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Ron Paul See other Ron Paul Articles Title: Why JFK Went to Texas LBJ: Master of Deceit JFK: “He* sure seemed anxious for me to go to Texas” * John Connally (ergo, Lyndon Johnson) after Connally’s White House visit six weeks before The Big Event That was a very odd thing for President Kennedy to say, given that he had invited Texas Governor Connally to the White House for a visit on October 4, 1963 to make plans for the Texas trip that Lyndon Johnson (who had not been invited to attend) had been pressing so hard for. JFK realized that he needed to have Connally’s firm support for the trip, knowing that the Governor had for months resisted the idea of staking his own greater popularity in Texas to that of the president (or, for that matter, of LBJ, whose Texas support had been waning since he left the Senate and was wasting away in the Vice President’s office — and at that moment, was being drawn into the biggest scandal of his career, centered on Senate investigations of his long-time bag-man and multiple fraudster Bobby Baker). Vice President Johnson, for many months beginning in late 1962, had begun pressing Governor Connally and President Kennedy to arrange for a presidential tour of Texas as a pre-reelection campaign way to improve their standing in the polls. Connally stated as much in his 1978 testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), explaining that he was then too busy campaigning for his own election to do it, but affirmed that it was Johnson who was behind it, though LBJ claimed that it was Kennedy who “needled” him to get it done (as can be heard at about the 7:00 minute mark on this video). LBJ: The Mastermind of... Phillip F. Nelson Best Price: $7.91 Buy New $11.23 (as of 06:30 EST - Details) To increase the pressure on President Kennedy—who had still not agreed to make such a trip—in April, 1963 Johnson leaked an unauthorized story to the Dallas Times-Herald newspaper that the President was planning to make the trip, which resulted in a full banner headline on April 24, 1963 “LBJ Sees Kennedy Dallas Visit—One Day Texas Tour Eyed.” That rather brazen act by Johnson, unbeknownst to either Kennedy or Connally, should leave little doubt about who was pressing whom about making the trip. Two months later, while the three were together in El Paso for other purposes, the discussion of preliminary planning finally began. In the meantime, Johnson’s stature with the Kennedys had continued to diminish. JFK’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln stated that a “persistent rumor” had been circulating throughout Washington in the autumn of 1963, that Kennedy was planning to remove Lyndon Johnson from the ticket in 1964. She stated that her father-in-law, who worked in the Executive Office Building where Johnson’s vice presidential suite was located, told her that: “Johnson would storm out of his office into the reception room and shout to someone walking with him, ‘Why does the White House always have it in for me? I’m going back to Texas and run for the United States Senate against Senator Yarborough.”[1] During this same period, October 19, 1963 to be exact, an appreciation dinner was held in Austin called “A Texas Salute to Ralph Yarborough” including other senators from throughout the country and a keynote speech by the Postmaster General, John A. Gronouski, with a filmed message by President Kennedy. Despite the fact that Johnson was then spending a month at his nearby ranch preparing for JFK’s trip to Texas, as Mrs. Lincoln put it, “Mr. Johnson was conspicuous by his absence.”[2] Mrs. Lincoln’s reference to Johnson’s “absence” related to more than his not being invited to the Yarborough party; she had also made the point about how the Kennedys were purposefully leaving him out of important meetings on any substantive issues, not only on foreign policy matters but domestic as well. His absence from the development of the civil rights bill Kennedy submitted to Congress in June, 1963—despite Johnson’s position as the chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission—illustrates that point with astonishing clarity. Yet Johnson continued portraying himself as an active member of the administration, as revealed in George Reedy’s 1982 memoir, recounting his fifteen years of working for Johnson, and how he had observed Johnson’s growing paranoia about Robert Kennedy’s control over the press. By late 1963, Reedy stated, Johnson had begun fearing that Bobby was preparing to launch a “dump LBJ” movement in 1964. Furthermore, Reedy noted how Johnson had begun showing his growing desperation by hanging out in the West Wing of the White House, pretending to be an active collaborator with JFK, an action Reedy did not feel was becoming to a man of his position.[3] It was during this period that Lyndon went to his ranch to begin preparing for the Texas presidential trip, spending considerable time on the Dallas motorcade piece of the three-day presidential visit. In the meantime, Connally had gone to Washington to visit the President in preparation for the trip; he was very concerned that Kennedy might back out of his commitment to come to Texas, for the purpose of bringing the feuding factions together. Despite what Connally would write about warning Kennedy not to come to Texas (below), JFK’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln said that after he left, Kennedy said that, “He sure seemed anxious for me to go to Texas. He attracts some people— money people who would never vote for me, but I have many supporters down there who are bitterly opposed to him. I think in the long run it would be more advantageous to him than for me. The one thing I noticed above everything else was his concern about Lyndon being on the ticket.”[4] [Emphasis added.] These statements by the very credible Mrs. Lincoln were completely contradicted by an article in the Dallas Morning News on November 23, 1963: The headline of the story was “Connally Wanted President to Call Off Trip to Texas” and the key (second) paragraph of this article stated: “The governor, wounded by Mr. Kennedy’s assassin, was against the idea for two reasons: (1) It would not be wise politically, would expand rather than heal wounds within the Texas Democratic Party, and (2) There was the possibility of some unpleasant incident.”[5] Sofia + Sam Multi Task... Buy New $52.05 (as of 02:49 EDT - Details) That article – published the day after JFK’s assassination, when Connally was hospitalized and under intensive care – could not possibly have come from anything he might have said. It could only have originated from Lyndon Johnson, undoubtedly mouthed by one of his many sycophants, possibly Bill Moyers, who had instantly been promoted into the White House press office from his former position as assistant director of the Peace Corps. These diametrically opposite statements, one from the credible Mrs. Lincoln, the other—directly or indirectly—from the pathological liar Lyndon Johnson, show yet another set of Johnsonian lies meant to supplant the truth. Regarding Connally’s White House visit, although Johnson publicly denied it, even expressing some anger about Connally visiting with the President without him being there, it appears that he—albeit indirectly—had probably caused JFK to invite Connally despite the fact that Johnson was not invited to accompany him. Johnson’s manipulations were all designed to ensure that Kennedy would come to Texas, which he thought would have to be taken as a sign that Johnson would be on the 1964 ticket. Just the prospect of it, he must have thought, would stanch the “persistent rumors” engulfing Washington that he would be removed. After the assassination, it would no longer matter anyway, but the less that rumor spread, the less scrutiny would be put on his own actions in the immediate aftermath. Author Jeff Shesol, in his book Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade, wrote about how Johnson still repeated those lies years afterwards, claiming that it was a “great myth” that he did anything to force Kennedy to come to Texas,[6] yet that is precisely what the record shows. The most compelling piece of that evidence is the video available on the internet, archived at the JFK Library and the PBS files, in which Senator George Smathers recalls how JFK lamented, “I just don’t want to go down in that mess. I hate to go. I wish I could think of a way to get out of it.”[7] SEE LINK TO VIDEO HERE Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Ada (#0)
He should have trusted his instinct and his wife who begged him not to go. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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