"This is Treason"

Aware that the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon is encouraging the South Vietnamese government to stay away from peace talks with the Americans and the North Vietnamese, President Johnson alerts Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-IL) to the campaign's interference, and asks that Dirksen urge the Nixon team to cease and desist.

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(President Johnson): Everett, how are you?

(Everett Dirksen): All right.

(President Johnson): I want to talk to you as a friend, and very confidentially, because I think that we're skirting on dangerous ground, and I thought I ought to give you the facts, and you ought to pass them on if you choose. If you don't, why, then I will a little later.

(Edit.)

(President Johnson): Both Thieu and Ky stressed on us the importance of a minimum delay. Then we got some of our friends involved... some of it your old China crowd. And here's the latest information we got: the agent says that she's just- they just talked to the boss in New Mexico, and that he says that you must hold out, that... just hold on until after the election.

(Edit.)

(President Johnson): Or some of our folks, including some of the old China Lobby, are going to the Vietnamese embassy, and saying, "Please notify the president, that if he'll hold out 'til November the 2nd, they could get a better deal."

(Everett Dirksen): Uh-huh.

(President Johnson): Now, I'm reading their hand, Everett. I don't want to get this in the campaign.

(Everett Dirksen): That's right.

(President Johnson): And they oughtn't to be doing this. This is treason.

(Everett Dirksen): I know.

(President Johnson): I don't know whether it's Laird; I don't know who it is that is putting it out, but here is the UPI 48 that came in tonight.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(President Johnson): And I'm calling you only after talking to Rusk and Clifford and all of them, who thought that somebody ought to be notified as to what's happening.

(Edit.)

(President Johnson): And my judgement is that Nixon ought to play it just like he has all along: that I want to see peace come the first day we can, that it's not going to affect the election one way or the other. The conference is not even going to be held until after the election. They have stopped shelling the cities; they have stopped going across the DMZ. We've had 24 hours of relative peace. Now, if Nixon keeps the South Vietnamese away from the conference, well, that's going to be his responsibility. Up to this point, that's why they're not there. I had them signed on board until this happened.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah. Okay.

(President Johnson): Well, now, what do you think we ought to do about it?

(Everett Dirksen): Well, I better get in touch with him, I think, and tell him about it.

(President Johnson): I think you better tell him that his people are saying to these folks that they oughtn't to go through with this meeting. Now, if they don't go through with the meeting, it's not going to be me that's hurt. I think it's going to be whoever's elected. It may be, my guess, him.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(President Johnson): And I think they're making a very serious mistake, and I don't want to say this.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(President Johnson): And you're the only one I'm going to say it to.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(Edit.)

(President Johnson): Now, Everett, I know what happens there. You see what I mean?

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah, I do.

(President Johnson): And I'm looking at his hole card.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(President Johnson): Now, I don't want to get in a fight with him there. I think Nixon's going to be elected.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah.

(President Johnson): And I think we ought to have peace, and I'm going to work with him. I've worked with you. But I don't want these sons of bitches like Laird giving out announcements like this, that Johnson gave them the wrong impression. I gave him the right impression, except I gave it to him decently, when I said that you ought to keep the Mrs. Chennaults and all the rest of them from running around here. Now, you see, I know what Thieu says to his people out there.

(Everett Dirksen): Yeah. I haven't seen Laird.

(President Johnson): Well, I don't know who it is that's with Nixon. It may be Laird. It may be Harlow. It may be Mitchell. I don't know who it is. I know this: that they're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war.

(Everett Dirksen): That's a mistake.

(President Johnson): And it's a damn bad mistake.

(Everett Dirksen): Oh, it is.

(President Johnson): Now, I don't want to say so, and you're the only man that I have enough confidence in to tell them. But you better tell them they better quit playing with it. And the day after the election, I'll sit down with all of you and try to work it out and be helpful. But they oughtn't to knock out this conference.