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Miller Center Studies on the Presidency
Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate
The break-in at Watergate and the cover-up that followed brought about the resignation of Richard Nixon, creating a political shockwave that reverberates to this day. But as Ken Hughes reveals in his powerful new book, in all the thousands of hours of declassified White House tapes, the president orders a single break-in--and it is not at the Watergate complex. Hughes’s examination of this earlier break-in, plans for which the White House ultimately scrapped, provides a shocking new perspective on a long history of illegal activity that prolonged the Vietnam War and was only partly exposed by the Watergate scandal. As a key player in the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, Hughes has spent more than a decade developing and mining the largest extant collection of transcribed tapes from the Johnson and Nixon White Houses. Hughes’s unparalleled investigation has allowed him to unearth a pattern of actions by Nixon going back long before 1972, to the final months of the Johnson administration. Hughes identified a clear narrative line that begins during the 1968 campaign, when Nixon, concerned about the impact on his presidential bid of the Paris peace talks with the Vietnamese, secretly undermined the negotiations through a Republican fundraiser named Anna Chennault. Three years after the election, in an atmosphere of paranoia brought on by the explosive appearance of the Pentagon Papers, Nixon feared that his treasonous--and politically damaging--manipulation of the Vietnam talks would be exposed. Hughes shows how this fear led to the creation of the Secret Investigations Unit, the "White House Plumbers," and Nixon’s initiation of illegal covert operations guided by the Oval Office. Hughes’s unrivaled command of the White House tapes has allowed him to build an argument about Nixon that goes far beyond what we think we know about Watergate. Chasing Shadows is also available as a special e-book that links to the massive collection of White House tapes published by the Miller Center through Rotunda, the electronic imprint of the University of Virginia Press. This unique edition allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to the recordings’ expertly rendered transcripts and to listen to audio files of the remarkable--and occasionally shocking--conversations on which this dark chapter in American history would ultimately turn.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published July 29, 2014
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August 21, 2014
During the summer of 1973, while in graduate school, I found myself transfixed by the Watergate hearings that were broadcast live each day. For me it became almost a soap opera with the revelations of Nixon administration misdeeds. Once Nixon resigned, the battle for the Watergate tapes continued. After the 37th president passed away, the federal government gradually released more of the Nixon tapes resulting in a thorough record of what went on in the Nixon White House between February 16, 1971 and July 12, 1973 when over 3432 hours of tapes were produced. What we learned before Ken Hughes new book CHASING SHADOWS: THE NIXON TAPES, THE CHENNAULT AFFAIR, AND THE ORIGINS OF WATERGATE was disconcerting enough for the American public, but now as Mr. Hughes, a journalist who is a researcher at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Program, since 2000 culled these documents reaching the conclusion that is even more damning concerning Nixon’s abuse of power than the original tapes that were released in the 1970s. In October, 1969, Joseph McGuinnis wrote in his book, THE SELLING OF THE PRESIDENT 1968 about the “new” Nixon, and the “old Nixon.” According to Mr. McGinnis, the “new” Nixon was prepackaged as a candidate to avoid the “out bursts” and other political errors the former Vice-President had made in past elections that represented the “old” Nixon. What emerges from Hughes detailed study is the reemergence of the “old Nixon on steroids,” as his political paranoia, hatred for those who made him look bad, anti-Semitism, and general nastiness is invariably documented on each page.
At the outset the author asks the question that after 40 years what we could possibly not have been exposed to concerning Watergate. Hughes concludes “that the origins of Watergate extend deeper than we previously knew to encompass a crime committed to elect Nixon in the first place.” (x) The first section of the book focuses on the Chennault Affair which by any standard was an act of treason against the American people. At the time rumors abounded in Washington after the election of 1968 that there were members of the Nixon campaign, and probably Nixon himself who interfered with the Vietnam peace negotiations then in progress in Paris. President Johnson wrestled with the idea of an unconditional bombing halt since March 31, 1968 when he announced he would not seek reelection. Negotiations in Paris focused on the details of such a bombing halt and the Nixon campaign feared an “October Surprise,” a few days before the election that would allow Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to defeat Nixon, who had led by 18 points in the polls in September, 1968. According to Hughes, who produces records of conversations and other damning evidence describing meetings and phone calls between members of the Nixon campaign staff and Bui Diem, the South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States, whereby they promised South Vietnam’s President, Nguyen Van Thieu a better deal if he would muck up the negotiations and wait until Nixon was President. During the week before the election North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris actually move slightly closer to the Johnson administration position on the bombing pause and it seemed as if a deal was at hand. Suddenly, Thieu informed Washington that there were aspects of the deal he could not support thus causing the deal to collapse. Hughes provides proof that the emissary between the Nixon campaign and the South Vietnamese government was Anna Chan Chennault, (the spouse of Lt. General Claire L. Chennault who during World War II was the American leader of a volunteer air group, the Flying Tigers that defended China against Japanese invaders) whose relationship with Nixon went back to the China Lobby of the late 1940s and 1950s when Republicans accused the Truman administration of losing China to the Communists, a charge that the then Congressman Nixon used to vault himself into the Senate in 1948. Hughes offers an almost daily description of the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam from right after Labor Day until the election. The reader will learn from the documentary evidence the details of Johnson’s conversations with candidates Humphrey and Nixon. What emerges is LBJ’s disappointment with the Democratic candidate who he feels is soft concerning a bombing halt and belief that despite Nixon’s duplicitous nature he would be a stronger president concerning Vietnam. Late in the campaign Johnson learned of Nixon campaign machinations concerning talks in Paris, but he held back releasing it which would have most likely thrown the election to Humphrey. Johnson warned Nixon very subtly that he knew what was occurring and the Republican candidate feigned surprise and reaffirmed support for the president’s policies. Throughout the book, Hughes integrates verbatim transcripts to support his points, and there can be no doubt of Nixon and his staff’s culpability in treasonous activities. The question remains why didn’t LBJ expose the actions of the Nixon campaign. The answer probably rests with LBJ’s national security concerns, fear of weakening the presidency, and prolonging a war he desperately wanted to end to assure his historical legacy.
If Hughes description of the Chennault Affair is not disturbing enough then his exploration of other aspects of Nixon administration internal policy certainly is. When Nixon arrives in the White House he immediately ordered his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman to get hold of all the documents that LBJ had accumulated during the presidential campaign, i.e.; NSA intercepts from Ambassador Diem to Saigon, wiretaps of Chennault, CIA bugs overseas etc. Haldeman tasked Tom Charles Huston to obtain the material. Huston claimed that the Department of Defense Office of Internal Security Affairs had a report of all events leading to the bombing halt and it was located at the Brookings Institution. Nixon obviously was concerned that should these documents become public his campaign organization and he himself personally would appear to have violated the Logan Act of 1799 that “prohibits as treasonous activity any interference by American citizens with the negotiations of the US government.” (38) Nixon’s concern is readily apparent as he stated on June 17, 1971 in reference to the Brookings file. “Now you remember the Huston’s Plan? Implement it; I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.” (68)
As one reads on it becomes surreal as Nixon becomes obsessed with anyone that appears to be his enemy. His reaction to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers and the actions of Daniel Ellsberg reflect a heightened paranoia on the part of Nixon as he created the Special Investigative Unit (SIU), known as the “Plumbers” to deal with leaks and what he perceived to be domestic terrorism located in the basement of the White House. “The creation of the SIU violated both criminal law and the US Constitution.” Nixon created a unit to commit crimes-like burglarizing the Brookings Institution, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, and later Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Further, it specifically violated the Fourth Amendment that protected “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” (130)
What was most disturbing to me apart from Nixon’s criminal offenses was his rationale for his actions and his virulent anti-Semitism. “The leading conspiracy theorist in the White House was the President. Nixon’s theory centered on three groups: Jews, intellectuals, and Ivy Leaguers.” (122) He feared a “Jewish cabal” was out to get him arguing that Ellsberg, Morton Halperin (a member of Henry Kissinger’s staff who was wiretapped), and Leslie Gelb all who opposed him were Jews. Hughes concludes that Nixon spoke about Jews in the NSC and the defense and State Departments as if they were security risks simply because of their religious background. National security policy was not the only area that the Jews in Nixon’s eyes were out to get him. Harold Goldstein who was an employment analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for over twenty four years and served democratic and republic presidents going back to Truman, in Nixon’s view was publicizing unemployment statistics to make him look bad as he approached reelection. This for Nixon was part of the “cabal” and he had Goldstein exiled to a regional office in Montana. In dealing with Arthur Burns, the Head of the Federal Reserve Board, Nixon believed that Burns monetary and fiscal policy did not support his reelection, and on July 24, 1971, he remarked to Haldeman, “there’s a Jewish cabal, you know, running through this, working with people like Burns and the rest, and they all-they all only talk to Jews.” (143)
Hughes develops his story that culminates in Watergate and includes some new documents concerning the break-in that had not been previously released. It really does not change the outcome or the course of history it just reaffirms Nixon’s acute paranoia and as Bruce Mazlish wrote before the 1968 election in his psychological analysis, IN SEARCH OF NIXON, that there was a personality flaw that existed and no matter what success Nixon might have achieved, his self-destructive mechanism would undo it. When Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974 and left the White House the next day, Mazlish’s prediction came true.
i The title of a book by Gary Sick written after the election of Ronald Reagan accusing the Reagan campaign of interfering with negotiations to obtain the release of American hostages in Iran between the Carter administration and the Iranian government. The Reagan people were very concerned that Iran would agree to release the hostage’s right before the election, thus swinging the American electorate over to President Carter.
ii In June, 1971 the secret Huston Plan was designed to expand government break-ins, wiretaps, and mail openings in the name of fighting domestic terror.
At the outset the author asks the question that after 40 years what we could possibly not have been exposed to concerning Watergate. Hughes concludes “that the origins of Watergate extend deeper than we previously knew to encompass a crime committed to elect Nixon in the first place.” (x) The first section of the book focuses on the Chennault Affair which by any standard was an act of treason against the American people. At the time rumors abounded in Washington after the election of 1968 that there were members of the Nixon campaign, and probably Nixon himself who interfered with the Vietnam peace negotiations then in progress in Paris. President Johnson wrestled with the idea of an unconditional bombing halt since March 31, 1968 when he announced he would not seek reelection. Negotiations in Paris focused on the details of such a bombing halt and the Nixon campaign feared an “October Surprise,” a few days before the election that would allow Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to defeat Nixon, who had led by 18 points in the polls in September, 1968. According to Hughes, who produces records of conversations and other damning evidence describing meetings and phone calls between members of the Nixon campaign staff and Bui Diem, the South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States, whereby they promised South Vietnam’s President, Nguyen Van Thieu a better deal if he would muck up the negotiations and wait until Nixon was President. During the week before the election North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris actually move slightly closer to the Johnson administration position on the bombing pause and it seemed as if a deal was at hand. Suddenly, Thieu informed Washington that there were aspects of the deal he could not support thus causing the deal to collapse. Hughes provides proof that the emissary between the Nixon campaign and the South Vietnamese government was Anna Chan Chennault, (the spouse of Lt. General Claire L. Chennault who during World War II was the American leader of a volunteer air group, the Flying Tigers that defended China against Japanese invaders) whose relationship with Nixon went back to the China Lobby of the late 1940s and 1950s when Republicans accused the Truman administration of losing China to the Communists, a charge that the then Congressman Nixon used to vault himself into the Senate in 1948. Hughes offers an almost daily description of the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam from right after Labor Day until the election. The reader will learn from the documentary evidence the details of Johnson’s conversations with candidates Humphrey and Nixon. What emerges is LBJ’s disappointment with the Democratic candidate who he feels is soft concerning a bombing halt and belief that despite Nixon’s duplicitous nature he would be a stronger president concerning Vietnam. Late in the campaign Johnson learned of Nixon campaign machinations concerning talks in Paris, but he held back releasing it which would have most likely thrown the election to Humphrey. Johnson warned Nixon very subtly that he knew what was occurring and the Republican candidate feigned surprise and reaffirmed support for the president’s policies. Throughout the book, Hughes integrates verbatim transcripts to support his points, and there can be no doubt of Nixon and his staff’s culpability in treasonous activities. The question remains why didn’t LBJ expose the actions of the Nixon campaign. The answer probably rests with LBJ’s national security concerns, fear of weakening the presidency, and prolonging a war he desperately wanted to end to assure his historical legacy.
If Hughes description of the Chennault Affair is not disturbing enough then his exploration of other aspects of Nixon administration internal policy certainly is. When Nixon arrives in the White House he immediately ordered his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman to get hold of all the documents that LBJ had accumulated during the presidential campaign, i.e.; NSA intercepts from Ambassador Diem to Saigon, wiretaps of Chennault, CIA bugs overseas etc. Haldeman tasked Tom Charles Huston to obtain the material. Huston claimed that the Department of Defense Office of Internal Security Affairs had a report of all events leading to the bombing halt and it was located at the Brookings Institution. Nixon obviously was concerned that should these documents become public his campaign organization and he himself personally would appear to have violated the Logan Act of 1799 that “prohibits as treasonous activity any interference by American citizens with the negotiations of the US government.” (38) Nixon’s concern is readily apparent as he stated on June 17, 1971 in reference to the Brookings file. “Now you remember the Huston’s Plan? Implement it; I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.” (68)
As one reads on it becomes surreal as Nixon becomes obsessed with anyone that appears to be his enemy. His reaction to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers and the actions of Daniel Ellsberg reflect a heightened paranoia on the part of Nixon as he created the Special Investigative Unit (SIU), known as the “Plumbers” to deal with leaks and what he perceived to be domestic terrorism located in the basement of the White House. “The creation of the SIU violated both criminal law and the US Constitution.” Nixon created a unit to commit crimes-like burglarizing the Brookings Institution, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, and later Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Further, it specifically violated the Fourth Amendment that protected “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” (130)
What was most disturbing to me apart from Nixon’s criminal offenses was his rationale for his actions and his virulent anti-Semitism. “The leading conspiracy theorist in the White House was the President. Nixon’s theory centered on three groups: Jews, intellectuals, and Ivy Leaguers.” (122) He feared a “Jewish cabal” was out to get him arguing that Ellsberg, Morton Halperin (a member of Henry Kissinger’s staff who was wiretapped), and Leslie Gelb all who opposed him were Jews. Hughes concludes that Nixon spoke about Jews in the NSC and the defense and State Departments as if they were security risks simply because of their religious background. National security policy was not the only area that the Jews in Nixon’s eyes were out to get him. Harold Goldstein who was an employment analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for over twenty four years and served democratic and republic presidents going back to Truman, in Nixon’s view was publicizing unemployment statistics to make him look bad as he approached reelection. This for Nixon was part of the “cabal” and he had Goldstein exiled to a regional office in Montana. In dealing with Arthur Burns, the Head of the Federal Reserve Board, Nixon believed that Burns monetary and fiscal policy did not support his reelection, and on July 24, 1971, he remarked to Haldeman, “there’s a Jewish cabal, you know, running through this, working with people like Burns and the rest, and they all-they all only talk to Jews.” (143)
Hughes develops his story that culminates in Watergate and includes some new documents concerning the break-in that had not been previously released. It really does not change the outcome or the course of history it just reaffirms Nixon’s acute paranoia and as Bruce Mazlish wrote before the 1968 election in his psychological analysis, IN SEARCH OF NIXON, that there was a personality flaw that existed and no matter what success Nixon might have achieved, his self-destructive mechanism would undo it. When Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974 and left the White House the next day, Mazlish’s prediction came true.
i The title of a book by Gary Sick written after the election of Ronald Reagan accusing the Reagan campaign of interfering with negotiations to obtain the release of American hostages in Iran between the Carter administration and the Iranian government. The Reagan people were very concerned that Iran would agree to release the hostage’s right before the election, thus swinging the American electorate over to President Carter.
ii In June, 1971 the secret Huston Plan was designed to expand government break-ins, wiretaps, and mail openings in the name of fighting domestic terror.
August 8, 2014
New perspectives on Tricky Dick! In Chasing Shadows, Ken Hughes lays out the evidence, supported by the presidential tapes, that Nixon ordered a burglary of files held at the Brookings institution, mistakenly thinking that those files could implicate him in the treasonous offense of interfering in the Paris peace talks in order to get himself elected. The basic facts of NIxon's treason have been known since the publication of the memoirs of Anna Chennault, his go-between to the South Vietnamese government. But Hughes describes what President Johnson knew and didn't know about what came to be known as the Chennault affair, and what Nixon thought Johnson knew. Nixon was sure that Johnson had evidence of NIxon's connection to Chennault, whereas LBJ only suspected it. Nixon thought LBJ's proof of Nixon's involvement was in a file that was being held at Brookings, and in one of the more charming tape excerpts, you can hear Nixon demanding the files be obtained, "on a thievery basis."
On June 17, 1971, Nixon, on tape, personally ordered the break in at the Brookings. John D. Ehrlichman, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, Henry A. Kissinger, and Ronald L. Ziegler were present:
Henry A. Kissinger
We have nothing here, Mr. President.
President Nixon
Damn it, I asked for that, because I need it. [Unclear]—
Kissinger
Yeah, but Bob and I have been trying to put the damn thing together for three years.
Haldeman
We have a basic history of it—constructed on our own—but there is a file on it.
President Nixon
Where?
Haldeman
[Tom Charles] Huston swears to God there’s a file on it at Brookings.
Kissinger
I wouldn’t be surprised.
President Nixon
All right, all right, all right, you [unclear]—
Haldeman
In the hands of the same kind of [unclear]—
President Nixon
Bob—
Haldeman
The same people.
President Nixon
Bob, now, you remember Huston’s plan? Implement it.
Kissinger
But couldn’t we go over? Now, Brookings has no right to have [President Nixon attempts to interject] classified documents.
President Nixon
[Unclear.] I mean, I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.
Truly astonishing, to hear the president order a crime, to attempt to seize what he thought was evidence that he had directed a treasonous plot. After all these years, the articles, the books, the movies, and all the analysis, the stark criminality of Richard Nixon still has the capacity to astonish.
As a side note, the construction of the ebook is fantastic: each taped conversation paraphrased in the text is linked to the actual audio file and a transcript, which seemlessly open up within the Kindle app. Truly a triumph of the integration of scholarship with high-tech publishing.
In summation, the author notes that spent his administrations chasing after shadows, non-existant evidence, and destroyed himself in the process:
"Brookings is the only break-in Nixon ordered on tape. In fact, it’s the only political break-in anyone can prove he ordered, period. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless Nixon was attempting to remove all the evidence of his involvement in the Chennault Affair from the hands of some of his most prominent Democratic critics. Huston had told him (wrongly) that they had a classified report “on all events leading up to the bombing halt.” That made the report a threat to Nixon’s political survival—if he was guilty of violating the Logan Act to win the 1968 election. In that case, breaking into Brookings was less of a risk than leaving the evidence that he’d sabotaged the Paris peace talks to win the previous election in the hands of men who wanted to defeat him in the next one. Johnson had decided, for his own reasons, to keep the intelligence reports on the Chennault Affair secret in 1968; that was no guarantee that Clifford, Warnke, Halperin, and Gelb would keep them secret in 1972.
He got away with more than we realized—with more than he realized. The Chennault Affair worked. By using two cutouts (Mitchell and Chennault) between him and the South Vietnamese government, Nixon did manage to evade direct detection. No FBI bug picked up his campaign plane talk in the final weeks before the election; the bureau didn’t even place the tap on Chennault’s home phone that President Johnson requested. Neither the NSA nor the CIA picked up any direct evidence against Nixon either. The NSA, CIA, and FBI reports on the Chennault Affair never made it into the hands of Warnke, Halperin, and Gelb. (Clifford saw them, but didn’t get to keep any.) There was no top secret bombing halt report prepared under Clifford, Warnke, Halperin, and Gelb at Brookings or anywhere else. Nixon didn’t need it or the Huston Plan or the SIU. He was chasing shadows. If only he had known. To save himself, he destroyed himself."
February 13, 2022
A concise and insightful work.
Hughes does a good job setting Watergate into its Vietnam context. He argues that Nixon really did try to subvert the peace talks in order to ruin Johnson’s chances of attaining peace before the election. He also suggests that the Brookings Institution burglary had its origins in Nixon’s fear that the Democrats would discover what he had done during the election; Nixon assumed (inaccurately, as it turned out), that Johnson had evidence that implicated him. He also writes how the FBI knew of the Chennault affair and why Johnson decided not to make it public. Besides their criminality, the book also shows how incompetent Nixon and his underlings could be; Hughes notes the irony that, despite their willingness to act criminally and despite Nixon’s direct orders, the Plumbers never figured out a way to pull off the Brookings burglary. Some commentators also state that the CIA and the FBI’s surveillance of Chennault was illegal; Hughes points out that it wasn’t.
Hughes also covers how Johnson interfered in Humphrey’s presidential campaign and even advised Nixon on how to run against him,to the point of having his own NSC staffers brief Nixon on potential talking points (Johnson also kept Humphrey in the dark on what he knew about the Chennault affair) It’s also obvious that Johnson was more interested in protecting his own image and legacy than in helping Humphrey win the election. He also shows how badly Humphrey failed in making his position on the peace negotiations clear.
Often people will portray this episode as a good chance for peace that Nixon ruined for short-term political gain, and that the Chennault affair thus prolonged the war. According to other commentators, Thieu would have boycotted the peace talks anyway, and didn’t need Nixon’s encouragement to stay out of them. They raise the points that Thieu was already skeptical of negotiations, knew the terms were unfavorable to him, and was opposed to any talks that included the NLF, and that the North Vietnamese negotiators remained stubborn as well, so it’s unclear how good the chance for peace even was. Hughes, however, raises the additional point that Thieu only agreed to the talks after being presented with an ultimatum that the Johnson administration would cut off his aid, an effective threat since Saigon was the junior partner. Thus, it would have been difficult for Thieu to exit the talks easily according to his own whim. Would Nixon have tried something as risky and potentially explosive as the Chennault gambit if he could have achieved the same result by simply doing nothing?
The book does require some familiarity with the story of Watergate. Also, the second half of the book deals with the Nixon tapes’ revelations on such episodes as the bombing of Cambodia, the Huston Plan, the Pentagon Papers, the “decent interval,” the White House Plumbers, Nixon’s personal conspiracy theories, Watergate, and even (for some reason) Tricia Nixon’s wedding. These sections are pretty lengthy and detailed, for a book purportedly about the Chennault affair.
Still, a solid and thorough work overall.
Hughes does a good job setting Watergate into its Vietnam context. He argues that Nixon really did try to subvert the peace talks in order to ruin Johnson’s chances of attaining peace before the election. He also suggests that the Brookings Institution burglary had its origins in Nixon’s fear that the Democrats would discover what he had done during the election; Nixon assumed (inaccurately, as it turned out), that Johnson had evidence that implicated him. He also writes how the FBI knew of the Chennault affair and why Johnson decided not to make it public. Besides their criminality, the book also shows how incompetent Nixon and his underlings could be; Hughes notes the irony that, despite their willingness to act criminally and despite Nixon’s direct orders, the Plumbers never figured out a way to pull off the Brookings burglary. Some commentators also state that the CIA and the FBI’s surveillance of Chennault was illegal; Hughes points out that it wasn’t.
Hughes also covers how Johnson interfered in Humphrey’s presidential campaign and even advised Nixon on how to run against him,to the point of having his own NSC staffers brief Nixon on potential talking points (Johnson also kept Humphrey in the dark on what he knew about the Chennault affair) It’s also obvious that Johnson was more interested in protecting his own image and legacy than in helping Humphrey win the election. He also shows how badly Humphrey failed in making his position on the peace negotiations clear.
Often people will portray this episode as a good chance for peace that Nixon ruined for short-term political gain, and that the Chennault affair thus prolonged the war. According to other commentators, Thieu would have boycotted the peace talks anyway, and didn’t need Nixon’s encouragement to stay out of them. They raise the points that Thieu was already skeptical of negotiations, knew the terms were unfavorable to him, and was opposed to any talks that included the NLF, and that the North Vietnamese negotiators remained stubborn as well, so it’s unclear how good the chance for peace even was. Hughes, however, raises the additional point that Thieu only agreed to the talks after being presented with an ultimatum that the Johnson administration would cut off his aid, an effective threat since Saigon was the junior partner. Thus, it would have been difficult for Thieu to exit the talks easily according to his own whim. Would Nixon have tried something as risky and potentially explosive as the Chennault gambit if he could have achieved the same result by simply doing nothing?
The book does require some familiarity with the story of Watergate. Also, the second half of the book deals with the Nixon tapes’ revelations on such episodes as the bombing of Cambodia, the Huston Plan, the Pentagon Papers, the “decent interval,” the White House Plumbers, Nixon’s personal conspiracy theories, Watergate, and even (for some reason) Tricia Nixon’s wedding. These sections are pretty lengthy and detailed, for a book purportedly about the Chennault affair.
Still, a solid and thorough work overall.
August 10, 2014
Well written Pivotal book that transforms our understanding of Watergate - makes it a Vietnam issue. Great great book
August 17, 2014
Well written and easy to read. Well sourced and very interesting. Adds important support to the so called Chennault Affair and it's connection to the Watergate Affair.
May 4, 2020
Based on exhaustive analysis of the trove of thousands of hours of Nixon (and LBJ) taped conversations, this is the most concise and damning revelation of the Nixon criminal enterprise I have read. It goes from the politics playing with the Vietnam peace talks ("Chennault Affair") to the planned Brookings Institute break-in, to the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to the Watergate burglary. This is plainly laid out with substantial transcripts and something like only 175 pages of main text.
The conversations also reveal Nixon's anti-semitism, which makes him even more loathsome than he was in my eyes previously. Setting that aside, the tragedy of Nixon and the spiral from wanting to meddle to running a fully-fledged criminal organization inside the White House which becomes the seeds of his own destruction has the makings of a tragic opera with an arc like a Greek myth.
The conversations also reveal Nixon's anti-semitism, which makes him even more loathsome than he was in my eyes previously. Setting that aside, the tragedy of Nixon and the spiral from wanting to meddle to running a fully-fledged criminal organization inside the White House which becomes the seeds of his own destruction has the makings of a tragic opera with an arc like a Greek myth.
July 5, 2022
Ken Hughes’ slim volume published in 2014 is a significant source for Garrett Graff’s recent history compilation “Watergate.” Hughes focuses on the Chennault Affair to convincing demonstrate the origins of Watergate. Namely, that Nixon formed the “secret special investigations unit” (the Plumbers) and in 1973 ordered them to break into the Brookings Institute because he believed that there was a file stored there that would have exposed Nixon’s treasonous efforts to win the 1968 election by impeding the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam war. As an aside, Hughes shows (from the White House tapes) that Nixon was obsessed with “all those damn New York Jews” and “the Washington kikes.” Nixon was a despicable man.
November 16, 2014
This book has historic implications, a statement too often subject to hyperbole but in this instance, utterly justifiable. Hughes connects the dots, fortified throughout with recently-released illuminations from Nixon's recorded conversations, to show how Anna Chennault, a formidable Republican political operative, acted under Nixon's authority to convince South Vietnam withdraw from the October 1968 peace talks. The inevitable finding is that confirmation of this Chennault-to-Nixon linkage not only substantiates the contention that Nixon violated the Logan Act, an act of treason in meddling in ongoing diplomatic talks that might have provided the necessary opportunity for peace and the withdrawal of US soldiers, but that Nixon was willing to do so for purely political gain--his own, of course. In other words, the then-Republican candidate for president, in a race that was a dead heat as it drew to its close in the final days of October 1968, was willing to let American boys die in Vietnam so that he might occupy the Oval Office. Hughes then shows how, consistent with this appalling venality, his obsession with hiding such duplicity actually fueled the pathetic decisions that entangled him in what would become the Watergate Affair, and that would ensure his political doom and humiliation.
Shout your story from the rooftops, Mr. Hughes. The impact on revising citizens full understanding of the Nixon presidency, the Lyndon Johnson presidency, and the nation's tragedy in Southeast Asia, all demand its fullest telling.
Shout your story from the rooftops, Mr. Hughes. The impact on revising citizens full understanding of the Nixon presidency, the Lyndon Johnson presidency, and the nation's tragedy in Southeast Asia, all demand its fullest telling.
November 14, 2014
Ken Hughes' study of the Nixon tapes and other sources of evidence make clear today what the nation was at a loss to learn in 1968: Richard Nixon and his campaign successfully interfered with LBJ's work to start peace talks to end the Vietnam War. By convincing key figures in South Vietnam that they could get a better deal out of the Republican candidate than Democrat Hubert Humphrey, Nixon's people in the 'Chennault affair' prevented peace talks from starting prior to the 1968 election -- just as LBJ got Hanoi to agree to his three key conditions for a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
In short, Nixon played politics with the enormous issues of war and peace, life and death. In my mind, he was an individual of absolutely no character. We've never had a more criminal president.
In short, Nixon played politics with the enormous issues of war and peace, life and death. In my mind, he was an individual of absolutely no character. We've never had a more criminal president.
November 9, 2014
For some insane reason, Nixon decided that there should be an accurate record of his presidency so he secretly bugged the Oval Office. Thanks to that stroke of genius, we are treated to an unraveling that could not be bested in a Cohen Brothers film. Watergate was just the one that got Tricky Dick caught. Ken Hughes does a great job presenting what this paranoid scumbag was up to long before that blunder. In an effort to bury information that didn't even exist, he broke law after law and it was all documented by his own decision to preserve his conversations for history! The title of the book is perfect-He was literally Chasing Shadows. This is a quick read and difficult to put down.
August 19, 2014
The author is an expert of the Nixon tapes. This book reveals a piece of American history that changes an entire decade of United States Presidential history, Vietnam War History, and much more.
I find it stunning that so much was so deeply covered up for so long. Kuddos to Ken Hughes for the tremendous job he did, and the favor he has done for America by setting the record straight.
I find it stunning that so much was so deeply covered up for so long. Kuddos to Ken Hughes for the tremendous job he did, and the favor he has done for America by setting the record straight.
December 12, 2023
Every time I think I get Watergate, I later have to realize that I had a huge hole in my understanding. It's not just that a new book or article explores new angles, although this one does, it's that I realize that the actual story is so complicated I never made the necessary logic leaps between the parts.
This book offers the best comprehensive explanation I've seen so far of Watergate. The basic story is that early in Nixon's presidency his Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman had assigned his aide Tom Charles Huston to get all the internal info he could on LBJ's order of a bombing halt just days before the 1968 election. Huston soon wrote that the Defense Department had created a report on all the events leading up to the bombing halt, that was currently stored at the Brookings Institution, where former DefSec Clark Clifford worked along with his aides Paul Warnke and Les Gelb. He was actually talking about the Pentagon Papers, but they went up to the MARCH 1968 bombing halt, and they weren't at Brookings, they were at RAND. Yet in order to get this report, as well as other info on terrorists like the Weathermen, Nixon ordered the top intelligence agencies to remove restraints on wiretaps, bugs, and black bag operations using Huston's plans. Hoover, who had recently limited these (but who secretly kept doing them), objected, and the plan stalled.
Yet the June 1971 the release of the Pentagon Papers brought the issue to a head again. Nixon was worried about other leaks, such as his secret bombing of Cambodia, but he also wanted to preemptively leak information on his enemies. This lead to the creation of the Special Investigative Unit, or "Plumbers," lead by David Young and Emil Krogh (although supervised by Charles Colson). Nixon at one point ordered them to get the special report at Brookings even if they had to bust in there, but Dean recommended against it at the last minute. The Plumbers did bust into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office on Nixon's orders. Nixon did not order them to bust into the DNC at Watergate, but since two people involved in the break-in, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were members of the unit, if the crime had been investigated the President's special unit would have been discovered. Thus Nixon had to cover it up (which he did by ordering payoffs and having the CIA claim to the FBI that the break-in involved special international government assets), otherwise the rest of the Plumbers crimes would have come out.
The book thus makes for a reasonably tight story with a clear series of bad decisions and missteps that led one to the other. Yet it doesn't quite nail the landing on the argument that all of this had to do with the "Chennault Affair," or the attempt by Nixon to use China Lobby personage Anna Chennault as a go-between his 1968 campaign and the South Vietnamese embassy, with the goal of convincing the South Vietnamese to sabotage the peace talks that were supposed to come out of the bombing halt. First, it is still speculation that Nixon himself, or anyone in his campaign, gave such an order to tell the South Vietnamese to sabotage the talks (although LBJ and Walt Rostow believed it and kept searching for concrete proof of it). Second, there would be little reason to give such an order because the South Vietnamese knew Nixon would be more hawkish than Hubert Humphrey so they had plenty of their own reason for sabotaging the talks. Third, and most importantly for this book, it's not clear whether Nixon wanted the report on the bombing halt because he wanted to suppress the info in it related to Chennault, or because he wanted to expose more of LBJ's political motivations or simply just leak parts of it himself. In the tapes he doesn't seem to be particularly obsessed with Chennault, and neither do any of his aides.
This book still provides an unparalleled look at Nixon's paranoia, using unprecedented reprints from the Nixon tapes (that shows his boundless suspicion of Jews, out of which much of his explanation for the Plumbers actually came, his dislike of "any" women in government, his attempt to sabotage BLS economist Harold Goldstein). It provides a clear narrative too of Nixon's logic and the lead-up to Watergate, even if it doesn't conclusively show this was all about covering up a crime that might have occurred before his election.
This book offers the best comprehensive explanation I've seen so far of Watergate. The basic story is that early in Nixon's presidency his Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman had assigned his aide Tom Charles Huston to get all the internal info he could on LBJ's order of a bombing halt just days before the 1968 election. Huston soon wrote that the Defense Department had created a report on all the events leading up to the bombing halt, that was currently stored at the Brookings Institution, where former DefSec Clark Clifford worked along with his aides Paul Warnke and Les Gelb. He was actually talking about the Pentagon Papers, but they went up to the MARCH 1968 bombing halt, and they weren't at Brookings, they were at RAND. Yet in order to get this report, as well as other info on terrorists like the Weathermen, Nixon ordered the top intelligence agencies to remove restraints on wiretaps, bugs, and black bag operations using Huston's plans. Hoover, who had recently limited these (but who secretly kept doing them), objected, and the plan stalled.
Yet the June 1971 the release of the Pentagon Papers brought the issue to a head again. Nixon was worried about other leaks, such as his secret bombing of Cambodia, but he also wanted to preemptively leak information on his enemies. This lead to the creation of the Special Investigative Unit, or "Plumbers," lead by David Young and Emil Krogh (although supervised by Charles Colson). Nixon at one point ordered them to get the special report at Brookings even if they had to bust in there, but Dean recommended against it at the last minute. The Plumbers did bust into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office on Nixon's orders. Nixon did not order them to bust into the DNC at Watergate, but since two people involved in the break-in, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were members of the unit, if the crime had been investigated the President's special unit would have been discovered. Thus Nixon had to cover it up (which he did by ordering payoffs and having the CIA claim to the FBI that the break-in involved special international government assets), otherwise the rest of the Plumbers crimes would have come out.
The book thus makes for a reasonably tight story with a clear series of bad decisions and missteps that led one to the other. Yet it doesn't quite nail the landing on the argument that all of this had to do with the "Chennault Affair," or the attempt by Nixon to use China Lobby personage Anna Chennault as a go-between his 1968 campaign and the South Vietnamese embassy, with the goal of convincing the South Vietnamese to sabotage the peace talks that were supposed to come out of the bombing halt. First, it is still speculation that Nixon himself, or anyone in his campaign, gave such an order to tell the South Vietnamese to sabotage the talks (although LBJ and Walt Rostow believed it and kept searching for concrete proof of it). Second, there would be little reason to give such an order because the South Vietnamese knew Nixon would be more hawkish than Hubert Humphrey so they had plenty of their own reason for sabotaging the talks. Third, and most importantly for this book, it's not clear whether Nixon wanted the report on the bombing halt because he wanted to suppress the info in it related to Chennault, or because he wanted to expose more of LBJ's political motivations or simply just leak parts of it himself. In the tapes he doesn't seem to be particularly obsessed with Chennault, and neither do any of his aides.
This book still provides an unparalleled look at Nixon's paranoia, using unprecedented reprints from the Nixon tapes (that shows his boundless suspicion of Jews, out of which much of his explanation for the Plumbers actually came, his dislike of "any" women in government, his attempt to sabotage BLS economist Harold Goldstein). It provides a clear narrative too of Nixon's logic and the lead-up to Watergate, even if it doesn't conclusively show this was all about covering up a crime that might have occurred before his election.
November 22, 2019
A break-in, a botch job and a president.
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn’t it? For Richard Nixon, this was part of his life. I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about the Anna Chennault connection to Nixon and his downfall. I’d seen a story on television and wanted to know more.
This book is unique. There are sections, but not really chapters. Fine, but it might be jarring to some readers. Still, the writing is crisp and easy to follow. There are the actual conversations, as per recordings, in the text. I liked that it wasn’t just someone’s opinion, but there were facts to back them up.
I learned a lot from this book. The connection to Chennault was strong–she helped as a go-between with the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese. Nixon was paranoid people were listening in, while he was doing the thing he didn’t want someone to do to him. Oh, and there was a lot of covering up going on.
If you want a book that reads a little like a text book, but gives a lot of information, then this might be the book for you. Gripping.
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn’t it? For Richard Nixon, this was part of his life. I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about the Anna Chennault connection to Nixon and his downfall. I’d seen a story on television and wanted to know more.
This book is unique. There are sections, but not really chapters. Fine, but it might be jarring to some readers. Still, the writing is crisp and easy to follow. There are the actual conversations, as per recordings, in the text. I liked that it wasn’t just someone’s opinion, but there were facts to back them up.
I learned a lot from this book. The connection to Chennault was strong–she helped as a go-between with the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese. Nixon was paranoid people were listening in, while he was doing the thing he didn’t want someone to do to him. Oh, and there was a lot of covering up going on.
If you want a book that reads a little like a text book, but gives a lot of information, then this might be the book for you. Gripping.
September 5, 2023
One more book in the cottage industry of the Nixon-Kissinger debacle of Vietnam& Watergate. This is is about the Chennault Affair. This is a nutcracker of a book that explores the inconsistencies of this dynamic duo of lies , lies and more lies. If ever one has the belief that both Nixon and Kissinger deserve the Pultizer Prize for Mendacity in the toils of Politics this is it. Nausea and revulsion will be your companion while reading this. Also outright anger at the unnecessary loss of live incurred during their evil machinations. Ever wonder if Satan refuses Nixon and Kissinger on the boat to cross the River Styx on the way to Hades? Even the Devil has standards...they didn't so they were allowed to enter the boat and go to Hades. Their evil spirits have been forced to wander the netherlands never to be allowed entrance anywhere. Even in their wanderings they will seek a way of denial of their past deeds. The netherlands don't lie.
October 21, 2022
This book does a good job of explaining why Nixon had no choice but to cover-up Watergate. The roots of Watergate go all the way back to the 1968 election when he interfered with the Viet Nam peace process. I also found the links to the actual tape recordings very useful and enlightening. Overall this book which is based on tapes and records that only came to light fairly recently helps to fill in some of the gaps that other (earlier) books on Nixon and Watergate gloss over.
January 30, 2015
Mostly the re-plowing of the same old fields with the addition of some unsupported conspiracy theories about the so-called Chennault Affair and the origins of Watergate. As a Watergate/Let's Dig Up Nixon and Kick Him in the Nuts One More Time book, it is mediocre and serves up stale bread. As a conspiracy book, it relies on the tried and true logic that a conspiracy is proven by the lack of evidence of the conspiracy since this proves that the conspiracy is still working. The argument is that Nixon wanted to see what the Brookings files had on the Chennault Affair so he launched the Huston plan to firebomb the Brookings Institute and to cover up the existence of the Huston plan; he then orchestrated the Watergate cover-up. I was not sold on the link to Chennault although the desire to hide the Huston Plan is a plausible argument albeit one that is old enough to have voted in the last five presidential elections. Nixon said that he wanted the dirt on LBJ announcing the bombing halt a week before the election. It would fit Nixon's personality that he wanted revenge on LBJ. Hughes never provides any evidence that Nixon had any traceable involvement in the Chennault Affair. As for the Affair, did Thieu need Chennault to tell him that he would probably get a better deal from RN than HHH? RN was running on a platform that he would end the war by winning it and HHH running on a platform that he would end the war by ending the war.
July 4, 2015
The author of this book has worked for years with the Nixon tapes as well as those of other presidents. His book shoes that Nixon's dirty tricks started long before Watergate. During the presidential campaign of 1968, he effectively stalled the beginning of the Paris peace talks to stop the war in Vietnam. Nixon felt that Johnson was only calling for a bombing halt in late October to aid Humphrey in winning the election. Nixon, using John Mitchell as a go between, enlisted the help of Anna Chennault to contact the south Vietnam government. The purpose was to stop the peace talks from beginning before the election was over. Chennault told the South Vietnamese that they would get a better deal in the talks from a Nixon administration.
The fear that this plotting would be discovered led in part to the formation of what became known as the plumbers who carried out the Watergate break-in among other crimes. The author then traces Nixon's fear that he was conspired against that further justifier his illegal activities
The fear that this plotting would be discovered led in part to the formation of what became known as the plumbers who carried out the Watergate break-in among other crimes. The author then traces Nixon's fear that he was conspired against that further justifier his illegal activities
April 24, 2015
This is a fascinating read. Hughes fleshes out the story of the Nixon campaign's likelihood of interfering with the Vietnam peace talks to win the 1968 election, learning about a report that might incriminate him, so he created "the Plumbers" to get the material back. Well written.
February 2, 2016
Interesting thesis about Nixon and the desire to hide the 1968 attempts to scuttle the bombing hault on Vietnam being the real reason for the Watergate coverup.
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