Profiting Off Nixon’s Vietnam ‘Treason’

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Profiting Off Nixon’s Vietnam ‘Treason’
March 4, 2012

Exclusive: The notion of Wall Street bankers meeting in private to discuss profiting off a plot to extend the Vietnam War and risk the lives of thousands of American soldiers may sound like a conspiracy movie script, but it is a tragic reality reflected in once secret White House documents, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


As I pored over documents from what the archivists at Lyndon Johnson’s presidential library call their “X-File” – chronicling Richard Nixon’s apparent sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968 – I was surprised by one fact in particular, how Johnson’s White House got wind of what Johnson later labeled Nixon’s “treason.”

According to the records, Eugene Rostow, Johnson’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, got a tip in late October 1968 from a Wall Street source who said that one of Nixon’s closest financial backers was describing Nixon’s plan to “block” a peace settlement of the Vietnam War. The backer was sharing this information with his banking colleagues to help them place their bets on stocks and bonds.

In other words, these investment bankers were colluding over how to make money with their inside knowledge of Nixon’s scheme to extend the Vietnam War. Such an image of these “masters of the universe” sitting around a table plotting financial strategies while a half million American soldiers were sitting in a war zone was a picture that even the harshest critics of Wall Street might find hard to envision.

Yet, that tip – about Nixon’s Wall Street friends discussing his apparent tip on the likely course of the Vietnam War – was the first clear indication that Johnson’s White House had that the sudden resistance from South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to Paris peace talks may have involved a collaboration with Nixon, the Republican candidate for president who feared progress toward peace could cost him the election. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/03/04/profiting-off-nixons-vietnam-treason/

[Vincardog]

1. Not the first nor the last republiCON to foment war for personal political advantage. BO seems to

be on the same path with IRAN.

[Demeter]

2. I knew Nixon was Twisty, But I Didn't Think He Was THAT Twisty

and not that early in the game, either....if the financiers bullied him into this, no wonder he became a drunken sot.

The Vietnam War made no sense from the military or political perspective...the only motive left is the profit motive.

[JDPriestly]

4. It's his policies that have entangled us in Pakistan and

he started the movement to sell our industry out to China.

Reagan picked up where Nixon left off.

ERISA also left a lot to be desired especially since it did not adequately protect workers' interests in benefits from their health insurance policies or insure all of their pension when their company was sold.

Nixon pretended to pursue middle-of-the-road policies but was actually messing the country up over and over.

I think that history will judge the Nixon presidency more harshly as time passes.

[INdemo]

3. When you have the time check out the 5 part series on

You tube Just enter "War Made Easy"..This well produced doucmentary shows what Repukes dont want to hear or watch...
I think Vietnam comes in on part 3.. (correction)I think there are 8 parts, all well produced. Vietnam starts
@ 12 minutes plus

&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL7456899F237F33D9

[LiberalEsto]

5. I remember Nixon's "Secret peace plan to end the war"

It was a huge campaign promise to delude young people into voting for him.

I hope he's rotting in hell. Watergate was nothing compared to his collusion in the death and maiming of so many on both sides of the conflict.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Nixon's Pardon from Ford was most sweeping in scope, I wonder what those other reasons were?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_ford

Pardon of Nixon
President Ford appears at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing regarding his pardon of Richard Nixon. Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Nixon Pardon

On September 8, 1974, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed against the United States while President.[58][59][60] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country, and that the Nixon family's situation "is a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."[61] When he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford also introduced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada.[62] Unconditional amnesty, however, did not come about until the Jimmy Carter Presidency.[63]

The Nixon pardon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and claimed a "corrupt bargain" had been struck between the men.[9] They claimed Ford's pardon was granted in exchange for Nixon's resignation that elevated Ford to the Presidency. According to Bob Woodward, Nixon Chief of Staff Alexander Haig proposed a pardon deal to Ford. He later decided to pardon Nixon for other reasons, primarily the friendship he and Nixon shared.[64] Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the election in 1976, an observation with which Ford agreed.[64] In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was "a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that in a stroke had destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence".[36]

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Much broader than just Watergate, the pardon covered Nixon's entire terms of office.

As to the point of the OP, it seems conspiracy at the highest levels of government do exist, go figure.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.