Some of those secret wars would have long-term consequences, especially Reagan's decision to escalate the CIA's support for Afghan mujahedeen � ��" essentially Islamist warlords � ��" fighting a Soviet-protected government in Kabul.
Beyond giving a foothold in the region to Islamist extremists, including Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, Reagan's policy required catering to the sensitivities of Pakistan's Islamic dictators, including turning a blind eye toward their secret development of a nuclear bomb.
Reagan also credentialed the neoconservatives who provided intellectual heft for the bloody interventions in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan. On Reagan's watch, too, the right-wing news media grew into a Washington powerhouse (which coincided with a retreat from media and think tanks by American progressives).
The cumulative effects of Elections 1968 and 1980, therefore, can't be overstated. Which is why it is particularly important for the American people to understand what happened behind the scenes to secure those important Republican victories.
No Serious Investigations
Despite strong evidence of GOP covert interference in Democratic diplomatic initiatives before those two elections, there has never been a determined official probe to get at the truth.
Nixon's sabotage of Johnson's Paris peace talks has come under some media scrutiny beginning in 1983 when investigative journalist Seymour Hersh included a sketchy account of Nixon's maneuverings in Price of Power, Hersh's critical study of Henry Kissinger's government career.
According to Hersh, Kissinger, a Harvard academic who was an adviser to Johnson's Vietnam peace talks, alerted Nixon's team to the prospects of imminent success. That prompted Nixon's associates to send secret messages, partly through right-wing China Lobby figure Anna Chennault, to South Vietnam's President Nguyen van Thieu, assuring him that Nixon would give him a better deal if he threw a wrench into Johnson's initiative.
When Thieu boycotted the peace talks, Johnson's last-ditch negotiations failed, opening the door for four more years of the U.S. war in Vietnam, which also spread to Cambodia.
Though more and more evidence has emerged over the years to buttress Hersh's account � ��" and the story has never been effectively refuted by Nixon's supporters � ��" the story of the sabotaged Paris peace talks remains confined to the Washington Establishment's netherworld of impolite topics.
While serving as Nixon's national security adviser and Secretary of State, Kissinger emerged as a Washington favorite, known for his witty repartee at cocktail parties. He was an intellectual with a keen political sense who cultivated the press and wormed his way into a close relationship with Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and Newsweek.
So much so that when I was a Newsweek correspondent in the late 1980s, I was surprised at the influence Kissinger wielded inside the magazine.
Once, I was working late at night in 1989, when foreign policy correspondent Doug Waller came by my office. He had been writing a story about the Tiananmen Square massacre and had been stunned to get a phone call from Henry Kissinger.
At the time, Kissinger was promoting lucrative business ventures with the Chinese communist government and was trying to fend off some of the worst publicity from the massacre, which claimed the lives of an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 pro-democracy protesters.
Waller told me that Kissinger didn't want Newsweek to use the phrase � ���"Tiananmen Square massacre� �� � because Kissinger was claiming that none of the protesters had actually died in Tiananmen Square. I suggested to Waller, � ���"perhaps we can make Henry happy by calling it the � ��˜round and about Tiananmen Square massacre.'� �� �
Though Kissinger did not prevail in getting his way about blocking the phrase � ���"Tiananmen Square massacre,� �� � his behavior inside Newsweek suggested that he understood his clout with Mrs. Graham and other top Newsweek executives, that he could throw his weight around with their subordinates.
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