One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon Read Online Free PDF

imminent,” Nixon wrote in his memoirs.
    He went public on October 26 with a classic phrase of political language: he suggested that the pact might be “a cynical last-minute attempt by President Johnson to salvage the candidacy of Mr. Humphrey. This I do not believe.” Those last five words were false.
    Johnson and Nixon had hated each other since they first met as senators in 1951. Both were hardened veterans of political warfare. For this battle the president had more firepower (the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI), but Nixon had the guerrilla’s edge of sabotage and sneak attacks.
    On October 28 an NSA intercept from Saigon landed at the White House, direct from the agency’s headquarters in Maryland. It quoted President Thieu word for word: “It appears Mr. Nixon will be elected as the next President, and he thinks it would be good to try to solve the important question of the political talks with the next President.” The intercept was unambiguous: Nixon was in contact with Saigon, and he was trying to undermine the peace deal.
    At dawn on October 29, Johnson read a memo from his national security adviser, Walt Whitman Rostow, quoting a Wall Street executive very close to Nixon. His inside information matched the NSA’s intelligence reporting: “Nixon was playing the problem,” trying to “incite Saigon to be difficult,” sending a message to Thieu to hold out for a better deal in the next administration.
    His fury mounting, the president ordered the FBI to place Anna Chennault under surveillance and to monitor the telephone lines of Ambassador Bui Diem at the embassy of South Vietnam.
    The FBI immediately picked up their conversations. On October 30, Diem told the Dragon Lady to come see him immediately. The FBI’s deputy director, Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, had the report in the president’s hands within hours. After reading it, Johnson conveyed a clear warning to Nixon through the Republican leader of the Senate, Everett Dirksen of Illinois. LBJ advised, “He better keep Mrs. Chennault and all this crowd tied up for a few days.”
    On Thursday, October 31, Johnson announced a bombing halt. The national polling networks recorded an immediate and immense shift, measured in millions of votes, away from Nixon and toward Humphrey.
    But Thieu had balked. He proclaimed that he would not go to the Paris peace conference alongside the Americans. He would not negotiate with the Communists. He would not accept any deal in the name of peace. He would not consider a coalition in pursuit of a cease-fire. Nor would he see the American ambassador or take his urgent calls. “South Vietnam is not a truck to be attached to a locomotive which will pull it wherever it likes,” he told reporters in Saigon.
    Peace was on hold.
    *   *   *
    LBJ, certain that a Nixon plot was afoot, telephoned his closest friend in the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia, the longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on the day he announced the bombing halt, October 31. “The Republican nominee—our California friend—has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends,” LBJ told the senator. “He’s been doing it through rather subterranean sources. He has been saying to the allies that ‘You’re going to get sold out … You better not give away your liberty just a few hours before I can preserve it for you.’”
    LBJ’s top aides huddled on Saturday morning, November 2, to assess the situation. “It’s clear as day!” said the deputy secretary of defense, Paul Nitze. “Thieu is scared that Humphrey & Democrats will force a coalition on him & the Republicans won’t,” read the minutes of their meeting. That night, the president had the proof in hand. Rostow sent an urgent teletype from the White House to the president at the LBJ Ranch in Texas. The FBI had overheard Chennault delivering “a message from her boss” to Ambassador Diem. The message was “Hold on. We are going to win.”
    The