LBJ
Page 39
1. Schlesinger, RFK … , p. 670, Kearns Goodwin, p. 164 (Johnson’s analogy about the raven begets the question, “What would Freud have said about that?”).
2. Mollenhoff, p. 107.
3. Twyman, pp. 656–658 (interview with Gerry Patrick Hemming).
4. Mahoney, pp. 304–305.
5. Marrs, p. 292.
6. Caro, Master, p. 407.
7. Zirbel, p. 118.
8. Caro, Master, p. 407.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 408.
12. Brown, M., p. 102.
13. Caro, Master, p. 406.
14. See Spartacus Educational website: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkorth.htm
15. Baker, p. 112.
16. Scott, p. 155.
17. Scheim, pp. 241–242
18. Mollenhoff, pp. 390–391.
19. Ibid.
20. The Education Forum, Controversial Issues in History, JFK Assassination Debate: TFX Scandal and the JFK assassination [Quoted by Frederic M. Scherer, The Weapons Acquisition Process: Economic Incentives, 1964, p. 37].
21. See Spartacus Educational website: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkorth.htm
22. Ibid.
23. Baker, p. 112.
24. Mollenhoff, p. 376.
25. Lasky, It Didn’t Start … , pp. 135–137.
26. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. North, p. 122.
33. Haley, p. 115.
34. Ibid., pp. 115–116.
35. North, p. 170.
36. Ibid., p. 124.
37. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
38. Lincoln, p. 181.
39. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
40. Mollenhoff, p. 107.
41. Twyman, pp. 844–845.
42. McClellan, pp. 156–157.
43. Ibid.
* According to author Haley, former Pecos City manager L. A. Patterson was quoted in the June 11, 1962, Corpus Christi Caller-Times as saying, “You have to remember that Billie Sol was like a god in this town. It was freely reported that anyone opposed to him might just as well pack up their [sic] bags and leave town.”
44. Haley, 117–127.
45. Ibid., pp. 117–118.
46. Ibid., p. 118.
* According to author J. Evetts Haley, “At one time a Texan was ready to take the stand and swear that he had seen Billie Sol buy a $395 suit and two pairs of $245 alligator shoes for Orville Freeman, paying in $100 bills … Freeman was a little too high to touch.” (Haley, p. 128)
47. Ibid., p. 122.
48. Ibid., pp. 116–117.
49. Mollenhoff, p. 107.
50. North, p. 145 (ref. New York Times, May 8, 1962).
51. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
52. North, pp. 124, 126.
53. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
54. Ibid.
55. See John Simkin’s “The Education Forum, Controversial Issues in History, JFK Online Seminars: Malcolm Wallace, Parts 1 and 2.
56. Haley, p. 128 (ref. San Angelo Standard-Times, April 21, 1962).
57. North, p. 142 (ref. Theoharis, Athan G., and John Sutart Cox, The Boss, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988, pp. 346–347 (hardcover edn.).
58. Summers, Official and Confidential … , p. 336.
59. North, p. 129.
60. Ibid., pp. 142–143.
61. New York Times, August 17, 1962.
62. North, pp. 176–177.
63. Haley, p. 116.
64. Ibid.
65. Time Magazine, May 25, 1962.
66. Morrow, p. 124.
* A comparison to his other major meltdowns throughout his career is difficult, since other firsthand observers to these episodes were not usually willing to risk his wrath by making a contemporaneous record of them; however, there was one such account, which will be revealed in chapter 9, “The Aftermath.”
67. Day, pp. 132–133.
68. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
69. McClellan, pp. 157–158.
70. Haley, p. 249.
71. Ibid., pp. 249–250.
* The airplane, a Convair 240, was the subject of still another Johnson scam, although quite incidental to the rest of this story. It seems that the plane was not owned by Johnson, merely borrowed from John W. Mecom, a Houston oilman, for the 1960 campaign but never returned. The building of the airport with its six-thousand-foot runway and navigational lights is yet another story of how he had already managed to make significant improvements to his ranch at the taxpayers’ expense (see Haley, pp. 250–252).
72. Ibid.
73. McClellan, p. 157.
74. Much of the information on Malcolm Wallace was obtained from John Simkin’s website Education Forum to which other researchers contribute. In this instance, researcher/author Larry Hancock provided valuable information regarding Wallace and his connections to Lyndon Johnson. Ref.: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2326
75. Akers, Dianne King, Austin American-Statesman: June 19, 2000, Lifestyle Section, p. E1.
76. Haley, pp. 106-109; McClellan, pp. 104–115; Brown, M. p. 79.
77. The information regarding Josefa, Mac Wallace, his wife Mary Andre, and Doug Kinser, unless otherwise specifically noted, comes from J. Evetts Haley (pp. 106–109) and Barr McClellan (pp. 104–115) and John Simkin’s Education Forum or Spartacus Educational websites.
78. McClellan, p. 108.
79. Day, p. 81.
80. Day, p. 81.
81. Akers, op. cit. (This June 2000 article appeared on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the pitch and putt golf course.)
82. McClellan, pp. 109–111.
83. Pegues, p. 34.
84. Haley, pp. 107–109.
85. The Austin American-Statesman, February 27, 1952.
86. Day, p. 82.
87. The Education Forum, “Death Bed Confession: LBJ” Blog #5.
88. Day, p. 82.
89. Ibid.
90. See http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2326
91. Ibid.
92. Brown, M., p. 79.
93. op. cit. See Education Forum, Malcolm Wallace Part 2…
94. Brown, Walt, “The Sordid Story of Mac Wallace,” JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, July 1998.
95. McClellan, pp. 323–332: Exhibits G, H, and I.
96. A copy of the ONI memorandum is included in McClellan’s Blood, Money … , after p. 332 in “Pictures and Documents” (Item 22).
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. McClellan, p. 114.
100. Day, pp. 81–82.
101. Ibid., p. 94.
102. Ibid.
103. McClellan, pp. 103–104
104. Ibid.
105. Dallek, p. 347.
106. McClellan, pp. 103–104.
107. Brown, pp. 134–136.
108. Ibid.
109. Haley, p. 118–124; McClellan pp. 49–61
110. North, p. 148 (ref. New York Times, May 23, 1962).
111. Ibid.
112. Day, pp. 132–133 (Op. Cit.).
113. Day, pp. 132–133.
114. Haley, p. 135.
115. Day, pp. 132–133.
116. Ibid.
117. Ibid.
118. Pegues, 103.
119. Day, p. 135.
120. Time magazine, July 20, 1962.
121. Ibid.
122. Haley, p. 137.
123. Time magazine, July 20, 1962.
124. Ibid., p. 141.
125. Brown, M., p. 79.
126. Ibid., pp. 168–169.
127. Ibid., p. 155.
128. Haley, p. 123; McClellan, p. 169.
129. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
130. Ibid.
131. Haley, p. 127.
132. Ibid., p. 120.
133. Ibid.
, p. 124.
134. Ibid., p. 144.
135. Ibid.
136. McClellan, p. 169.
137. North, pp. 150–151. (ref. The New York Times, May 29, 1962).
138. Haley, pp. 129–131.
139. Pegues, p. 123.
140. Haley, pp. 129–131.
141. Ibid. (ref. San Angelo Standard-Times, May 15, 1962).
142. Pegues, p. 84.
143. North, pp. 157–158. (ref. The New York Times, June 24, 1962).
144. Ibid.
145. Ibid., pp.145–146.
146. Ibid.
147. See http://www.billiesolestes.com/billie.php
148. McClellan, p. 173.
149. Ibid.
150. Haley, pp. 251–252.
151. McClellan, pp. 173–174.
152. Day, p. 132.
153. Haley, p. 134.
154. Time magazine, May 25, 1962.
155. Haley, p. 135.
156. The New York Times, June 21, 1962.
157. North, p. 156.
158. Baker, p. 117.
159. Ibid., p. 158.
160. Adler, Bill, ‘The Killing of Henry Marshall,’ The Texas Observer, November 7, 1986.
161. Pegues, p. 105.
162. Day, p. 135.
163. See http://www.billiesolestes.com/billie.php
164. McClellan, pp. 156–158.
165. Livingstone, Killing the Truth, p. 248.
166. Hancock, p. 405.
167. op. cit. See Education Forum, Malcolm Wallace Part 2.
168. North, p. 203.
169. Haley, p. 115.
* In 2005, Billie Sol Estes lent his support to the work of a French investigative reporter, William Reymond, who eventually produced both a book and a video presenting the Johnson/Carter/Wallace conspiracy story in considerable detail, with corroboration from individuals (including Kyle Brown, a former associate of both Carter and Estes) who had heard Carter describing the conspiracy on tape as well as in person. Unfortunately, this long-awaited confirmation was undermined by the later release of a book under Estes’s own name, which presented a much larger conspiracy scenario and recanted on some points which he had related to Caddy, the Justice Department, and Reymond. As Larry Hancock recounted to me, the Estes book and the material in it left many researchers, who had been deeply involved investigating the Johnson/Carter/Wallace conspiracy, very much “up in the air.” Despite contacts with Estes himself, no resolution was ever obtained with the issues created by the appearance of his book.
170. These letters are available on the Internet; one such site is at: ‘http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm’
* According to information furnished by a researcher who wishes to remain anomyous, both Ed Clark and Lyndon Johnson were “silent partners” in L&G Oil at the time of the 1963 “accident” that claimed the life of Mac Wallace.
171. See http://www.billiesolestes.com/billie.php
172. Brown, p. 85.
173. Jones, Penn Jr., p. 30.
174. Ibid.
175. Letter dated January 26, 2011. from Douglas Caddy to author.
* Years later, Black would phone Rosselli in Miami from Los Angeles, warning him to get out of Miami the night before Rosselli was murdered on July 28, 1976. Obviously, and unfortunately for him, he ignored Fred Black’s “insider information” and stayed in Miami; his old friend Trafficante was not pleased with his secret testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and shortly after that his dismembered body was found in an oil drum in Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Rosselli had last been seen “on a boat owned by a Trafficante associate.”
176. Ibid.
177. North, p. 138. (ref. Robert Rowe, The Bobby Baker Story, New York: Parallax Publishing Co., 1967, p. 145.
178. Life magazine, November 22, 1963, p. 96.
179. Ibid.
180. Haley, p. 75; Life magazine, November 22, 1963, p. 96.
181. New York Times, October 24, 1963.
182. North, p. 161.
183. Ibid., pp. 215–216.
184. Mellenhoff, p. 296.
185. Baker, Wheeling, pp. 78–80.
186. Ibid., p. 170.
187. Ibid.
188. Ibid.
189. North, p. 121.
190. Russell, p. 523.
191. Hancock, p. 316.
192. Scott, p. 218.
193. Hancock, p. 319.
194. Hersh, The Dark Side … , p. 407.
195. Ibid., p. 447.
196. Hancock, pp. 319–321.
197. Lincoln, p. 199.
198. Hancock, pp. 319–321.
199. Scott, p. 220.
200. Lasky, It Didn’t Start … , pp. 135–137.
201. Hersh, Burton, Bobby and J. Edgar … , pp. 206–209.
202. Scott, p. 220.
203. Summers, Official and Confidential, pp. 312–313.
204. Mahoney, p. 278. (citing Guthman and Shulman, p. 130).
205. Summers, Official., p. 311.
206. Hersh, Burton, Bobby and J. Edgar, p. 57.
207. Mollenhoff, Despoilers, p. 296.
208. Ibid., p. 294.
209. Ibid., p. 294.
210. Lasky, It Didn’t Start … , pp. 135–137.
211. Mollenhoff, Despoilers, p. 298.
212. Ibid., p. 298.
213. Ibid., p. 299.
PART III
The Preassassination
Conspiracy
Chapter 5
THE MASTERMIND SECURES
THE VICE PRESIDENCY
I’m forty-three years old. I’m not going to die in office. So the vice presidency doesn’t mean anything.1
—JOHN F. KENNEDY TO KENNY O’DONNELL
One out of every four presidents has died in office. I’m a gambling man, darling, and this is the only chance I got.2
—LYNDON B. JOHNSON TO CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
LBJ’s Route to the Presidency
John Kennedy, like Lyndon Johnson, was very much aware of the presidential death cycle, which started in 1840 and remained unbroken: Every twenty years, the president elected—Harrison, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, and Franklin D. Roosevelt—had died in office. Kennedy had laughed at the freakish statistic: “That was one tradition … that he intended to break.”*,3 Unfortunately for him, his forced selection of Johnson as his vice presidential nominee was the very decision that would cause the cycle to continue.
Lyndon Johnson had a lifelong, obsessive dream to become the president of the United States, yet he realized that his chances of winning a national election as a Southerner running for the presidency were practically nil. He had repeatedly stated his intention to become president numerous times, beginning when he was a child following his father around the Texas legislature and repeated throughout his high school and college days. Knowing the available time to achieve that dream was very limited, and that between John and Robert Kennedy, it would be unlikely that he could even mount an effective campaign before he was sixty-eight years old (and well beyond his life expectancy based on family history), LBJ had an overwhelming motive to fulfill his lifetime goal. As the new president, Johnson knew he would have the power to control the subsequent investigation; he would use it immediately to derail attempts to find the truth into a well-coordinated, intensive cover-up.
Lyndon Johnson had begun actively planning for his ascension in 1941, when even though he still lacked sufficient personal funds and was desperate to accumulate wealth, he actually turned down what amounted to a gift of approximately three quarters of a million dollars. His benefactors, led by Charles Marsh, Sid Richardson, and Herman Brown, had offered him essentially a free stake in an oil company. Johnson turned it down, saying that he couldn’t be a successful politician if he was considered to be an “oilman.”4 The problem with the logic of that is that being an oilman in Texas would not have adversely affected his success as a politician; it would have probably helped, not hindered, his Texas political career. It was because his eyes were focu
sed not on the immediate goals so much as on his ultimate goal, to prepare for being a candidate for the presidency and therefore the need to appeal to a national electorate. He was also thinking in terms of acquiring businesses that he could claim were run by his wife, even though it was none other than himself who would have actual control. The broadcasting business—specifically radio station KTBC, which was near bankruptcy largely because of Johnson’s influence with the FCC as discussed elsewhere when he bought it at a discount—matched his requirements for securing the financial wherewithal he needed; it miraculously turned around immediately when he bought it, becoming extremely profitable. Having “Johnson men” throughout the government bureaucracy, including the FCC in getting approvals for expanding its license multiple times over the years, would pay huge dividends to Johnson during his tenure.
Beginning with his ascension to the Senate as the result of the stolen election in 1948 (detailed in chapter 1) and then in his position as majority leader, Johnson knew that his boyhood dream, the one that he long ago resolved would be kept, was within his grasp. He knew that in order to successfully run for the presidency, he would need to redefine his base, which had always been what he thought was the vast middle class, not wealthy landowners, but the working-class people in Texas. He tried to be a “populist” type of candidate, while simultaneously trying to stay grounded on the conservative side of the Texas Democratic Party. In order to appeal to a national base, he sought ways to blur the normal political lines: He portrayed himself—on the same issue—as a conservative when meeting with conservative people and liberal when meeting with liberals.
He took every opportunity to publicize himself, cultivating (mostly superficial) friendships with others in Congress; even more important, he sought out newspaper and magazine journalists to get his name before voters on a national scale. By 1952 he was forty-four years old and still a first-term senator having only four years’ tenure and little influence among the older, more experienced senators with whom he worked, but he considered himself ready to begin more definite planning for his career goal. In January of that year he was given the opportunity to be interviewed for an article in Nation’s Business magazine. Alfred Steinberg had planned to write about four senators though, and that outraged Johnson. He moved his chair closer to Steinberg, close enough that his face was only inches away from his quarry; then he grabbed one of Steinberg’s lapels and asked him, why not do a story on him alone? Then he said, after looking around to make sure they were alone, why not write a story on Johnson’s potential run for the presidential nomination: “President! That’s the angle you want to write about me.”5