Nixon vs Kennedy

[James DiEugenio]

This is the new article I have been talking about.

Part 1 is finally posted at CTKA

http://www.ctka.net/2015/NixonPt1.html

NIxon was a pretty bad guy, who did a lot of PR to cover the evil he did up. No comparison to JFK.

When you are to the right of Reagan on the USSR in 1987, how smart can you be?

Edited August 8, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Part 2 will be posted at Bob Parry's illustrious site, Consortium News.

That part includes much more declassified stuff about Nixon and Vietnam.

The moral of this story is this: the more that gets declassified about his administration, the worse Nixon looks: the more scholars dig into Kennedy's files, the better he looks.

Edited August 8, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Glenn Nall]

totally agreed, Nixon was yuckier than JFK. and, in my opinion, LBJ was more yucky than RMN.

"When you are to the right of Reagan on the USSR in 1987, how smart can you be?"

not quite sure about necessity or purpose of this comment.

just sayin'.

[James DiEugenio]

Glenn:

What I meant was that Reagan was perceived as being the most conservative president since Hoover.

Yet, he was ready to deal with Gorbachev since he thought he was a real reformer, which he was.

Nixon did no think so. He and Kissinger were so blinded by their Cold War thinking about the Commie monolith, they were not able to see a once in a century opportunity. Yet Mr. Conservative, Reagan understood that.

Which underlines what an overrated foreign policy thinker Nixon really was. He was a myth created by his own PR machine.

[Jon G. Tidd]

My take on Nixon's foreign policy.

Nixon wanted out of Viet Nam. So badly that he made a peace deal in Paris in January 1973 that [1] ceded North Vietnamese gains in South Viet Nam to the North Vietnamese, and [2] made a deal that did not include American POWs being held in Laotian prisons. For these two things, I excoriate Nixon and Kissinger. He gave the death kiss to both South Viet Nam and American POWs being held in Laos. That was politics in 1973. The same would be true today.

Nixon was pragmatic and political, not moral. If you maintain he was therefore evil, name an American president since Nixon who has not been pragmatic and political, putting morality aside.

[James DiEugenio]

Jon:

Who did what Nixon did?

When you read part 2 of my article, you will see that he knew the war was lost in 1969.

LBJ did not understand that until 1968, something I quote from the book The Wise Men in the first edition of Destiny Betrayed. And when he realized that, he tried to get a peace agreement.

Which was scuttled by Nixon, as I note at the end of the article. And as I also note, there is evidence that Nixon attempted to expand the war in 1964 also, combining with LBJ to turn around JFK's withdrawal plan. Further, as i note in the article, Nixon wanted to bomb the north and commit American combat troops in 1954!

Once in power, he then expanded the war into Cambodia, which LBJ deliberately did not do. He then dropped more bombs on Cambodia and Laos than the USA dropped on Japan.

This caused the overthrow of Sihanouk, the rise of General Lon Nol, and the eventual takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. And the death of at least 750.000 people--probably many more--under Pol Pot.

He did all of this when in fact, there was no important national security interest at stake. Which is why Kennedy wanted to get out instead of making something worse than it already was.

In my opinion,with the exception of Truman's use of atomic weapons, I can think of no other American president since World War 2 who caused as much senseless destruction as Nixon and Kissinger did in Indochina. All of this, even though they knew they could not win. As we shall see in part 2, after 1969 it was all about a Decent Interval to make sure Nixon won in 1972. Which Nixon lied about in his book. As he lied about everything else dealing with this subject.

But not just that, he also wanted to make sure McGovern was destroyed in a landslide, along with his followers i.e. the liberals and radicals would go off the cliff with him. And by the way, as you will see, Nixon and Kissinger actually SAY THIS JUST ABOUT VERBATIM! Nixon did not want anyone to know just how craven he really was. Which is why he fought to keep the papers and tapes sealed.

If you can show me where Kennedy ever talked like this on his tapes, please do. Kennedy did not even want to bomb the missile silos in Cuba--and that really was a threat, since it constituted s a first strike capability. He asked Taylor how many civilians could die if it was not precision bombing. When he got an answer of hundreds, and maybe even thousands, he went to the blockade.

But wait until part 2 comes out. Nixon and Kissinger even seriously thought of bombing the dikes and using tactical nukes. Over a third world country that was no threat to the USA, let alone its neighbors. In fact, it was Vietnam which finally got rid of Pol Pot in 1979.

Nixon was a really bad guy. As I noted in part 1, he worked hard to give himself a good PR front. It stuck until the tapes were declassified.

Edited August 9, 2015 by James DiEugenio