Richard Nixon Quotes
I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.
When Nixon was running for President in the 1968 Presidential campaign, he learned from Henry Kissinger that the Johnson administration had made an agreement with the Russians and North Vietnamese that America would stop the bombing of North Vietnam if there would be Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War. Nixon feard that although the polls showed him ahead of Vice President Humphrey, the announcement of ongoing peace talks would bring many of the anti-war Democrats who were not supporting Humphrey because of the Vietnam War out to vote for Humphrey to support the Peace Talks. Nixon decided to sabatouge the Peace Talks by persuading Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu not to come to the peace table so there coulod be no talks. He accomplished this by having Anna Chennault, an extreme right-wing fund raiser who was the widow of General Chennault of Glying tiger fame and who had connections with all the right wing politicans in Asia, get word to President Thieu that President Johnson would sell him out in the peace upcomming peace talks, and that if he would boycott the peace talks till after the American Presidential election, Nixon as the New President would be sure that Thieu would remain in control of South Vietnam or there would be no peace and America would continue the war until the North Vienamese would agree to a peace that kept Thieu in power. Earlier, Nixon had appointed Anna Chennault as the Offical Spokesperson of the Campaign on Asia. What Nixon did was a felony--private citizens are not alowed to intere with government negotiatons or discussions with foreign governments under the Logan Act. Many think that the action was legally Treason. Hoever, Nguyen VanThieu did boycott the peace talks despite all the entreaties of President Johnson and his administration. There were no peace talks and the public never even knew that there had been this attempt. The anti-Vietnam War voters mostly did not vote and Nixon won a close race. Shortly after the election, before Nixon could be sworn in, via the FBI, Johnson learned of Chennault's activities but thee was no evidence to tie Nixon to the South Vietnam refusal to come to the peace table. It never became a public issue although several leading politicians had learned what had really occured--see Quotation 664238. However, 0ver 40 years later, when Nizon's Chief of Staff's notes were finally made public, the smoking gun was dislosed and Farrell wrote this in his 2017 Biography of Richard Nixon. See Related Quotes for quotations from H. R. Haldman's hadnwritten notes of his phone call with Nixon, and other evidence that had also been uncovered.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, Nixon previously served as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961, having risen to national prominence as a representative and senator from California. After five years in the White House that saw the conclusion to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, he became the only president to resign from the office, following the Watergate scandal.
