Though his grandmother didn’t use the precise clinical terms to describe Lyndon, her prescience about his eventual probability of serving time in prison revealed what she observed about his essential character traits. His grandmother’s observations would have related to behaviors he had already manifested by the age of five: manic energy, poor concentration, mischievousness, arrogance, and defiance. Even then, he had developed a reputation for arguing and haranguing his playmates to the extent that they just wanted to get away from him.18 His sister Rebekah recalled that he bossed everyone else around—even his mother—as though he were the head of the family.19 When teachers tried to discipline him, “he spit at them and walked out.”20 A lady who tutored him in his early schooling called him “a real hellion.”21 After an entire lifetime spent “on the edge” of making excuses and lying about matters both large and small and constantly striving to achieve his childhood dream, the anxieties this produced, combined with his other psychological issues (whether they were merely those of a typical person diagnosed with bipolar disease, paranoia, or sociopathic personality disorder or some combination of all three), caused his condition to worsen after he left the Oval Office and returned to the LBJ Ranch. Between the anxieties playing out in his mind and the loneliness of life on the ranch—not the ordinary loneliness many people occasionally feel but the kind that is exacerbated by the sociopath’s extreme fear of being alone—he had consigned himself to a life of misery in his last four years.
The narrative in this and previous chapters, which relates to Johnson’s psychological state, is not intended to be considered as a definitive psychological or psychiatric analysis of his condition; except for citations to other authors, it is presented as the author’s “speculative or conjectural” commentary and must be considered as such. The comments are, however, based upon reasoned interpretations of Johnson’s actual behavior at specific events as cited. An excerpt from the Encarta Dictionary on “personality disorder” reads as follows:
People with antisocial personality disorder act in a way that disregards the feelings and rights of other people. Antisocial personalities often break the law, and they may use or exploit other people for their own gain. They may lie repeatedly, act impulsively, and get into physical fights. They may mistreat their spouses, neglect or abuse their children, and exploit their employees. They may even kill other people. People with this disorder are also sometimes called sociopaths or psychopaths … Antisocial personalities usually fail to understand that their behavior is dysfunctional because their ability to feel guilty, remorseful, and anxious is impaired. Guilt, remorse, shame, and anxiety are unpleasant feelings, but they are also necessary for social functioning and even physical survival. For example, people who lack the ability to feel anxious will often fail to anticipate actual dangers and risks. They may take chances that other people would not take. Antisocial personality disorder affects about 3 percent of males and 1 percent of females. This is the most heavily researched personality disorder, in part because it costs society the most. People with this disorder are at high risk for premature and violent death, injury, imprisonment, loss of employment, bankruptcy, alcoholism, drug dependence, and failed personal relationships.
One does not need a PhD in psychology or an MD in psychiatry to understand the meaning of these layman’s words. A person having taken only a high school or undergraduate level course in psychology can readily understand by now that Lyndon B. Johnson met every one of the criteria noted above. Many people still persist in their belief that, though Johnson was fiercely ambitious and admittedly a chronic liar, he was not depraved enough to murder his predecessor; clearly, by now, it is time to reassess that point based upon everything else previously written. Lyndon B. Johnson was paranoid and a sociopath who suffered from manic depression.22 According to Gerald Tolchin, PhD and professor of psychology, “Johnson may well have been the most psychologically unstable person ever to assume the presidency. He was a tragic figure pursued by demons, real and imagined … It appears likely that Lyndon Johnson suffered from bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder throughout his life, a condition that grew worse as he grew older, peaking just as he reached the zenith of his influence and power.”23
The historical record shows that a number of men, between 1964 and 1968, realized that Johnson’s mental health was in serious trouble. In May, 1964, Robert F. Kennedy expressed concern for the country’s future because of Johnson’s state of mind, asking Arthur Schlesinger, “How can we possibly survive five more years of Lyndon Johnson? Five more years of a crazy man?”24 One year later, in July, 1965, Richard Goodwin stated, “Early that same month, I was sitting in Bill Moyers’s office … when Bill walked in, his face pale, visibly shaken. ‘I just came from a conversation with the president,’ he said. ‘He told me he was going to fire everybody who didn’t agree with him, that Hubert [Humphrey] could not be trusted and we weren’t to tell him anything; then he began to explain that the communist way of thinking had infected everyone around him, that his enemies were deceiving the people and, if they succeeded, there was no way he could stop World War Three’… ‘Suppose he really does go crazy,’ I said. And then, answering my own question: ‘I tell you what would happen if we went public with our doubts. They could assemble a panel of psychiatrists to examine the President, and he would tell them how sad it made him that two boys he loved so much could have thought such a thing, and then explain his behavior so calmly and reasonably that when he was finished, we would be the ones committed. Indeed, what could be done—what could anyone do—about a man who was always able to impose an immensely powerful and persuasive simulacrum of control to mask his growing irrationalities?’”25
Evidently, all of these men were aware—unbeknownst to anyone else in the rest of the country, yet suspected by many—that, in fact, the country was being run by a man incapable of controlling even himself in a rational manner, to say nothing of the nation’s affairs, which he was then trying to radically change for all time. Years later, decades after his death, the case would be made that in fact, Johnson suffered not only from what is now referred to as “bipolar” disease but more generally, a combination of paranoia and sociopathic disorders.
Facets of his apparent underlying afflictions—e.g., sociopathic personality disorder—are rarely treatable, much less curable. It is something which apparently remained undiagnosed throughout all but the last two years of his sixty-four-year life, mostly because he did not wish to be treated for it (why would someone of his obvious stature and brilliance need to see a psychiatrist?) and no self-respecting doctor could make such a diagnosis without even interviewing the patient as long as he was still alive; it was not until he was dead that the analysis began. So the patient afflicted an entire country with the remorse that he would not—could not—come to terms with himself.
Lyndon B. Johnson could be made a case study for future psychological textbooks—in the sections dealing with extreme narcissism, egomania, paranoia, bipolar and sociopathic disorders—and the compound effect of multiple disorders—and how a person, left untreated for decades, could take over the government not only in a third world country but in a superpower nation. This is not merely some esoteric exercise; a good case has been made for the premise that many of the world’s tyrants were afflicted by mental disorders similar to Lyndon Johnson’s, including specifically, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin.26 Perhaps the nation, and we as individuals, would be better equipped to cope with people like Lyndon Johnson in the future if this were done posthumously in his case.
The Jury Is Charged
It is now well past the time for the fraudulent “evidence” to be thrown out and a reevaluation of the thirty-sixth president be undertaken. The enormous destruction Lyndon Johnson caused after his coup, by inserting the American military machine into a faraway land to fight its nonthreatening indigenous people—where more than two million Americans were sent to fight in their civil war, of whom over 58,000 never returned and over
350,000 more were seriously injured; where two Vietnamese civilians for every enemy soldier died, a total of 3.8 million Vietnamese or 14 percent of their entire population27—was a direct result of his ascension into the presidency of the United States. Should not this be sufficient to embarrass the nation and cause the removal of his name from the monuments, lakes, expressways, parks, buildings, and the space center, which have been named after him? It is also clear that at the very least, the case presented here should cause the government to at least force the release of the remaining FBI and CIA files, which have still not been made public nearly two decades after they were ordered to be. An accounting of all the official misdeeds, including the fabricated photos and films, the destruction of files, and the harassment of witnesses should quickly follow. A thorough cleansing of the national conscience is in order after all of these years to enable Americans to reconcile the personal tragedy suffered by John F. Kennedy, and the national tragedy suffered by the country at large, at the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson.
The damage caused by Lyndon Johnson and his intrinsic dishonesty with the American people is incalculable. His role in creating the level of cynicism and mistrust of government that exists today has been well hidden for over forty years; it was through his pernicious behavior and ability to mesmerize his peers with velvet gloves while commanding his subordinates with an iron fist that he was able to wrest control of the government of the United States. He did it through outright cajalory, cruelty, bombastic speechs, blatant disregard of the laws he was charged with upholding, and ultimately, murder. Until the real story of the thirty-sixth president is exposed and the complete truth of his crimes against the United States and the world are acknowledged, there will always be questions lurking about the trustworthiness of the government itself.
This concludes the posthumous indictment of the thirty-sixth president of the United States of America, Lyndon B. Johnson. The “defense case” has already been presented multiple times over nearly fifty years by many credulous authors combined with the virtual absence of critical reporting by the news media, which had collectively worked so many years to protect his secrets and burnish his reputation as a great politician. It is not whimsy to posit—indeed, it has already been proven beyond a doubt—that for reasons that can only be imagined, the major news media of the time came to Johnson’s defense in 1967 to assist the Johnson administration and the CIA to attack Jim Garrison and simultaneously began adopting the “official line” on JFK’s assassination while ridiculing those who kept bringing forth evidence which cast doubt on that line. And it is not unreasonable to suggest that a widely based media cover-up was launched at that time that still exists today; so successful has it been that merely questioning such outrageously absurd “official truths” as the “Magic Bullet Theory” renders one a “conspiracy theorist” who is unable to accept the “conventional wisdom” that the government has decreed to be the factual record. It is enough to make one suspect that Lyndon Johnson had foreseen this eventuality too and had planned its outcome over fifty years ago.
Thankfully, there were also a courageous few who were more intellectually honest, who delved into the darker side of his character and helped by providing much of the documentation which has been presented here: each of these incidents represents a dot on a very large historical matrix. The dots have finally been connected; the puzzle has been completed. A more complete story of Lyndon Johnson has been written, at least enough of it to provide a little balance to the lopsided “biographies” already written about the man, which artfully avoid revealing anything about his real character.
The verdict of the jury—the American people—awaits.
Notes
1. McClellan, 274–283.
* Hancock also pointed out that Dr. Humes lost his credibility more than once: (1) he admitted destroying both his notes and his first version of the autopsy report; his assistant, Dr. Boswell also lost his notes the night of the autopsy; (2) his less-than-forthcoming interviews with the ARRB; (3) his loss of the lawsuit filed by Dr. Crenshaw; and (4) his “in your face” display of the gold presidential cuff links during his testimony, which were given to him personally by President Johnson during the interviews. (Hancock, 308, 561)
2. Hancock, 307.
3. Talbot, 274
4. See: http://www.ciajfk.com/news4.html
5. Twyman, Appendix G (Mobipocket ebook version), 3660
6. Baker, 262
7. Ibid. 263
8. McClellan, 277.
9. Ibid., 278–279.
10. Cooper, 4
11. McClellan, 280–281.
12. Ibid., 281–282.
13. Hershman, 212.
14. Ibid., 291.
15. Ibid. 241–243
16. Davis, Dorothy, 170.
17. Twyman, 830.
18. Ibid., 27.
19. Kearns, 87.
20. Dallek, Lone Star … , 43.
21. Ibid.
22. Hershman, 16.
23. Ibid., 6.
24. Schlesinger, RFK … p. 836
25. Goodwin, Richard, pp. 402–403
26. Hershman and Julian Lieb, MD, A Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994.
27. Hershman, 11.
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