Richard Nixon

UPenn Miller Center - Nixon Conversation 525-001 (Ordering the break-in at the Brookings Institution)
2012.06.05 - History News Network - LBJ Thought Nixon Committed Treason to Win the 1968 Election
- This is the best explanation I've read yet of how (some of?) Nixon's illegal activities began. It leaves out one key detail, which is in the link below, which is that the Soviet Union had apparently prodded North Vietnam to accept the cease fire as a way of reducing the chances that the hawkish Nixon would get elected. That detail would seem to make Nixon's decision in '68 seem less self-interested.
UPenn Miller Center - A Rough Guide to Richard Nixon’s Conspiracy Theories
- This is a great read.
- To the Republican presidential candidate and his partisans, the timing of the Bombing Halt — less than a week before Election Day — could not have been more suspicious. The Republican candidate felt certain the negotiation was a political move by Johnson to elect the Democrat, Vice President Humphrey. But Johnson didn’t abandon his conditions (diplomatically phrased as “understandings” so the North Vietnamese could say the Bombing Halt was unconditional) in the days prior to the election. The President had insisted that in addition to sitting down to talk with the South Vietnamese, Hanoi had to stop crossing the Demilitarized Zone and stop shelling South Vietnamese cities. As Election Day grew closer, however, the Soviet Union urged the North to accept them. (The Soviets were worried by Nixon’s reputation as a hard-liner; four years later, however, the Republican would be their preferred presidential candidate.) Johnson didn’t back off from his demands; the North finally accepted them.