For instance, The New York Times, the so-called "newspaper of record," treated the accumulation of evidence regarding Nixon's 1968 peace-talk gambit as nothing more than a "rumor" until earlier this year when a scholar, John A. Farrell, uncovered cryptic notes taken by Nixon's aide H.R. Haldeman, which added another piece to the mosaic and left the Times little choice but to pronounce the historical reality finally real.
Grasping the Watergate Narrative
Still, the Times and other major news outlets have failed to factor this belated admission into the larger Watergate narrative. If you understand that Nixon did sabotage President Johnson's Vietnam War peace talks and that Nixon was aware that Johnson's file on what LBJ called Nixon's "treason" had disappeared from the White House, the early "Watergate tapes" from 1971 suddenly make sense.
Nixon ordered White House chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to locate the missing file but their search came up empty. Yet, some Nixon aides thought the file might be hidden at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank in Washington. So, in his desperate pursuit of the file, Nixon called for a break-in at Brookings, possibly even fire-bombing the building as a cover for his team of burglars to slip in amid the confusion and rifle the safe.
The old explanation that Nixon simply wanted to find some file related to Johnson's 1968 pre-election Vietnam bombing halt never made sense given the extreme steps that Nixon was prepared to take.
The relevant portions of Nixon's White House tapes include an entry on June 17, 1971, coincidentally one year to the day before the Watergate burglars were caught. Nixon summoned Haldeman and Kissinger to the Oval Office and pleaded with them again to locate the file.
"Do we have it?" Nixon asked Haldeman. "I've asked for it. You said you didn't have it."
Haldeman: "We can't find it."
Kissinger: "We have nothing here, Mr. President."
Nixon: "Well, damn-it, I asked for that because I need it."
Kissinger: "But Bob and I have been trying to put the damn thing together."
Haldeman: "We have a basic history in constructing our own, but there is a file on it."
Nixon: "Where?"
Haldeman: "[Presidential aide Tom Charles] Huston swears to God that there's a file on it and it's at Brookings."
Nixon: "Bob? Bob? Now do you remember Huston's plan [for White House-sponsored break-ins as part of domestic counter-intelligence operations]? Implement it."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
5
4
2
