Dear Editor:
This is in response to Al McKegg’s op-ed of Nov. 20. With all due respect, I feel compelled to respond to its inaccuracies and incompleteness.
First, Nixon’s crime occurred after being elected, and he did not “coordinate burglaries,” though he did cover up the fact that one burglary, previously unknown to him, had been conducted by underlings, a mistake of gargantuan proportions. However, the biggest crooks to occupy the White House in our lifetimes were Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton, and that is historically accurate. And now we have Mr. Biden, with his son, Hunter.
As to Johnson’s crookedness, I invite you to read Robert Caro’s extremely well researched voluminous books on Johnson’s life. Barbara Olson’s book, “The Final Days,” exposes “some” of the Clintons’ criminal activity as they were leaving office. For perjury, Clinton, too, was subject to criminal prosecution after leaving office, but George W. Bush nixed that solution, without the negative feedback Ford got.
As to bombing Cambodia, yes, Cambodian territory was bombed, but not Cambodians. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were bombed in Cambodian jungles as they were supplying their fighters across the border in Vietnam, and they were attacking and then escaping back into Cambodia.
Nixon, in trying to leave under favorable terms, did extend the war. And it is argued that the North Vietnamese themselves didn’t want settlement until after the 1972 election, hoping McGovern, Nixon’s opponent, the one who would “crawl to Hanoi on his hands and knees” would win the election, ergo getting better terms.
However, I assume we do remember that Jack Kennedy, and then Lyndon Johnson, got us into that mess big time. Kennedy essentially started its growth, got Prime Minister Diem assassinated, and Johnson built it up dramatically, using as excuse the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident, where he contended, falsely, that communist boats attacked a U.S. Navy ship. And we speak of a treasonous act?
As an aside on this issue, Robert Kennedy, in a recorded interview, said that had his brother not been killed, and had he won the next election, he was going to get out of Vietnam. That action — extending war for election reasons — could be argued set the precedent for Nixon.
Trump did not mishandle the corona- virus. Once he saw the seriousness, he stopped travel with China, and then Europe. Biden called him a racist, and Pelosi partied in San Francisco’s Chinatown, to show their opposition. And as hard as it is for some to admit, the recently announced medicines developed for treatment and vaccination occurred because of Trump’s leadership, streamlining government regulations, funding, etc.
Gene Gibson, Wachapreague
