While he was running for the U.S. presidency in 1968,
Richard Nixon told H.R. Haldeman “that they should find a way to secretly ‘monkey
wrench’ peace talks in Vietnam” by trying to get the South Vietnamese
government to refuse to attend peace talks in Paris until after the U.S.
election.[1]
Specifically, Nixon gave instructions that Anna Chennault, a Republican
fundraiser, should keep “working on” South Vietnamese officials so they would
not agree to a peace agreement before the U.S. election.[2]
“Potentially, this is worse than anything he did in Watergate,” said John
Farrell, who discovered evidence of Nixon’s involvement from Haldeman’s notes
on a conversation with the candidate. That Nixon committed a crime to win the
election is itself an indication that the way Americans elect the federal
president was flawed. That he went on to cover up the Watergate crime committed
during the 1972 campaign only to win by a landslide should give pause to anyone
having faith in an unchecked popular election. I contend that the American Founders had
designed the Electoral College in part to catch such a candidate from becoming
president, even if the College had never operated as such. Yet it could.
The full essay is at "The Case of Nixon's Treason."
1. Peter Baker, “Nixon Sought ‘Monkey Wrench’ in Vietnam Talks,” The New York Times, January 3, 2017.
2. Ibid.
