James DiEugenio Posted October 17 Share Posted October 17 This is really one of the worst books I have ever read about both Kennedy and the election of 1960. It is really a piece of hackery. Wallace tries to elevate Nixon. Yes you read that correctly. Nixon, as more and more papers have been declassifed, looks even worse. And he tries to diminish Kennedy, who looks better with declassification. He uses two discredited sources to say the 1960 election was stolen: Judy Exner, and Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot. Whew. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/review-of-countdown-1960-1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 One of the most astonishing things in the book is that he tries to make Nixon out to be a champion on civil rights. And he says Kennedy did little or nothing about speaking out on the issue. Dead wrong as I show in the review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Griffith Posted October 17 Share Posted October 17 (edited) 10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: This is really one of the worst books I have ever read about both Kennedy and the election of 1960. It is really a piece of hackery. Wallace tries to elevate Nixon. Yes you read that correctly. Nixon, as more and more papers have been declassifed, looks even worse. And he tries to diminish Kennedy, who looks better with declassification. He uses two discredited sources to say the 1960 election was stolen: Judy Exner, and Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot. Whew. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/review-of-countdown-1960-1 One of the most astonishing things in the book is that he tries to make Nixon out to be a champion on civil rights. As usual, you insist on injecting your far-left politics into the JFK case. What does Wallace's book have to do with the assassination? Nothing. But, allow me to address your arguments. Nixon most certainly was a champion of civil rights. As president, Nixon ended school segregation in the South. Affirmative Action began under Nixon. Nixon ended discrimination in companies and labor unions that were given federal contracts. As vice president, he spearheaded the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Thus, it is not "astonishing" at all that Wallace would make the point that Nixon strongly supported civil rights. More info on Nixon and civil rights can be found here. Who has discredited Judy Exner as a source? Who has discredited Hersh's book The Dark Side of Camelot? Plus, Exner and Hersh are by no means the only authors who have concluded there was serious election fraud in the 1960 election. Just because the far-left wing of the JFKA research community has attacked Exner and Hersh does not mean they have been "discredited." You've also claimed that Dr. Marc Selverstone's widely acclaimed book The Kennedy Withdrawal has been "discredited." But, your review of it simply ignores most of the evidence it presents, and then pretends to have debunked it--based on your fringe assertion that JFK was going to unconditionally abandon Vietnam after the election, a claim that even the vast majority of liberal scholars reject. Whether or not Nixon and JFK look worse or better with declassification is very much in the eye of the beholder. If we include disclosures in the mix, which have revealed JFK's sleazy personal life, one can make the case that Nixon looks better by comparison. For the sake of visitors and newcomers, I should add that JFK's seedy personal life should be weighed against the great good that he did as president, and should also be considered in light of the severe health issues that JFK faced. Edited October 17 by Michael Griffith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 Mike: JFK began affirmative action when he signed the first AA order in March of 1961. Secondly, NIxon never supported Brown vs Board in 6 years as VP. Then once he became president, he used white backlash in order to turn the south into a GOP stronghold. Jackie Robinson, who Wallace uses as a source, discovered that belatedly. And he wrote a letter saying that he had been wrong about Kennedy, and that Nixon was a poseur. If you read the article, I showed how Exner changed her story about four times and how she was exposed as being a fabricator because she could not keep her own BS straight. I traced her from 1975 to 1997 and beyond to specifically show this. Michael O'Brien, who wrote a Kennedy biography, said the same. As per Hersh and his hatchet job of a book, you cannot be serious can you? Hersh's book was discredited before it was even published. How can you not be aware of that? And then Peter Jennings was so humiliated he tried to cover up for Hersh, because incredibly ABC had not tested the documents before they bought them. Then Jennings humiliated himself on TV with another piece of Hershian baloney, this time--as I describe-- about Martin Underwood. And from what I know, it was Gus Russo who brought Martin into the Hersh orbit. As I show, if the whole thing about Chicago that Wallace is talking about were true, it would have been reflected in the Roemer tapes, and in the Chicago ward voting stats. It is not. As per the significance of it, the whole basis of the book/novel Double Cross is that the Chicago Outfit organized the murder of Kennedy over this (imaginary) dispute. Secondly, there is more than one way to assassinate someone. That is why I wrote my long essay "The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy." And please stop it with this leftist stuff. Facts are facts. And the more you have of them the better. Wallace conceals them. The truth is that JFK did more for civil rights in three years than FDR, Truman and Ike did in three decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Jesus Posted October 18 Share Posted October 18 (edited) 14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: And please stop it with this leftist stuff. Facts are facts. Agreed. Doesn't matter what your politics are. Facts are facts. You may not like them, you may not agree with them, but facts are facts. There is only one truth. Edited October 18 by Gil Jesus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted October 19 Share Posted October 19 (edited) On 10/17/2024 at 12:36 AM, James DiEugenio said: This is really one of the worst books I have ever read about both Kennedy and the election of 1960. It is really a piece of hackery. Wallace tries to elevate Nixon. Yes you read that correctly. Nixon, as more and more papers have been declassifed, looks even worse. And he tries to diminish Kennedy, who looks better with declassification. He uses two discredited sources to say the 1960 election was stolen: Judy Exner, and Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot. Whew. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/review-of-countdown-1960-1 Absolutely the Democrats stole the 1960 presidential election for JFK. Mayor Richard Daley did it in Chicago by putting in a large amount of fraudulent votes in the black precincts in Chicago and the Texas Democrats did it at the precinct level by throwing out hundreds of thousands of GOP ballots with small technical errors while letting every slightly marred Democratic-voting ballot survive. In Texas in 1960 if there was a small problem with a ballot you could throw the whole thing out, not just the area on the ballot that was a problem. LBJ biographer Robert Caro has concluded that Texas Democrats stole the 1960 election for the JFK/LBJ ticket. Kennedy should have lost Texas if the election had been fair. And I think every major Daley biographer has concluded that he stole the Illinois electoral votes for JFK. Which is why in spring 1961 John Kennedy went to a "thank you" dinner for Mayor Richard Daley and while he was at that dinner, JFK went downstairs to the bathroom and that is exactly where he met Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden for the first time. It was not the "Mafia" that stole/manufactured the voted for JFK; it was Mayor Richard Daley and his patronage machine that did it. The same Mayor Richard Daley who was extremely likely to endorse Robert Kennedy after he won the June 5. 1968 California Democratic presidential primary. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/life-of-john-f-kennedy/fast-facts-john-f-kennedy/closeness-of-1960-presidential-election Edited October 19 by Robert Morrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 19 Author Share Posted October 19 (edited) Thanks Gil. Robert, you did not read the book. What Wallace does is go with the Giancana angle. Secondly, the reason Nixon did not challenge Illinois is that it would have been exposed that the GOP stole votes in the southern part of the state. One of the worst things about the book is it tries to portray Nixon as some kind of a good, clean guy. This is literally impossible today for all we know about the man. Nixon was a dirtbag, and it goes back to his races against Voorhees and Douglas. Those set the bar for ugly behavior in post war American politics. Edited October 19 by James DiEugenio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Jesus Posted October 19 Share Posted October 19 (edited) 3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: Nixon was a dirtbag, and it goes back to his races against Voorhees and Douglas. Those set the bar for ugly behavior in post war American politics. I have to agree with that. That's where Nixon got the nickname, "Tricky Dick". Nixon was a crook going back to the "Checkers" speech of 1952. Eisenhower almost dropped him from the ticket because of the publicity that he had taken a 100,000 bribe. It was a scandal that caused Nixon to go public to save his political ass, hence the "Checkers" speech. Have we forgotten how Nixon did everything to stonewall the Watergate investigation ? Claiming that the tapes were his personal property and tying up their release for months while their ownership was fought for in the courts ? Willing to obstruct justice by paying E.Howard Hunt a million dollars to keep his mouth shut ? Refusing to hand over the tapes and supplying the transcripts instead ? Transcripts, BTW, that his office transcribed. Then, when he was forced by the court to hand over the tapes to Congress, one tape had been tampered ( 18 minute gap ) with. And what of the "Saturday Night Massacre", when he fired his own Attorney General Eliot Richardson and others for refusing to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox ? Were those the acts of an honest man ? I remember seeing bumper stickers back in the 70s that said, "Impeach the Cox-sacker". He finally got the Inspector General Robert Bork to fire Cox. "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." --Richard Nixon, 11/17/73 He wasn't only a crook, he was a liar as well. Here he is denying everything we know today to be true. Edited October 19 by Gil Jesus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted October 20 Share Posted October 20 18 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: Thanks Gil. Robert, you did not read the book. What Wallace does is go with the Giancana angle. Secondly, the reason Nixon did not challenge Illinois is that it would have been exposed that the GOP stole votes in the southern part of the state. One of the worst things about the book is it tries to portray Nixon as some kind of a good, clean guy. This is literally impossible today for all we know about the man. Nixon was a dirtbag, and it goes back to his races against Voorhees and Douglas. Those set the bar for ugly behavior in post war American politics. I have ordered the book. But I do not need to read the book when so many credible sources say Mayor Richard Daley generated thousands of fraudulent votes for JFK in the black precincts. That is who was doing the fraud Daley - not the mafia (I agree with you on that point). When Hillary Clinton (born 10/26/47 and who was a Goldwater girl in 1964) was a teen she actually went canvassing after the 1964 election in the ghetto of Chicago to find abandoned homes where Democrats were listed as voters. The voting corruption of Mayor Daley was well known and quite real. He practiced his trade in the loosely watched poor black precincts where they were not many Republicans to keep an eye on his patronage machine. As for Texas, the way the Democrats stole the presidential election was to invalidated hundreds of thousands of Nixon/Republican ballots because the ballots contained minor imperfections. This policy did not apply to Democratic/JFK/LBJ ballots who were in the hands of mostly Democratic operatives at the precinct levels across Texas. In 1960 Texas was still a Democrat controlled state, even though the Democratic party was split between conservatives and liberals. The Republicans were not running/controlling the precinct and county vote counting; the Texas Democrats were and they were cheating like hell whether they were LBJ friendly or a JFK progressive. Robert Caro has said hundreds of thousands of GOP ballots were invalidated over technicalities in the 1960 Texas presidential race. Maybe 200,000 Republicans were disenfranchised that year in Texas. JFK won the popular vote in Texas by about 48,000 votes - 1,167,567 to 1,121,310 - 1960 United States presidential election in Texas - Wikipedia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 (edited) BTW Gil, in the new movie about Trump, The Apprentice, they begin with the Nixon, "I'm not a crook" video. Which I thought was really clever. I reviewed it at my substack site. I thought the film was pretty decent. I agree about Nixon, he was really a demon. Going back to the forties and the Voorhees smear and then labeling Douglas as a dupe for Stalin. But maybe the worst thing he did was the original October Surprise. Johnson finally saw the light about Vietnam with Tet. And he wants to start a truce negotiation. Nixon sandbaggged it to deliberately prolong the war. Later on in an interview he did for that hack journalist Monica Crowley, he tried to deny Kennedy would have gotten out of Vietnam. Nixon said Kennedy was a Cold Warrior. What a load of excrement. This is why I made something out of the 1957 Algeria speech, because JFK actually attacked Nixon directly over his support for French colonialism in Africa. And near the end of that speech, JFK reminded everyone about the collapse at Dien Bien Phu just 3 years prior. Nixon was actually the point man in congress for Operation Vulture, the plan to use atomic bombs there. Kennedy directly attacked that by saying no amount of explosive power will help us without the support of the Vietnamese people. Nixon was the Cold Warrior, and even his rather sympathetic biographer Ambrose said RMN was a bit unhinged over Vietnam. Which he was. And Wallace tries to rehab this guy. Sheesh. Edited October 20 by James DiEugenio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Jesus Posted October 20 Share Posted October 20 5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: BTW Gil, in the new movie about Trump, The Apprentice, they begin with the Nixon, "I'm not a crook" video. Which I thought was really clever. I reviewed it at my substack site. I thought the film was pretty decent. I agree about Nixon, he was really a demon. Going back to the forties and the Voorhees smear and then labeling Douglas as a dupe for Stalin. But maybe the worst thing he did was the original October Surprise. Johnson finally saw the light about Vietnam with Tet. And he wants to start a truce negotiation. Nixon sandbaggged it to deliberately prolong the war. Later on in an interview he did for that hack journalist Monica Crowley, he tried to deny Kennedy would have gotten out of Vietnam. Nixon said Kennedy was a Cold Warrior. What a load of excrement. This is why I made something out of the 1957 Algeria speech, because JFK actually attacked Nixon directly over his support for French colonialism in Africa. And near the end of that speech, JFK reminded everyone about the collapse at Dien Bien Phu just 3 years prior. Nixon was actually the point man in congress for Operation Vulture, the plan to use atomic bombs there. Kennedy directly attacked that by saying no amount of explosive power will help us without the support of the Vietnamese people. Nixon was the Cold Warrior, and even his rather sympathetic biographer Ambrose said RMN was a bit unhinged over Vietnam. Which he was. And Wallace tries to rehab this guy. Sheesh. And let's not forget that Nixon cut his national political teeth in the Alger Hiss case as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948. Nixon in that famous photo looking at microfilm of the "pumpkin papers". Nixon was ( as you say ) a cold warrior and strongly Anti-Communist. Isn't it strange that the two people who we see as Kennedy's political rivals ( Johnson and Nixon ) and who followed him into the White House, both experienced Karma that led them out the door ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 Yes it is and deservedly so. What a step down from JFK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 Let me add how nutty Nixon was about Vietnam. He considered using atomic weapons there, not once, not twice, but three times. Operation Vulture, Operation Duck Hook, and during the Easter offensive. He then lied about the last in his book No More Vietnams. One of the worst books ever written on that subject. That beats LBJ hands down, 3-1. He only contemplated it once, during Khe Sanh. And to show what Wallace is trying to conceal, Kennedy would not even send in combat troops. Night and day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted October 21 Share Posted October 21 4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: Let me add how nutty Nixon was about Vietnam. He considered using atomic weapons there, not once, not twice, but three times. Operation Vulture, Operation Duck Hook, and during the Easter offensive. He then lied about the last in his book No More Vietnams. One of the worst books ever written on that subject. That beats LBJ hands down, 3-1. He only contemplated it once, during Khe Sanh. And to show what Wallace is trying to conceal, Kennedy would not even send in combat troops. Night and day. Lyndon Johnson wanted to bomb Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis at the very moment JFK was settling it. That would have caused WWIII. Lyndon Johnson orchestrated Israel's attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1968 so the heinous crime could be blamed on Egypt. That literally almost caused WWIII as LBJ and McNamara got on the military phone and called back American nuclear loaded planes that were 5 minutes from dropping bombs on Cairo. Source on this is Moe Shafer (USS Liberty crew member, still alive) who was told this by Admiral Martin, the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterrean. That is #2 time LBJ almost cause WWIII because Russia would have nuked Israel if we had nuked Cairo. (Yes, I know these were not Vietnam related). As for LBJ going nuclear in Vietnam - TEXAS GOV. JOHN CONNALLY WAS URGING HIM TO DO IT - See Connally's autobiography! After the Tet Offensive and in response to Khe Sanh being in danger, Lyndon Johnson on Feb. 1, 1968 was on the verge of using NUCLEAR WEAPONS in Vietnam and only stopped after the Prime Ministers of Canada and the United Kingdom denounced the idea on CBS’s Face the Nation on Feb. 11, 1968. LBJ had approved “Operation Fracture Jaw” on the day before Feb. 10, 1968 and he finally canceled the order to use nukes on Monday, Feb. 12, 1968 https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/10/24/that-sensational-new-york-times-story-about-lbj-saving-america-from-nuclear-war-in-vietnam-is-wrong/ That sensational New York Times story about LBJ saving America from nuclear war in Vietnam is wrong A recent book and article makes a mountain out of contingency planning. By Gregg Jones|Contributor 2:00 AM on Oct 24, 2018 On Saturday, Oct. 6, presidential historian Michael Beschloss was on Twitter early and often, tweeting and retweeting a front-page New York Times story about his new book, Presidents of War. In the telling of veteran Times reporter David Sanger, the historian scored a spectacular discovery in the archives of the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin: a secret plan by General William Westmoreland to move tactical nuclear weapons to South Vietnam in 1968. According to Beschloss's account, an upset President Lyndon Johnson aborted the scheme, saving America from a potential nuclear confrontation that could have ignited World War III. The story was sensational — and wrong or misleading on multiple counts. Over the past 50 years, newspaper stories, journal articles and at least seven books, including one by me, have examined the Khe Sanh nuclear weapons discussions — just one of several relevant facts omitted by Beschloss and the Times. The article was a publicity coup for the historian and his publisher, Crown/Penguin Random House, which also published Sanger's three most recent books. Yet the account distorts the actual events. It also creates the false impression that a reckless general brought America to the brink of nuclear war, only to be slapped down by a principled president. How a muted one-page passage in Beschloss's book became a breathless article in the New York Times remains unclear. Sanger didn't respond to emailed questions about the Times story. Beschloss's publicist at Crown/Penguin Random House, Rachel Rokicki, responded to a detailed set of questions with a thirteen-word statement: "Presidents of War accurately represents Beschloss's research and Crown stands behind his work." Communists attack The story begins in January 1968. America convulsed with anti-war protests. A siege mentality infected the White House. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had turned against the war, and LBJ faced hostile scrutiny in the U.S. Senate from a potent pair of anti-war Democrats: William Fulbright, chairman of the important Foreign Relations committee; and Eugene McCarthy, standard bearer of an insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Publicly, the president assured Americans that victory was in sight. Privately, he pored over military intelligence reports warning of major communist attacks in the near future. Intelligence analysts pointed to the remote Marine base at Khe Sanh as a likely target. On Jan. 21, the communists attacked, laying siege to the outposts and main combat base at Khe Sanh. Two days later, a U.S. Navy spy ship, the USS Pueblo, was seized off the coast of North Korea. On Jan. 30-31 in the Tet Offensive, communist forces launched attacks on major urban centers throughout South Vietnam. From the outset, LBJ was determined not to lose Khe Sanh. He pressed the chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle "Buzz" Wheeler, to make sure that Westmoreland had everything he needed to hold the American outpost. Johnson put the issue of tactical nuclear weapons on the table almost immediately. On Feb. 1, at the behest of Johnson, Wheeler queried Westmoreland on the feasibility of tactical nuclear strikes at Khe Sanh. The following night, LBJ phoned Wheeler to press him yet again on whether nuclear weapons might have to be used to save Khe Sanh. The chairman forwarded the president's concerns to Westmoreland. Addressing the nuclear issue, Westmoreland wrote that "the use of tactical nuclear weapons should not be required in the present situation." But if the situation along the frontier with North Vietnam changed dramatically, "I visualize that either tactical nuclear weapons or chemical agents would be active candidates for employment." Wheeler forwarded the commander's response to the White House on Feb. 3. On Feb. 5, communist forces launched the first of three ground attacks on Khe Sanh outposts. A U.S. Army Special Forces camp at the village of Lang Vei was overrun. A platoon-size Marine outpost less than two miles from Khe Sanh Combat Base was abandoned. As communist forces turned up the pressure at Khe Sanh, word of President Johnson's nuclear weapons discussions leaked in Washington. LBJ had a new crisis on his hands. Three documents The Times offers three documents as smoking guns in its case that Beschloss has uncovered a shocking back-door effort by Westmoreland to move nuclear weapons to Vietnam in 1968. But the Times analysis conflates events, makes wrong assumptions and ignores contradictory evidence. The first document offered by the Times is a Feb. 10 cable from Westmoreland to his superior, Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, the U.S. Pacific commander. In it, Westmoreland writes, "Oplan [Operation Plan] Fracture Jaw has been approved by me." The second document is a Feb. 10 "eyes only" memo written by White House national security adviser Walt W. Rostow to Johnson. The Times describes the memo as the first "alert" given the president about the secret "Fracture Jaw" operation to move nuclear weapons to South Vietnam. The Times interviewed former White House aide Tom Johnson, who says LBJ "rejected the plan and ordered a turnaround." The third document presented by the Times is a Feb. 12 cable from Sharp to Westmoreland, ordering the termination of "all planning for Fracture Jaw." The Times omits cables that reveal President Johnson's repeated questions for Westmoreland about whether nuclear weapons would be needed to defend Khe Sanh. In one cable, dated Feb. 1, Wheeler directs Westmoreland to conduct contingency planning for the use of tactical nuclear weapons around Khe Sanh. In citing the Feb. 12 cable from Sharp to Westmoreland, the Times ignores a fundamental question: If President Johnson just learned of a secret scheme to introduce nuclear weapons to Vietnam and was "extraordinarily upset," as Tom Johnson told the Times, why did nearly 48 hours pass before Westmoreland was ordered to terminate the nuclear planning? Media reaction There is a less sensational explanation for the sudden shutdown of Fracture Jaw planning. On Saturday, Feb. 10, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other U.S. newspapers carried articles on the Johnson administration's rumored nuclear weapons discussions. The previous day the Post had reported a comment by Sen. Eugene McCarthy that nuclear weapons were indeed being considered. The White House was in damage-control mode. At 3:17 p.m., President Johnson convened a White House meeting with his senior Foreign Affairs Advisory Council. Vietnam was the focal point of the nearly two-hour meeting: Khe Sanh and Hue; troop levels and equipment; even nuclear weapons. But at no point did anyone suggest alarm over Westmoreland's actions. The subject of nuclear weapons was raised at the outset by President Johnson, according to an aide's detailed notes. "Is it true there are no nuclear weapons in Vietnam?" LBJ asked. "It is true there are none there," responded Defense Secretary McNamara. Johnson posed another question on the nuclear issue. Notably, he directed it to White House press secretary George Christian. "Do you expect any more trouble on the nuclear matter?" LBJ asked. "No, I think it will die down," Christian said. He was wrong. Halting Fracture Jaw The Khe Sanh nuclear weapons story blew up on the Johnson White House during the Sunday morning news shows of Feb. 11, 1968. On the CBS News program, Face the Nation, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson declared that it would be "sheer lunacy" for the U.S. to use nuclear weapons in South Vietnam. The Canadian prime minister described the prospect as madness. It was against the backdrop of rising global denunciations that the Johnson administration shut down the nuclear contingency planning on Feb. 12. Sharp sent his cable to Westmoreland, ordering him to "discontinue all planning for Fracture Jaw." He also ordered a tight lid on all related documents and discussions. The story bedeviled LBJ throughout that week. On Feb. 16, Johnson held a press conference to deny any such discussions underway. "The president must make the decision to deploy nuclear weapons," he said. "No recommendation has been made to me. Beyond that, I think we ought to put an end to that discussion." Contingency plan In the decades since, the full story has emerged in pieces. In 1976, Westmoreland discussed his role in the planning. "Although I established a small secret group to study the subject, Washington so feared that some word of it might reach the press that I was told to desist," he wrote in his memoirs, A Soldier Reports. "I felt at the time and even more so now that to fail to consider this alternative was a mistake." In 1991, much of the secret cable traffic involving the nuclear discussions was revealed in Valley of Decision, a book by Khe Sanh chaplain Ray Stubbe and national security scholar John Prados. The codename for the nuclear contingency planning, "Fracture Jaw," came to light in a 1997 official Marine Corps volume, The Defining Year, 1968, written by historian Jack Shulimson. Further discussion of "Fracture Jaw" followed in 2006 in MACV: The Years of Withdrawal 1968-1973, a U.S. Army history authored by Graham A. Cosmas. One cable in particular leaves little doubt that Westmoreland's nuclear planning was conducted with the full knowledge of the White House. On Feb. 1, 1968, LBJ's chairman of the Joint Chiefs asked Westmoreland and Sharp for their views "as to whether there are targets in the area which lend themselves to nuclear strikes, whether some contingency nuclear planning would be in order, and what you consider to be some of the more significant pros and cons." Wheeler further suggested that Westmoreland might have to "put a few of your bright planners on this." And so, with the blessings of President Johnson's top military adviser, contingency planning for the possible use of nuclear weapons at Khe Sanh moved into high gear. It ended days later, without drama, as nothing more than a contingency plan. Historians and researchers have known that for decades. Gregg Jones is author of Last Stand at Khe Sanh: The U.S. Marines' Finest Hour in Vietnam and a former Dallas Morning News reporter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted October 21 Share Posted October 21 (edited) 23 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: BTW Gil, in the new movie about Trump, The Apprentice, they begin with the Nixon, "I'm not a crook" video. Which I thought was really clever. I reviewed it at my substack site. I thought the film was pretty decent. I agree about Nixon, he was really a demon. Going back to the forties and the Voorhees smear and then labeling Douglas as a dupe for Stalin. But maybe the worst thing he did was the original October Surprise. Johnson finally saw the light about Vietnam with Tet. And he wants to start a truce negotiation. Nixon sandbaggged it to deliberately prolong the war. Later on in an interview he did for that hack journalist Monica Crowley, he tried to deny Kennedy would have gotten out of Vietnam. Nixon said Kennedy was a Cold Warrior. What a load of excrement. This is why I made something out of the 1957 Algeria speech, because JFK actually attacked Nixon directly over his support for French colonialism in Africa. And near the end of that speech, JFK reminded everyone about the collapse at Dien Bien Phu just 3 years prior. Nixon was actually the point man in congress for Operation Vulture, the plan to use atomic bombs there. Kennedy directly attacked that by saying no amount of explosive power will help us without the support of the Vietnamese people. Nixon was the Cold Warrior, and even his rather sympathetic biographer Ambrose said RMN was a bit unhinged over Vietnam. Which he was. And Wallace tries to rehab this guy. Sheesh. There is a liberal fantasy that Richard Nixon killed American negotiations with the Vietnamese during the 1968 election campaign because he did not want a truce or a bombing halt because it would hurt his chance to beat Humphrey. Luke Nichter in his book The Year that Broke Politics debunks that notion quite nicely. The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968: Nichter, Luke A.: 9780300280135: Amazon.com: Books The truth of the matter is LYNDON JOHNSON DID NOT WANT A BOMBING HALT; HE WANTED TO WIN THE VIETNAM WAR. And seconded, Vietnam war addict LYNDON JOHNSON WANTED RICHARD NIXON TO WIN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OVER HUBERT HUMPHREY who LBJ saw as a traitor on the Vietnam issue. LBJ spent the entire election year of 1968 stabbing Humphrey in the back over and over again. LBJ had to "pretend" he was for HHH, but as he sadistically made HHH tow the Vietnam line, Johnson was undermining HHH every chance he could. The colluding that was going on was not Richard Nixon with the South Vietnamese but rather LYNDON JOHNSON COLLUDING WITH NIXON TO BEAT HUBERT HUMPHREY. LBJ's negotiators (Averell Harriman et alia) wanted a deal with the Vietnamese but LBJ was doing everything he could to sabotage that. Yes, Nixon was delighted to have LBJ do all his dirty work for him. Harriman and others wanted a deal and wanted to beat Nixon, but not LBJ! I read a lot on LBJ and I will tell you there is no chance in hell that Vietnam war addict Lyndon Johnson 1) actually voted for Humphrey (sure Lady Bird did) and 2) actually voted for George McGovern in 1972 (although he did issue a tepid endorsement to a Fredericksburg paper because he had to). One more thing - and weirdly it is a nice thing about LBJ: he kept the USA from going to war in Vietnam as Dienbienphu was about to fall in 1954: Sec. of State John Foster Dulles wanted to go to war, wanted to drop a nuclear bomb and Lyndon Johnson said we are not going to do this because our allies are not going along with this. I just said something nice about Lyndon Johnson because that was a wise move. Edited October 21 by Robert Morrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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