Treasonous

The standard history of the era is that Johnson really didn't appreciate Humphrey's softening on the war in '68 and did little to enhance his VP's chances to prevail against Nixon. So this is interesting.

AUSTIN, Tex. (AP) — In the last months of his administration, President Lyndon B. Johnson suggested that associates of Richard M. Nixon were trying to persuade the South Vietnamese government not to join the peace talks until after the 1968 election, recordings of telephone conversations released Thursday show.

Progress on peace in Vietnam before the election might have given Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee and Johnson’s vice president, support among voters.

Accusations of Nixon’s influence in the peace conference have been reported before, but the tapes provide a look at how Johnson handled the issue, said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor and an expert on the presidency at the University of Texas, Austin.

During a conversation with Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Johnson, referring to people close to Nixon, and said, “This is treason.” Dirksen was the Republican leader in the Senate.

In a conversation in November 1968, Nixon assured Johnson that he supported the president’s efforts to arrange a peace conference in Paris. Johnson had cited news articles and private information he had been given that he said made him think Nixon’s associates were working against his efforts. ”I think what’s new here is the way Johnson characterizes it as ‘treason’ in his private conversations,” Professor Buchanan said. The 42 hours of telephone recordings released Thursday cover the period from May 1968 through January 1969, when Johnson left office.