WI: Johnson asks J. Edgar Hoover to arrest Nixon late Oct. '68?

Why a lame duck? LBJ has just shot the dems in the, uh, foot. He's revealed he's had embassies bugged, offended allies, frenemies and enemies alike by the revelation (and if LBJ says ANYTHING about 'intelligence' and what-not, by that time the ambassador's bug has been found and revealed, and then everything hits the fan). The republicans are now the party of the people and the dems are now power-grabbing cheats. Hopefully, Nixon learns enough to avoid Watergate (not that I'd bet anything I liked on that one).
Nixon won't go unscathed after Sabotaging the peace talks, thus prolonging the very war he ran on ending.
 
But lame duck? I can see him having more trouble with Congress, but I think you're overestimating reaction. The only involvement of Nixon is from second-hand sources in this situation. "She" tells the ambassador, or did I miss Nixon personally assuring the ambassador of something? Unless "She" can prove Nixon sanctioned her actions, she can be disavowed.......
 
But lame duck? I can see him having more trouble with Congress, but I think you're overestimating reaction. The only involvement of Nixon is from second-hand sources in this situation. "She" tells the ambassador, or did I miss Nixon personally assuring the ambassador of something? Unless "She" can prove Nixon sanctioned her actions, she can be disavowed.......
I think a Democratic Congress ( I don't see that changing) would do everything in its power to make him one. Whether they succeed or not is up for debate.
 
The best bet would be to do a mass arrest of Nixon's people,but leave tricky Dick alone for the time being.
When LBJ makes his speech point out that the Nixon campaign conspired to sabotage the peace talks to the benefit of a Communist nation.Given the state of mind if Republican voters on communism Nixon won't be able to appear in public for fear of being assassinated by his own supporters.
 
But if he cannot prove his speech, he's just stumping for Humphrey. If she claims it was all her idea.....LBJ's stuck with illegally bugging an ambassador (of a friendly nation!) and gossip and hearsay. But the dem congress will make N's presidency hell.....
 
But if he cannot prove his speech, he's just stumping for Humphrey. If she claims it was all her idea.....LBJ's stuck with illegally bugging an ambassador (of a friendly nation!) and gossip and hearsay. But the dem congress will make N's presidency hell.....[/QUOTE]
Mind you I think this would lead to a rapid drift towards radicalism on the Republican side, they wouldn't see the FBI or a (Democratic) presidency as remotely trustworthy.

The rules of the game would change, and sending a rival to jail - or Hell - would start to look more and more normal.

The election will see riots and violence to say the least.
 
Interesting to note that as president in OTL, Nixon TWICE tried to fire Hoover only to either back down or get cold feet!
 
http://millercenter.org/president/biography/eisenhower-life-after-the-presidency

Eisenhower suffered another heart attack in 1965, and his health deteriorated in 1968. He spent nine months in Walter Reed Army Hospital until his death on March 28, 1969.
Not sure what kind of shape Ike is in by Oct. '68.

But the evening before he goes public, Johnson would be well-advised to line up some Republican support preferably with someone who has some military cred. And this would be part of the famous Johnson treatment, that he's supposedly very good at going one-on-one. Plus, he'd know who to ask.
 
The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'

BBC Magazine, David Taylor, March 22, 2103.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668

.
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At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign.
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This is a key linchpin which Johnson matter-of-factly states without overselling, that Nixon planned it ahead of time (at least to have the possibility to disrupt and sabotage).

Johnson might also say, it's one thing if he wants to publicly disagree with me on the talks. Doing so secretly and trying to derail is something else entirely.
 
But can Johnson prove the claim? Has he bugged Americans in America? Otherwise, it's just the president trying to affect the election. (And gee golly whiz, we know that never happens here!:openedeyewink:)
 

Wallet

Banned
Best thing is to catch Nixon's men in the act and arrested on the spot just like Warergate. Maybe LBJ catches wind if it before it happens. No one can deny that wrongdoing wasnt committed, and Nixon has to campaign on why he had nothing to do with it and why he isn't a crook. As we learn with Hillary in 2016, defending yourself against criminal charges only hurts you.

But even LBJ knows arresting a presidential candidate before the election sets an extremely dangerous precedent to democracy. Imagine in 2020 President Trump arrests a strong candidate saying "LBJ did it"
 
But this wasn't Watergate. There are no "men" there is a woman who visits the ambassador and says she's representing Nixon. So, LBJ arrests her and reveals he's bugging friendly nations? In 1968? This is going to start a shitstorm the Democrats may never recover from. South Vietnam is going to pull its embassy, other nations will follow; the international fallout from the revelation that the US president is authorizing this sort of illegal activity is going to get LBJ impeached himself.

That's my point. There is no way to do this without compromising American prestige and LBJ's reputation and that of the office of POTUS.
 
But can Johnson prove the claim? Has he bugged Americans in America? Otherwise, it's just the president trying to affect the election. (And gee golly whiz, we know that never happens here!:openedeyewink:)
So, on the one hand, American citizens are very idealistic believing that espionage between friendlies doesn't exist and if it does, it's completely wrong. And on the other hand, are coldly cynical about elections and other matters? And possibly, yes. We're all patchy and compartmentalized in various and sundry ways, and so that's perhaps exactly how it goes down.

But a politician of Johnson's caliber, if he works the phones five hours the evening before he goes public, maybe not even that long, maybe skillfully undertrying, it might well go another way.
 
Could Nixon bring up the Gulf of Tonkin?

A quick look at Wikipedia says this about contemporary knowledge:

"In 1967, former naval officer, John White, wrote a letter to the editor of the New Haven (CT) Register. He asserted "I maintain that President Johnson, Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave false information to Congress in their report about US destroyers being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin." [48] White continued his whistleblowing activities in the 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig. White soon arrived in Washington to meet with Senator Fulbright to discuss his concerns, particularly the faulty sonar reports."

It seems it was starting to come into the open - could Nixon use it to attack LBJ and divert attention?
 
. . . the international fallout from the revelation that the US president is authorizing this sort of illegal activity is going to get LBJ impeached himself. . .
What about when Edward Snowden went public in 2013, including revealing that we had been spying on friendly and allied nation Germany and I think German citizens, and a bunch of other nations as well?

It was bad, but it wasn't cataclysmic. What I take from this is that there's a range of possible reactions.
 
South Vietnam is going to pull its embassy, other nations will follow; the international fallout from the revelation that the US president is authorizing this sort of illegal activity is going to get LBJ impeached himself.

So South Vietnam is gonna break off diplomatic relations with its primary benefactor? I can't imagine that would really be in their strategic interests at all, however much they feel trod-upon by LBJ's espionage antics.

I think more likely, they'd just swallow their pride, write the humilation off as a cost of doing business, and continue on as a docile client of the US. What other option would they have?
 
....There is no way to do this without compromising American prestige and LBJ's reputation and that of the office of POTUS.

I believe this was in fact LBJ's thought process, more or less. He was upset and bitter Nixon did this but there was no way, within due process, to nail it on him and trying would undermine the Presidency.

On the other side of things, desmirelle, Nixon believed that the Administration was bugging him even when it was technologically for anyone to do so, in 1968--as on his campaign airplane for instance. And Hoover encouraged him to think so!

It definitely was not just Johnson playing the game dirty.

So South Vietnam is gonna break off diplomatic relations with its primary benefactor? I can't imagine that would really be in their strategic interests at all, however much they feel trod-upon by LBJ's espionage antics.

I think more likely, they'd just swallow their pride, write the humilation off as a cost of doing business, and continue on as a docile client of the US. What other option would they have?

Agreed to all--but the bold is qualified. Puppets yes--but bad puppets. Refusing to play nice in the 1968 peace talks was just one of a long pattern of SV politicians owing everything to US backing biting the hand that fed it--something they had some latitude to get away with because after all, the American premise was not a frank avowal that the Republic of South Vietnam was an American creation from the get-go and the revolving door Saigon regimes were indeed mere impositions of foreign influence with practically zero traction among Vietnamese; our whole ostensible premise was that the freedom-loving people of the South (indeed in all of Vietnam) were being terrorized by ruthless thugs who in no way enjoyed popular support; the Saigon government was supposed to be republican leadership elected by these put-upon people. Therefore American authorities could hardly state publicly that this or that President or assembly member had stepped out of line; they were supposed to be free to do that. Enforcement of US wishes would happen in frank and secret discussions, or take the form of a coup or assassination, which both removed a particularly stubborn maverick and sent a message to their potential replacements. Unfortunately it also sent a message to the world at large--cynically there was a "good" side to this in that it said the Yankees were not fooling around and were serious--but also badly undermined the ostensible premise of a scrappy small sovereign ally pleading for help.
 
Shevak:

Good points about South Vietnam.

In Nixonland, it mentions that when McGovern visited South Vietnam in the early 70s and met with some ideologically suspect(from the South's perspective) politicians in a Buddhist temple, the temple was attacked by anti-Communist zealots, who threw rocks through the windows and whatnot. I can't remember if this was when he was a presidential candidate, but he was definitely a senator, one of the few dozen most powerful people in the US government. So yeah, the South Vietnamese certainly weren't all that hung up on showing gratitude toward their benefactors.

But I think we still both agree that an embassy shutdown would be out of the question for them.
 
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