Obama clears US general smeared by Nixon plotting

John Lavelle was forced to retire in April 1972 at the rank of major general, two stars below the rank he held as commander of air operations in Vietnam, after being relieved of duty for ordering unauthorised air strikes against North Vietnamese military targets.

He maintained his innocence during congressional hearings held after his dismissal and died in 1979.

The story took a new twist in 2007 with publication in Air Force Magazine of an article by a retired air force general, Aloysius Casey, and his son Patrick.

They used declassified documents and transcripts of President Richard Nixon's Oval Office audio tapes to show he had in fact secretly authorised more aggressive bombing in North Vietnam in February 1972.

The Caseys also wrote that such attacks had been authorised in late 1971 and early 1972 by top US officers, including Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and US Army general Creighton Abrams, the overall US military commander in South Vietnam.

General Lavelle's family petitioned the air force to correct his record and restore his rank, saying the decision in 1972 to relieve him of duty was based on "woefully incomplete" evidence.

The petition said the Nixon tapes showed "he was a 'scapegoat' and in fact had acted within the authority expressly granted to him by the president and communicated to him through classified communications between the chief of Pacific Command, the secretary of defence and others".

In 2008 the Air Force Board for the Correction of Military Records found no evidence that General Lavelle caused, directly or indirectly, the falsification of records or that he was even aware of their existence.

The board also agreed with the family's assertion that the 1972 decision had been based on incomplete information and that the White House and others withheld important facts.

Defence secretary Robert Gates endorsed the recommendation and President Barack Obama has asked the Senate to confirm him in the rank of general.

General Lavelle's widow, Mary Jo, 91, thanked all involved adding: "I wish he was alive to hear this news."

Watergate tapes still hold secrets

Details of tapes secretly recorded in the Oval Office by President Richard Nixon are still emerging nearly four decades after they were made.

Their existence was only revealed in the latter stages of

investigations into Watergate, the break-in of Democrat Party headquarters in Washington, as part of a dirty-tricks campaign by the Nixon administration against opponents.

The tapes ultimately led to Nixon's downfall after proving his involvement in Watergate and exposing him as a paranoid, foul-mouthed and cynical liar.