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Washington Post publishes column by Arnold Offner, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor Emeritus of History
The Washington Post published a column today by Arnold Offner, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor Emeritus of History, about why President Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t stop foreign interference in the 1968 presidential election.
“In 1968, Richard Nixon sought help from South Vietnam to defeat Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey. And when President Lyndon B. Johnson learned of this ‘treason,’ he did nothing to reveal or halt it — because he wanted his own vice president to lose,” writes Offner.
“Johnson’s betrayal of Humphrey and the Democratic Party opened the way to Nixon’s election and growing Republican use of the ‘Southern strategy’ of heating race relations and xenophobia to win elections,” Offner explains. “Ironically, Johnson also spurred the now half-century Republican effort to dismantle his beloved Great Society. In many ways it is these practices on trial this week as Americans head to the polls.”