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John Connally and the Assassination of JFK


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CONNALLY: LBJ "was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

Good Day....

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_do...ion_the_bes.htm

<QUOTE>

Is deception the best way to serve one's country?

by Doug Thompson

The handwritten note lay in the bottom drawer of my old rolltop desk, one I bought for $50 in a junk store in Richmond, VA, 39 years ago.

"Dear Doug & Amy," it read. "Thanks for dinner and for listening." The signature was a bold "John" and the letterhead on the note simply said "John B. Connally" and was dated July 14, 1982.

I met John Connally on a TWA flight from Kansas City to Albuquerque earlier that year. The former governor of Texas, the man who took one of the bullets from the assassination that killed President John F. Kenney, was headed to Santa Fe to buy a house.

The meeting wasn't an accident. The flight originated in Washington and I sat in the front row of the coach cabin. During a stop in Kansas City, I saw Connally get on the plane and settle into a first class seat so I walked off the plane and upgraded to a first class seat right ahead of the governor. I not only wanted to meet the man who was with Kennedy on that day in Dallas in 1963 but, as the communications director for the re-election campaign of Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, I thought he might be willing to help out on what was a tough campaign.

When the plane was in the air, I introduced myself and said I was working on Lujan's campaign. Connally's face lit up and he invited me to move to the empty seat next to him.

"How is Manuel? Is there anything I can do to help?"

By the time we landed in Albuquerque, Connally had agreed to do a fundraiser for Lujan. A month later, he flew back into New Mexico where Amy and I picked him up for the fundraiser. Afterwards, we took him to dinner.

Connolly was both gracious and charming and told us many stories about Texas politics. As the evening wore on and the multiple bourbon and branch waters took their effect, he started talking about November 22, 1963, in Dallas.

"You know I was one of the ones who advised Kennedy to stay away from Texas," Connally said. "Lyndon (Johnson) was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

Connally's mood darkened as he talked about Dallas. When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe. He spoke kindly of Jackie Kennedy and said he admired both her bravery and composure.

I had to ask. Did he think Lee Harvey Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy?

"Absolutely not," Connally said. "I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission."

So why not speak out?

"Because I love this country and we needed closure at the time. I will never speak out publicly about what I believe."

We took him back to catch a late flight to Texas. He shook my hand, kissed Amy on the cheek and walked up the ramp to the plane.

We saw Connally and his wife a couple of more times when they came to New Mexico but he sold his house a few years later as part of a bankruptcy settlement. He died in 1993 and, I believe, never spoke publicly about how he doubted the findings of the Warren Commission.

Connnally's note serves as yet another reminder that in our Democratic Republic, or what's left of it, few things are seldom as they seem. Like him, I never accepted the findings of the Warren Commission. Too many illogical conclusions.

John Kennedy's death, and the doubts that surround it to this day, marked the beginning of the end of America's idealism. The cynicism grew with the lies of Vietnam and the senseless deaths of too many thousands of young Americans in a war that never should have been fought. Doubts about the integrity of those we elect as our leaders festers today as this country finds itself embroiled in another senseless war based on too many lies.

John Connally felt he served his country best by concealing his doubts about the Warren Commission's whitewash but his silence may have contributed to the growing perception that our elected leaders can rewrite history to fit their political agendas.

Had Connally spoken out, as a high-ranking political figure with doubts about the "official" version of what happened, it might have sent a signal that Americans deserve the truth from their government, even when that truth hurts.

<END QUOTE>

Best Regards in Research,

+ ++Don

Donald Roberdeau
United States Navy
U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, CV-67, plank walker
Sooner, or later, The Truth emerges clearly


For your key considerations + independent determinations....

Homepages Website: "Men of Courage": President Kennedy-elimination Evidence,
Witnesses,
Photographers, Outstanding Researchers Discoveries, Suspects, + Key Considerations....

The Dealey Plaza Detailed Map: Documented 11-22-63 Victims Precise Locations +
Reactions, Evidence, Witnesses Locations, Photographers, Suspected Bullet Trajectories,
Outstanding Researchers Discoveries, + Important Information + Key Considerations, in One
Convenient Resource....
( updated map, + new information )

Discovery: Very Close JFK Assassination Witness ROSEMARY WILLIS's
Zapruder Film Documented 2nd Head Snap:
West, Ultrafast, and Directly
Towards the Grassy Knoll ....

Visual Report: The First Bullet Impact Into President Kennedy: While JFK was Still Hidden
Under the "Magic-limbed-ricochet-tree"....

Visual Report: Reality Versus C.A.D. : the Real World, versus, Garbage-in-garbage-out....


T ogether
E veryone
A chieves
M ore


For the United States:

"Finance is the gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger."

----ENZO ROBUTTI as "Don Licio Luchesi," "The Godfather-Part III" (1990)

Edited by Don Roberdeau
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Don,

Interesting post. Connally always seemed OK to me. That photo of him and LBJ looking on as JFK gave his final speech in Fort Worth showed a man unaware of what was soon to transpire, IMO. A picture tells a thousand words and all that.

As for LBJ, as time passes and more information seeps into the public domain, things just look worse and worse. Although this story would be considered heresay and not evidence, most snippets of gossip, memoirs etc, all seem to reinforce the suspicion that LBJ the prime player in setting up his boss. Add to this all the revelations about his background and rise in politics and you have a rocksolid case for conspiracy to murder. Ladybird, Jack Valenti and others who want the issue to remain undisturbed will have to accept that the truth will emerge and, importantly, the public will discover the truth.

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Don,

Interesting post. Connally always seemed OK to me. That photo of him and LBJ looking on as JFK gave his final speech in Fort Worth showed a man unaware of what was soon to transpire, IMO. A picture tells a thousand words and all that.

As for LBJ, as time passes and more information seeps into the public domain, things just look worse and worse. Although this story would be considered heresay and not evidence, most snippets of gossip, memoirs etc, all seem to reinforce the suspicion that LBJ the prime player in setting up his boss. Add to this all the revelations about his background and rise in politics and you have a rocksolid case for conspiracy to murder. Ladybird, Jack Valenti and others who want the issue to remain undisturbed will have to accept that the truth will emerge and, importantly, the public will discover the truth.

Don - thanks for sharing that. In may cases, I don't believe some folks had it within their means to share what they knew - in Connally's case, for example, even after death the family apparently refused to allow the final fragments to be removed from his body.

Mark - Have you ever watched Four Days in November? Pay close attention to the body language of Ladybird and Johnson.

Another unrelated bit that would go well with what you've posted is the case of Emmett Louis Till. There is footage of the reaction of Roy Bryant and J.W Milam when it was announced that they were acquitted. 'Telling,' I guess is the word. Apparently they later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview.

Even recently, I watched Joran van der Sloot giving an interview. Well....I'm no expert. I wonder what an expert would have made of his eyes batting maddenly every time he responded to a difficult question.

I've posted this one before - I think it's a great shot.

- lee

post-675-1143830635_thumb.jpg

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Lee, thanks for that photo. It looks like Johnson is fantasizing about having a couple of six-shooters on him.

Don, that's certainly an interesting article by Don Thompson. In trying to judge his credibility, here's a link to another one he has written, on 9/11 (he thinks conspiracy theories, other than the official one, don't pass "the smell test"). The comments following the article are also worth reading (almost no one agrees with him).

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/0...ies_dont_p.html

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I can't remember if it was in his HSCA interview or in one more recent, but Ramsey Clark said that Connally was always claiming "They were trying to shoot me. Don't tell me they weren't trying to shoot me!" As a consequence, I believe he might also have told Thompson there was more than one shooter.

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Don,

Interesting post. Connally always seemed OK to me. That photo of him and LBJ looking on as JFK gave his final speech in Fort Worth showed a man unaware of what was soon to transpire, IMO. A picture tells a thousand words and all that.

I've posted this one before - I think it's a great shot.

lee

Agreed that this photo is priceless. Do we know who took this picture and when and where it was taken? Has it been published in any newspaper, magazine, etc?

Also thanks to Don for posting that fascinating article. It Should be sent to Robert Caro.

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I can't remember if it was in his HSCA interview or in one more recent, but Ramsey Clark said that Connally was always claiming "They were trying to shoot me. Don't tell me they weren't trying to shoot me!" As a consequence, I believe he might also have told Thompson there was more than one shooter.

40 Years After Shots in Dallas, A Survivor's Painful Memories By RALPH BLUMENTHAL The New York Times

Published: October 31, 2003

HOUSTON, Oct. 30 - ''It was a car full of yellow roses, red roses and blood, and it was all over us.''

In a luxury apartment tower rearing over the city's toniest shopping district, Nellie Connally pauses, her rush of words suddenly stilled. ''It's hard to explain,'' she continues after a moment. ''You can't believe the horror of being in that car.''

''I can't believe it's been 40 years,'' she says, ''nor can I believe that I'm the last person living that was in the back of that car'' -- a car that carried her in her hot-pink Neiman Marcus suit, and her husband, John, the new governor of Texas with his cowboy hat, and President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, in a triumphant motorcade through the streets of Dallas. It was an ebullient Mrs. Connally who gushed, ''Mr. President, you certainly can't say that Dallas doesn't love you'' -- perhaps the last words Kennedy ever heard.

After shots rang out -- and Mrs. Connally is adamant that three bullets, not two as officially established, found their mark -- the president was dead, her husband gravely wounded as she struggled to stanch his blood, and the course of history forever altered.

Now with the approach of the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination on Nov. 22, Mrs. Connally, at 84, is telling her story, a story that she first scrawled out 10 days after the 1963 events for grandchildren yet unborn and that has now been published as a memoir after she rediscovered the narrative in 1996 in a long-forgotten desk drawer.

This week, Mrs. Connally, in a lime-green Yves Saint Laurent suit, sat in her well-furnished but hardly opulent apartment filled with cheerfully obvious Impressionist fakes -- the Connallys lost their fortune in a calamitous bankruptcy in 1987 -- and in a wide-ranging interview rummaged through five decades of turbulent memories. She even brought out the pink suit she keeps to this day, cleaned and in plastic, as a grim memento of history.

Her thoughts carry her from an electric first encounter between Idanell Brill, a sparkling young ingénue at the University of Texas in 1937, and the tall and dashing student body president John Bowden Connally, through their marriage in 1940, Mr. Connally's years as an aide to the rising politician Lyndon B. Johnson, his appointment as secretary of the Navy by President Kennedy, election as governor in 1962, service as secretary of the Treasury for President Richard M. Nixon -- after Connally switched to the Republican Party -- his trial and acquittal on bribery charges, and quixotic bids for the presidency. There are subjects she does not volunteer, like her bout with breast cancer and a mastectomy, and things she will just not talk about, including her dislike of certain prominent Republicans, and the suicide of their eldest daughter, 17-year-old Kathleen, in 1958.

''Yes, there were a lot of bad things -- and a lot of good things,'' she said. ''You got to do what you got to do, and we did it every time.''

But mostly she talks about That Day in Dallas. It is a story she recounts in her memoir, ''From Love Field'' with the writer Mickey Herskowitz and just published by Rugged Land, that is propelling her into a limelight she never knew as the dutiful housewife of one of the era's more colorful politicians.

''He was my career,'' she said of John, who died in 1993, after hurriedly finishing his own memoir with Mr. Herskowitz.

''We were all in our 40's,'' she recalled of the events 40 years ago next month. ''We didn't think the world owed us a living. We thought we owed the world, and we were ready to charge.''

The Kennedys and the Connallys hit it off well, she said -- ''a happy foursome, that beautiful morning,'' as she wrote in her original notes. ''I had my yellow roses in my arms and Jackie had her red roses in hers.'' Both women, near disastrously, had turned up in pink.

She said that the president had not really come to Texas, as often stated, to repair a rift between the liberal Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas and Vice President Johnson. Rather, she said, he was looking to shore up his flagging popularity and raise money from wealthy Texans.

''He wanted to have four fund-raisers,'' she recalled. ''John said no,'' persuading the president, as she recalled, that it was wiser to limit himself to one benefit, in Austin, and make his other appearances nonpartisan.

All began well that fateful morning, she recalled. The two couples flew together from nearby Fort Worth to Dallas's Love Field, where the women were presented bouquets of roses. Wet clouds had lifted, and in the strong autumn sunshine the limousine's bubble top was removed. The president and his wife sat in the back, the Connallys on jump seats in front of them.

The crowds lining the sidewalks were effusive -- none of the right-wing hostility that had marred recent visits by the vice president and Adlai E. Stevenson, the United Nations representative. Mrs. Connally, her anxieties allayed, was moved to make her remark about the friendly reception. President Kennedy was delighted, she recalled, and ''he grinned that wonderful grin he had.''

Then, as she wrote: ''I heard a loud, terrifying noise. It came from the back.''

She turned to see the president's hands fly up to his neck and saw him sink down in the seat.

Then, she recounted in the book and interview, there was a second shot and her husband was hit as he blurted, ''No, no, no,'' and ''My God, they are going to kill us all.''

Finally, she said, there was a third shot, the one that shattered the president's head. (Mr. Connally later said that his exclamation was misconstrued to suggest advance knowledge of a conspiracy.)

''The car was covered with matter, bloody matter,'' she said. ''Tiny little specks, the car, my clothes, everything.''

The Warren Commission and subsequent investigations have concluded that the first shot, fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, went wild, that the president and the governor were both hit by a second bullet, and that President Kennedy alone was hit by a third shot.

''Well they're wrong,'' Mrs. Connally said this week at the beginning of a publicity blitz for the book that will keep her before the public, on television shows (with Larry King, Katie Couric and Dan Rather and Liz Smith), speeches and readings around the country. ''I was there, they weren't. When they argue with me, all I have to say is, 'Were you in that car?' The answer has to be no because there wasn't anybody else.''

(The two Secret Service agents in the front seat have since died; two other agents, Clint Hill, the agent in the following car who climbed on the trunk to help Mrs. Kennedy, and Win Lawson, who rode in the car ahead of the president, are still alive.)

''All I'm saying is there were three shots and I know what happened with each shot,'' she said.

She said, however, that she was not a conspiracist and that she believed -- and that her husband's own exhaustive study of records as Treasury secretary proved -- that Mr. Oswald was the lone gunman.

''A $15 gun and a scrambled-egg mind caused all that horror,'' she said.

She disputed an account by the author William Manchester attributed to Mrs. Kennedy suggesting that the Connallys were screaming afterward in the car.

''I don't know why she said that,'' Mrs. Connally said. ''She made an error.''

In fact, she said, a swath of her hair had turned white overnight, medical proof, she said, that she had internalized her trauma and not given vent to her grief.

She recalled distinctly, she said, that after the second shot hit her husband ''I was trying to figure out what I could do to help him.''

''I wanted to get him out of the line of fire so I just pulled him into my lap,'' she said.

She helped cover his open chest wound, which she said she heard later probably saved his life.

''I had him in my arms,'' she recalled. ''I said, 'Be still, it'll be all right,' and I said it over and over and over again.''

At Parkland Hospital, Mr. Connally, though only semiconscious, heaved himself out of the way so medics could get the president out of the car, she said. Inside the hospital she succumbed to flashes of resentment.

''I was just afraid that the president was in the other room, that all the doctors were with him,'' she admitted. She found she was wrong, that her husband was being attended to as well, but it was not clear whether he would survive.

She shook her head as if to banish the memory. ''It was a bad deal,'' she said.

Correction: November 5, 2003, Wednesday A front-page article on Friday about the memoir of Nellie Connally, who was in the presidential car in Dallas with her husband, Gov. John B. Connally, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, misstated the timing of Mr. Connally's switch to the Republican Party. It was in 1973 -- after, not before, his service as treasury secretary under President Richard M. Nixon.

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[/b] Connolly was both gracious and charming and told us many stories about Texas politics. As the evening wore on and the multiple bourbon and branch waters took their effect, he started talking about November 22, 1963, in Dallas.

"You know I was one of the ones who advised Kennedy to stay away from Texas," Connally said. "Lyndon (Johnson) was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

Connally's mood darkened as he talked about Dallas. When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe. He spoke kindly of Jackie Kennedy and said he admired both her bravery and composure.

I had to ask. Did he think Lee Harvey Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy?

"Absolutely not," Connally said. "I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission."

So why not speak out?

"Because I love this country and we needed closure at the time. I will never speak out publicly about what I believe."

We took him back to catch a late flight to Texas. He shook my hand, kissed Amy on the cheek and walked up the ramp to the plane.

We saw Connally and his wife a couple of more times when they came to New Mexico but he sold his house a few years later as part of a bankruptcy settlement. He died in 1993 and, I believe, never spoke publicly about how he doubted the findings of the Warren Commission.

Connnally's note serves as yet another reminder that in our Democratic Republic, or what's left of it, few things are seldom as they seem. Like him, I never accepted the findings of the Warren Commission. Too many illogical conclusions.

John Kennedy's death, and the doubts that surround it to this day, marked the beginning of the end of America's idealism. The cynicism grew with the lies of Vietnam and the senseless deaths of too many thousands of young Americans in a war that never should have been fought. Doubts about the integrity of those we elect as our leaders festers today as this country finds itself embroiled in another senseless war based on too many lies.

John Connally felt he served his country best by concealing his doubts about the Warren Commission's whitewash but his silence may have contributed to the growing perception that our elected leaders can rewrite history to fit their political agendas.

Had Connally spoken out, as a high-ranking political figure with doubts about the "official" version of what happened, it might have sent a signal that Americans deserve the truth from their government, even when that truth hurts.

Interesting post. Connally always seemed OK to me. That photo of him and LBJ looking on as JFK gave his final speech in Fort Worth showed a man unaware of what was soon to transpire, IMO. A picture tells a thousand words and all that.

As for LBJ, as time passes and more information seeps into the public domain, things just look worse and worse. Although this story would be considered heresay and not evidence, most snippets of gossip, memoirs etc, all seem to reinforce the suspicion that LBJ the prime player in setting up his boss. Add to this all the revelations about his background and rise in politics and you have a rocksolid case for conspiracy to murder. Ladybird, Jack Valenti and others who want the issue to remain undisturbed will have to accept that the truth will emerge and, importantly, the public will discover the truth.

I suspect that Connally believed the conspirators were trying to kill him and Kennedy. Connally had been since 1948 LBJ closest political ally and an important member of the Suite 8F Group. Connally knew where all the bodies were buried. Don’t forget it was LBJ who pressurized JFK to give Connally the post of Secretary of the Navy. Along with the post of Secretary of the Treasury (Douglas Dillon), these were the most important appointments for the Suite 8F Group. It is no coincidence that LBJ’s buddy, Phil Graham pressurized JFK to give Dillon the job. It was also Phil Graham who persuaded JFK to make LBJ his running mate. When Connally resigned in 1962, the job goes to Fred Korth, another member of the Suite 8F Group. Korth was needed to get the X-22 and TFX contracts and to assure all those large oil contracts from the Navy went to Suite 8F members.

It is no coincidence that Nixon appointed Connally to his administration. He wanted him on board for the same reason he appointed William Sullivan to his staff. Both men knew what happened in Dallas. (Sullivan had run the FBI investigation into the JFK and MLK assassinations.) Nixon wanted to use this information to blackmail the FBI and CIA into protecting him from his own illegal activities.

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One of things we now know is that to keep people from talking after the assassination of JFK, threats were made against the children of those who had important information about the case. Did this also happen to John Connally? Here is an interesting interview with Nellie Connally that appeared in the Dallas Morning News on 22nd November, 2003:

"It kept going through my mind like a phonograph record playing over and over and over. But for John, it was even worse. His first night home, he cried out in his sleep. I would just pat him on the shoulder, and he'd go back to sleep. Ten days after, I asked him, 'What is it you dream, dear?' And he said, 'Nellie, somebody's always after me. With a gun.' So I just let him cry out. He did that for a month or six weeks and they were always after him."

Her own waking nightmare "has us all in the car. Everyone's having a wonderful time. Everyone's being so good, and then all of a sudden the horror starts. There is never anything good after that happening in that car. The car is filled with yellow roses, red roses and blood. And pieces of the president's brain."

Connally regrets that President Kennedy's legacy - and, by extension, the nation's - could have been so much brighter in the years ahead. "We were all in our 40s," she says of the passengers in the top car of VIP's. "We all had so much to give."

But Dealey Plaza would come to dictate an entirely different reality.

"For the first time in my life, I feared for my family," she said. "And I never had before. Mark, our youngest, was 11 at the time. There was this wall at the governor's mansion (in Austin) that he loved to walk around. Well, he could no longer walk around that wall. We were afraid somebody would snatch him off of it. Sharon, 14 at the time, could no longer go anywhere without someone going with her. It became, in some ways, a difficult life for us, and for me. And even to this day, I still take a glance behind me, just to make sure."

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All began well that fateful morning, she recalled. The two couples flew together from nearby Fort Worth to Dallas's Love Field, where the women were presented bouquets of roses. Wet clouds had lifted, and in the strong autumn sunshine the limousine's bubble top was removed. The president and his wife sat in the back, the Connallys on jump seats in front of them.

The crowds lining the sidewalks were effusive -- none of the right-wing hostility that had marred recent visits by the vice president and Adlai E. Stevenson, the United Nations representative. Mrs. Connally, her anxieties allayed, was moved to make her remark about the friendly reception. President Kennedy was delighted, she recalled, and ''he grinned that wonderful grin he had.''

Then, as she wrote: ''I heard a loud, terrifying noise. It came from the back.''

She turned to see the president's hands fly up to his neck and saw him sink down in the seat.

Then, she recounted in the book and interview, there was a second shot and her husband was hit as he blurted, ''No, no, no,'' and ''My God, they are going to kill us all.''

Finally, she said, there was a third shot, the one that shattered the president's head. (Mr. Connally later said that his exclamation was misconstrued to suggest advance knowledge of a conspiracy.)

''The car was covered with matter, bloody matter,'' she said. ''Tiny little specks, the car, my clothes, everything.''

While Nellie is adamant that the first shot hit JFK, she has been co-opted by single-assassin theorists on at least one point. In her book she re-prints the notes she wrote after the assassination. The book also provides a transcription of her notes. There's been one change, however. While in her original notes she said Kennedy reached for his throat, the transcription said his hands flew up to his neck. That's a big difference. Reaching for his throat implies he had a measure of control over his actions. This necessitates a delay of half a second or so from the impact. Having his hands fly up, however, is consistent with an immediate neurological response, a la the claims of Dr. John Lattimer (and as regurgitated by Gerald Posner). Lattimer misrepresented something called the Thorburn's response into being an immediate reaction to a bullet grazing a man's spine. In Lattimer's world, this explains why Kennedy's hands were rising within a frame of his being hit at frame 224. It's total malarkey, as demonstrated by Wallace Milam some years back. In any event, it's clear that someone familiar with Lattimer and Posner's bs theory changed Nellie's words to make them more conducive to the theory. I discussed this with someone well versed in these things at Lancer. He's convinced it was Mickey Herskowitz who changed the words. Besides co-writing Nellie's book, Herskowitz also has worked with her husband and Dan Rather on their books. Anyone notice a pattern?

Mr. Caddy, have you had any dealings with Herskowitz?

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Here is an account given on CBS Television (26th June, 1967):

Walter Cronkite: The most persuasive critic of the single-bullet theory is the man who might be expected to know best, the victim himself, Texas Governor John Connally. Although he accepts the Warren Report's conclusion, that Oswald did all the shooting, he has never believed that the first bullet could have hit both the President and himself.

John Connally: The only way that I could ever reconcile my memory of what happened and what occurred, with respect to the one bullet theory, is that it had to be the second bullet that might have hit us both.

Eddie Barker: Do you believe, Governor Connally, that the first bullet could have missed, the second one hit both of you, and the third one hit President Kennedy?

John Connally: That's possible. That's possible. Now, the best witness I know doesn't believe that.

Eddie Barker: Who is the best witness you know?

John Connally: Nellie was there, and she saw it. She believes the first bullet hit him, because she saw him after he was hit. She thinks the second bullet hit me, and the third bullet hit him.

Nellie Connally: The first sound, the first shot, I heard, and turned and looked right into the President's face. He was clutching his throat, and just slumped down. He Just had a - a look of nothingness on his face. He-he didn't say anything. But that was the first shot.

The second shot, that hit John - well, of course, I could see him covered with - with blood, and his - his reaction to a second shot. The third shot, even though I didn't see the President, I felt the matter all over me, and I could see it all over the car.

So I'll just have to say that I think there were three shots, and that I had a reaction to three shots. And - that's just what I

believe.

John Connally: Beyond any question, and I'll never change my opinion, the first bullet did not hit me. The second bullet did hit me. The third bullet did not hit me.

Now, so far as I'm concerned, all I can say with any finality is that if there is - if the single-bullet theory is correct, then it had to be the second bullet that hit President Kennedy and me.

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[/b] Connolly was both gracious and charming and told us many stories about Texas politics. As the evening wore on and the multiple bourbon and branch waters took their effect, he started talking about November 22, 1963, in Dallas.

"You know I was one of the ones who advised Kennedy to stay away from Texas," Connally said. "Lyndon (Johnson) was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

Connally's mood darkened as he talked about Dallas. When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe. He spoke kindly of Jackie Kennedy and said he admired both her bravery and composure.

I had to ask. Did he think Lee Harvey Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy?

"Absolutely not," Connally said. "I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission."

So why not speak out?

"Because I love this country and we needed closure at the time. I will never speak out publicly about what I believe."

We took him back to catch a late flight to Texas. He shook my hand, kissed Amy on the cheek and walked up the ramp to the plane.

We saw Connally and his wife a couple of more times when they came to New Mexico but he sold his house a few years later as part of a bankruptcy settlement. He died in 1993 and, I believe, never spoke publicly about how he doubted the findings of the Warren Commission.

Connnally's note serves as yet another reminder that in our Democratic Republic, or what's left of it, few things are seldom as they seem. Like him, I never accepted the findings of the Warren Commission. Too many illogical conclusions.

John Kennedy's death, and the doubts that surround it to this day, marked the beginning of the end of America's idealism. The cynicism grew with the lies of Vietnam and the senseless deaths of too many thousands of young Americans in a war that never should have been fought. Doubts about the integrity of those we elect as our leaders festers today as this country finds itself embroiled in another senseless war based on too many lies.

John Connally felt he served his country best by concealing his doubts about the Warren Commission's whitewash but his silence may have contributed to the growing perception that our elected leaders can rewrite history to fit their political agendas.

Had Connally spoken out, as a high-ranking political figure with doubts about the "official" version of what happened, it might have sent a signal that Americans deserve the truth from their government, even when that truth hurts.

Interesting post. Connally always seemed OK to me. That photo of him and LBJ looking on as JFK gave his final speech in Fort Worth showed a man unaware of what was soon to transpire, IMO. A picture tells a thousand words and all that.

As for LBJ, as time passes and more information seeps into the public domain, things just look worse and worse. Although this story would be considered heresay and not evidence, most snippets of gossip, memoirs etc, all seem to reinforce the suspicion that LBJ the prime player in setting up his boss. Add to this all the revelations about his background and rise in politics and you have a rocksolid case for conspiracy to murder. Ladybird, Jack Valenti and others who want the issue to remain undisturbed will have to accept that the truth will emerge and, importantly, the public will discover the truth.

I suspect that Connally believed the conspirators were trying to kill him and Kennedy. Connally had been since 1948 LBJ closest political ally and an important member of the Suite 8F Group. Connally knew where all the bodies were buried. Don’t forget it was LBJ who pressurized JFK to give Connally the post of Secretary of the Navy. Along with the post of Secretary of the Treasury (Douglas Dillon), these were the most important appointments for the Suite 8F Group. It is no coincidence that LBJ’s buddy, Phil Graham pressurized JFK to give Dillon the job. It was also Phil Graham who persuaded JFK to make LBJ his running mate. When Connally resigned in 1962, the job goes to Fred Korth, another member of the Suite 8F Group. Korth was needed to get the X-22 and TFX contracts and to assure all those large oil contracts from the Navy went to Suite 8F members.

It is no coincidence that Nixon appointed Connally to his administration. He wanted him on board for the same reason he appointed William Sullivan to his staff. Both men knew what happened in Dallas. (Sullivan had run the FBI investigation into the JFK and MLK assassinations.) Nixon wanted to use this information to blackmail the FBI and CIA into protecting him from his own illegal activities.

"We need to get Connally in on this, he knows how to take care of things like this." (words to that effect)

Richard M. Nixon----The White House Tapes.

That is why RMN wanted Connally.

The WC will go down in history as one of the GREATEST CON'S ever perpetuated on the american (world) public.

Might I recommend that one pay close attention to when Nellie Connally states that the third/last/final shot was fired.

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Mr. Caddy, have you had any dealings with Herskowitz?

No, I have never met or communicated with Mickey Herskowitz, a gifted writer for the Houston Chronicle who has worked with both John Connally and George W. Bush on their biographies.

Below is a review by Campusi, Inc. of John Connally's book, co-authored with Herskowitz, titled, "In History's Shadow: An American Odyssey" published in 1993:

In June 1993, John Connally, a legend in Texas and a powerful figure in national politics for several crucial decades of this turbulent century, died of complications of pulmonaryfibrosis, a condition brought on by wounds sustained from an assassin's bullet that fateful day in Dallas - November 22, 1963. In History's Shadow, finished right before Connally's death, is the story of his life in politics, told with anunmistakable Texas twang. It was a life of almost Shakespearean range, marked by great triumphs as well as personal tragedy and heartbreak. He wanted to be President, but that is the only ambition that eluded him. He lived under thirteenPresidents and served under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He knew American government - and the men who ran it - as intimately as anyone in our time. In History's Shadow is a true epic of the American century. Raised in rural povertyduring the Depression in a farm family of seven children, Connally retained a deep-seated love of the hardscrabble Texas land his whole life. "I am part of a dwindling breed shaped by the soil of rural America . . . you don't engage theland, let it punish and feed you, and not understand the cycles of life." He enrolled at the University of Texas at age sixteen, determined to train as a trial lawyer. While still in law school, he worked for the campaign of an aspiringcongressman named Lyndon Johnson, and followed him to Washington. Thus began an intimate political friendship that would have a decisive effect on Connally's life and career, as the rough-and-tumble young Texans rose to positions ofnational and international influence. Yet as closely as he served Johnson, and later President Richard Nixon as Secretary of the Treasury in the early 1970s, it was always events in his home state that gained John Connally his mostlasting notoriety.

I previously posted a review of John Connally's book that was co-authored by Mickey Herskowitz. Below is a revealing article from the Guerilla News Network about Herskowitz's relationship as a writer with President George W. Bush:

Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by 1. GNN.tv

Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer

by Russ Baker

HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker."

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work - and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war - has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush's unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters - well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush's ghostwriter after Bush's handlers concluded that the candidate's views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

In 2003, Bush's father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq.

Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been "excused."

Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot's garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

Bush described his own business ventures as "floundering" before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews-in which he expressed consternation that Bush's true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people -Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. "I don't know anybody that's ever said a bad word about Mickey," said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz's account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. "I can't go near this," he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. "Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade."

Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: "They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches."

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter's political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush's father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents - Grenada and Panama - and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

"I know [bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. "He said, 'No I haven't, and I won't, but Brent [scowcroft] has.' Brent would not have talked to him without the old man's okaying it." Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush's administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz's revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush's pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe 's David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: "It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam's weapons stash," wrote Nyhan. 'I'd take 'em out,' [bush] grinned cavalierly, 'take out the weapons of mass destruction·I'm surprised he's still there," said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.'s father·It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush's first big clinker. "

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush's father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush's staff expressed displeasure -often over Herskowitz's use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush's own words to describe the Texan's unprofitable business ventures, writing: "the companies were floundering". "I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, 'You've got some wrong information.' I didn't bother to say, 'Well you know where it came from.' [The lawyer] said, 'We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.' "

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz's account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. "The lawyer called me and said, 'Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.' "

"They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it," he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard - and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was "excused." This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush's claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama - though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial "rewards" for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 - which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane - military or civilian - again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush's father to write a book about the current president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. "Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office·He said, 'I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.' "

"He said to me, 'I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it's amazing how many times something good will come out of it.' I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [bush senior], 'Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?' He said yes."

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush , was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family's perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate "as-told-to" author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz's other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. "I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying 'Watch your back.' "

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing - a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself - it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush's true feelings.

"He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake," Herskowitz said. "That was one of the keys to being a leader."

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute .

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been published in The New York Times ,The Nation ,Washington Post ,The Telegraph (UK), Sydney Morning-Herald , and Der Spiegel , among many others.

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Douglas,

Thanks for posting that article about Herskowtiz. Another author who could find himself in an awkward position, specifically with regard to the assassination, is LBJ biographer Robert Caro. Here's an interesting comment by Joan Mellen in an interview that can be read on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website:

"I'm just wondering about Robert Caro's new, final volume of the biography of Lyndon Johnson, which will, of course, take in the period of the Kennedy assassination - how far will Robert Caro go? When I have to tell you that a friend of his, speaking to me today, she was wanting to send books - copies of my book - to various friends, and his name came up, and I hesitated a moment, because I really don't think he's prepared to lose the National Book Award over the Kennedy assassination. I could be wrong, I hope I am."

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/..._1_-_Transcript

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Nellie Connally: The first sound, the first shot, I heard, and turned and looked right into the President's face. He was clutching his throat, and just slumped down. He Just had a - a look of nothingness on his face. He-he didn't say anything. But that was the first shot.

This to me is further evidence that the throat wound was caused by a paralyzing fletchette fired by UM. The “look of nothingness on his face” recalls Jackie’s description of JFK as having “a quizzical look,” as if he just had “a slight headache,” after being shot. This and his lack of movement after his arms came down clearly suggest a state of paralysis.

Also, if the throat wound was caused by a bullet, it almost certainly came from the front, whereas Nellie seems to be reacting to a shot heard from behind, as she turned after hearing the first shot and looked back, seeing JFK clutch his throat. That first shot she heard, causing her to look back, could be the one that hit JFK in the back, right after the fletchette was fired into his throat.

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