I was startled by a sharp report or explosion, but I had no time to speculate as to its origin because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explosion, hitting me on the shoulder, and shouted to all of us in the back seat to get down. I was pushed down by Agent Youngblood. Almost in the same moment in which he hit or pushed me, he vaulted over the back seat and sat on me. I was bent over under the weight of Agent Youngblood’s body, toward Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough …
Youngblood himself apparently could not remember what he did in the most important action he ever undertook. The Warren Report stated that he “was not positive that he was in the rear seat before the second shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson’s statement to that effect.”20 (Emphasis added.) It is not possible that Youngblood had already shoved Johnson down at that point, based upon his own statement in his report to Chief Rowley dated November 29, 1963, when he stated that after the first report (sound of a shot):21
I noticed that the movements in the Presidential car were very abnormal and, at practically the same time, the movements in the Presidential follow-up car were abnormal. I turned in my seat and with my left arm grasped and shoved the Vice President, at his right shoulder, down and toward Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough. At the same time, I shouted “get down!” I believe I said this more than once and directed it to the Vice President and the other occupants of the rear seat. They all responded very rapidly.
Two facts plainly visible in the photo belie Johnson’s claim to have already been shoved down by Youngblood: First, Youngblood’s comment that he “noticed … the movements in the … follow-up car were abnormal” (in the Altgens photo, no such discernible reactions can be noted) and second, Youngblood’s statement that, at the same time he shoved Johnson down, he yelled to both Lady Bird and Senator Yarborough to “get down” and that they “all responded very rapidly.” Yet neither of the other rear seat passengers had reacted whatsoever at the instant this photograph was taken. At the very least, if Youngblood had already done all of this at that moment, one might expect a look of surprise or shock or fright or bewilderment in their faces, but they both have stoic, even blasé, expressions. They look like they might have become a little tired of all the forced smiling, perhaps a little glad that the end of the parade was in sight; but their expressions clearly reflect the fact that neither of them had heard, or at least reacted, to anything, including the shouts of Rufus Youngblood. Obviously, the reality of gunfire had not yet been recognized.
The only possible reason for Johnson’s prevarication (together with the apparent fact that he had persuaded Youngblood to, albeit hesitatingly and probably reluctantly, partially agree with his deception but with a caveat that said essentially, “since the President says so, it must be true”) was to provide “cover” for the fact that he was not in the photo. Unfortunately, Youngblood was not properly schooled in the finer nuances of the art of deception and hedged on that point since his testimony, unlike Johnson’s, was under oath. To add to the confusion from Johnson’s “testimony,” Senator Yarborough insisted that Youngblood never even left the front seat; he maintained that the agent merely turned around and talked to Johnson in an undertone and that there was no room for him to have come into the backseat in any case. “It just didn’t happen … It was a small car (relative to the Presidential Lincoln). Johnson was a big man, tall. His knees were up against his chin as it was. There was no room for that to happen.”22 Dave Powers had glanced back to the car and confirmed Yarborough’s account. The driver of Johnson’s car, Hurchel Jacks, said that after the shot, Youngblood “asked me what that was and at the same time he advised the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson to get down.”23 In other words, according to Jacks, Youngblood’s first reaction, after asking Jacks his opinion of the noise, was to merely shout “Get down!” It appears, by the testimony of Youngblood, Jacks, and Mrs. Johnson, he didn’t reach into the back until at least after the remaining shots, if he even did it then; according to Yarborough, sitting in the backseat next to Lady Bird, Youngblood never came into the backseat at all. All of this is simply another example of the confusion surrounding Johnson’s hyperbole that he stated, in a prepared statement in lieu of a sworn deposition or testimony, “He vaulted over the backseat and sat on me. I was bent over under the weight of Agent Youngblood’s body.”. 24
Anyone who has ever sat in the backseat of a standard (nonstretch) Lincoln, as plush and nice as it may be, can attest to the fact that it is still only slightly bigger than a standard-sized Ford. To think that Agent Youngblood could have pushed Lyndon Johnson, as big as he was, to the floor, with two others sharing that space, and sat on him and neither of them still be noticed in the Altgens photograph is simply “hogwash,” to use a Texas colloquialism. But the reality of the situation was lost on Lyndon Johnson, not because of the shock and mayhem everyone else experienced, but because he knew well in advance what to expect—and nervously anticipated it all morning—and had prepared for it; the most compelling explanation of why Johnson was so nervous all morning but so confident after the killing of JFK was because he knew it would happen, where it would happen, and when it would happen.
All of these pesky discrepancies would be written off by him much as he once told Doris Kearns when she caught him in a lie. “Oh these journalists, they’re such sticklers for details!”25 As his own press secretary George Reedy, later reflecting on Johnson’s lack of credibility, explained, the truth for Lyndon Johnson was whatever he deemed it to be and in this case he apparently felt that he needed to embellish the facts with a little added drama. There was evidently a sliver of reality left in his consciousness since he was aware of the perjury implications of lying under oath, ergo his decision to reveal his “recollections” as casually as possible (he simply sent the Warren Commission a memo to explain all of this). For many people, it was unclear why he thought that seemingly innocuous difference in how Agent Youngblood reacted—whether he had simply turned around, yelled “Get down,” and then covered himself with his arms and shoulders, versus his jumping over the seat back and sitting on him—was important enough to risk perjuring himself under oath if the commission had insisted on it (as absurd as such a scenario would appear).
But lie about it he did, according to everyone else offering testimony in direct conflict with the new president. This particular anomaly has now become much more clear: Lyndon Johnson had apparently inspected the Altgens photograph and seen its incriminating implication; lest he be called upon to explain it to others, he knew he had to come up with a justification for his absence from the photo. His refusal to give sworn testimony to the Warren Commission about his reactions to the shots in Dealey Plaza was clearly based on his fear of having to commit perjury; he knew that if anyone ever looked closely enough at the Altgens photograph, the only reasonable justification for his absence in the photo was because he was crouching behind the seat, and the only possible explanation for that was that he was shoved there by agent Youngblood. Senator Yarborough said that Youngblood held a small walkie-talkie over the back of the car’s seat and that he and Johnson both put their ears to the device. He added, ‘They had it turned down real low. I couldn’t hear what they were listening to.’”26 Additionally, Ira David Wood III further confirmed Yarborough’s account:27
In the motorcade’s Vice Presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson is later described as having his ear up against a small walkie-talkie held over the back seat, “listening to the device which was ‘turned down real low,’”28 “Lyndon Johnson’s Secret Service detail is already ‘on the alert’ … the agents seem poised for immediate action. “Local Dallas newspaper reporters have been joking all morning about when and where “the shooting will start.’”
That exact moment was captured by James “Ike” Altgens, a photographer for the Associated Press. This is a very clear, professional-quality photograph showing the first four cars of the motorcade. When cropped down to show only the Johnson-Yarborough car,
all the occupants are clearly visible except for two: Secret Service Agent Jack Youngblood, whose position behind the motorcycle precludes his image; however, it does show clearly that he had not yet positioned himself over the seat to cover Johnson. There is no image whatsoever of Lyndon B. Johnson in this famous photograph, who should be quite visible, seated to the left of the clearly visible Lady Bird and Senator Yarborough, both of whom were seated to his left in the rear seat and arguably should have been less visible than him given his size and position in the car, while they were seated behind the driver. The spot where LBJ is supposed to be shows only the midbody portions of people standing on the sidewalk beyond the car (a bit of distortion between the images through the windshield vs. those above it is caused by the curvature of the windshield).
If he were only concerned with listening to the car’s radio, as reported by Manchester—or subsequently, the Secret Service walkie-talkie, as reported by others—he would not have needed to fall completely behind the seat and onto the floor of the car to do so. Yet his complete absence in this photograph—well before any other person in any of the four cars in Altgen’s photograph had reacted, except only for President Kennedy grasping his throat—is compelling evidence that, until now, has not been presented for public scrutiny. The millions of viewings of this photo were focused on JFK’s first reaction to being shot, not on Johnson’s absence, which obviously occurred even before the first shot. Given the situation in the motorcade, there was no rational explanation for Johnson’s actions throughout the motorcade—especially having a need for listening to an AM radio broadcast of the motorcade, and then listening to a walkie-talkie—that required him to practically lie on the floor of the car just before reaching Elm Street. That is, no reason other than the one which should be obvious: he was afraid the shooters might fire off a volley at him instead of shooting only Kennedy, as they had been ordered to do, by him.
This photo, with the noted reports from witnesses, should be prima facie proof of Lyndon Johnson’s foreknowledge of the assassination. If one accepts the premise that a conspiracy existed, then anyone who knew of it in advance, yet did nothing to stop it, was at least complicit in it—in his case, arguably its main perpetrator. Only Lyndon Johnson was in a position, at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, to ensure that the crime would be covered up, and all those involved in it would escape prosecution. By “connecting the dots” between this photo, available since November 22, 1963, and statements from eyewitnesses about the conduct of Lyndon B. Johnson on that fateful day, a piece of the mosaic emerges that shows convincingly Johnson’s self-incriminating actions at the precise moment of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This photograph could have once been admissible in court as “best evidence” of the most credible and reliable kind; it is now only interesting hearsay, and the case is no longer litigable. But it is still compelling and irrefutable “circumstantial” evidence of Johnson’s complicity.
Dealey Plaza, 12:30–12:31 p.m. November 22, 1963:
The Altgens photo, taken seconds after the first shot:
Altgens photo of Lincoln turning onto Elm Street,
1–3 seconds after the first shot was fired.
Cropped and blown-up part of Altgens photo of LBJ’s car: Where is LBJ?
The Altgens photograph—revealing Lyndon Johnson’s not-so-mysterious prescience about the imminent assassination of JFK—is clearly the long hidden but always present “Rosetta Stone”; the key to finally solving the crime of the twentieth century.
There can only be one reasonable explanation: it is the smoking gun—the key to finally solving the crime of the twentieth century. But it is the juxtaposition of this close-up version of the Altgens photograph with the statement of Police Officer B. J. Martin:
According to the guys who were escorting his car … he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired …
… that is the long hidden but always present “Rosetta Stone,” proof that Lyndon Johnson knew before his car entered the intersection of Elm Street that his time had finally come, within moments he would be the president of the United States.
The Altgens photo blown-up further showing no sign of LBJ—only the crowd in back of the car.
This photograph was coincidentally taken by Mr. Altgens one to three seconds after JFK had been shot since he had already, reflexively, grasped his hands toward the front of his neck. According to Fletcher Prouty, “By cross-referencing this remarkable photograph with the Zapruder film chronology, it is possible to determine that this picture was taken 3.6 seconds after the first shot was fired and 3.2 seconds before the last shot.”29 The exact moment is debatable since most researchers agree with the Warren Commission (about the only point of agreement between the two sides) that the “first shot” did not even hit JFK, it being the one which hit the curb well beyond the limousine, causing a fragment to hit James Tague in the neck.
The weight of the evidence, as previously noted, indicates that two shots followed quickly immediately after the shot that hit Tague: one from the top of the County Records Building, which hit JFK in the back, and an instant later, another from in front of the limousine, from the south end of the triple underpass, which went through the windshield of the car and hit Kennedy in the throat. In fact, on good quality copies of the photograph, the windshield crater and peripheral cracks are visible, meaning that the shot had to come before Zapruder 313, or well before the “head shots.” Kennedy can also be seen holding his right hand close to his mouth as his left hand is reaching toward his throat as though he is trying to dislodge a bullet from his throat. This would also explain why the bullet did not penetrate deeply into Kennedy’s throat since the windshield would have taken away most of its momentum. Practically no witnesses were looking back in that direction as the motorcade made its way down Elm Street, though some did state that they heard what they believed was a shot from that direction. According to Douglas Weldon, several witnesses reported seeing a shot from that area, or smelling the distinctive odor of gunpowder in that area.30 In testimony to the Warren Commission, Mark Lane quoted a witness who stated that “On the other side of the overpass a motorcycle policeman was roughriding across some grass to the trestle for the railroad tracks, across the overpass. He brought his cycle to a halt and leapt from it and was running up the base of the trestle when I lost sight of him.”31 Naturally, that bit of testimony was not rigorously pursued, so there will never be resolution of where this mysterious shot came from. Persuasive evidence of a shot from the south knoll has been presented,32 but the facts that all eyes were pointed the other direction and all the ears in the area were hearing echos of shots as the sound waves bounced back from the high-rise buildings on the hill above have caused the existence and identity of this shooter to have become another loose end that may never be resolved.
According to Richard Trask, “Beginning at about Z189, the President’s hand acts in a manner inconsistent with his previous waving motion. Willis’s 10 year-old daughter … had been running down Elm Street, and at about Z190, she suddenly stops and looks towards the direction of her parents … and [years later] stated, ‘I stopped when I heard the shot.’”33 The math would indicate that the “first shot” came at this point, Z189, 6.8 seconds before the last, at frame 313, though it missed its target wildly. It is also known that Kennedy had not yet been hit one second later, at frame 202, because that moment was captured in the Phil Willis slide 5. Comparing the position of his arms in the Altgens photo with frames in the Zapruder film (see Twyman, photo section between pp. 144–145) it would appear Kennedy was hit in the throat about one second after Willis snapped the shutter on his camera, at about Z220. This would account for Kennedy’s reaction four frames later at Z224, just as the limousine emerged from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. Altgens snapped his camera shutter 1.7 seconds after that, at Z255,34 and his photograph shows Kennedy’s reaction. Before leaving this point, it is important to understand the obvious: The hole in the windshiel
d occurred before the fatal shots to the head were fired, so it can’t be argued that “fragments” from those shots caused the damage to the glass; furthermore, it clearly couldn’t have been caused by the (ridiculous) “magic bullet.” Ergo, even the most simplistic analysis possible, on this single point, renders the entire Warren Commission conclusions as thoroughly debunked.
The Altgens photograph clearly shows Senator Ralph Yarborough (on the right side of the photo) behind the driver and Lady Bird, both still smiling, in the rear seat; neither they nor the motorcycle policemen have yet reacted to the first shot. Yet Lyndon Johnson has already disappeared from view even though he had been seated next to Lady Bird on the left side of the picture (right side of car). If he had been asked about this anomaly, Johnson’s rebuttal to this question might, predictably, have been, “Well, that would have been after Youngblood shoved me down.” The prosecutor—in a fair and perfect world—could have then rejected it immediately, pointing out to him that such an action would have certainly produced great shock and surprise on the faces of the driver, Herchel Jacks, Senator Yarborough, and most importantly, his own wife, Lady Bird. Yet the look on all three of their faces remains stoic (Jacks), happy (Yarborough), or relaxed and pleasant (Lady Bird); it is undoubtedly the very last moment that such expressions would remain. By then, Lady Bird had probably grown a little tired of Lyndon’s antics with the radio and walkie-talkie and had become used to his being partially hunched down throughout the motorcade, as noted earlier in William Manchester’s account. Since the repeated descriptions of Johnson’s strange behavior throughout the motorcade in Manchester’s book obviously did not come from Lyndon—ergo, nor Lady Bird—it stands to reason that they came from Senator Yarborough who made similar statements about it to other authors.
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