Has anyone else heard the tapes recently released from the LBJ archives? Naturally, the report was on the BBC as we don't have a news industry in the US anymore. There's one between LBJ and Everett Dirksen (Republican senator). The Nixon/Humphrey election was going on. Nixon had been contacting the North Vietnamese via backdoor channels and told them not to sign the peace treaty they were ready to sign because Nixon promised them a better deal if they would wait until after the election. (The conventional wisdom is that the War turned the tide of the election to Nixon.) What Nixon didn't know was that the CIA was recording the contacts between the Nixon people and the North Vietnamese.
The lines in quotation marks are from my memory but they are pretty close if not exact.
LBJ told Dirksen that he was afraid if the American public knew that one of the candidates for President was committing treason, and doing it to steal the Presidential election, that it might "bring down the country". LBJ told Dirksen that "the public must never know" about Nixon's dealings but "this must stop". Dirkson replied, "I understand Mr. President."
LBJ (and Dirksen) took it to his grave.
While there have long been reports of this having happened listening to the tapes of the characters involved was pretty riveting stuff.
