That's not quite the full story: Johnson opted not to do so because the next comments would have been, "Fascinating. How did you come to know this?" And at that point, the illegal bugging, wiretaps, etc., would have been made embarrassingly public, so he would have wound up with egg on his face big time. Please recall that during the vignette on the program that showed the reel-to-reel recorder with the voices of Johnson and Nixon that the narrator pointed out that the information was obtained illegally in so many words.

The documentary said the CIA got the information from bugging President Thieu's phone and catching him plotting with Nixon staff. Foreign intelligence gathering is hardly illegal. Johnson just didn't want to alert the South Vietnamese he was wiretapping them.
 
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