The Richard Nixon Experience

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Eerie similarities mark our world today with the one Richard Nixon faced a half century ago. 

As we begin our Landmark Podcast Documentary Series on Richard Nixon we look at the world Richard Nixon faced as he stepped into office and how he had changed that world by the time he began his second term.

By January 29th, 1973, Richard Nixon stood with Abraham Lincoln as one of the two men who had saved the Union, and then......

Join us starting in July 2023 , for RICHARD NIXON, The Man who Saved the Union,

It will change everything you ever thought about Richard Nixon. 

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In this episode, we come to the end of the tumultuous year that was 1968 and we watch the winding down of the Lyndon Johnson Administration. It is truly an end to an era, as few men have ever dominated the public stage as Lyndon Johnson did our country for over two decades, even before he wound up in the White House. 

Joe Califano, an aid to President Johnson, is correct when he says the United States today is more a reflection of the hopes and dreams of President Lyndon Johnson than of any other President. If not for the catastrophe of Vietnam he would arguably be considered one of our great Presidents, if for nothing else but his work to guarantee equal rights for all Americans.

In this episode we watch him wind down his career and re-evaluate his impact on our country. We will listen as he addresses the nation and both houses of Congress in a rare, end of an administration "State of the Union " Address given just a week before he left office. Then we listen as the reigns of power are transferred from him to Richard Nixon.  

Then after an assessment from historian Michael Beschloss and some final thoughts from our host , Randal Wallace, we give the final word to the person closest to President Lyndon Johnson throughout his many years of public service, his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.

 Mrs. Johnson sat down in 1995 for an interview with ABC News Correspondent Barbara Walters for the program 20/20,  where she discusses everything from wildflowers, to changes in the social programs that were then under fire, to the place in history she felt her husband would occupy. It is one of my favorite interviews with any historic figure, and it will endear Lady Bird Johnson to an audience like few public figures in our history. 

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Coming July 3 and 4, a special two part 50th anniversary edition of The Richard Nixon Experience featuring stories from Vietnam War Veterans who visited the Travelling Wall in Myrtle Beach S.C., Prisoners of War who were honored at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda California, and the tapes of the two Presidents who worked so hard to stop the high water mark of Communism in the 1960s and 1970s as it was on the march in South East Asia in Vietnam. 

This is a special you will not want to miss. 

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This episode opens in the final two days of the 1968 campaign as the election polls  have tightened to an even race. Vice President Hubert Humphrey has made up enormous ground and with the announced bombing halt of North Vietnam it looks like all the momentum is with him. Here you see both Humphrey and former Vice President Richard Nixon out on the stump working overtime trying to get the race won. In a last day rally in Texas at the Houston Astrodome President Lyndon Johnson comes out to sway Texas voters on behalf of the Democratic standard bearer. 

The race is to close to call but finally by the closest of  margins, even closer than the 1960 election, Richard Nixon holds on to win the Presidency. Hear both candidates speak to their supporters and hear President Lyndon Johnson console the Humphrey's just moments after Vice President Humphrey concedes the race. 

Then we listen in as President Johnson puts to use all his skills to persuade Senator Everett Dirksen and President - Elect Richard Nixon to work on making the Paris Peace talks happen. It is in these calls, and in another to Florida Senator George Smathers, that we hear what Johnson really thinks about who has been meddling in the attempts to bring the South Vietnamese to the table. It is the Un-smoking gun that sinks the Chennault Affair as being an act of treason committed by Richard Nixon, if you really care about truth that is.  

You will also hear a promise from Richard Nixon to Lyndon Johnson the we will see Richard Nixon live up to throughout the next four years, at his own political detriment. 

It is a fascinating end to a fascinating year of massive UPHEAVAL in our country, the United States of America. 

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This is the second episode examining the phone calls so often cited as proof of the Chennault Affair and Lyndon Johnson's acknowledgement of Richard Nixon's "treason". 

When you listen to them all it will often leave you wondering if there is any there, there. Or is it the hope of a man, prone to paranoia, looking for an excuse as to why something he hoped so totally would come to pass, peace in Vietnam under his watch, would come true. 

Here you will hear them all, from start to finish, not snippets meant to prove a narrative, but the entire phone call, and it will give you a fuller sense of what Lyndon Johnson actually knew, and or believed he knew. 

These are the calls made after the Bombing Halt announcement on October 31, 1968 but before the November 5, 1968 Presidential General Election. 

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 These are a collection of phone calls, in their entirety of President Lyndon Johnson talking to the three Presidential candidates, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, Democratic Senator Richard Russell, and cabinet members Dean Rusk and Clark Clifford.

In it you will hear Lyndon Johnson talking to people with different goals in mind. He is sending messages to others through some people and developing strategy for how to deal with situations with others and seeking reassurance in still others.  It is a real glimpse at how LBJ operated and how he often thought out loud as he worked his way through problems. Unlike the news reports or historical documentaries, we are playing these calls in their entirety, not just snippets trying to prove our point. You will get to hear LBJ talk about Treason, and people's kids , the mundane, to the outrageous, and you will get to hear for yourself the messages, and the thoughts, of our 36th President, as he struggles with trying to force his will on a war, an election, an ally, and an entrenched enemy, all at the same time.  You will get to hear for yourself the use of the Johnson treatment with all its bombast, bullying, flattery, deceptiveness, and delusions, plus his real desire and hope to play a role in peace, and ending this war. A war that brought his career to an end. These calls were the ones made before the announced bombing halt on October 31, Halloween 1968. 

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During the investigation of Former President Donald Trump over whether he had been colluding with the Russian Government in attempts to sway the 2016 Presidential election, television host Rachel Maddow and her host network MSNBC decided they would be cute and put on a television special designed to use the example of Richard Nixon committing treason to somehow allude to President Trump as guilty of the same. 

It was a true gift to the memory of President Richard Nixon. It had so many clear and glaring errors, assumptions of facts, and in the case of Joe Califano out right misrepresentations (I could use a stronger word but won't) , that we decided that it made the obvious contrast with our research of the facts.  So enjoy as we take the network special  through a thorough examination of what I will term as historical fiction vs Historical fact.

Then we will also look at one aspect of the Chennault Affair that seems to be often over looked. That much of the basis for this accusation comes from former President Lyndon Johnson's tape recordings. Much of what we know we learned because Johnson had illegally taped Anna Chennault, the South Vietnamese Ambassador and the President of South Vietnam's phone lines in Saigon. That based on that material Lyndon Johnson commented on what he believed was a vast conspiracy to undermine him, his administration's efforts for long hoped for peace in Vietnam, and to secure the Presidency for his successor and his party.  However, there is one big problem with believing any of it. Lyndon Johnson had a long history of delusions, paranoid fantasies, and chronic manic depressive behavior, so much so that his own staff commented on it for years after the administration ended, and we will get to hear some of them talk openly about it, and their concerns about the mental stability of an otherwise great man. 

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As part of our series on the 1968 election , we are going to take 4 episodes and create a sub series to examine thoroughly the accusation of treason that has been promulgated for years against then Vice President Richard Nixon. It is a subject that has divided the public and historians for decades. Richard Nixon always denied it. Anna Chennault never talked about it until every one else was dead and gone. 

The Nixon haters, which made up a huge number of the liberal press and left wing elite, naturally embraced the story. But more serious academic historians have always asked a very serious question that has always called into question the validity of the story. Why would a nation like South Vietnam, who had access to televisions and newspapers, need anyone to tell them that Richard Nixon, a career anti communist, would be a better deal than Hubert Humphrey, a man who had already announced he intended to pull out of the war and leave South Vietnam to fight the Communist aggressors alone. It sort of defies common sense. But when it comes to Richard Nixon most people are willing to believe anything anyone says about him. 

Here we will listen to both popular historians, and serious historians, as they discuss the issue and the facts and we will also hear from some of the players themselves who were actually there, campaigning at the side of Richard Nixon throughout 1968. The folks we will hear from include Patrick Buchanan and Henry Kissinger and a quote from Tom Houston, plus historians, Neil Ferguson, Ken Burns, Luke Nichtor, Michael Beschloss, Ken Hughes, John Prados  and James A. Farrell from various documentary an interview footage .  In the end, it is a much weaker case than a number of these folks will portray it. 

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The assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy shocks the world and causes the Democratic Party to descend into chaos. This episode opens with messages from Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the rivals of Robert Kennedy for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Kennedy had just won the California Primary and seemed headed for a victory at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Instead, Robert Kennedy would be buried not far from his brother at Arlington National Cemetery. He was only 42 years old. 

The Republican Nomination Process was itself not without some drama, though Former Vice President Richard Nixon seemed to be firmly in the lead. As the Republican Party met for its convention in Miami there would be some last minute attempts to thwart Nixon's ascendency to the nomination from Governor Ronald Reagan, but after some last minute meetings, Senator Strom Thurmond would help Nixon hold the south and he would win the nomination of his party for a second time for President. 

The Democratic National Convention  could be summed up in a single word in 1968, DISASTER. Vice President Hubert Humphrey would win the nomination, but it appeared almost worthless after the Democrats tore themselves apart on live television and broke out in riots in the streets of Chicago. One U.S. Senator even accused Chicago's powerful Mayor Richard J. Daley of instituting Gestapo tactics in the streets. Humphrey did not even take the stage until late the night he was nominated. It just could not have been worse if you had tried.

A few days later Richard Nixon would have a rally in the same town to a heroes welcome. It would kick off the 1968 campaign and Nixon started out with an almost insurmountable lead. However, Hubert Humphrey would break with President Lyndon Johnson on his policy in Vietnam and he would campaign as hard as any nominee in American History.  Slowly but surely, Hubert Humphrey, who from all accounts was an enormously nice and friendly man, would start closing the gap between himself and his Republican rival. By the eve of the 1968 Presidential Election the race would be to close to call, and in that final stretch a final trump card would be played by the sitting President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. He would claim that peace was insight and call a halt to all bombing in Vietnam. 

This would lead to one of the most controversial accusations in all of American History about whether a candidate for President was actually involved in an act of treason to undermine peace talks in Paris. While there is proof that one woman was trying to influence South Vietnam, we will examine whether any evidence actually exists at all on whether Richard Nixon was complicit in her efforts or, if in fact, it is really Richard Nixon who has been the victim of one of histories great injustices. 

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This episode opens with the country ablaze after riots break out in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The country struggles with how to cope with the loss of the leader who had preached nonviolent resistance, and who had died such a violent death. 

The one city that did not have a riot the night of the assassination was Indianapolis, Indiana. It was there that Senator Robert Kennedy had planned to address a crowd about his campaign for President. Instead he told them of the death of Dr. King and then expressed his own emotion from the death of his  brother, President John F. Kennedy. Both men had died at the hands of white assassins'. 

These events elevated Senator Kennedy's cause to a higher one and gave him momentum going into the primaries where he would face  Senator Eugene McCarthy, and also now an establishment candidate, the Vice President of the United States, Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey was  gathering delegates from favorite son candidates and endorsements from the party bosses, because  he entered the race to late to be on the primary ballots. 

Listen in as Robert Kennedy campaigns in Oregon and California and as he and McCarthy have a debate. Plus the Republicans have a race too. Kennedy would lose Oregon and Nixon would win it on his side, and that would make California make or break for the candidates. 

It would be a tough campaign but Kennedy would win California. He would come out and excitedly address the crowd, firing them up for the showdown in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Kennedy seemed poised to win.

Then, yet another tragedy would strike.