SOMETIMES THE ADVISORS ARE VERY WRONG :

In the months running up to the 1968 election, it was clear that the war in Viet Nam was a linchpin element throughout the country. Then president Johnson had finally moved the parties off deadlock and was looking at calling them to the peace table in Paris by year’s end. The issue was, if that played out in the media, it would most likely bring to an end the major criticism of the democratic party and the GOP could very well lose the race for the white house. Sometime before the election, then candidate Nixon, along with his close campaign cohorts, Haldeman and Mitchell, a meeting was held in an iconic Pierre hotel on Fifth avenue in New York where the Nixon campaign had its headquarters. Added to this team of “plumbers” was Anna Chennault, the widow of the famous Claire Chennault of Flying Tigers fame. She was a international celebrity in her own right and a rabid anti communist activist. A plan was hatched to convince the South Viet Nam regime to stall going to the peace table until after the election, thus securing the win for the republican party. The plan was put in to action in the weeks just before the election. Right about that same time, through intelligence sources,  the plan was made known to President Johnson. referring to it as pure treason, he warned Nixon to back off from the plan but Nixon forged ahead.  Johnson, on counsel from his top advisors, opted not to make the plan public, figuring it would taint the election, among other things. As a result, we got Nixon, six plus more years of war in southeast Asia and over twenty-five thousand more American deaths and more than double that of Vietnamese deaths. Then we got the eventual resignation of a president, an unindicted co conspirator in yet another effort to rig an election.

Fast forward to the year 2015 and the run up to the 2016 election. The intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and the FBI had inklings that there may be a connection between the GOP candidate campaign and the Russian intelligence service. By the end of 2015, further investigation reveals that there was in fact a high confidence level of information that demonstrates this to be true. FISA warrants are sworn out for surveillance on certain individuals and a full investigation is launched. In June of 2016, there is a meeting with a Russian operative attended by the GOP campaign chairman, the candidate’s son and son-in-law and several other Russian connected persons. The meeting is held once again in a luxury apartment tower on fifth avenue in New York. The key element which drew this meeting together was the idea that Russian intelligence had credible information that, if made public, would seriously damage the opposition party and it’s run for the white house. The investigation continues and, while  there are other quite chaotic events which complicate the scenario, the underlying issue is that the Russians were involved in the election. The one thing that is still puzzling is why did then President Obama, in counsel with his advisors, decide not to make these investigations public. The official answer is it was in order to not seem trying to sway the election. While there is clear and compelling evidence that Russian intelligence and the Russian president himself did in fact  play  a role in the 2016 election for the benefit of the GOP candidate, the sitting president decided to remain quiet.

 As a result, or at least significantly as a result, we got the trump administration – no doubt the most corrupt administration in history, not to mention an administration which operates openly in violation of the rule of law and of the constitution, enabled by a congress which is failing miserably in its responsibility to govern.

One has to harken back to the age old adage about nations failing to learn from history and therefore being doomed to repeat it. The events of the 1968 election and the 2016 election are prime examples of the reality of that adage. 

While there is, in hind sight, some room for debate, the consequences of being silent probably caused more damage to the country than if these essentially treasonous actions were made public. 

The group of Bunker, Bundy, Califano, McNamara, Clifford, Rusk et al made a critical mistake in 1968 and we paid a high price for it. The group of Biden, McDonough, Jarrett, Rhodes, Kerry, Rice et al made the same mistake and again the price is enormous.

For each in its own way, we have and will be paying for these decisions for decades to come.