Why is the JFK assassination research community so easy on Nixon?

[Mark Knight]

Nixon's "Vietnamization" was fairly inept, as I see it.

Over 5-1/2 years of his presidency, he had trouble building an army of Vietnamese soldiers that were competent and capable. Funny how the US can do that in 12-13 weeks of basic and AIT. And until 1972, most of these American kids were draftees, not volunteers. In fact, in my local community, some 17-19 year olds who got into trouble with the law were "sentenced" to enlist in one or another branch of the military. [That may or may not have been the case elsewhere in America]. So even with the draftees and the "non-voluntary" enlistees, we could turn these young boys into soldiers in 13 weeks.

Thirteen weeks...vs. 5-1/2 years.

And yet Nixon was still "buying time."

[Jon G. Tidd]

Mark Knight,

Read up on the Easter Offensive. The actions of the South Vietnamese army from 30 April 1972 through much of the rest of 1972 demonstrated courage and competence in the face of a 15-Division attack supported by tanks and heat-seeking, hand-held anti-aircraft rockets.

I speak from personal experience. On 30 April 1972, I was stationed on Bien Hoa Army Base, about 15 miles north of Saigon. To the north and a little to the west was a rubber plantation provincial capital, An Loc. The 5th, 7th, and 9th NVA (VC) Divisions slammed into the outskirts of An Loc around 1 May 1972. Holding An Loc was a contingent of South Vietnamese army units along with a couple of American advisers.

In a battle that lasted for months, a brutal, unrelenting battle, the South Vietnamese held their ground, using Light Anti-Tank Weapons (LAWs) to disable NVA tanks.

All of this was quite important to me. Those South Vietnamese troops were all that stood between me and my few fellow colleagues and three powerful NVA divisions. Ultimately, the NVA were defeated at An Loc owing to the tenancity of the South Vietnamese army.

Yes, throughout most of the 1960s, the South Vietnamese army was poorly trained and poorly led. By 1972, as the direct result of Vietnamization, the South Vietnamese army was battle-ready for the most part.

One might ask why the South Vietnamese army got crushed three years later. Reason: In the wake of Watergate, congress cut off funding and spare parts to the South Vietnamese military.

[Guest Mark Valenti]

One might ask why the South Vietnamese army got crushed three years later. Reason: In the wake of Watergate, congress cut off funding and spare parts to the South Vietnamese military.

Which proves, unequivocally, that the Vietnam War started by JFK, extended by LBJ and lost by Nixon, was a ruse from start to finish. If there was even a slight, microscopic reason for the war, the US would have sent spare parts, donor kidneys, whatever it took. Look Jon, I'm sorry you were a pawn in a rich man's game - that's unfortunate. But the entire period of war, from 68 - 74, could have been erased had Nixon not committed treason.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Mark Valenti,

Like you, I have read about Nixon's alleged attempts to sabotage the Paris peace accords in 1968. I have no doubt Nixon was in league with Thieu, who opposed the deal offered by the North Vietnamese. No doubt.

I also know Thieu's reluctance to take a deal from North Viet Nam in 1968 was grounded in his distrust of the North Vietnamese to live up to the deal.

OK, Nixon thwarted LBJ's peace plans. Call it treason, if you wish.

Here's reality: In early 1973, Henry Kissinger negotiated a peace in Viet Nam. Congrats, Henry.

According to the deal, the North Vietnamese could keep whatever territory in South Viet Nam the NVA had conquered. The NVA agreed not to seek additional territory in South Viet Nam.

No, Mark. I wasn't a pawn. I was a volunteer.

Upon entering the U.S. Army, I had a ticket to West Germany as an electronics warfare officer, because of my electrical engineering degree. I wanted to see the biggest event of my life, the Viet Nam war. I signed up for language school, and the rest is history.

Thanks for seeing me as a pawn. But I was a trained, volunteer observer.

[Guest Mark Valenti]

I'm obviously not content just to post on forums. My book has become a best-seller, albeit without much support from the JFK assassination research community. I've done interviews with Infowars, Coast to Coast, Black Op Radio and several other shows. Those are the platforms I have. I have other books in the works, which I hope will be published.

The Bush rape story was completely ignored by the mainstream media; as I note, the only reference I could find was in a small UK newspaper.

The alleged victim, Schoedinger, was a sick woman. She said three unknown assailants attempted unsuccessfully to kidnap her. When she reported the crime to the Sugar Land Police Department, she was harassed by the police. She was treated similarly by the FBI. To make matters worse, her bank accounts were frozen, her husband lost his job, her academic records were expunged and she became the subject of 24-hour surveillance. According to the complaint, this treatment was orchestrated by Bush. She claimed that Bush is attempting to pressure her into committing suicide. She said he personally asked Bush the very same question. Bush allegedly replied that he is concerned that Schoedinger may remember the numerous and repeated acts of sexual assault he has committed against her and her husband. His original plan was to simply kill the plaintiff. But since he couldnt go through with it, he decided to simply drive her crazy instead. She sued him for 50 million dollars.

It's the stuff of the National Enquirer. Or the Star, or the Globe. Take your pick.

The rape accusation against Reagan was so obscure that Meria Heller said she'd never heard about it when she interviewed me a while back. Others have said the same thing.

Meria Heller must have been asleep. Everybody covered the Reagan rape allegation. From People magazine to Slate to the New York Freakin' Times.

Really Don. You must learn to get out more often.

NBC interviewed Juanita Broderick about her rape accusations against Clinton, and then sat on the story for quite some time. They purposefully chose to do this during the impeachment proceedings.

Juanita was covered by the NY Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal.

Some "hiding" of the story.

Their "coverage" of the few serious Clinton scandals they even mentioned were exemplified by John Goodman's portrayal of Linda Tripp and James Carville's bitter dismissal of Paula Jones as "trailer park trash." There were never any Woodward and Bernsteins tracking the serious scandals of either Bush, Clinton and Obama.

Those women - especially Linda Tripp - had an agenda driven by virulent right-wing partisans. Don't believe me, check out the testimony of David Brock. THAT's why the story was treated as it was. Reporters saw right through this BS. Drudge gave it leverage and momentum; he was part of the right-wing hit squad.

Alex Jones has millions of listeners every day.

So do singing bears on YouTube. He's a boob selling fear to the rubes.

Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow are lucky to get 200,000 viewers. Coast to Coast has even more listeners. The Drudge Report is, I believe, the most popular web site on the internet. The mainstream media has become insignificant in terms of news coverage. Fewer and fewer people buy the propaganda. I personally don't need their validation. I can think for myself, and assess historical events without their influence.

So you're pretty happy that actual reporting is being killed off by partisan flame throwers? Interesting.

Recently, Congress held hearings, during which reporter Liz Wahl compared bloggers to terrorists, and bemoaned the fact that the internet gave "these people" a place to get together. That is the prevailing view in the establishment regarding true freedom of expression.

The coarsening of political conversation in this country is due to "those people."

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Mark Valenti,

Like you, I have read about Nixon's alleged attempts to sabotage the Paris peace accords in 1968. I have no doubt Nixon was in league with Thieu, who opposed the deal offered by the North Vietnamese. No doubt.

I also know Thieu's reluctance to take a deal from North Viet Nam in 1968 was grounded in his distrust of the North Vietnamese to live up to the deal.

OK, Nixon thwarted LBJ's peace plans. Call it treason, if you wish.

Here's reality: In early 1973, Henry Kissinger negotiated a peace in Viet Nam. Congrats, Henry.

According to the deal, the North Vietnamese could keep whatever territory in South Viet Nam the NVA had conquered. The NVA agreed not to seek additional territory in South Viet Nam.

No, Mark. I wasn't a pawn. I was a volunteer.

Upon entering the U.S. Army, I had a ticket to West Germany as an electronics warfare officer, because of my electrical engineering degree. I wanted to see the biggest event of my life, the Viet Nam war. I signed up for language school, and the rest is history.

Thanks for seeing me as a pawn. But I was a trained, volunteer observer.

It was treason. So anything that came after - including Henry's brave and daring negotiations - would have been unnecessary, had Nixon refrained from his treasonous act.

I don't give Nixon or Kissinger credit for ending something that they kept alive - unnecessarily - for five painful and murderous years.

As for calling you a pawn, I'm sorry but that's what soldiers are. Fodder is another word that comes to mind.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Mark Valenti,

Kissinger was not brave or daring. He was cynical. He sold out the South. Got an agreement from the North. And garnered a Nobel Peace Prize, which was a joke. A total joke.

Yes soldiers today are fodder. So were draftees in Viet Nam.

I signed up for Viet Nam. I opposed the war but wanted to see it firsthand. I wasn't a pawn or fodder. I was a trained observer, which is what I wanted to be.

[Don Jeffries]

Mark,

I spoke to Linda Tripp personally. She had no agenda- she was a liberal democrat. She described how those who worked in the White House all knew about Clinton's scandals, especially the body count. She was never Monica Lewinsky's "pal"- she was old enough to be her mother. She did what she had to do in order to protect herself. The treatment she was accorded by "journalists" was a travesty. Her family was devastated by the attacks upon her. SNL certainly never attacked Bill Clinton.

Marge Schoedinger died mysteriously, after claiming she'd been threatened. That's kind of like how Deborah Jean Palfrey- the "D.C. Madam," allegedly killed herself after passionately assuring Alex Jones that she would never do such a thing. Where were the Woodward and Bernsteins for that story?

The coverage you describe regarding any of these stories is always either cursory, without any skepticism towards the officials allegedly involved, or slanted to ridicule those who are accusing officials of some kind of wrongdoing. It was no surprise to see how Manning and Snowden were treated- this is the official policy of our leaders; punish the whistleblowers, not the wrongdoers.

The only curiosity and skepticism shown by mainstream journalists is always directed at the naysayers, the whistleblowers, the "conspiracy theorists." Except during Watergate, of course. That's very difficult to innocently explain.

[Guest Mark Valenti]

I spoke to Linda Tripp personally. She had no agenda- she was a liberal democrat. She described how those who worked in the White House all knew about Clinton's scandals, especially the body count. She was never Monica Lewinsky's "pal"- she was old enough to be her mother. She did what she had to do in order to protect herself. The treatment she was accorded by "journalists" was a travesty. Her family was devastated by the attacks upon her. SNL certainly never attacked Bill Clinton.

First - Linda Tripp was a Judas. She had no reason to become involved as deeply as she did. She allowed herself to be manipulated by Lucianne Goldberg, and then tried to reap the rewards of her gross betrayal of a young woman by writing a tell all (after her plastic surgery to get her media-ready).

And excuse me? SNL never attacked Bill Clinton?

WHAT?!?!?!

Where have you been hiding? Under a rock? SNL skewered Bill Clinton mercilessly for the bimbo eruptions.

Honestly, I am starting to truly wonder about your ability to process events you witness.

Or maybe you were in a coma for a few years?

How can you say stuff like this?

Marge Schoedinger died mysteriously, after claiming she'd been threatened. That's kind of like how Deborah Jean Palfrey- the "D.C. Madam," allegedly killed herself after passionately assuring Alex Jones that she would never do such a thing. Where were the Woodward and Bernsteins for that story?

I'll tell you what, Don. If I was a reporter, out for a hot story, something that would really make my bones in the industry, I'd stay away from Marge's story even if I was ordered to cover it. She was insane. Clearly. And associating myself with that story would mean outing myself as a gadfly ala Alex Jones.

The coverage you describe regarding any of these stories is always either cursory, without any skepticism towards the officials allegedly involved, or slanted to ridicule those who are accusing officials of some kind of wrongdoing. It was no surprise to see how Manning and Snowden were treated- this is the official policy of our leaders; punish the whistleblowers, not the wrongdoers.

Manning and Snowden are heroes. Marge was sick in the head. No similarity.

The only curiosity and skepticism shown by mainstream journalists is always directed at the naysayers, the whistleblowers, the "conspiracy theorists." Except during Watergate, of course. That's very difficult to innocently explain.

Well I've tried. Nixon established the tone for his relationship with the press from his earliest public appearances. They hated him. He hated them. That they hounded him during Watergate cannot be a surprise to anyone who knows the record.

[Don Jeffries]

Mark,

Linda Tripp DID NOT write a "tell all," or any book at all. She was careful to point that out to me, in the official statement she prepared for my book. That is just one of the lies that have been told about her. Monica Lewinsky, on the other hand, has profited from her tainted celebrity.

The "attacks" on Bill Clinton, whether via SNL, Family Guy or wherever, were always done in such a way as to portray him as a lovably irresponsible juvenile playboy, a really "cool" guy. That is certainly never been the way Nixon has been portrayed. And Mayor Quimby, for instance, on The Simpsons, clearly a composite Kennedy figure, has never been portrayed as "cool." He is pictured as corrupt.

It's been a common practice for a very long time to call inconvenient witnesses to official misconduct "insane." Even if Marge Schoedinger was (which I have no reason to believe), she died unnaturally after claiming to have been threatened. Surely, that should have warranted some kind of media interest? The same goes for Palfrey. Maybe she was insane, too.

I agree with you that Nixon and the press hated each other. But I don't think Woodward and Bernstein conducted the investigation they did without approval of Ben Bradlee and the establishment in general. That's my point, Mark- the press in this country was lame and submissive to authority prior to Watergate, and afterwards they returned to their general lethargy. That doesn't mean Nixon was good, but it does say something about how he was forced from office.

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Linda Tripp DID NOT write a "tell all," or any book at all. She was careful to point that out to me, in the official statement she prepared for my book. That is just one of the lies that have been told about her. Monica Lewinsky, on the other hand, has profited from her tainted celebrity.

Wow, Don. You need to hire a researcher.

Linda Tripp leveraged her fame into a substantial payout from the US Government, some half million dollars.

And contrary to your view that she was an Angel doing the lord's work, she did begin work on a book with writer Maggie Gallagher.

Did you know that, Don?

The book's title was to be "Behind Closed Doors: What I Saw at the Clinton White House." and Linda's pseudonym was to be "Joan Dean."

Isn't that precious?

And this was BEFORE she started hearing Monica Lewinsky's tales of sex in the Oval Office.

Imagine that. She was going to write a tell-all BEFORE the bigger story came along.

Hmm...that kind of makes her a...I don't know...what would you call it?

Gallagher interviewed Tripp for 20 hours by telephone. Then the ghostwriter started putting Tripp's recollections down on paper, using a first-person voice and coming up with chapter titles such as "The President's Women." Tripp was finally willing to go semi-public with the Kathleen Willey story. The "President's Women" chapter included descriptions of the president's relations with two pseudonymous women, one of whom appears to be a stand-in for Willey.

But Tripp soon dropped the book project. She would later say she didn't like how Gallagher was writing it, but Gallagher says Tripp simply got scared of losing her job. "When she told me she couldn't go through with this book, I told her, 'If you don't do this, you're going to regret it for the rest of your life.' And she said, 'I know.' "

She created spread sheets for Lewinsky, detailing the Oval visits. She coached Monica on how to rekindle the affair once it had weakened. And all the while she secretly tape recorded her dumb friend, in the hopes of ruining the Clinton presidency.

Your wonderful pal Linda Tripp had a vendetta against Clinton from Day One. She was a Judas of the worst sort, willing to tape and betray a confused young woman -- all to "get" Clinton.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Mark Valenti

[Don Jeffries]

Mark,

Linda Tripp received a legal settlement because the government violated the Privacy Act by releasing personal information about her to the always compliant mainstream media. She had originally been fired, in a final act of vengeance, on the final day of the Clinton administration. This included the explosive information that she'd been arrested for shoplifting at age 19. This was, of course, "investigative" journalism at its finest.

Tripp never published a book, and her original agreement to do so with Gallagher was motivated by a desire to expose what she felt were the wrongdoings of the Clinton administration. You prefer to see her as someone who was "out to get" Clinton. I'm sure anyone who watched a lot of television at the time would agree with you.

I apologize for helping to deter this thread into areas that really have no connection to Nixon. I simply believe that the media behaved far differently during Watergate than they have when reporting on any other scandal.

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Don, I didn't and don't need the media to tell me how to think. Linda Tripp was scummy and history will see her as such.

[Paul Trejo]

...Yes soldiers today are fodder. So were draftees in Viet Nam.

I signed up for Viet Nam. I opposed the war but wanted to see it firsthand. I wasn't a pawn or fodder. I was a trained observer, which is what I wanted to be.

OK, getting the thread back to Nixon, who had nothing to do with the JFK murder...

I happen to disagree that US soldiers today are "fodder," or even that draftees in Vietnam were "fodder."

Philosophically, each individual is who he or she is only by virtue of the amount of Freedom that is guaranteed to that person by his or her Government.

Without Government, there is no guarantee of Freedom at all -- we would all be at the mercy of the Law of the Jungle.

Some Governments can guarantee very little Freedom -- i.e. that lower-class criminals are punished.

Other Governments can guarantee more Freedom -- i.e. that even high-class criminals are punished.

A few Government can guarantee maximum Freedom -- i.e. that minorities are Protected from Prejudice, at least after the fact.

Whatever amount of Freedom that our nation can guarantee, we as individuals owe everything that we are to our Form of Government.

Therefore -- by rational right -- we owe our Duty to our Government -- including Military Duty.

Even in such a controversial war as LBJ's Vietnam War, which Nixon struggled so painfully to wind down, we must recognize that these were our Elected Leaders, and their all-too-human opinions had led us to War -- and the price for our Government Decisions could be Military Duty -- even as draftees -- in an Unpopular War.

That was the tragedy of the Baby-Boomer generation. Yet that doesn't make US soldiers (or draftees) fodder.

We were Free Men and Women, doing our best when our Leaders were doing their best -- even through all the mistakes.

The Vietnam War, in retrospect, was a great waste. Catholic Buddhist-bashing in Vietnam was the start of it -- and Western Anticommunism in the USA was the peak of it.

Yet let's try to regard it from the vantage of 1964-1974 -- when the Cold War was raging. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, was correctly calling the Vietnam War a struggle for Catholicism. Everybody was worried about the Communist Bloc and the "Domino theory."

Our greatest leaders of that time believed in the "Domino theory," including JFK.

We did what we had to do in the interest of our Freedoms. If we were mistaken, so be it. We're human and imperfect. Still, we owe our Freedom, and so our Duty -- even our lives -- to the Government in which we were born -- as does every other human being in history.

No soldier is "fodder". All soldiers are loyal servants of their Government, for better or worse.

It's easy to look down on the mistakes of the past. Any fool can do that. The challenge is always and everywhere to correctly assess the mistakes of the present. That takes a genius like JFK.

The killers of JFK were the extreme rightists. President Nixon called them, "kooks."

I repeat: whatever the personal failings of President Richard Nixon, his world historical act of cutting the Communist Bloc in half was an act of pure genius.

Nixon will go down in history as one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. By contrast, after 2017 most JFK Researchers will be forgotten like yesterday's papers.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited May 7, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Guest Mark Valenti]

More Vietnam vets have committed suicide than had died during the conflict. Paul Trejo calls the war a "great waste."

And now we know that Richard Nixon committed treason by interfering with the peace process under LBJ for his own selfish political gain.

Every soldier that died from 1969 forward was killed because of Nixon. They were indeed fodder for his own gain.

Soldiers join the military for a variety of reasons. Those reasons exist at the very bottom of the food chain.

Human beings above them make decisions about their very lives. If 20 soldiers have to be killed in order to secure a village, so be it.

Who cares if that same village - five years later - will house a strip mall with a dry cleaner and a convenience store? Who cares if - five years later - those enemy combatants will be our allies in another conflict?

At the time, the generals wanted that goddamn village, so to hell with the lives of the soldiers.

It's a chess game with real lives.

Fodder.