Nixon's Slandering of General Lavelle

Sept. 17, 2010

Air Force Gen. John Lavelle

President Richard Nixon’s criminalities and cover-ups continue to be exposed, 36 years after the Watergate scandal forced him from office.

by Don Fulsom 

Recently declassified tapes and documents from President Nixon’s archives exploded a bombshell about how Nixon framed and slandered a distinguished U.S. military commander in Vietnam, Air Force Gen. John Lavelle.

In 1972, Lavelle became Nixon’s fall guy for obeying what turned out to be the commander in chief’s own top-secret orders to expand the bombing of North Vietnam in late 1971 and early 1972.

Nixon didn’t want to take the heat for that decision, unpopular with critics of the war—so Lavelle was sacrificed as the scapegoat, stripped of two of his four stars, and sacked.