"Good for the Country'
During Nixon's Paris-peace-talk gambit, the governing Democrats also revealed what would become a pattern for them, an unwillingness to expose political wrongdoing by Republicans ostensibly to avert partisan divisions for "the good of the country."
President Johnson was aware of what he called Nixon's "treason" in the days before Election 1968 and was tempted to expose the illicit contacts. However, other senior Democrats fretted that exposure of such treachery might not prevent Nixon from winning, yet could destroy his legitimacy as president.
"Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I'm wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual [Nixon] elected," said Defense Secretary Clark Clifford in a conference call with Johnson on Nov. 4, 1968. "It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I think it would be inimical to our country's interests."
Clifford's argument carried the day. Johnson remained silent, Nixon won, and Johnson carried the secret of Nixon's peace-talk sabotage to his grave.
So, in 1968, the U.S. political process was undergoing three dangerous transformations. The Left was separating itself from practical politics; the Republicans were learning that they could win by playing dirty; and the governing Democrats were shying away from demanding accountability for Republican abuses.
Over the next 42 years, all three of these patterns have deepened, combining to create a political crisis for the nation.
Republican Extremes
Over the past four decades, the only times when the Left and the governing Democrats have pulled together in a meaningful way were when the Republicans were in power and when that power went to their heads.
That was the case when Nixon, who had locked himself into a continuation of the Vietnam War, went nearly crazy in denouncing anti-war protesters as "bums" and going to extremes to block publication of the Pentagon Papers secret history of the war in 1971.
Nixon's paranoia then led him to commit felonies surrounding his Watergate political spying operation, a scandal that played out from 1972 until Nixon's resignation in 1974. The Watergate case was one of the few times when the governing Democrats and the Left mostly were on the same page, objecting to Nixon's abuses.
However, whenever the Democrats were in power and had the potential to accomplish something meaningful, the split always reopened. The governing pragmatists sought incremental change in an often difficult political/media environment, while the idealists demanded sweeping reforms regardless of public resistance.
The division opened up during Jimmy Carter's presidency when the Left viewed Carter as too centrist and too cautious, prompting a primary challenge from liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1980. Kennedy's bid fell short but left behind deep antagonisms between the two wings of the Democratic Party.
Many progressives turned a deaf ear to Carter's warnings about what Ronald Reagan's election would do to the country. Some backed independent John Anderson or other minor candidates, and some simply didn't vote.
Iranian Crisis
As it turned out, Carter like Johnson and Humphrey was facing Republican skullduggery. The evidence is now overwhelming that elements of Reagan's campaign contacted Iranian officials who were then holding 52 Americans hostage, a crisis that was eroding Carter's remaining political support.
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