LBJ
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All of the talk around Washington about Lyndon Johnson being knocked off the Democratic ticket in 1964 was not only known to him but was his central concern. The Kennedys denied it publicly, but behind the scenes, the decision had been made to replace Johnson. Colonel Burris, Johnson’s military aide, said in 1992, “He was really down. 1963 was the beginning of the end for Johnson. He was cut out; they were not giving him anything, and the message was basically: ‘We don’t want you and we don’t want your opinion.’ He knew that he was going to be thrown off the ticket and that was going to be the end for him.”159 As further confirmation of the above, JFK’s personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, wrote that JFK had revealed to her, shortly before he left for Texas, that he had grown weary of Johnson and his precarious legal issues, which threatened the entire administration:
As Mr. Kennedy sat in the rocker in my office, his head resting on its back, he placed his left leg across his right knee. He rocked slightly as he talked. In a slow pensive voice he said to me, “You know if I am re-elected in sixty-four, I am going to spend more and more time toward making government service an honorable career. I would like to tailor the executive and legislative branches of government so that they can keep up with the tremendous strides and progress being made in other fields.” … “I am going to advocate changing some of the outmoded rules and regulations in the Congress, such as the seniority rule.”
“To do this I will need as a running mate in sixty-four a man who believes as I do. I am going to Texas, because I have made a commitment. I can’t patch up those warring factions. This is for them to do, but I will go because I have told them I would. And it is too early to make an announcement about another running mate—that will perhaps wait until the convention.”
I was fascinated by this conversation and wrote it down verbatim in my diary. I was extremely proud of the man with whom I was associated. I was also glad that I could be a part of the goals and ambitions he was striving for in the future.
He had talked and I had just listened, but I did venture one question. We had not seen Mr. Johnson since he left for Texas in late October. Now I asked, “Who is your choice as a running-mate?” He looked straight ahead, and without hesitating he replied, “at this time I am thinking about Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. But it will not be Lyndon.”160
Johnson was clearly headed toward being dropped from the Democratic ticket the next year, if he even made it that far; the continuing Senate investigations fueled by leaks he knew were coming directly from Bobby Kennedy made criminal prosecution before then a certainty. It was becoming clearer by the day that his future would turn on the question of his resolve to execute his long-planned “executive action.” The Hobson’s choice before him was really the final catalyst that gave Johnson the will to proceed with the plan he had originally crafted in 1958–59 and affirmed in July 1960 at the Los Angeles Democratic Convention. If he had harbored any doubts about his ability and resolve to execute his plan, he kept reminding himself that this was the only way his childhood dream would ever be fulfilled, and he had promised himself that it would be fulfilled for about one half century. To ensure sufficient levels of plausible deniability up and down the hierarchy of conspirators, he and his key men at the top had ensured that all planning was tightly compartmentalized, starting broadly with his own functions (for example, manipulating the Dallas motorcade) and those of the FBI, CIA/Mob, and Secret Service. Each participant had a narrowly defined scope of “need to know” knowledge.
If he did not grasp this opportunity, it meant that he would remain, for a time, a passive actor in a job he detested, continuing his battle with RFK on a daily basis, and hoping that his legal problems would somehow go away, which he knew was impossible since it was RFK who was feeding the dirt on him to the Senate investigators. The Bobby Baker hearings would inevitably produce one scandalous story after another. The reporters would have a field day, linking the stories of sex, bribery, and financial wheeling and dealing on the taxpayers’ dime that were all part of the overall mosaic of criminal activity he had created and expanded upon for decades. If he surrendered now, his future looked bleak indeed: prison, the length of term variable depending upon the depth of the ongoing inquiries, which were already teetering on the edge of going completely out of control. The destiny that he had always envisioned for himself—that of a great leader revered by his subjects—would come to naught. He would be remembered only for being the first vice president to be sentenced to the penitentiary for illegal campaign-funding activities, influence peddling, bribery, tax fraud, extortion, and—if the investigators were persistent and thorough enough, as Henry Marshall had been before his untimely demise—for his own involvement with a number of murders in his home state.
In Lyndon Johnson’s view, that was really no choice at all. Why would he willingly capitulate to the vagaries of the natural course of history? He had never done so before, given the opportunity to force his will on the course of events affecting his life. To the contrary, he had a long history of bending rules as necessary to advance the long and gradual fulfillment of his destiny. All the rigged elections, the brazen conflicts of interest, the selling of his political influence to the highest bidder, the awarding of government contracts not to the most qualified contractor, but to the one willing to “pay to play,” the use of his political power to appoint “Johnson men” into various bureaucracies to fulfill his demands and to short-circuit regulatory rules to his benefit, and numerous other illegal acts up to and including multiple murders—all of these acts could have still been proven in 1963, and if justice had been served, instead of becoming president, his future would be as it had been predicted by his prescient grandmother: his last decade of life would have been spent in a penitentiary. Lyndon Johnson knew, at this time and at his age, that he had one single opportunity to dramatically change the course of history; he knew that powerful people were willing to help get him quickly propelled into the presidency, where he could then reverse the course of events that would otherwise befall him. He had resolved to himself, long ago, that his “rightful” place, the position that he had been actively planning to acquire for over twenty years, was now within his grasp. To not take advantage of the opportunity—after all the planning, the logistics of putting all operatives in place, the “national security” imperatives that had been understood by key people at CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon, the backing of others in the FBI and Secret Service and key Dallas officials, the work and support of his sponsors and oilmen financiers, the agreed cover-up strategy already in place—would, at this stage, be unthinkable.
Throughout his obligatory stint as the vice president, Lyndon Johnson had begun planning his own legacy, which would be based upon the lofty, but unmet, goals of JFK. Even as head of the administration’s Equal Opportunity Commission, he had stalled three years on any meaningful civil rights initiatives knowing that shelving them until he was president meant that he could pull them off the shelf when he was in the Oval Office, providing him an instant legacy. If he pulled it off, he would go down in history as one of the greatest presidents, bringing forth the civil rights agenda that he had stymied under Kennedy, pending his ascension. He had even decided on a name for his agenda: the Great Society. It was a continuum of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Truman’s Fair Deal, and his unwitting predecessor’s New Frontier. Unfortunately for Kennedy, who Johnson always thought was too young, inexperienced, and ineffectual for the presidency, his program never really took off because of constant opposition from Congress. Johnson saw to that, but that would all change once he moved into the Oval Office. His success in getting Kennedy’s stalled civil rights legislation would guarantee the support of black Americans for two hundred years, as he later predicted.161 He would ensure greatness also by becoming a wartime president, just like FDR and Truman.
By November 21, 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was caught in a web of legal and political troubles that threatened to remove him from politi
cs forever. The Senate investigations had reached the point of no return; the only way to change the course was for him to become president. Johnson sensed that he had no viable alternative other than to proceed according to the plan to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Notes
*Ronald Reagan, the president elected at the next cycle, 1980, managed to break the pattern, but just barely.
1. O’Donnell, Kenneth, Life magazine, August 7, 1970, p. 47; Johnny …, p. 7.
2. Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 273.
3. Manchester, p. 141.
4. Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 111.
5. Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 463–464.
6. Hershman, pp. 104–105.
7. Ibid.
8. Sherrill, p. 19.
9. Ibid., p. 67.
10. Ibid., p. 68.
11. Kearns, p. 396.
12. Haley, p. 191.
13. Lincoln, p. 44.
14. Horace Busby, recorded interview by Sheldon H. Stern, Mary 26, 1982, (p. 4), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
15. Ibid., p. 43.
16. Haley, p. 196.
17. Hersh, The Dark Side …, pp. 90, 95.
18. Ibid., p. 93.
19. Ibid., pp. 97–98.
20. Ibid., p. 100.
21. Ibid.
22. Lincoln, p. 53.
23. Ibid., p. 55.
24. Summers, Official p. 272
25. Hersh, The Dark Side …, p. 91.
26. Ibid. p. 271
27. Lincoln, p. 65.
28. Ibid., p. 71.
29. Kearns, p. 42.
30. Haley, p. 194.
31. Lincoln, p. 70.
32. Mahoney, p. 126.
33. Reeves, pp. 273–274.
34. Swearingen, pp. 11–13.
35. Reeves, p. 288.
36. Haley, pp. 195–196.
37. Ibid., p. 197.
38. Lincoln, p. 86.
39. Ibid., p. 89.
40. Caro, Master …, p. 473.
41. Orville Freeman, Oral History Interview I, February 14, 1969, by T. H. Baker [Transcript], Internet copy, LBJ Library.
42. Horace Busby, recorded interview by Sheldon H. Stern, Mary 26, 1982, (p. 4), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
43. Ibid.
44. Transcript, Drew Pearson Oral History Interview I, 4/10/69, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet
Copy, LBJ Library.
45. Ibid.
46. Summers, Official p. 271.
47. Hersh, The Dark Side …, p. 124.
48. Clifford, p. 317.
49. Ibid., p. 318.
50. Shesol, p. 45.
51. Ibid.
52. Haley, p. 198.
53. Hersh, The Dark Side …, p. 125.
54. Ibid. p. 123.
55. Summers, Official and Confidential, pp. 271–273.
56. Pegues, p. 47.
57. Summers, Official and Confidential, pp. 271–273.
58. Hersh, S. p. 116.
59. U.S. Senate Committee on rules and Administration. Construction of the District of Columbia Stadium and Matters Related Thereto. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965, pt. 12, p. 1101.
60. Summers, Official and Confidential., p. 260.
61. Clifford. p. 318.
62. Summers, Official and Confidential., p. 271.
63. Salinger, p. 44.
64. Shesol, p. 48.
65. Ibid., p. 50.
66. Ibid. (quoting Bobby Baker).
67. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 224.
68. Hersh, p. 129.
68. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 224–225.
70. Shesol, pp. 51, 57.
71. Ibid., p. 52.
* A few senators paid tribute to Leland Olds; JFK was one, who stated, “‘Developments such as the St. Lawrence Waterway and power projects are a permanent memorial to him.’ There was no comment from the Democratic vice presidential nominee.” (Ref. Caro, Master …, p. 303.)
72. Ibid.
73. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 225–226.
74. Shesol, p. 54.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid., pp. 55–56.
77. Hersh, S., p. 126.
78. O’Donnell, Kenneth, Life magazine, August 7, 1970, p. 47; Johnny …, pp. 7, 193.
79. Ibid.
80. Shesol, p. 227.
81. Miller, p. 258.
82. Kearns-Goodwin, pp. 160–161; Reedy, p. 129.
83. Dallek, Lone Star … p. 577.
84. Ibid., p. 576.
85. Salinger, p. 46.
86. Ibid.
87. Life magazine, June 18, 1965, p. 90.
88. Salinger, p. 340.
89. Dallek, Lone Star …, p. 578.
90. Lincoln, p. 72.
91. Ibid., pp. 104–118.
92. Haley, pp. 202–203 (ref. Victor Lasky, JFK: The Man and the Myth, pp. 402, 409).
93. Ibid.
94. Lasky, JFK—The Man, p. 436.
95. Ibid., pp. 436–437.
96. Dallek, p. 586.
*Kohly was the conservative exile leader and a prominent Cuban businessman, a distinguished statesman who represented a large number of American interests in Cuba and was favored by Nixon to replace Castro; Kennedy switched support to a more leftist group (the CRC) led by Manuel Artime, to avoid being associated with a right-wing group.
97. Ibid., p. 587.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid., pp. 587–588.
100. Ibid.
101. Lasky, JFK—The Man, p. 445.
102. Ibid.
103. Morrow, pp. 32–33.
104. Ibid., p. 33.
105. Dugger, pp. 286–287.
106. Lasky, JFK—The Man, p. 495.
107. Lasky, It Didn’t Start …, pp. 47–48 (citing Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11, 1960).
108. Ibid., p. 49 (citing New York Herald-Tribune).
109. Lasky, JFK—The Man, p. 495.
110. Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 39.
111. Lasky, It Didn’t Start, pp. 50–51.
112. Ibid., p. 60 (ref. Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980).
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid., p. 62.
116. Ibid., p. 63.
117. Ibid., p. 64.
118. Lincoln, p. 124.
119. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy …, p. 673.
120. Ibid., pp. 336–337.
121. Guthman, p. 153.
122. Schlesinger, p. 361.
123. Transcript, Burke Marshall Oral History Interview I, 10/28/68, by T. H. Baker, Internet copy, LBJ Library, pp. 6–7.
124. John Kenneth Galbraith, interviewed by Vicki Daitch, September 12, 2002. Oral History Program, JFK Library.
125. Lincoln, pp. 181–182; Haley, pp. 133–134.
126. Shesol, p. 99.
127. Ibid.
128. Ibid., p. 92.
129. Ibid., p. 94.
130. Ibid., p. 98.
131. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy …, p. 671 (quoting Bill Moyers in a television interview with David Susskind, October 13, 1974, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Playboy, March 1977).
132. Kearns, p. 164.
133. Ibid.
134. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy …, p. 671 (ref. O’Donnell and Powers, Johnny, p. 6; Baker, Wheeling and Dealing, p. 126; Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point, New York, 1971, p. 539).
135. Shesol, p. 74.
136. Ibid., p. 76.
137. Ibid., p. 92.
138. Ibid., p. 66.
139. Shesol, p. 98.
140. Ibid.
141. Shesol, pp. 60, 142;
142. Life magazine, October 11, 1963, p. 31.
143. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy …, p. 644.
144. Life magazine, October 11, 1963, p. 31.
145. Russell, p. 523 (ref. Davis, Mafia Kingfish, pp. 272–273); North, p. 371.
146. Scheim, p. 247 (ref. Michae
l Dorman, “LBJ and the Racketeers,” Ramparts, May 1968, pp. 27–28).
147. Russo, pp. 283–284.
148. Davis, Mafia Kingfish p. 312.
149. Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 39.
150. Ibid.
151. Russo, p. 284.
152. Ibid., p. 283.
153. Life magazine, November 22, 1963, p. 40.
154. Ibid.
155. Ibid.
156. See http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14966&st=0
157. Pearson, Drew. Issues in Baker Trial, January 7, 1967.
158. Russo, p. 283.
159. Russo, p. 284 (Ref. John Newman interview with Howard Burris, 21 November, 1992.
160. Lincoln, pp. 204–205.
161. Kessler, Inside the White House, p. 33.
Chapter 6
THE CONSPIRATORS
A mansion has many rooms … I’m not privy to who struck John.
—JAMES JESUS ANGLETON
We have not been told the truth about Oswald.
—SENATOR RICHARD RUSSELL
The Originator
The scenario presented in the following pages is based upon the premise that elements of the various intelligence agencies, along with other key “rogue” officials of the government and the Mafia protected from discovery through the invocation of the customary government secrecy devices, conspired to kill the thirty-fifth president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Though it can be said that this is merely this author’s opinion, it cannot be said that the assertions are without considerable support. The accumulated totality of evidence cited throughout the narrative to this point and into the remaining chapters with even more compelling evidence meets the “clear and convincing” threshold for what should be the equivalent of a grand jury indictment of first-degree murder, as a posthumous verdict. It should be considered that the only reason Lyndon Johnson was able to avoid justice during his lifetime of crime and corruption was because of his own obfuscatory ability, with the help of bribery, blackmail, and his many enablers.