Oval office phone call on this day in 1973: ‘Well, I just feel the torture you’re going through’ | Opinion
AUSTIN, TEXAS - May 22, 1971 - On this day in 1973, presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson would speak via phone for the last time. The two men are shown here at the LBJ Library on the University of Texas campus in Austin. AP WirephotoOn Jan. 2, 1973, exactly 50 years ago, President Richard Nixon asked his White House operator to get former President Lydon Johnson on the phone at his ranch in Texas.
Truman, the nation’s 33rd president, died in Independence, Mo., the day after Christmas, decreasing the ex-president’s club to just one: Johnson. Nixon and Truman never got along. Nixon went after a former State Department official, Alger Hiss, for espionage when Truman was president and Nixon a young, brash congressman. Truman thought the investigation was a“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard,” Truman famously said.
Nixon also felt he was purposely humiliated the last time he attended a funeral in the National Cathedral, when Justice Hugo Black was eulogized by one of Black’s and Sayre’s friends who said that Black had little patience with strict constructionists. Nixon had run twice for president vowing to nominate only strict constructionists to the Supreme Court.
“Happy New Year!” Johnson chirped when he got on the phone with Nixon in the afternoon of Jan. 2. After some preliminaries, Johnson offered: “Well, I just feel the torture you’re going through on Vietnam. I wish’d I could do something for you.” Johnson had barely endorsed Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern because of McGovern’s promise to leave Vietnam without conditions. Nixon contended he was going to achieve “peace with honor,” and Johnson was aligned with Nixon’s tougher tactics to obtain that objective.
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