>>>>>interesting piece I've just be listening too about how Nixon and the Republicans sabotaged the Vietnam peace process to keep his election on track
>>>>>
>>>>>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668>>>>
>>>>Interesting! Thank you for the link.
>>>>
>>>>There is a lot I can say on the topic of Vietnam, but I will say one thing. When Nixon was campaigning for President during September of 1968, he made comments about the power of the United States. He asked why our nation could not drop atomic bombs on North Vietnam, and upon doing so we could pave it before Christmas of 1968, and make it a parking lot!
>>>>
>>>>The best was yet to come.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Tom
>>>
>>>I am no fan of RN (nor of LBJ) and like you and all the men of our generation I had a lot of skin in game regarding Vietnam (and, in my case, Laos) but I'm not sure about RN actually saying that in the 68 campaign (albeit I was out of the country for most of it and American election news in Turkey was not all over the place) I do remember the parking lot line - thought that was Curtis Lemay or somebody like that. Never remember nukes being mentioned by any candidate ( memories of LBJs mau-mauing Goldwater in 64 still too fresh)
>>>
>>>Doesn't sound like something Nixon would say out loud and he was a pretty careful candidate. ( the dems were doing pretty much everything they could to destroy themselves, you'll remember so Nixon was very pleased in many cases to take "the high road" - i.e come across and calm and in control )
>>>
>>>Maybe I just missed it. Do you have the source?
>>
>>We'll never know but I think RFK would have won that election if he hadn't been assassinated. Hubert Humphrey darned near beat Nixon and he was not nearly as strong a candidate as RFK.
>>
>>I share your skepticism that Nixon would have said anything as explosive as nuking North Vietnam or turning it into a parking lot.
>
>A shame Humphrey didn't use the evidence that Nixon was actually committing treason in the campaign . He could have won and maybe had peace in Vietnam 4 yours earlier and possibly how many lives saved in Cambodia..
I haven't looked at the documentary you site re: Nixon committing "treason" but I don't think HH was on a moral high ground re Vietnam nor was he more likely to have extricated us from one of most disastrous periods in our history. RFK may have ... or at least not have escalated the horror as Nixon did. Or at least I thought so when I campaigned for him ... and before I got over there and saw just how far gone things were.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.