Saturday, May 16, 1998

Clinton's scandals pale next to LBJ's

By Joseph Spear

If you find yourself in need of respite from all the hoo-ha about Bill and Newt and Paula and Kenneth and Monica and the Trippster, you could do worse than read some American history.

What you will find is an antidote called perspective.

You will discover that almost all American presidents were embroiled in scandals of one kind or another; that their antics and larks commanded the headlines of the day; and that their stories, like those that currently consume our attention, were regarded as the transcendent controversies of their times.

You will also discover, in some instances, that the main characters were formidable personalities who would eclipse the dwarfs who currently occupy the public stage. They fought big battles and pulled few punches and the results shaped history.

One book you might want to peruse is Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 by Boston University history Professor Robert Dallek. The second volume of a massive biography of Johnson, it has been widely reviewed as a work of first-rate scholarship and an insightful portrait of the 36th president.

Johnson was a passionate player of political games. He was possessed of gigantic ambitions. He was obsessed with the press. He fought avidly, fought hard and, when necessary, fought dirty.

Were he still alive, Hubert Humphrey might attest to this. Until now, it has been commonly accepted that Johnson quietly supported his vice president's 1968 attempt to succeed him. In fact, LBJ was irritated with Humphrey because he refused to endorse Johnson's Vietnam policy -- indeed, he suggested he might stop bombing Hanoi and "seek peace in every way possible." Once, Johnson urged Nelson Rockefeller to run against Humphrey. There is also evidence LBJ possessed information that could have thrown the election to Humphrey, but he refused to divulge it.

From bugs the FBI had placed on Nixon's campaign plane at his behest, Johnson learned the GOP candidate had sabotaged any chance of an "October Surprise" in the form of a last-minute peace settlement with Hanoi by persuading the Saigon government not to cooperate. It was arguably a case of treason, but Johnson withheld disclosure of the dirty deed. He was angry enough, however, to give Humphrey the option of exposing the story, but the vice president was already losing badly and feared the disclosure would spark a constitutional crisis, so the story of Nixon's treachery was never aired.

Johnson also knew Nixon's campaign had benefited from a major infusion of foreign money. According to Professor Dallek: "Elias P. Demetracopoulos, a Greek journalist, who had fled Athens in 1967 after a colonels' coup, provided the president with a chance to damage, if not sink, Nixon's campaign. Demetracopoulos had information that Greece's military dictators had funneled more than half a million dollars into the Nixon-Agnew campaign. He gave this information to (Democratic chairman) Larry O'Brien and urged O'Brien to put this before Johnson."

But LBJ refused to use it. There were, Dallek wrote, three reasons: "First, he was comfortable with Greece's anti-communist military regime and viewed Demetracopoulos as a troublemaker. Second, Johnson was reluctant to do anything that might help Humphrey win. Third and ironically, Johnson feared that a Nixon presidency might bring efforts to indict him and his principle aides. (One aide) asked: ‘For what?' But Johnson would never say." LBJ filed the Greek Connection story away, Dallek wrote, "for possible future use."

Five years later, the Democrats were threatening to investigate Watergate, and Nixon asked Johnson to help squelch the effort. If LBJ refused, Nixon threatened, he would reveal that Johnson had bugged his campaign plane in 1968.

Any such disclosure, LBJ countered, would result in the exposure of Nixon's sabotage of the peace talks. And, added Professor Dallek: "Johnson may also have considered releasing material about the secret Greek money funneled into the Nixon campaign."

War, peace, wiretaps, threats, blackmail.

A bit more compelling than hanky-panky on the Oval Office floor or a quick tryst in a White House study, wouldn't you say?

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