If the public had known that story -- including the evidence that some of Nixon's Wall Street friends were using inside knowledge of the peace-talk sabotage to play the markets -- the Republicans would have been hard-pressed to argue that Nixon was simply a victim of partisan Democratic scandal-mongering.
Over the years, pieces of the story about Nixon's "treason" did surface from time to time, but never getting much traction with the major U.S. news media or the political classes. It fell into that hazy category between "conspiracy theory" and "old news."
In 1980, Anna Chennault published an autobiography entitled The Education of Anna, in which she acknowledged that she, indeed, had been a courier for messages between the Nixon campaign and the South Vietnamese government.
She quoted Nixon aide John Mitchell as calling her a few days before the 1968 election and telling her: "I'm speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It's very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you made that clear to them." But still there was no outcry for a serious investigation.
An October Reprise?
The lack of interest in Nixon's Vietnam peace-talk gambit also might have encouraged the Republicans to dig into Nixon's bag of dirty tricks again in 1980 when some of his old allies, including George H.W. Bush and William Casey, were key figures in Ronald Reagan's campaign and saw another prospect for ousting another Democratic president over another "October Surprise."
After all, if Nixon could get away with sabotaging Vietnam peace talks when half a million U.S. soldiers were in harm's way, what was the big deal about upsetting President Jimmy Carter's negotiations to free 52 U.S. embassy employees then held hostage in Iran? And if the Democrats eventually did get wind of any GOP-Iran hanky-panky, what were the chances that they would hold anyone accountable?
Wouldn't these Democrats be just as susceptible as Johnson's team was to appeals that telling the whole sordid tale wouldn't be good for the country? The Democrats had even taken a strange sort of pride in keeping these dirty Republican secrets secret.
As it turned out, Democrats did show the same reluctance to seriously investigate allegations of Republican interference in Carter's hostage negotiations with Iran as they did regarding the Nixon campaign's sabotage of Johnson's Vietnam peace talks. [For details on the 1980 reprise of Nixon's "treason," see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com's "New October Surprise Series."]
Democrats also presided over timid investigations of Reagan's later arms-for-hostage deals with Iran, known as the Iran-Contra Affair, and of Reagan's secret military support for Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, the so-called Iraq-gate scandal.
In 1992, I interviewed R. Spencer Oliver, a longtime Democratic Party figure whose phone was one of those that had been bugged at Watergate. Oliver also was one of the few Washington Democrats with the toughness and tenacity to push serious investigations into these Republican scandals.
When I asked him why the Democrats so often retreated in the face of fierce Republican resistance, he explained that the Watergate scandal -- though it led to the ruin of one Republican president -- had taught the Republicans how to thwart serious inquiries: "What [the Republicans] learned from Watergate was not 'don't do it,' but 'cover it up more effectively.' They have learned that they have to frustrate congressional oversight and press scrutiny in a way that will avoid another major scandal."
While Oliver was surely right, there was also the tendency of Democrats to avoid the risks required to stand up to Republican abuses. The failed investigations of the 1980 October Surprise case, the Iran-Contra Affair and Iraq-gate seemed part and parcel with avoiding a confrontation with Nixon over the Vietnam peace talks in 1968.
In all those cases, there was the echo of Rostow's musings in 1973, wondering whether the silence of Johnson's White House regarding Nixon's "treason" in 1968 had proved not to be "good for the country" after all.
By not holding the Republicans accountable, Rostow had reflected, "There was nothing in their previous experience with an operation of doubtful propriety (or, even, legality) to warn them off, and there were memories of how close an election could get and the possible utility of pressing to the limit -- and beyond." But even with that recognition, Rostow still had kept silent.
Indeed, if Rostow had had his way, "The 'X' Envelope" today would still be locked away from the American people for another decade -- and possibly 50 years longer.
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