Does Nixon's "Treason" Boost LBJ's Legacy?

In June 1971, after U.S. newspapers began publishing Daniel Ellsberg's leaked Pentagon Papers which catalogued mostly Democratic lies about Vietnam through 1967, Nixon immediately recognized his own vulnerability to a possible sequel if the missing file on his 1968 treachery ever surfaced.

After entering the White House in 1969, Nixon was told by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover about the existence of the file but a search by top aides, Henry Kissinger and H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, failed to locate it. So, on June 17, 1971, as the Pentagon Papers dominated the front pages of American newspapers, Nixon ordered a redoubling of the search for the missing 1968 file, even to the point of authorizing a break-in at the Brookings Institution where Nixon thought the file might be.

In other words, understanding the significance of Nixon's "treason" in 1968 not only changes the accepted history of the Vietnam War and of Johnson's presidency, but it could fundamentally alter the conventional wisdom about Watergate as well.

In one small blessing, this fuller understanding of Watergate -- and what Nixon was desperate to cover up -- might finally drive a stake through the heart of the Watergate-era trope endlessly recited by the mainstream U.S. news media that "the cover-up is always worse than the crime!" That silliness might not survive a recognition that the "crime" that Nixon was ultimately covering up was his treachery that blocked peace talks which might have saved the lives of more than 20,000 U.S. soldiers and maybe a million more Vietnamese.  [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Dark Continuum of Watergate."]

But perhaps two such radical rewrites of supposedly well-known histories -- the Vietnam War and Watergate -- were too much for the likes of the New York Times and establishment historians to absorb. Indeed, knowing the fuller story might make them look like utter incompetents for missing such important aspects of two pivotal events from such a recent era.

So, for the purpose of face-saving at least, it might make more sense for the Times and "respected historians" to simply leave the old narratives in place, even if that distortion of history serves to further discredit President Johnson and his historic accomplishments.