Nixon's intelligence operation also benefited from inside information from Henry Kissinger, a foreign policy aide to banker David Rockefeller and an informal adviser to the Vietnam negotiations. But Kissinger wasn't Nixon's only source of news. Johnson himself apprised Nixon and the other leading candidates of the peace-talk progress.
But Nixon's trump card may have been knowing that Johnson's efforts to achieve a breakthrough before the Nov. 5 election could be countered by President Thieu's intransigence, privately encouraged by the Republicans.
As Hung/Schecter wrote:
"Throughout October 1968 Thieu tried to delay the Johnson bombing halt decision and an announcement of Paris Talks as long as possible to buy time for Nixon. ... He knew that Johnson would proceed on his own, so he did not openly object to Johnson's proposal but only to the specifics of its terms."
For his part, Johnson became increasingly aware of the double game being played by Thieu and Nixon as the days counted down to the election. Johnson was hearing sketchy reports from U.S. intelligence that Thieu was dragging his feet in anticipation of a Nixon victory.
"Top Secret" reports from the National Security Agency informed President Johnson that Thieu was closely monitoring the political developments in the United States with an eye toward helping Nixon win the Nov. 5 election.
For instance, an Oct. 23, 1968, report -- presumably based on NSA's electronic eavesdropping -- quotes Thieu as saying that the Johnson administration might halt the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam as part of a peace maneuver that would help Humphrey's campaign but that South Vietnam might not go along. Thieu also appreciated the other side of the coin, that Johnson's failure would help Nixon.
"The situation which would occur as the result of a bombing halt, without the agreement of the [South] Vietnamese government " would be to the advantage of candidate Nixon," the NSA report on Thieu's thinking read. "Accordingly, he [Thieu] said that the possibility of President Johnson enforcing a bombing halt without [South] Vietnam's agreement appears to be weak." [Click here and here.]
By Oct. 28, 1968, according to another NSA report, Thieu said "it appears that Mr. Nixon will be elected as the next president" and that any settlement with the Viet Cong should be put off until "the new president" was in place.
Wall Street Tip
The next day, Oct. 29, national security adviser Walt Rostow received the first clear indication that Nixon might actually be coordinating with Thieu to sabotage the peace talks. Rostow's brother, Eugene, who was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, wrote a memo about a tip from a source in New York who had spoken with "a member of the banking community" who was "very close to Nixon."
The source said Wall Street bankers -- at a working lunch to assess likely market trends and to decide where to invest -- had been given inside information about the prospects for Vietnam peace and were told that Nixon was obstructing that outcome.
"The conversation was in the context of a professional discussion about the future of the financial markets in the near term," Eugene Rostow wrote. "The speaker said he thought the prospects for a bombing halt or a cease-fire were dim, because Nixon was playing the problem " to block. ""They would incite Saigon to be difficult, and Hanoi to wait. Part of his strategy was an expectation that an offensive would break out soon, that we would have to spend a great deal more (and incur more casualties) -- a fact which would adversely affect the stock market and the bond market. NVN [North Vietnamese] offensive action was a definite element in their thinking about the future."
In other words, Nixon's friends on Wall Street were placing their financial bets based on the inside dope that Johnson's peace initiative was doomed to fail. (In another document, Walt Rostow identified his brother's source as Alexander Sachs, who was then on the board of Lehman Brothers.)
A separate memo from Eugene Rostow said the speaker had added that Nixon "was trying to frustrate the President, by inciting Saigon to step up its demands, and by letting Hanoi know that when he [Nixon] took office "he could accept anything and blame it on his predecessor.'" So, according to the source, Nixon was trying to convince both the South and North Vietnamese that they would get a better deal if they stalled Johnson.
In a later memo to the file, Walt Rostow recounted that he learned this news shortly before attending a morning meeting at which President Johnson was informed by U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Ellsworth Bunker about "Thieu's sudden intransigence." Walt Rostow said "the diplomatic information previously received plus the information from New York took on new and serious significance."
That same day, Johnson ordered FBI wiretaps of Americans in touch with the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington and quickly learned that Anna Chennault was holding curious meetings with South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem.
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