Posted on 05/25/2018 6:25:54 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Is it unthinkable that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would spy on a presidential campaign for political purposes? I can personally attest that it has happened before—during Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign.
Every poll agreed that President Lyndon B. Johnson would easily win the election against the conservative Sen. Goldwater of Arizona. But LBJ wanted a landslide so he could implement his Great Society vision without resistance and go down in history as one of America’s greatest presidents. For Johnson, extremism in the pursuit of victory was no vice.
Thus was born Johnson’s “Anti-Campaign” to smear Goldwater’s candidacy. The operation was run from the second floor of the West Wing by veteran Washington-based Democrats like Leonard Marks, who would become director of the U.S. Information Agency, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant secretary of labor and later a U.S. senator from New York.
Typical of their black-bag politics was scheduling Democratic speakers before and after Goldwater’s appearance in a city, smothering his message with pro-Johnson, anti-Goldwater rhetoric. Advance knowledge of Goldwater’s travel schedule and advance copies of his remarks were provided by a spy the Central Intelligence Agency had planted in Goldwater headquarters.
Former intelligence officer E. Howard Hunt, best known for his role as an orchestrator of the Watergate bugging, told a Senate committee in 1973 that his CIA superior had ordered him to infiltrate the Goldwater campaign. Hunt claimed to have questioned the order, only to be told that it had been a personal request of President Johnson and that the information he recovered would be delivered to a White House aide.
CIA Director William Colby confirmed the White House’s role in the illegal surveillance while addressing a congressional hearing in 1975.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Hoover spied on everyone back then. YAWN
So what’s this then? The everybody does it defense?
Fortunately Obumbles isn’t half as smart as LBJ! If he was, we’d likely have a hot CW2!
btt
“So what’s this then? The everybody does it defense?”
After 18 months of emphatic denial, and ridicule of anyone who cared about it.
I, personally, suspect LBJ was guilty of far worse than that.
“everyone does it defense”?
Sounds more like “we always do it.”
“Hoover spied on everyone back then. YAWN”
I only read the excerpt, but weird that the title clearly says FBI, but the article is talking about the CIA.
Again, only going by the excerpt.
There is much evidence that LBJ was responsible for at least five or six murders, and that his button man was a guy named Malcolm (Mac) Wallace.
“But LBJ wanted a landslide so he could implement his Great Society vision without resistance and go down in history as one of America’s greatest presidents.”
Ha! He was an evil SOB. Evil. Son. Of. A. Bitch. He deserves his own ring of Hell.
Title should be DEMOCRATS have used intelligence agencies to spy on Presidential campaigns before.
To avoid wsj's member's-only block:
Full WSJ article
Every time I drive through Johnson City, I feel dirty. They renamed the town after LBJ. Ass kissing, maybe?
Also, I was married at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, a decision I now regret.
In his last months in office, having dropped out of the nomination race, LBJ rammed through Congress the Omnibus Crime Bill, aka GCA ‘68, which plagues gun owners to this day.
But....at the signing ceremony, Johnson was spitting mad that the final bill did not contain what he really wanted; Federal registration of all firearms and licensing of all owners. He railed at those who blocked these draconian measures. 1968 was part of an era when gun control meant outlawing private ownership of handguns, such as in Britain since 1997.
GCA ‘68 was LBJ’s revenge for the assassinations of JFK, MLK, & RFK which he saw as part of a vast right wing plot.
Johnson croaked in 1973, not yet 65 years old. Karma’s a bitch.
If LBJ sought “revenge” for the murder of JFK, he should have taken it out on himself. Read Roger Stone’s book on the JFK assassination some day; the “coincidences”, including the fingerprints at the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository of the hit man LBJ used to off his problems, are a bit too persistent.
His brain didn't hold more metadata than today's nsa comupters, because he only held onto what he needed.
Is this suppose to be an excuse for what Obama did?
We all need to 'get real' about democrat monsters. They are not role models.
I suspect the purpose of this story is to set the stage for an 'everybody does it' defense of Obama... which is crap.
If Obama was involved - he and his fellow criminals and thugs should go to prison.
Not here in the United States - but in a country like they wanted to create here: a corrupt third world hellhole with strong secret police. Iran would do nicely... they would fit right in with the 'Mullah Mentality'...
What’s your point? That ‘everyone does it’... so Obama’s thugs should get a pass?
Gimme a break.
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