LBJ

by Phillip F. Nelson

  As Lyndon Johnson awoke, his first thought was probably what he knew he had to do: meet with Kennedy to try one more time to get the seating arrangements for the motorcade changed; he didn’t want to jeopardize his friend John Connally’s life. He wanted to offer Ralph Yarborough the opportunity to ride in the president’s car instead, an act he probably thought he could sell on the basis of it being a rather magnanimous gesture. Of course, he knew that was a lie, but somehow he was able to see it the way he thought Kennedy should see it, absent the knowledge of the unfolding plot. Johnson was very good, as we have seen, about convincing even himself that something was true which he knew to be a lie.

  As he showered and dressed for his meeting, he undoubtedly reflected on what he knew would happen this day; he would become president, finally after all the years of hard work and planning. He had always been driven by his ruthless lust for power. But now that had become secondary to another one, which he had spent months trying to quash, unable to force it off the Senate calendar, he now had the urgent need to take the necessary action to make the Senate leadership dispense with their investigations so he could stay out of prison. His problems had mushroomed over the last year to the point that it was doubtful he could now even be reelected in his own state. In fact, as he drank his morning coffee, he would have noticed news articles appearing in all the major Texas newspapers that morning that cited a statewide poll showing that the Kennedy-Johnson popularity was trailing Barry Goldwater by 52 to 48 percent. The same poll also showed that Senator Ralph Yarborough had become virtually unbeatable. When Yarborough was questioned by a reporter about it, he had responded vigorously, beating the table, and roaring, “Let the bastards run somebody against me! I want the bastards to run somebody against me, so I can beat the living hell out of ’em!” (Ralph’s enthusiasm for a confrontation speaks volumes about the Texas chasm.) That’s how he and his liberal supporters felt, eager for a showdown.22 There was also a risk, at this point in time hours before the assassination, that liberals would take over the state Democratic convention, pushing aside the Connally-Johnson forces, which would further undermine his political position.23

  There was another headline story Johnson would have also seen in the Dallas Morning News: “Nixon Predicts Kennedy May Drop Johnson.” Many of the reporters covering the event, no doubt even some of those who would participate in the motorcade itself, would have heard the macabre joke making the rounds, “JFK is safe in Texas, because ‘You-Know-Who’ is Vice President.”24 Jokes like that had always irked the thin-skinned Johnson.

  When Johnson met with JFK in his Texas Hotel suite that morning, he found that Kennedy was not impressed with his attempt at magnanimity, so he had to modify his approach, and suddenly he was demanding that the motorcade seating arrangements be changed; this led quickly to back and forth shouting between the two men that was overheard by the hotel staff outside in the hallway. Johnson wanted Governor Connally to ride with him and wanted Senator Yarborough, his longtime political enemy, to ride with JFK in the presidential limousine, which he continued pointing out, was an unusually generous gesture on his part to his long-term enemy.25 The hotel servants were in and out of the suite and heard Yarborough’s name mentioned several times; their impressions were consistent—that Kennedy felt the senator was not being treated fairly by Johnson and Connally and their staffs and that he expressed himself emphatically. Kennedy refused to change those arrangements and ordered Johnson to “make up” with Yarborough for the good of the party and the 1964 elections. The hotel staff and caterers also said that Johnson had tried to control his famous temper in JFK’s presence, but that when he exited, “he left that suite like a pistol,” said one, Max Peck, who watched him lurch down the corridor, “long legs pumping and looking furious.”26 Jackie asked JFK what the argument was about, and he said, “That’s just Lyndon. He’s having a bad day.”27 Kennedy had also told his wife that Johnson is “incapable of telling the truth.”28

  William Manchester only hinted at the sinister implications of this argument between JFK and Johnson, and this story was one which was so damning of Johnson’s conduct that much of it, and a number of other stories related to Johnson’s conduct, was cut back or eliminated entirely from his book at Jacqueline Kennedy’s request—to avoid further worsening the relationship of Johnson and Bobby Kennedy—and put under seal for one hundred years. The stories that remained in the book still enraged Johnson to such an extent that he sought out Jim Bishop to write a more empathetic version, one without all the anti-Johnson bias. The real story which Manchester was forced to suppress will not be released by the Kennedy Library until the year 2067; in and of itself, that speaks volumes about the secrets that had to be hidden for a hundred years.

  Mysterious Multiple Breakdowns in Presidential Security

  Begin in Dallas

  The evening before the Dallas motorcade, a number of Secret Service agents, in yet another violation of rules, had spent the night at a Fort Worth club called The Cellar, until about 4:00 a.m., clearly taking their sworn duties to protect the president rather lightly. Apparently, this had become the norm; as former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden stated to James W. Douglass, “‘The Secret Service agents around Kennedy were joking in a more sinister direction—that they would step out of the way if an assassin aimed a shot at the president.’ In Dallas, the Secret Service would step out of the way not just individually but collectively.”29

  When the motorcade began forming at Love Field at about 11:30 a.m. pending the arrival of the president and vice president and the other dignitaries, the Secret Service detail began to abandon any semblance of protection of JFK, going beyond the cuts already made, as described previously. One of the most stunning examples of this was the further cutback in placement of motorcycle escorts around the presidential limousine, from six to each side or the minimal four down to two to a side, and only riding in tandem behind the vehicle. In contrast to the day before in Houston, six motorcycles flanked each side of the presidential limousine the entire way; in the downtown area, this was increased to twelve motorcycles to each side (twenty-four total). By the time the limousine began its way down Elm Street, even the four remaining motorcycles would draw back. In accordance with a police escort plan developed only the day before, DPD Captain Perdue Lawrence assigned a total of eight motorcycle officers, four on each side: Hargis, Martin, McLain, and Courson were to ride on the left side and Jackson, Chaney, Haygood, and Baker were assigned to the right side.30

  According to one of the motorcycle officers, as they were getting into position at Love Field, Secret Service escorts accompanying Lyndon B. Johnson instructed them that only two motorcycles were to flank each side of the rear bumper of the limousine.31 One of the last-minute changes involved modifying the “normal” format where instead of a motorcycle at each wheel of the limousine (front and back) both cycles would remain behind the rear wheels. A partial list of “last-minute” changes would include the following:

  • Captain Perdue Lawrence testified that the Secret Service told them to stay to the rear of the limousine; his understanding was that this was due to JFK’s “desires”;32

  • DPD Assistant Chief Charles Batchelor testified that the orders he received were to place four motorcycles on either side (eight total) … immediately to the rear of the president’s vehicle;33

  • SAIC Lawson overruled that plan because he felt that having four cycles on each side flanking the rear wheels would be too many in that configuration; he changed the number to two per side;34

  • Motorcycle Officer M. L. Baker testified that there was a last-minute change made at Love Field to stay well to the rear of the limousine;35

  • Motorcycle Officer B. J. Martin stated that “they instructed us that they didn’t want anyone riding past the President’s car and that we were to ride to the rear, to the rear of his car, about the rear bumper.”36

  • Another standard procedure that was cast aside was to have one of his military aides (
A. F. Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, Navy Captain Tazewell Shepard, or Army Major General Ted Clifton) riding with him; when space did not permit, they would ride in the follow-up vehicle; in Dallas, McHugh and Clifton were placed twelve cars back of the presidential limousine.

  • Kennedy’s military physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley, was generally placed in a vehicle close to the president; in Dallas, he was put in a bus twenty vehicles back from the Lincoln.

  Putting all the motorcycles on the rear sides of the Lincoln would, of course, make it more difficult for a shooter at the same elevation to aim a rifle from behind and to the side, but it would open up the target from the front and side, making such a shot (for example, from the “grassy knoll”) much easier. According to testimony from reporter Seth Kantor, the night before the event, the plan to have some of Will Fritz’s men ride in a closed car equipped with machine guns was canceled.37 Still another last-minute change was in the position of the photographer’s truck, which was normally directly in front of the presidential limousine. For some reason, it was decided that this tradition should be broken for this motorcade, and the truck was replaced with three Chevrolet convertibles, which were placed several cars (sixth to eighth) behind the presidential limousine.38 Up until that morning, no one in town knew exactly what the motorcade route would be because different maps had been printed in the newspapers, some showing the zigzag through Dealey Plaza, others showing the route would be straight through the plaza to a crossover past the triple underpass and on to Stemmons Freeway. Even the Dallas Police chief, Jesse Curry, testified that he was not consulted about the motorcade route; his assistant, Charles Batchelor believed that the failure of the Secret Service to keep the police advised of the exact route to be taken prevented them planning and organizing their men.

  As noted earlier, the Warren Commission eventually established that Winston Lawson had previously made the cuts in the Dallas motorcade, stating that “two (2) on either side would be sufficient, about even with the rear fender of the car”39 (i.e., four motorcycles in total, two on each side). Lawson attributed the request as having come from President Kennedy, which of course could never be proven or disproven after he was murdered.

  According to Vince Palamara’s research, this was categorically wrong.Kennedy had never requested such security compromises.40 It does not take an overly creative imagination to determine who might have been the person—the one who had the unique authority, forcefulness, and chutzpah to have ordered these last-minute changes to the motorcycle formation—who had the temerity to make the changes while suggesting that it was JFK himself who requested them. After all the other motorcades in which he had expressed no such concerns, then suddenly here—in a city seething with hatred for him, a city that many had warned him to avoid—on that day, he decided that he would do something he had never done before and that was to order a virtual suspension of protection from both the Secret Service agents around him and the Dallas policemen on motorcycles next to his car. Such an assertion would ordinarily require a complete suspension of disbelief, yet this is precisely what the Warren Commission postulated and what we are still being asked to do by such people as Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner.

  Given everything we now know about what really happened in Dallas, it is not idle speculation to suggest that the Secret Service orders were put into effect by someone at the very highest level of the organization and filtered down to the street level through Floyd Boring and Winston Lawson to Emory Roberts and the others. When it appeared to that same “someone”—who was apparently having a fairly major anxiety / depressive-paranoid attack, as will be seen shortly—during the formation at Love Field that the order to reduce the number of escorts beside the limousine was not being observed, a stern reminder about it was evidently issued on the spot to the effect that the number of flanking motorcycles was not to be four on each side but only two. This is reasoned conjecture; however, it might “connect some dots” and explain the incongruities noted above as well as additional ones to be revealed shortly. In any event, regardless of who ordered the unusual formation, by the time the motorcade reached Elm Street—despite the testimony of the officers as to their general location during the motorcade—the total number of motorcycles flanking the limousine was “zero.” For inexplicable reasons, during the course of the drive through the city, the motorcycle escorts were generally riding alongside the quarter panels of the Lincoln, behind its rear wheels, or between the Lincoln and the Cadillac. But by the time the limousine reached Elm Street, they were no longer riding near the Lincoln; all four of them had dropped back so far that they were directly parallel with the follow-up Cadillac. This is borne out by the Zapruder film, the Altgens photograph, and the Willis slide taken a second or two before Kennedy was shot.

  Johnson’s hand would be kept invisible through his having three levels of staff separating him from motorcade planning. Cliff Carter had been given much of the responsibility of getting Johnson’s specific requests employed, though he claimed that “they sent Bill Moyers down to take over all charge … Bill Moyers was in complete charge of Mr. Kennedy’s visit to Texas.”41 The street-level advance man used by Johnson, Carter, and Moyers for the Dallas portion of the Texas trip was Jack Puterbaugh, who was described by Winston Lawson as a “civilian political advance man for the Democratic National Committee.” In his summary report to the HSCA, Lawson also stated that it was Jack Puterbaugh who “recommended the Trade Mart” for the noontime luncheon. Furthermore, Lawson stated that Puterbaugh attended many of the Dallas Police and Secret Service planning meetings and was also “in charge of the protocol of the motorcade, the arranging of seating and vehicle sequence for Congressmen and other dignitaries. The motorcade was the primary focus of such protocol.” Lawson also stated that Puterbaugh was in touch with “Washington” and was also possibly getting instructions from Betty Harris, who reported to Bill Moyers and was the primary local contact.42 Needless to say, all of those names were people who reported to Lyndon B. Johnson.

  One of the police motorcycle policemen who was there, B. J. Martin, as noted above, stated that it was Lyndon Johnson’s security contingent which made a number of changes in the motorcade at the last minute at Love Field.“I guess they were Secret Service. They were sure as hell acting like they were in charge, and I know they were with Johnson, because when they got through telling us what to do, they went back to his car.”43 Jack Puterbaugh “described himself as a foot soldier that only carried out orders.”44 The origin of the “orders” Puterbaugh refers to are technically a little unclear since Cliff Carter made no mention of Puterbaugh in his testimony, and Puterbaugh likewise made no mention of Carter’s involvement in the Dallas planning even though they were clearly operating as a team and both were working for Johnson. Irrespective of the technical question of the origin of Puterbaugh’s orders, there is no doubt about who issued them; one need only consider who Puterbaugh worked for on this assignment and who the other man on his “team,” Cliff Carter, had also reported to and had done so much to please for over fifteen years.

  Carter’s lack of candor in his testimony regarding Puterbaugh, and vice-versa, suggests that they were both attempting to conceal their relationship, no doubt to hide the involvement of their mutual boss. Carter’s deceit carried over to other issues as well. He became caught up in a series of inconsistent statements concerning his handling of Governor Connally’s clothes. During the time that he was waiting in Parkland Hospital, nurse Ruth Standidge testified to the Warren commission that she gave the clothes to Cliff Carter and, according to Carter’s interview with Manchester, he left his bag with the nurse upon departure.45 Yet in his oral history remarks for the LBJ Library, he stated that he handed this bag of clothes to Congressman Henry Gonzalez, asking him to keep them, and his own commission statement makes no mention at all of the clothes. Since Connally’s clothes were dry-cleaned before being entered into evidence, it begs the question of “who decided to destroy still another part of
the ‘crime scene’ evidence.” There were a number of other incongruities with Carter’s account, all of which suggested the invisible hand of Lyndon Johnson:

  • Carter stated that he “saw Rufus Youngblood in the Vice President’s car … reach over and shove Mr. Johnson down and jumped in the back seat himself and put himself over Mr. Johnson’s body.”46 This assertion was emphatically challenged by Senator Yarborough—sitting in the same backseat as Johnson—as having “never happened,” as will be detailed shortly; only Johnson had stated this had happened and even Youngblood himself did not embrace it (he didn’t recall it happening, but it must have “because of President Johnson’s statement to that effect”) until Johnson had apparently persuaded him to go along with it when he gave him a medal for it two weeks later.

  • Carter attempted to diminish his own involvement in the motorcade planning by ascribing all the decisions to Kennedy’s staff. According to him, it was the Kennedy staff who selected the Trade Mart and insisted on the motorcade route. This is contrary with Jerry Bruno’s description of events in his book Advance Man and to practically all other accounts as referenced throughout this chapter.

  • Carter denied that there were any concerns regarding President Kennedy’s plans to go to Dallas, saying, “No, I didn’t have any reports of anything like that. I never heard anything like that.”47 Yet, William Manchester quotes Barefoot Sanders as having said he told Cliff Carter personally that a visit by Kennedy to Dallas was “inadvisable,” obviously expecting that Carter would pass on the information.48

  • Carter said that one of the Secret Service men in the president’s security car “wheeled around with his submachine gun and pointed up at one of the windows of the Depository”49 but did not fire because he could not pick out exactly the right window in time to shoot. This is contradicted by all available photographs, films, and Secret Service agent accounts.