S8 Ep273: NIXON'S SABOTAGE AND HAMBURGER HILL Colleague Geoffrey Wawro. Richard Nixon won the 1968 election by using Henry Kissinger to secretly sabotage LBJ's peace talks, eventually accepting the same terms in 1973 after four more years of bloodshed. Once in powe

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

News, Books, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

NIXON'S SABOTAGE AND HAMBURGER HILL Colleague Geoffrey Wawro. Richard Nixon won the 1968 election by using Henry Kissinger to secretly sabotage LBJ's peace talks, eventually accepting the same terms in 1973 after four more years of bloodshed. Once in power, Nixon's continuation of "search and destroy" tactics led to the Battle of Hamburger Hill in 1969, where troops captured a meaningless objective only to abandon it, sparking congressional and public outrage. This backlash forced Nixon to abandon coercive ground tactics and pivot toward "Vietnamization," as the American public would no longer tolerate high casualties for insignificant terrain. NUMBER 13

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is CBS Eye on the World.
0:08.5	Here's John Batchelor.
0:11.9	This is CBS I on the World.
0:14.3	I'm John Batchel.
0:15.5	I'm continuing conversation with Jeff Warro.
0:20.0	The book is The Vietnam War, A Military History.
0:25.2	March 31st, 1968,
0:27.8	Lynne Johnson, surprising even his closest counselors,
0:32.1	taking to the television to announce that he's stopping the bombing of Vietnam,
0:40.9	seeking a peace table in Paris or wherever,
0:45.9	and that he will not be a candidate for the presidency in 1968.
0:52.5	He is a casualty of the TAT and of poor choices these last years with Westmoreland.
0:55.1	Richard Nixon wins the election.
0:58.4	However, there's a detail here that's important.
1:05.5	Jeff, a very good evening again to you, and the detail was not revealed until the 21st century.
1:14.0	I believe it was found by an author doing a biography of Richard Nixon, that prior to the success of the Nixon campaign over Hubert Humphrey, who was the vice president who ran on the
1:20.4	Democratic ticket, Mr. Nixon had been in conversation with Anna Chanel using her as a conduit to President 2 of Vietnam, South
1:31.7	Vietnam. And what was the purpose of those conversations, Jeff?
1:36.2	Yeah, well, Nixon was deeply concerned that, you know, he'd been ahead of the polls against
1:42.6	Hubert Humphrey for all of the 1968 campaign.
1:46.8	But then once Johnson announces the bombing halt in October of 1968, on the eve of the
1:54.5	elections in November, suddenly Humphrey starts climbing in the polls. And Nixon had been
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.