This election has been cancelled (then and now)

Ron Rosenbaum summarizes the hot button controversy over National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, which seeks to establish continuity of government in the case of a major disaster. The proposed agenda includes the postponement of elections.

Rosenbaum proceeds with all proper caution. He obviously hopes (as I hope) not to toss any red meat to the conspiracy buffs. But even the most complacent among us must consider NSPD 51 seriously disturbing stuff. I intend to discuss it at greater length in a later piece.

At this time, I'd like to question Rosenbaum's handling of history.

He draws the obvious parallel to the oft-heard tale (well, oft-heard in the 1970s) that Richard Nixon, beset by massive anti-war protests, commissioned Rand to study the feasibility of canceling the 1972 elections.

As historian and frequent Slate contributor David Greenberg recounts it in his thoughtful book Nixon's Shadow, "the rumor [that Nixon had a secret plan to cancel the '72 presidential election] first appeared in print on April 5 in the Portland Oregonian, the Staten Island Advance and other Newhouse-owned newspapers. According to the item, the administration had asked the RAND Corporation ... to study whether 'rebellious factions using force or bomb threats would make it unsafe to conduct an election' and how the president might respond. Ron Rosenbaum, a reporter from the Village Voice, heard about the article from a Staten Island cab driver and investigated. He reported in The Voice on April 16 that RAND and the administration denied that any such study existed, but then playfully pointed out that they would surely deny it if it were true. Rosenbaum added that the country would just have to wait until 1972 to see."

Lesson here: Don't get too "playful" when writing about conspiracy theories. The problem with being "playful" back then was that much of the anti-war movement read the Voice at the time, and my story ignited a firestorm of paranoia. Soon there were "documents" of dubious authenticity circulating that purported to be RAND memos outlining plans to round up and lock up leaders of the anti-war movement. Eventually Pat Moynihan, then a Nixon consigliere, thundered against the rumor as an example of the intrusion of irrationality into politics.

There was rather more evidence for the "rumor" than Rosenbaum lets on. While no conclusive proof ever appeared, we should not be too quick to dismiss the documentation which Rosenbaum labels "of dubious authenticity."

I draw your attention to this e-book by one Charles A. Thomas, "MISSION BETRAYED: Richard Nixon and the Scranton Commission Inquiry into Kent State":

That week two of the remaining remnants of independent American journalism dealt the administration as many staggering shocks. A brash new magazine, Scanlan’s, announced that it would publish, in its August issue, a March 11th memorandum from the desk of Spiro Agnew, on vice-presidential stationery. In it, the Rand Corporation proposed the “judicious leak” of its study on the feasibility of canceling the 1972 elections – citing the interference of “radicals” in the political process – “but did not feel that any information should be made public on a plan to repeal the Bill of Rights.” Both actions were to be enforced by the military. But civil support would be called up as well, in the form of construction worker demonstrations in cities like New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and Seattle, funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. “The document came directly from Mr. Agnew’s office,” editor Sydney Zion announced, “and he knows it. We do not hesitate to submit our credibility against us.”

Nixon pursued his usual policy of waiting until the furor had died down before moving against an Enemy. But he was given an additional goad in September, when he hosted an “extraordinary dinner” at the White House for eight-five union leaders to celebrate Labor Day. Of the New York City union bosses who had presented the President with an honorary “hard hat” at the White House in May, where he had thanked them for their memberships’ attacks on peace demonstrators, only Peter Brennan was able to appear. “Part of the reason for trimming the New York guest list may have been the revelation in Scanlan’s magazine that a handful of the President’s springtime guests had criminal records and/or close criminal associations.”[135]

Immediately afterward, some of the President’s union allies, possibly operating through the good offices of the CIA as the “hardhats” had in May, specifically the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, refused to set type for the November issue of the magazine because it was “un-American” and “extremely radical”.[136] Union lithographers in several other states joined the boycott.[137] When the editors tried to have it printed in Canada, U.S. Customs agents seized copies as soon as they crossed the border.[138] Scanlan’s filed for bankruptcy early in 1971.

The footnotes in this section go to various stories in the New York Times. You can find more on the Scanlan's controversy here. The above paragraphs indicate that Nixon went on a rampage of vengeance. Would a mere fake arouse such zeal?

John Dean (see here), on his first day in the White House, was asked by Nixon to initiate retaliatory action against Scanlan's. Dean:

I was told: he [Nixon] had scrawled my orders on the margin of his daily news summary. No one had to explain why the president's name was not used. He was always to be kept one step removed, insulated to preserve his "deniability."

So this is my baptism. I thought I was astounded that the President would be so angrily concerned about a funny article in a fledgling magazine. It did not square with my picture of his being absorbed in diplomacy, wars and high matters of state. Was it possible ...?

After all these years, we still don't know the origin or bona fides of that Agnew memo. I cannot find a copy of it on the net; if anyone can send a jpg, I'd be enormously grateful.

A Los Angeles police informant named Louis Tackwood offered further claims regarding the 1972 plot, as outlined in a book called The Glass House Tapes. Covert History summarizes:

According to Donald Freed in the chapter "Operation Gemstone" in Big Brother and the Holding Company, Louis Tackwood, ex-agent provocateur for the Los Angeles Police Department told of plans to provoke a small-scale war at the Republican Convention, then expected to be held in San Diego, leading to the declaration of a "State of Emergency" and martial law. Tackwood was to lead a team of black and Chicano provocateurs, which would foment street violence. Inside the convention hall explosives would kill and maim Republican delegates.

According to Freed: "An FBI provocateur, William Lemmer, has since admitted that a group posing as VVAW cadres, but with a special lightning flash insignia for recognition, would fire on convention delegates with automatic weapons." VVAW was Vietnam Veterans Against the War, led by John Kerry.

I used to know a man who knew Tackwood, who helped the LAPD set up a 1969 raid against the Black Panthers. My acquaintance described him as "classic street hustler," implying that his credibility would be easy for a skeptic to impugn. Yet this same source also tended to believe the story told in The Glass House Tapes. Tackwood's credibility was bolstered when he mentioned pseudonyms used by Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, information verified by later investigators.

Many people seem to be under the impression that the "Huston Plan" (named after Nixon aide Tom Charles Huston) was connected with the alleged plot to cancel the election. Actually, that plan concerned a series of covert actions and dirty tricks against the anti-war movement. Huston even proposed incarcerating dissidents in concentration camps.

As the 1970s gave way to the Reagan era, rumors surrounding that aspect of the Huston Plan made a strange rightward migration. I recall seeing (circa 1980) religious paperbacks which promulgated the notion that Nixon's camps were intended to hold Christians.

Which means that Rosenbaum is right. You have to be careful when dealing with paranoia-inducing material.

(For an added note, click "Permalink" below)

On Buzzflash, the Kerry reference has been questioned.

I was in VVAW. John Kerry was not our leader -- in fact, he helped form a group that opposed us.

Another reader helpfully pointed out that Kerry had in fact been in VVAW, then quit.

I still consider the quote accurate. At the time period in question, it was certainly fair to consider Kerry a leader of the group, in the sense that he was the one debating on TV, testifying before congressmen, being caricatured in Doonesbury, and (as we now know) arousing the antipathy of Nixon himself, who considered Kerry another Kennedy. (If you know Nixon's psyche, you'll know that "another Kennedy" was pretty much the worst thing he could ever say about anyone!)

Kerry broke with VVAW toward the end of 1971 after a meeting in which another leading member advocated violence. But Kerry was still associated with the group at the time when Nixon is alleged to have contemplated radical and bizarre actions.

The FBI (as we now know) had information from a confidential source about the meetings which led to Kerry's resignation. We still do not know who the FBI's "inside man" was. However, in light of the above scenario, I tend to suspect that the person who initiated the call for violence was the person acting as snitch and provocateur. (Louis Tackwood played an exactly similar role in the Panthers.)

How far did Nixon's plans go, and how serious was he? We don't have conclusive proof that he contemplated postponing the 1972 elections, but we do have evidence pointing in that direction. One of my reasons for writing is to encourage further research into this fascinating allegation.