LBJ

by Phillip F. Nelson

  To understand Johnson’s behavior throughout the motorcade, it is necessary to factor in his well-established manic-depressive patterns and, on November 22, 1963, overcome with worries and fears of something going wrong, he was definitely in a depressive cycle, as will become clearer shortly. It is also pertinent to consider at this point Johnson’s long history of cowardice when put into a position of fear of bodily harm. Once when he got into a verbal fight over a game of poker in San Marcos, the other boy lunged at him and, instead of squaring off and preparing to defend himself, he fell back on a bed and began kicking his feet in the air like a girl, threatening to kick the boy if he tried anything. Vernon Whiteside witnessed this spectacle and said, “You know, every kid in the State of Texas had fights then, but he wouldn’t fight. He was an absolute physical coward.”35 It was Johnson’s innate cowardice which caused him to duck at that moment and to provide, almost five decades later, photographic evidence that he knew in advance where and when the shooting would commence.

  The people on the sidewalk at the back of the car are partly visible, through the windshield, beyond the car. SS Agent Youngblood is not visible; he is behind the motorcycle policeman on the left. Although this photo would, in many cropped variations, be published in thousands of newspapers around the world within hours of the assassination of JFK, it was consistently done with various captions alluding to the last few moments of Kennedy’s presidency or his happy and beaming persona. Unfortunately, the understandable interest and focus on John F. Kennedy’s first reaction to being shot, clearly into his throat, from the front, helped Lyndon Johnson in his efforts to obscure his own reaction and explains fully why he would attempt to postulate—but not swear to—his complete surprise.

  A similarly cropped, close-up view of the Altgens photograph focused on the vice presidential car and the following Secret Service car with the rear door open was published by Robert J. Groden in his 1993 book, The Killing of a President, but no mention of the missing LBJ was made.36 Like Groden, many people either never noticed Johnson’s absence or routinely decided to ignore it as not substantive evidence of anything and assumed there must be some explanation for it, either excusing Johnson’s disappearance or writing it off as some photographic anomaly despite the fact that this flaw didn’t affect anyone else’s image. Even Fletcher Prouty overlooked the implications of this photograph when he stated, “Lyndon and his bodyguard are sitting in their seats in this photo, but are partially obscured by the edge of the car on the left.”37 He must have meant that they were obscured by the windshield of the police motorcycle; however, that also is an unsatisfactory explanation, given the wide space to Lady Bird’s right (to her left as one looks at the photo) which is where Johnson should have been. He was clearly not just “obscured,” he wasn’t even in the photograph!

  This photograph might explain a few other curiosities concerning Johnson’s actions in the days that followed:

  • On Saturday morning, he asked Hoover whether anyone had shot at him, revealing why he had been so uncomfortable during the motorcade. He had been worried that the shooters would fire off a round or two at him. This high level of nervous anxiety would explain his odd behavior during the motorcade when he kept “hunching down,” pretending to listen to the radio broadcast. His nervousness during the motorcade and later—on board Air Force One, when General McHugh found him in the toilet area in the middle of nervous breakdown—is quite explainable; the answer to the paradox suggests that his paranoia that day was not entirely baseless, it was connected to a real source of concern.

  • Johnson personally oversaw all of the evidence being shuttled back from Dallas starting on the very evening of the assassination. He had to have seen the Altgens photograph among the first artifacts brought to his attention and probably would have looked for all images of himself before looking at anyone or anything else. On a good-quality, large-format print of this photo, magnifying glass in hand, he would have seen that he was not visible in the photo. It was that knowledge that would explain why he chose not to appear before the Warren Commission to testify and not even provide them a sworn statement. The most casual statement he could make, a simple letter to the commission, would have to suffice. Not only did he not have to swear as to his actions, this maneuver ensured that he would never face cross-examination as well.

  • Two weeks later, on December 4, 1963, he presented Secret Service Agent Youngblood a medal for his purported actions in immediately throwing Johnson to the floor and sitting on top of him to protect him from gunfire, possibly saving his life. This ceremony completed his diabolical plot since it allowed him to implant the notion into millions of minds the “truth” of that story while luring the hapless Mr. Youngblood into his scheme; after all, given the pomp and circumstance of such a nationally publicized award for his fast-thinking, heroic actions, how could “Ruf” Youngblood possibly counter the president’s recollection of events. This further explains Youngblood’s curious statement to the Warren Commission, cited above, concerning that event. He really didn’t think he was “in the rear seat before the second shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson’s statement to that effect.” This statement speaks volumes and provides an underlying subtle hint that Johnson had planted a factoid that was not based in truth. If it were really true, Youngblood would have had no reason to waffle on whether or not he did what he was purported to have done (of course, if he had done this, he would have also been captured in the Altgens photo doing it). Agent Youngblood was merely one of the “pissants” Johnson used throughout his life to advance his own purposes, and for every man for whom Johnson had sized up, he knew intuitively what the man’s weaknesses were, and how best he could exploit them. In Youngblood’s case, he saw a proud and patriotic man who valued service and sacrifice; what better way to “buy him off” than bestow the highest medal of honor of the Treasury Department? He had told James Rowley, probably one of his co-conspirators, upon his return to Washington, “I want you to do whatever you can, the best thing that can be done, for that boy.”38

  It is ironic—albeit instructive, as to how many people reacted in the process of dealing with the horror—that even the photographer Ike Altgens failed to see this otherwise inexplicable discrepancy: the complete disappearance of Lyndon Johnson at the precise moment of the first rifle shot of the ensuing volley. Altgens never mentioned even seeing the anomaly and possibly didn’t even notice it. Yet apart from that, he was quoted as saying, “He had yet to see indisputable evidence to the contrary that Oswald did not kill the President.”39 While he admitted difficulty in understanding how one person could have accomplished the assassination, he felt that it was inappropriate to reach conclusions other than those that were officially sanctioned by his government. Yet he himself had taken a picture that would be more revealing of what actually happened than all the other pictures and film combined. This disconnect illustrates how he—and millions of his fellow citizens—treated the crime; they were simply too afraid to even think about an even greater danger possibly lurking in the background.

  This collective preference, suddenly afflicting millions of Americans to shut out any doubts about what they were being told by the still-trusted authorities—together with the quick and easy alternative solution being foisted upon them by J. Edgar Hoover—offered them the comfort they needed in a time of extreme fear and anxiety. The secure feeling that the government could be trusted to find the answers leading to a resolution meant that justice would prevail, and the hated “lone nut” Oswald would be found guilty, even if only posthumously.

  The contrary thought was simply too outrageous—too horrible and unthinkable—to allow one’s mind to even ponder. Many people could simply not bear the thought that the United States had experienced not only the assassination of their president but a concerted conspiracy and coup d’état. In fact, some people even refused to talk about it; the weight of such thoughts was simply too heavy to consider. It was easier to put it aside with the thoug
ht that the wheels of justice of a trusted government would quickly find justice for the murderer(s) of the president. Yet when the government presented its findings, at least 75 percent of those Americans—then and now—would not believe their own government’s version of events. The wholesome trust Americans still had in their government in 1963 seems rather anachronistic now, a quaint memory of life before November 22, 1963; it would start its gradual disintegration immediately after that date, fall further after the Warren Report was issued ten months later, and finally go into freefall as the truth began emerging, thanks to the original authors and researchers who expressed doubt from day one.

  Someone was evidently very worried that the Altgens photo might reveal too much and decided it should be specially cropped before being presented to the Warren Commission. That same someone was no doubt the same person who decided to further muddy the waters by claiming that Youngblood’s reaction was so fast that if anyone saw the photo of the Johnson car and noticed his absence, his alibi was already on record: it was Youngblood’s lightning fast response, which caused him to be shoved to the floor, in spite of the fact that this did not square with the testimony of others, even his own wife’s. The cropped photo is yet more proof of the disturbing pattern of the Warren Commission being given fabricated and selectively culled evidence. Exhibit CE 203 was the version of the Altgens photograph furnished to the commission; it included only the picture of the presidential limousine. Johnson’s car was eliminated entirely.

  Warren Report exhibit CE 203

  The importance of the discoveries related to this photograph—that the motorcycle patrolmen’s statements regarding Johnson’s actions have been vindicated by photographic evidence showing that Johnson had indeed disappeared below the car’s seatbacks and that the photo had been severely cropped for the Warren Commission—cannot be overstated. On the basis of this “best evidence,” it should be obvious to anyone—even those convinced that Lee H. Oswald was the only shooter—that Lyndon B. Johnson was aware of the imminent assassination.

  Johnson has long been suspected by many of being at the very least behind the cover-up, a case already made by other authors and summarized here, though many simply attributed it to his fear of confronting Cuba and the Soviet Union in such a way as to lead to a nuclear war. With this new perspective on old evidence, it can now be presumptively concluded that his involvement went well beyond that: Lyndon Johnson was clearly aware of the pending assassination. Now, the only question is, just how much did he know about it, and was he, in fact, the creative and conniving mind behind it? The evidence presented here—including the many other books and materials cited within, the result of millions of hours of research by all of the cited authors and many others cited by them in turn—shows conclusively what many people already knew but could not prove: JFK’s assassination was carefully planned and choreographed by Lyndon B. Johnson, with the very sophisticated assistance of key members of the CIA, the FBI, and an assortment of operatives associated with the Mafia and/or of Cuban origin.

  The Flurry of Telephone Calls Continues—from LBJ’s Aides, then Lyndon Himself

  District Attorney Wade acknowledged and discussed the calls he received; the calls to the other Texas authorities—such as Dallas Police Chief Curry, Captain Will Fritz, Sheriff Decker, and Texas State Attorney Waggoner Carr—as attested to by others who they had confided in, were just as real. The message was that the president was worried about the consequences of alleging a conspiracy on the part of the Russians; as Wade relayed it, such an allegation “would hurt foreign relations if I alleged a conspiracy—whether I could prove it or not … I was to charge Oswald with plain murder.”40 Wade even admitted going to city hall to see Captain Fritz to tell him the same thing even though Fritz had already gotten the word directly from Johnson, who had advised him that he had already gotten his man and that no further investigation was necessary.41 On Johnson’s direct orders, his aide Cliff Carter phoned Henry Wade, Dallas district attorney, three times Friday evening, November 22, repeatedly ordering him to stop making allusions to “any word of a conspiracy—some plot by foreign nations—to kill President Kennedy.”42 Such a connection, it was said, “would shake our nation to its foundation.” Something had happened which caused that very threat to be dropped despite the fact that Johnson himself had already expressed it as a possibility, and it was never investigated further. Although he was the first to express it as a possibility, and would continue doing so for several days as he recruited members of the Warren Commission, he and J. Edgar Hoover both ordered the investigators to drop it. Johnson would not speak of it again for several years before making several statements in which he admitted never believing the Warren Commission’s “lone nut” conclusion.

  Given everything else we know about Lyndon Johnson’s actions on and after November 22, 1963, one can almost hear him explain to Captain Fritz how it is necessary to wrap up the case with Oswald as the only suspect, putting an end to the nightmare then and there to calm the fears of the American citizens and to avoid a nuclear confrontation with Cuba and Russia that might kill forty million Americans within an hour (i.e., the very same argument that he was taped a few days later using with Senator Russell and which he had by then already used on Chief Justice Warren). In 1963, few police officers in America would reject his nation’s president, making such a small request when he was being so profoundly challenged.* He might have even suggested to the two lawmen that the country might even be better off if some outraged citizen decided to take care of Oswald himself so the country would not have to be subjected to a long drawn-out trial at which the suspect gets off on some technicality. By playing on their emotions, he might have even set the stage for Ruby to perform his role. If anyone was capable of manipulating other men to achieve his own objectives, as we have amply seen in the previous chapters, and will do so again in the rest of this book, there was no other man alive in 1963 who was nearly as skilled at this as Lyndon B. Johnson.

  After two days of suggestions and friendly cajoling—reminders that “you have your man”—the Dallas Police were finally ordered to stop their investigation completely and to turn over all evidence to the FBI, which was being put in charge of the entire investigation.43 Hoover used his power as head of the FBI to secretly punish many of the personnel in Dallas and New Orleans, though the real reason for it was for Hoover’s own cover to hide the facts of how the FBI records were cleansed of any damning evidence of involvement with setting up Oswald.44 It had become clear to many of the Dallas policemen, including B. J. Martin, that “Lyndon Johnson forced Captain Fritz to back down when he initially would not yield. His exact words were, ‘You can’t keep running a homicide investigation when the president of the United States calls you on the phone and tells you point-blank to stop.’” Martin knew this was the truth because “that’s the only way ‘old Cap’ would’ve ever quit before he finished a job. The worst part is, he’s the only man alive who could’ve gotten to the bottom of this damned thing. Now nobody’ll ever know the truth.”45

  Penn Jones also reported that Captain Will Fritz told his friends “when the President of the United States called me and ordered the investigation stopped, what could I do?”46 Just before the scheduled transfer of Oswald from the police station to the county jail, Jesse Curry, the Dallas chief of police who was to oversee the transfer, had a telephone call from Mayor Earle Cabell who kept him on the phone until Oswald had been shot by Jack Ruby.47 Mayor Cabell was the brother of General Charles Cabell of the CIA, who had been fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs.

  Eyewitnesses Revisited

  Turning the tables on the Warren Commission’s tactic of suborning perjury from eyewitnesses, by forcing many of them to revise their testimony in order to be congruent with a preordained, fabricated story, here we will allow them to speak the truth as they best remember it before they were intimidated, threatened, or ignored by the FBI, Secret Service, or Dallas Police. By virtue of accepting their compelling stories,
including their reports of this intimidation, their testimony essentially replaces the tainted testimony of others and thus allows the resulting distortions to be eliminated and the record corrected. Doing so also results in the automatic elimination of many of the “anomalies” already identified.

  A common thread that many of the key eyewitnesses in Dealey Plaza would later reveal was the immediate presence of men who claimed to be with the Secret Service. If, in fact, they had been with the Secret Service, and they had used their usual procedures along a motorcade route at an obviously dangerous site like Dealey Plaza, they would have ordered all the windows in the TSBD, the County Records, and the Dal-Tex buildings to be closed and sealed and would have had a man in the plaza to ensure that they stayed closed.48

  But according to numerous researchers, including James W. Douglass, the “only ‘Secret Service Agents’ present in Dealey Plaza when the shots were fired were imposters and killers, bearing false credentials to facilitate their escape and coerce witnesses into handing over vital evidence that would vanish. The vacuum created by orders from Washington was immediately filled. When the president’s security was systematically withdrawn from Dealey Plaza, his assassins moved swiftly into place.”49 A few weeks after the assassination, it became clear that the existing Secret Service credentials—the engraved identification books—had been compromised: all agents were instructed to turn in their current identification books, and they were replaced with all new sets.50 The HSCA report documented several instances of fake Secret Service agents at Dealey Plaza, as reported by author Twyman:51