Transition of Power: The Presidency Page #3

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it could help secure

the election

for his vice president,

Hubert Humphrey.

DOYLE:

Richard Nixon was desperate.

He saw a very,

very close election.

Hubert Humphrey

and he were polling

just about even

in all the polls.

This time we're gonna win!

(cheers and applause)

DOYLE:
To checkmate Humphrey,

what the Nixon campaign did

in secret

was an act

of political sabotage.

LICHTMAN:

Candidate Nixon acted

to try to scuttle

the peace talks.

He sent his representative

to the South Vietnamese

to say, "Don't cooperate.

Wait till I'm elected

and you will get a better deal."

NARRATOR:
Audio recordings,

declassified in 2008,

reveal that just days

before the election,

President Johnson learns

about Nixon's scheme

to derail the peace process.

DOYLE:
In a desperate attempt

to get the Nixon campaign

to stop these secret

backdoor negotiations

with South Vietnam,

President Johnson calls up

Republican leader

Everett Dirksen,

and accuses Republican

Richard Nixon

of the ultimate crime.

DIRKSEN:
Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a mistake.

Oh, it is.

Yeah.

JOHNSON:
All right.

(phone hangs up)

(telephone ringing)

NARRATOR:

Less than 24 hours later,

a call is patched through

to President Johnson.

JOHNSON:
Yes.

NARRATOR:

The peaceful transfer of power

from one president to the next

is a complex process

that begins

long before America chooses

its next leader.

To prepare the candidates

to govern

on day one, they receive

intelligence briefings

that are supposed

to remain top secret.

But in 1968,

at the height

of the Vietnam War,

candidate Richard Nixon

secretly uses

intelligence

from those briefings

to interfere with

President Johnson's efforts

to set up peace talks.

DOYLE:

Nixon campaign operatives

told the South Vietnamese

government

to pull out of the negotiations.

Don't negotiate now,

through the Johnson-Humphrey

administration, hang on,

you'll get

a better deal with us.

NARRATOR:
In recently

declassified recordings,

an adamant Nixon can be heard

assuring

President Lyndon Johnson

that he has made

no attempts to interfere

with the peace process.

JOHNSON:
Yes.

Yes, Dick.

Dick...

Well, that's good, Dick, I...

And if we can get it

done now, fine.

NARRATOR:
Nixon is lying,

and President Johnson knows it.

But there is nothing

he can do about it,

because his proof that

the Nixon campaign is tampering

with the peace process comes

from a secret

government wiretap

of the South Vietnamese embassy

in Washington, D.C.

In the political game of chess,

it's a stalemate

of king versus king.

LICHTMAN:

And as a result,

the South Vietnamese

did not cooperate

in the peace talks, a ceasefire

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