At long last the final White House tapes from the Johnson years are released and they cover his final year in office, 1968--and as the BBC reports, there are several shockers.
One key story is not really new--that Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks, although here we learned that LBJ considered this "treason" and that Nixon had "blood on his hands." But how about this new thing? When Johnson saw the violence outside the Chicago convention in 1968 (yes, I was there) he called Mayor Daley, congratulated him on his crackdown--and said he wanted to get back in the race for President and would even fly to Chicago to claim the crown! Daley told him he could swing the party to him, but LBJ finally pulled back when the Secret Service could not guarantee his safety. Humphrey got the nod and then lost to the "treasonous" Tricky Dick.
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