The Murchison Party, Lets clear it up once and for all Options

[John Geraghty]

We all know Madeleine Brown's story of the party in Clint Murchison's house on 21st Nov 1963.

It has been said that it was impossible for both LBJ and Nixon to have been there as they were accounted for elsewhere.

There is a photo of either Nixon/LBJ at the time he is supposed to be at the party. Can anyone present this photo so that in future we can direct people to this thread when they ask about the validity of the party.

[Mark Stapleton]

We all know Madeleine Brown's story of the party in Clint Murchison's house on 21st Nov 1963.

It has been said that it was impossible for both LBJ and Nixon to have been there as they were accounted for elsewhere.

There is a photo of either Nixon/LBJ at the time he is supposed to be at the party. Can anyone present this photo so that in future we can direct people to this thread when they ask about the validity of the party.

Another good question you pose, John. Manchester talks of a fairly heated exchange JFK has with LBJ on the night of November 21, casting doubt on his presence at the Murchison party, but Madelaine Brown says he was there. It would be nice to have this matter cleared up once and for all.

[Dixie Dea]

Hi John

In regard to Madeline Brown and her claims about the Murchinson Party....Your subtitle says,"lets clear it up once and for all".

However, I am not all that sure it is even possible to do that! There are some who do not believe Madeline's claims at all and there are also those who were good friends with Madeline for many years and do believe her.

It has been very hard to find any proof of such a party and yet there might also be another cover-up involved. This is just another controversy among researchers, in which we can't actually know for positive, if true or not.

Dixie

[John Geraghty]

Hi Dixie,

What I intended for this thread to be was for people to give solid evidence that this party did, or did not happen.

Here is the information from Gary Mack taken from John Simkin's seminar on LBJ.

Madeleine has claimed over the years that she attended a party at Clint Murchison’s house the night before the assassination and LBJ, Hoover and Nixon were there. The party story, without LBJ, first came from Penn Jones in Forgive My Grief III (pages 84-86). In that version, the un-credited source was a black chauffeur whom Jones didn’t identify, and the explanation Jones gave was that it was the last chance to decide whether or not to kill JFK. Of course, Hoover used only top FBI agents for transportation and in the FBI of 1963, none were black. Actually, there is no confirmation for a party at Murchison’s. I asked Peter O’Donnell because Madeleine claimed he was there, too. Peter said there was no party. Madeleine even said there was a story about it in the Dallas Times Herald some months later (which makes no sense), but she had not been able to find it. Val Imm (Society Editor of the Dallas Times Herald) told Bob Porter (of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza staff) recently she had no memory of such an event and even looked through her notes - in vain.

Could LBJ have been at a Murchison party? No. LBJ was seen and photographed in the Houston Coliseum with JFK at a dinner and speech. They flew out around 10pm and arrived at Carswell (Air Force Base in northwest Fort Worth) at 11:07 Thursday night. Their motorcade to the Hotel Texas arrived about 11:50 and LBJ was again photographed. He stayed in the Will Rogers suite on the 13th floor and Manchester (William Manchester - author of The Death of a President) says he was up late. Could Nixon have been at Murchison’s party? No. Tony Zoppi (Entertainment Editor of The Dallas Morning News) and Don Safran (Entertainment Editor of the Dallas Times Herald) saw Nixon at the Empire Room at the Statler-Hilton. He walked in with Joan Crawford (Movie actress). Robert Clary (of Hogan’s Heroes fame) stopped his show to point them out, saying “. . . either you like him or you don’t.” Zoppi thought that was in poor taste, but Safran said. (32)


LBJ was seen and photographed, can anyone provide this photograph?

John

[Gary Buell]

[ Of course, Hoover used only top FBI agents for transportation and in the FBI of 1963, none were black.

[/quote]

I don't think this is true. I recall reading that there was at least one black agent and that Hoover, after the agent went through FBI training, used him as a chauffer. Hoover was under pressure to have more black agents from the Kennedys.

[Pat Speer]

[quote=Gary Buell,Jun 19 2005, 11:54 PM]
[ Of course, Hoover used only top FBI agents for transportation and in the FBI of 1963, none were black.

[/quote]

I don't think this is true. I recall reading that there was at least one black agent and that Hoover, after the agent went through FBI training, used him as a chauffer. Hoover was under pressure to have more black agents from the Kennedys.

[/quote]

I brought this up on a previous thread. The Men Who Killed Kennedy found and presented a former Murchison employee who confirmed the party. I don't remember her name. Someone should re-watch it, get her name and try to establish her credibility.
There is a biography on the Murchisons that doesn't mention the party.

The argument that the party didn't happen because Hoover wouldn't have a black chauffeur is absolute b.s. I believe both William Sullivan's book and Bobby Kennedy's interviews for the JFK Library mention that Hoover had EXCLUSIVELY black chauffeurs. He thought of himself as a Southern gentleman and all. Before the civil rights movement and Kennedy came along, they were the only blacks in the FBI. I believe one of the books, maybe even Summers, explains that Hoover only made them agents so they couldn't be drafted and so Hoover could rightly tell congress that the FBI wasn't all white.

This post has been edited by Pat Speer: Jun 21 2005, 01:35 AM

[Jack White]

I believe 100 percent the account of Madeleine Brown, having talked to her many times about it before her unfortunate death. Her details were consistent through the years. Lyndon's appearance was after midnight... only a 45-minute drive from his Fort Worth hotel, where he had arrived about 11:00.

Jack

[Greg Wagner]

The story, as told by Madeline Brown (TMWKK: The Guilty Men), goes like this:

She was at a party at Clint Murchison’s home in north Dallas on the evening of 22/21/63. The guest list included H L Hunt, Hoover, Nixon, and LBJ. Brown says that she didn’t know Lyndon was coming. She makes the statement that “no one was expecting him” to be there. Brown also stated that Johnson was the “last to arrive”, and that as soon as he did, Murchison, Hunt, Johnson, Hoover, and Nixon all immediately went into a conference room. Once they came out, Johnson left and the party broke up.

Corroborating her story is May Newman, a “seamstress and companion” of Brown’s, who worked for Murchison. She claims to have spoken with her friend, Bula May Holman, who was a cook for the Murchison’s, and Jule(sp?) Pfeiffer, Virginia Murchison’s (one of Clint’s ex-wives) chauffeur. Newman claims that Holman called her and told her to come up to the house that night, because Hoover would be there and she might get a chance to meet him. Newman didn’t really care about meeting Hoover, so she didn’t go. Newman also claims to have spoken with Pfeiffer (the black chauffeur who drove Hoover to and from the airport), who confirmed the story about the party and about Hoover being there.

Neither Holman nor Pfeiffer appear in TMWKK piece. Neither Brown nor Newman ever mention any specific times in relation to the party, nor the arrival or departure of any of the guests. Since Newman didn’t attend, her value to the piece is that in addition to Brown, Holman and Pfeiffer also told her about the party. Brown is now deceased. It would be interesting to know whether Newman, Holman, or Pfeiffer are still alive. If not, it would be worth noting if Holman and Pfeiffer were alive when these accusations were made public. It’s pretty easy to say that someone told you something if they are dead and can’t refute such a claim.

Some observations:

Maybe Brown is full of BS. Maybe her and Newman concocted the whole thing. But if so, to what end? Did they reap substantial profit somehow?

Brown claims that LBJ was the last to arrive, that he was not expected (I assume Murchison, Hunt, Nixon, and Hoover knew he was coming), and that the party broke-up as soon as LBJ left. While no times are mentioned, this part of the account suggests that LBJ arrived late in the evening. Perhaps even after midnight?

Why would Nixon have been there anyway? I’m not sure I get that. I mean, the guy was a jacka$$ and a liar, but why would he be planning Kennedy’s murder? Revenge for losing in 1960? I don’t get that one.

Did this party ever happen? If so, were the attendees indeed as Brown claims? I don’t know.

But heck, they were all in and around Dallas/Ft. Worth that night. How hard would it have been to meet up at Murchison's for an hour at some point during the night? The important thing here is the timeline. What time did LBJ allegedly arrive? What time did Nixon allegedly arrive (and why would Nixon be there anyway?)? Just because someone was witnessed somewhere at X time doesn't tell us where they were at X+1.

And of course, IF this meeting took place, it is certainly reasonable to assume that alibis for the conspirators would have been a consideration. And they would have kept this as quiet as possible. So, why not a meeting after hours? Does anyone know what time LBJ and Nixon allegedly arrived and how long they were supposed to have been there? That's the key.

In that same episode, Dr. Charles Crenshaw talks about how, while he was helping to treat Lee Harvey Oswald’s wounds, he received a call (at Parkland) from LBJ. In this call, LBJ told Crenshaw that there was a man in the operating room and that he, the President, wanted that man to “get a death bed confession from the alleged assassin.” This statement was made by LBJ after Crenshaw told him that Oswald was “holding his own, but he’s lost a lot of blood.” Crenshaw revealed this in his book, Trauma Room One (Paraview Press, 2001). After the publication of the book, he was repeatedly attacked by the media (the ones who paid attention to the story, anyway) and accused of being a liar. It was claimed that LBJ never made such a call. That is, until Parkland chief switchboard operator Phyllis Bartlett heard the press attempting to destroy Crenshaw’s credibility. Then she went public with the fact that she was the one who took the call from the White House that day. And that she had in fact patched LBJ through to Crenshaw while he was treating Oswald.

If Brown was telling the truth, it would certainly follow that her story would be vigorously attacked, as Crenshaw’s was.

Finally, Brown claims that at some point after the assassination, she asked Johnson if he was behind it. He said no. The ones who were actually behind it were the "Texas fat cats and intelligence (community)."

The episode concludes talking about how Johnson was under the care of psychiatrist during the last years of his life. Apparently, he was severely depressed. Does anyone know who this doctor was? Is he alive? I’m sure his records and recollections re: LBJ would be fascinating.

This post has been edited by Greg Wagner: Jun 21 2005, 02:10 AM

[Greg Wagner]

I believe 100 percent the account of Madeleine Brown, having talked to her many times about it before her unfortunate death. Her details were consistent through the years. Lyndon's appearance was after midnight... only a 45-minute drive from his Fort Worth hotel, where he had arrived about 11:00.

Jack

Hi Jack-

Good stuff. I assume that you learned of these times from Madeleine. I wonder why she was not so specific in the TMWKK piece. Do you know of any way to document these times. Or of any other living witnesses that could corroborate these times? Sure would be great if we could get that nailed down.

[Stan Wilbourne]

From Harrison Livingstone's "The Radical Right And The Murder Of John F. Kennedy", page 110:

The night before the assassination there was a large party at Clint Murchison, Jr's house. J. Edgar Hoover, Murchison's close friend was there, as was Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, along with other prominent and wealthy people. Madeleine Brown, Johnson's mistress, long ago described this party to me and others, and it has since been corroborated by employees of the Murchison family.

One of these employees, a seamstress, May Newman, appeared on "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" in 2003. She related the statements to her of chauffeur, Jule Pfeiffer, that he was sent to the airport to pick up Hoover and took him to Murchison's house. In additon, a cook at the party, Buela May Holman, related that Hoover was there.

[Tim Gratz]

Hoover was at home with Clyde.

[John Simkin]

Madeleine Brown was a businesswoman who worked for Glenn Advertising. Later she claimed she had an affair with Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1988 she told Jack Anderson that: "In the fall of 1963 I was in the Carousel Club with other advertising people and Jack Ruby was saying that Lee Harvey Oswald had been in the club and he had been bragging that he had been bragging that he had taken a shot at Major General Edwin Walker".

On 24th February, 1992, Brown gave an interview on the television show, A Current Affair. Brown claimed that on the 21st November, 1963, she was at the home of Clint Murchison. This is what she actually said:

On Thursday night, Nov. 21, 1963, the last evening prior to Camelot's demise, I attended a social at Clint Murchison's home. It was my understanding that the event was scheduled as a tribute honoring his long time friend, J. Edgar Hoover (whom Murchison had first met decades earlier through President William Howard Taft), and his companion, Clyde Tolson. Val Imm, the society editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald, unwittingly documented one of the most significant gatherings in American history. The impressive guest list included John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, H. L. Hunt and a host of others from the 8F group. The jovial party was just breaking up when Lyndon made an unscheduled visit. I was the most surprised by his appearance since Jesse had not mentioned anything about Lyndon's coming to Clint's. With Lyndon's hectic schedule, I never dreamed he could attend the big party. After all, he had arrived in Dallas on Tuesday to attend the Pepsi-Cola convention. Tension filled the room upon his arrival. The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared I knew how secretly Lyndon operated. Therefore I said nothing... not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I'll always remember: "After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again - that's no threat - that's a promise."

You will notice that Brown mentions the 8F Group was behind the assassination. This is what I believe. Therefore, I would very much like to believe this evidence. However, I find it impossible to do so (I will return to this later).

Brown also claimed that LBJ was the father of her son, Steven Mark Brown. Barr McClellan later confirmed that Madeleine Brown received regular payments from Johnson via his Brazos-Tenth, his money-laundering corporation.

In 1987 Steven Mark Brown filed a lawsuit against the estate of his father. This was unsuccessful and in 1990 he died of cancer.

Brown published her autobiography, Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1997. In the book she claimed that Johnson was involved in the assassination of JFK. Madeleine Brown died on June 22, 2002.

Is Brown a credible witness? I am willing to accept that she was LBJ’s mistress. I also suspect LBJ also told Brown what he would like to do to the Kennedys. However, I find it difficult to believe the story about the party that took place on the eve of the assassination.

Let us assume for a moment that LBJ, Clint Murchison, J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson, John J. McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, Harvey Bright and Haroldson L. Hunt were involved in plotting the assassination of JFK. Do you really think they would have met up to discuss this matter the night before the assassination? If they had been involved in the assassination, it would have been the last thing they would have done.

I do not always agree with Gary Mack but I am convinced by his investigation of this party. This is what he had to say in an email posted on 14th May, 1997.

Madeleine has claimed over the years that she attended a party at Clint Murchison’s house the night before the assassination and LBJ, Hoover and Nixon were there. The party story, without LBJ, first came from Penn Jones in Forgive My Grief. In that version, the un-credited source was a black chauffeur whom Jones didn’t identify, and the explanation Jones gave was that it was the last chance to decide whether or not to kill JFK. Of course, Hoover used only top FBI agents for transportation and in the FBI of 1963, none were black. Actually, there is no confirmation for a party at Murchison’s. I asked Peter O’Donnell because Madeleine claimed he was there, too. Peter said there was no party. Madeleine even said there was a story about it in the Dallas Times Herald some months later (which makes no sense), but she had not been able to find it. Val Imm (Society Editor of the Dallas Times Herald) told Bob Porter (of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza staff) recently she had no memory of such an event and even looked through her notes - in vain.

Could LBJ have been at a Murchison party? No. LBJ was seen and photographed in the Houston Coliseum with JFK at a dinner and speech. They flew out around 10pm and arrived at Carswell (Air Force Base in northwest Fort Worth) at 11:07 Thursday night. Their motorcade to the Hotel Texas arrived about 11:50 and LBJ was again photographed. He stayed in the Will Rogers suite on the 13th floor and Manchester (William Manchester - author of The Death of a President) says he was up late. Could Nixon have been at Murchison’s party? No. Tony Zoppi (Entertainment Editor of The Dallas Morning News) and Don Safran (Entertainment Editor of the Dallas Times Herald) saw Nixon at the Empire Room at the Statler-Hilton. He walked in with Joan Crawford (Movie actress). Robert Clary (of Hogan’s Heroes fame) stopped his show to point them out, saying “. . . either you like him or you don’t.” Zoppi thought that was in poor taste, but Safran said Nixon laughed. Zoppi’s deadline was 11pm, so he stayed until 10:30 or 10:45 and Nixon was still there.

[Jack White]

Lyndon knew his way around Hotel Texas. The ballroom was on the mezzanine. At 11 pm its kitchen would be empty. One could take an elevator to the mezzanine, enter the ballroom, go through it to the kitchen, take the service elevator down one floor to the service entrance on Commerce Street, and enter a waiting car all but unseen. It would be a 45-minute drive to North Dallas, maybe less at that time of night.

Jack

[Mark Stapleton]

Adding weight to the doubt over the presence of Hoover, didn't he call Bobby (from Washington) immediately after the assassination and utter the immortal words, "Your brother's been gravely wounded".

I suppose he could have chartered a late flight home, but....................

[Pat Speer]

Adding weight to the doubt over the presence of Hoover, didn't he call Bobby (from Washington) immediately after the assassination and utter the immortal words, "Your brother's been gravely wounded".

I suppose he could have chartered a late flight home, but....................

This is a good point, Mark. I seem to remember that Pfeiffer said he drove Hoover right back to the airport afterwards. Maybe someone else can confirm this. As to why Nixon would have been there, Nixon was backed by oil money and was a close associate of Hoover's. Let's remember that Ford was Nixon's pick for the Warren Commission, and Ford was the one who reported its activities to Hoover.

The second paragraph has been removed because it was just WRONG.

This post has been edited by Pat Speer: Jun 22 2005, 02:47 AM