John F. Kennedy Quotes
I’m not criticizing Richard Nixon except to say that he’s a conservative.
John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, 35th President of the United States (Democrat, MA), Interview, NBC Meet the Press, October 28, 1956
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Before the 1968 election, President Johnson, and gotten the North Vietnam Communists to agree to Peace Talks with the U. S. and South Vietnam. Then Candidate Nixon thought that if the peace talks were ongoing and making progress, there would be more support for the Democrats and Nixon's opponent Hubert Humphrey. So Nixon secretly send a secret emissary to South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu telling him that he would not get a very good deal because President Nixon claimed that President Johnson was too eager to end the Vietnam war. He suggested that if Thieu boycotted the peace talks, then when Nixon was elected, he would guarantee a much better deal for South Vietnam and Thieu personally. President Thieu boycotted the peace talks and there could be no progress. However there is a Federal Law, the Logan Act, that makes it a felony for a private American citizen to conduct or interfere with foreign policy or negotiations with a foreign government. President Johnson found out about Nixon's sabotage of the Peace Talks, called Nixon (see {583263}) and threatened him with prosecution if he interfered further. LBJ had decided that with the left wing at odds with the U. S. Government over the Vietnam war, a prosecution of Nixon would cause the Right Wing to challenge the government also and the country didn't need further polarization. He would do that only if Nixon did not heed the President's warning. But when Nixon won the election and became President, he was terribly anxious that his pre-election crimes would be made public, and spent much of his time and staff effort trying to find out who knew about his politically self-serving felony and who might make his crime public.
During his 1976 presidential campaign, Carter told reporters that they had treated him very well so far. "Compared to what?" asked one reporter. Carter shot back:
Until the end of Harry Truman’s presidency, republicans and other conservatives tended to accuse democratic presidents and other leaders are being too aggressive and belligerent in foreign policy. Republicans tended to oppose defense spending and a strong military. After WWII the isolationist republicans tended to become hawks. They favored extensive military spending and an aggressive foreign policy. Since then, they have generally attacked democrats as being too weak. President Lyndon Johnson was very much intimidated by being perceived as weak, and many attribute his expansion of the Vietnam War to his desire to avoid this right wing criticism.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to becoming president.
