foreign government or adversary. in 1968 richard nixon was running against hubert humphrey, the vice president under lyndon johnson, against the backdrop of a war in vietnam. it looked like the administration was on the cusp of securing the negotiation to win the war, so at the last minute the next session -- the nixon campaign opened the secret back channel with the south vietnamese to get them to pull out of the peace talks. >> on november 2, with three days to go until americans went to the polls, the president suddenly announced that the south vietnamese government would not attend the proposed talks after all. a representative of the nixon campaign at the candidate's personal direction had personally contacted the saigon government, urging him to stay away from the talks. promising that once nixon was elected he would drive a harder