Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics

by Lawrence O'Donnell

The FBI reported that Anna Chennault had spent half an hour with Ambassador Diem at the embassy. The next day, Johnson called Senator Dirksen and gave him fragments of what he knew. LBJ wanted to give Dirksen just enough to scare Nixon. Johnson hoped that once Dirksen told Nixon what the president knew, Nixon would back off and stop interfering with the peace talks. Johnson specifically mentioned Anna Chennault’s involvement to Dirksen and suggested that the Nixon campaign would be destroyed if any news like this got out. Johnson refrained from accusing Nixon personally. He put it to Dirksen that some of Nixon’s people had gone way too far, and they’d better bottle up Anna Chennault if they knew what was good for them.