RIPPLE SALVO… #968… SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CLARK CLIFFORD SPARED NO CRITICISM OF VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON’s “…interference in the security affairs of the nation by a private individual” in his auto biography COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT: “At about this time (late October 1968), a new and potentially explosive factor entered the picture: our discovery, through intelligence channels, of a plot–there is no other word for it–to help Nixon win the election by a flagrant interference in the negotiations (with North Vietnam).”..
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED SIXTY-EIGHT of a review of Operation Rolling Thunder as a part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War…
THE WAR from the New York Times for 28 and 29 October 1968…
Monday, 28 Oct: THE WAR: Page 15: “ENEMY INFANTRYMEN ATTACK 2 OUTPOSTS IN SCATTERED ARES”…. “Enemy infantrymen went on the offensive again early today, attacking a small South Vietnamese outpost in the Mekong Delta and another in the Central Highlands. The first assault took place a Cason, about 70 miles southwest of Saigon. The other attack took place in Darlac, about 180 miles northeast of Saigon. Casualties were termed very light and there wa no report of enemy casualties. In actions initiated by allied unit, more than a hundred enemy soldiers were killed during the last 24 hours.”… “In the air war, a light observation plane was knocked down Friday afternoon by enemy ground fire near Dakto…it was the 317th fixed wing aircraft lost in South Vietnam in combat since the war began in 1961. The crew wa rescued.”… Page 12: “U.S. DENIES FOE’S GUNS STRUCK THE U.S.S. NEW JERSEY”… Page 15: “MARINE PILOT MAJOR DAVID L. ALTHOFF NAMED MARINE CORPS AVIATOR OF THE YEAR”… “A helicopter pilot who earned three Silver Stars, three Distinguished Flying Crosses and 50 Air Medals in Vietnam is the Marine Corps Aviator of the Year. Major David L. Althoff…was presented the Alfred A. Cunningham award at a Miami Beach event this weekend.”… Tuesday, 29 Oct: THE WAR: Page 6: “B-52’s ATTACK ENEMY POSITIONS NORTH OF THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE”… “B-52 bombers flew five strikes yesterday against targets in the demilitarized zone and just inside North Vietnam. there was no bomb damage report. The targets were artillery positions, bunkers, storage areas and truck parks, all within a 12-mile radius of Conthien, an American base about two miles south of the DMZ… There were no major engagements reported in the ground war over the last 24 hours.”…
PEACE TALKS: 29 October 1968: As Warner Wolfe, legendary Washington sportscaster would say: “Let’s go to the tapes.” The State Department, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents were transcribed from the endless tapes recorded in LBJ’s White House. 29 October was a rare day, with meetings almost around the clock, that produced eleven documents detailing the last hours of five and a half months of diplomatic effort to get “serious talks” started to de-escalate the Vietnam war. Humble Host hopes you have time to peruse these documents, including the issues raised by Vice President Nixon’s plot to have the negotiations postponed until he was in office in January 1969. The eleven documents are in series with easy access from one to the next. They are included here as part of the Rolling Thunder story… Read Document 140, the notes of a meeting held at 2:30 A.M. on the morning of the 29th. Honored attendee was General Abrams who was flown all the way back from Saigon to answer LBJ’s questions and provide assurance that stopping the bombing would not lead to an increase in the loss of lives among the troops. As soon as the meeting was over General Abrams was secreted out in the night to try to keep his visit our =t of the press. Dan Rather scooped the story. The Nixon interference is further described in RS below… After 140, continue to 150 using the carrot in the right margin of 140 to access 141, etc…
Doc 140… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d140
29 OCTOBER 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times, Page 15: “Enemy gunners further north knocked down an Air Force Thunderchief fighter-bomber west of Dang Hoi. The pilot was listed as missing. (This is 1LT ROBERT C. EDMUNDS and the loss was included in RT ops for 27 Oct 68)… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed win losses in Southeast Asia on 29 October 1968.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON THE FOUR 29 OCTOBER DATES FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968… NONE… oohrah…
RIPPLE SALVO… #968… HUMBLE HOST goes to Clark Clifford’s autobiography for this tale of treachery by a man who earned the nickname Tricky Dicky while he was President. I include a four page segment from COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT to ensure the whole sordid tale is archived in the RTR reminiscence.
“BUI DIEM AND ‘THE LITTLE FLOWER” (Pages 581-584)
“At about this time, a new and potentially explosive factor entered the picture: our discovery, through intelligence channels, of a plot–there is no other word for it–to help Nixon win the election by a flagrant interference in the negotiation. History is filled with characters who emerge for a moment, play a critical, sometimes even decisive, role in a historic event, and then recede again into their normal lives. Such was the function of two people who played key roles in electing Richard Nixon in 1968. Bui Diem, South Vietnam’s Ambassador in Washington, and Anna Chennaault, the Chinese-born widow of General Claire Chennault, the commander of the famed Flying Tigers in Burma and China during World War II.
“Mrs. Chennault, a small intense and energetic woman who was often in the company of her close friend Tommy Corcoran, was chairwoman of Republican Women for Nixon in 1968. Early in the year, she took Bui Diem to New York to meet Nixon. When Diem alerted his closest friend in the Administration, Bill Bundy, to the meeting, Bundy raised no objections, it was quite appropriate for an Ambassador to meet with a former Vice President. But Diem neglected to mention to Bundy that, at Nixon’s request, he had opened a secret personal channel to John Mitchell and other senior members of the Nixon team through Chennault and John Tower, the Republican Senator from Texas.
“There was almost no one in Washington as well informed as the popular and affable Bui Diem. The State Department kept him informed of the negotiations in Paris, his own government sent him reports on the Bunker-Thieu talks in Saigon, and he maintained close relations with many prominent Americans, especially Republican conservatives such as Senator Tower and Everett Dirksen, the Senate Minority Leader. It was not difficult for Ambassador Bui Diem to pass information to Anna Chennault, who was in contact with John Mitchell, she said later, ‘at least once a day.’ Even more important, Diem could convey advice from Nixon to Thieu.
“In his memoirs, Diem claims he sent only two ‘relevant messages’ to Saigon during October. While ‘they constituted circumstantial evidence for anybody ready to assume the worst,’ he wrote, ‘they certainly did not mean that I had arranged a deal with the Republicans.’ Some of Diem’s messages in Saigon later became public. On October 23, he cabled Thieu: ‘Many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged us to stand firm. They were alarmed by press reports to the effect that you had already softened your position.’ October 27: “The longer the present situation continues, the more we are favored… I an regularly in touch with the Nixon entourage.’ Despite his disclaimers, I believe there were other messages, delivered through other channels; Diem correctly suspected he was under surveillance by American intelligence, and tried to fool his watchers by using more secure channels.
“Diem was not Anna Chennault’s only channel to Saigon. As he wrote in his own memoirs, ‘My impression was that she may have played her own game in encouraging the South Vietnamese and the Republicans.’ She took seriously Nixon’s request that she act as ‘the sole representative between the Vietnamese government and the Nixon campaign headquarters,’ and she certainly found other routes of communicating with President Thieu, including the South Vietnamese Ambassador to Taiwan, who happened to be Thieu’s brother.
“What was conveyed to Thieu through Chennault channel may never be known, but there was no doubt that she conveyed a simple and authoritative message from the Nixon camp that was probably decisive in convincing President Thieu to defy President Johnson–thus delaying the negotiations and prolonging the war. Rather proudly, she recounted our specific message she received from John Mitchell in the last few days of the campaign: ‘Anna,’ she quotes him as saying,’I’m speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It is very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you have made that clear to them.
“The activities of the Nixon team went far beyond the bounds of justifiable political combat. It constituted direct interference in the activities of the executive branch and the responsibilities of the Chief Executive, the only people with authority to negotiate on behalf of the nation. The activities of the Nixon campaign constituted a gross, even potentially illegal, interference in the security affairs of the nation by private individuals.
“We became aware of these activities through the normal operations of the intelligence community in the weeks prior to the election. Gradually we realized that President Thieu’s growing resistance to the agreement in Paris was being encouraged, indeed stimulated, by the Republicans, and especially Anna Chennault, whom we referred to as the ‘Little Flower.’ In total privacy–and at the President’s direction, without consulting Humphrey–the President, Rusk, Rostow, and I discussed what to do about his attempt to thwart negotiations.
“It was an extraordinary dilemma. On one hand, we had positive evidence that the Little Flower and other people s[peaking for theRepublican candidate were encouraging President Thieu to delay the negotiations for political reasons. On the other, the information had been derived from extremely sensitive intelligence gathering operations of the FBI, the CIA, and the national Security Agency; these included surveillance of the Ambassador of our ally, and an American citizen with strong political ties to the Republicans.
“In a decision filled with consequences for the election and for history, President Johnson, although furious at Mrs. Chennault, decided not to use the information or make it public in any way. There were several contributing factors to his decision:
*Underestimation of the damage. Bunker continued to predict that Thieu would accept our position within a few days. As a result, the President and Rusk seriously underestimated the harm the Chennault channel caused to the negotiating efforts.
*Weakening the support fro Saigon. Johnson and Rusk still worried about losing American support for Thieu if information about his behavior and motives became public. For those who liked irony, there was plenty in Thieu’s defiance of Johnson while the Administration continued to shield him from the wrath of American public opinion. President Johnson had sacrificed his political career as a result of his effort to save South Vietnam, but as far as Thieu was concerned, Johnson was just a lame duck–the choice was between Humphrey and Nixon.
*Effect on the negotiations. Rusk was concerned that revealing the Chennault channel would reveal to Hanoi the strains between Saigon and Washington, stiffen Hanoi’s position, and disrupt the negotiations.
*Ambivalence about Hubert Humphrey. Finally, and most important, there was the question of President Johnson’s feelings about Hubert Humphrey. throughout the campaign, the President treated his Vice President badly, excluding him from National Security Council meetings, and threatening to break with him over the platform plank on Vietnam. What mattered to President Johnson at that moment was not who would succeed him, but what his place in history would be.
“Characteristically. the generous Humphrey does not even mention the incident in his memoirs, even though one of his staff told him about Bui Diem’s efforts on Nixon’s behalf, and he could reasonable have claimed that these events cost him the Presidency.
“Perhaps in the wake of a decade of post-Watergate revelations about intelligence activities, the decision not to go public may seem fussy and old-fashioned, but whether the President was right or wrong, it was an exceedingly rough call. Had the decision been mine alone to make, I would either have had a private discussion with Nixon, making clear to him that if he did not send a countervailing signal to Thieu immediately he would face public criticism from the President for interference in the negotiations, or I would have allowed the incident to become public, so that the American public might take it into account in deciding how to vote. Had he been the candidate himself, this is what I believed Lyndon Johnson would have done.
“All this raises a critical question: what did Richard Nixon know, and when did he know it? No proof–in the terminology of the Watergate era, no ‘smoking gun’–has ever turned up linking Nixon directly to the secret message to Thieu. There are no self-incriminating tapes from the campaign, and the whole incident has been relegated to the status of an unsolved mystery. On the other hand, this chain of events undeniably began in Richard Nixon’s apartment in New York, and his closest adviser, John Mitchell, ran the Chennault channel personally, with full understanding of its sensitivity. Given the importance of these events, I have always thought it was reasonable to assume that Mitchell told Nixon about them, and that Nixon knew, and approved, of what was going on in his name.”… End quote…
The next six pages of Clifford’s book (pgs. 585-591) correspond to and reflect the events and conversations recorded in the Historical Documents referred to above (140 to 150)… The sub-title of the pages: THE LAST DAYS, HISTORY IN THE BALANCE…
RTR Quote for 29 October: The Q&A between the President and General Abrams in Historical Document 140…
Lest we forget… Bear