"Richard Nixon" and "Watergate." But What if Watergate Never Happened? What Would the 37th President Be Best Known For?

@independentone instead it's Buba Clinton that wears that badge of honor. Nixon was before my day..

@DrWatson When four students were killed at Kent State in May 1970 by the Ohio National Guard, Nixon and the majority of Americans (58% in a Gallup Poll) blamed the students for their own deaths, despite the fact that one of them was an ROTC member walking to class and shot in the back. Both Nixon and his attack dog Vice President, Spiro Agnew, were very anti-protesters, as their public comments showed. Three years later, Agnew resigned in disgrace for taking bribes inside the White House, and a year after that, it was Nixon's time to resign in disgrace.

Johnson had an opportunity to end the war in 1968 through peace talks brokered between North and South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Nixon committed treason prior to the election by secretly negotiating with the South Vietnamese President, convincing him not to agree to the peace talks and waiting until Nixon was president, and would give him a better deal. Watergate or not, I will remember that we could have had peace in 1968 or 1969 instead of a withdrawal and the fall of Saigon in 1975, but it didn't fit into Nixon's plans.

@windinhishair and if memory serves me correctly LBJ was aware of Nixon’s illegal activities and didn’t reveal them.

@monte3 LBJ was told of Nixon's treason. He called Nixon to ask him directly about it. As usual, Nixon lied and told LBJ that he had not done such a thing. The call was recorded and is available at the National Archives. I've heard it myself. Johnson could have, but decided not to make it an issue prior to the election. Just another example of Republican fuckery.

@monte3 Nixon had help with the Southern Strategy from Johnson. Once the Civil Rights Act was passed, racist southern democrats were ripe for the picking, and both Nixon and George Wallace capitalized on it.

As LBJ signed the civil rights bill said something to the effect that we have given the side the south for the next 40 years. He was too optimistic, @windinhishair

@monte3 Yes he was. And he knew what he was talking about, having grown up a racist white man in Central Texas in the 1920s and 1930s. Signing the Civil Rights Act was quite a transformation. It would be like Trump signing a sweeping bill dealing with Global Climate Change.