Zapruder's Film saves LBJ's head from the Choping Block

[Jim Phelps]

For discussion:

Zapruder's Film saves LBJ's head from the Choping Block

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAjohnsonLB.htm

In 1963 Johnson got drawn into political scandals involving Fred Korth, Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. According to James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor, the magazine was working on an article that would have revealed Johnson's corrupt activities. "Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the 1964 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligence agencies and we were used after by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public."

The fact that it was Robert Kennedy who was giving this information to Life Magazine suggests that John F. Kennedy intended to drop Johnson as his vice-president. This is supported by Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's secretary. In her book, Kennedy and Johnson (1968) she claimed that in November, 1963, Kennedy decided that because of the emerging Bobby Baker scandal he was going to drop Johnson as his running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford.

As Johnson was now president Life Magazine decided not to use the story concerning his corrupt activities. James Wagenvoord later recalled: "The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24th (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on November 26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been the top editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film."

On 17th January, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee voted to release to the public the secret testimony of Don B. Reynolds. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, The Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953.

A few weeks later the New York Times reported that Lyndon B. Johnson had used information from secret government documents to smear Don B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

In 2006 it was announced that E. Howard Hunt had written his memoirs. This included a claim that Lyndon Baines Johnson might have been involved in ordering the assassination of John F. Kennedy. "Having Kennedy liquidated, thus elevating himself to the presidency without having to work for it himself, could have been a very tempting and logical move on Johnson's part. LBJ had the money and the connections to manipulate the scenario in Dallas and is on record as having convinced JFK to make the appearance in the first place. He further tried unsuccessfully to engineer the passengers of each vehicle, trying to get his good buddy, Gov. (John) Connolly, to ride with him instead of in JFK's car - where... he would have been out of danger."

========

Sounds like "Operation Mockingbird" clicked into high speed reverse with a new Commander.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5142

http://jfkhistory.com/forum/index.php?topic=1170.0

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Jim, the 1963 Coup d'Etat saved Lyndon Johnson's head from the chopping block. Google my LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK. Also, you or anyone else, are welcome to email me at Morrow321@aol.com and I will gladly send you my "LBJ and CIA killed JFK" file.

[Jim Phelps]

Perhaps you need to refresh and take note that RFK had primed Life Magazine with a lot of information to absolutely ruin LBJ, and that was set to run on the 24th. The only thing that preemptied that major story on LBJ's big crimes was the much larger story of the JFK assassination and the purchase of all rights to the Zapruder Film by Life Magazine.

So, the logical deduction would be that the Zapruder Film made the bigger story, and the one on LBJ that was set to go out in two days was tossed out. The Zapruder Films stills were certainly a major factor in Life's decision to pull the LBJ story. The used up major space.

Of couse, the Zapruder Film would not exist but for the assassination. But, if RFK had his way, Life Mag was set to chop off LBJ's head.

What appeared to have stopped that as the abundance of very clear photos of JFK getting his head blown off in living color. Had Life only had the other pitiful pictures, there would not have been the major space used in that edition and they may have gotten in the LBJ piece to a large extent. Both stories would have made a major fire storm that would sell many magazines.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Perhaps you need to refresh and take note that RFK had primed Life Magazine with a lot of information to absolutely ruin LBJ, and that was set to run on the 24th. The only thing that preemptied that major story on LBJ's big crimes was the much larger story of the JFK assassination and the purchase of all rights to the Zapruder Film by Life Magazine.

So, the logical deduction would be that the Zapruder Film made the bigger story, and the one on LBJ that was set to go out in two days was tossed out. The Zapruder Films stills were certainly a major factor in Life's decision to pull the LBJ story. The used up major space.

Of couse, the Zapruder Film would not exist but for the assassination. But, if RFK had his way, Life Mag was set to chop off LBJ's head.

What appeared to have stopped that as the abundance of very clear photos of JFK getting his head blown off in living color. Had Life only had the other pitiful pictures, there would not have been the major space used in that edition and they may have gotten in the LBJ piece to a large extent. Both stories would have made a major fire storm that would sell many magazines.

What stopped LIFE Magazine from running the expose on Lyndon Johnson was the fact that John Kennedy was murdered and the new president was Lyndon Johnson. LIFE Magazine, in possession of the Zapruder Film, knew full well that the kill shot to John Kennedy came from the front, the Grassy Knoll; just as it knew the government early on was insisting that all the shots came from behind from the TSBD.

That is prima facie evidence of not just a conspiracy but a coup d'etat as well. LIFE Magazine in its suppression of the Zapruder Film and its clear implications of a shot from the front was "going along" with the coup d'etat.

I consider James Wagenvoord a very credible witness as far as having inside information that Robert Kennedy was feeding LIFE Magazine damaging information on Lyndon Johnson and that LIFE was on the verge of running an expose on LBJ that would politically (and personally)annihilate him once and for all. Robert Kennedy was also feeding Senate committees the same damaging information of Johnson. RFK had let the Democratic senators on the hill and the elite Washington media know that it was *open season* on Lyndon Johnson.

Having said that, Wagenvoord probably did not have a 1963 calandar in front of him when he gave those dates. The NEXT issue of LIFE that was due to be mailed out was the Dececember 6th issue which was going to be mailed out on Friday NOVEMBER 29, 1963. LIFE at that time printed and mailed out its issues on Fridays with the expiration day one week in advance.

Note the November 8th LIFE issue was on the Bobby Baker affair (that issue was printed an mailed out on 11/1/63). It cannot be emphasized enough how close Bobby Baker (still alive in 2011) was to Lyndon Johnson. Baker was like a son or younger brother to LBJ and he named two of his kids after Johnson (Lyndon and Lynda. LBJ toady Jack Valenti also named two of HIS kids after Johnson; one of them is Courtenay Lynda Valenti who I am 99% sure is the biological daughter of LBJ).

So the LBJ-killer issue by LIFE was going to be the Dec. 6th issue that was going to be mailed out on 11/29/63. The 11/29 issue was in fact being printed on 11/22/63 and they had to stop the presses and include coverage of the JFK assassination.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Phil Brennan was in Wash, DC when Robert Kennedy in the fall of 1963 told Washington's top political reporters that it was open season on Lyndon Johnson and go ahead and start covering his corruption.

http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/brennen.htm

Some Relevant Facts About the JFK Assassination

Phil Brennan

Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2003

There's an explosive new book that lays out a very detailed - and

persuasive - case for the probability that the late President Lyndon Baines

Johnson was responsible for the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy.

I say persuasive because the author, Barr McClellan, was one of LBJ's top

lawyers, and he provides a lot of information hitherto unknown to the general

public - much more of which he says is buried in secret documents long

withheld from the American people.

"The American public has waited forty years to hear the truth about the JFK

assassination," McClellan says. "For government agencies to withhold

critical evidence and not cooperate with the [1998 investigation conducted

by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)] is a form of

obstruction of justice. Under the requirements of the Freedom of Information

Act, the public should be granted access to these documents."

According to McClellan and Doug Horne, a former ARRB investigator, hundreds

of relevant documents were withheld from the 1998 investigation into the

JFK assassination. They believe that these materials are now in the

possession of the National Archives, relocated from sealed files previously

controlled by the CIA and FBI.

McClellan also asked for a formal review of the evidence in his book, "Blood,

Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.," which establishes a direct

connection between LBJ and an individual involved with the assassination

and cover-up.

"At this time we need to see what else is missing and what else would be helpful

to presenting the entire truth," McClellan continued. "The Senate

Judiciary Committee and the Department of Justice could make the request

of the National Archives and should do so."

Now, in normal circumstance I would tend to view this latest explanation of who

was behind the killing of JFK as exactly that - just another theory among

dozens. But the circumstances are not normal. Poll after poll establishes that

an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the official verdict of the

Warren Commission is simply not borne out by what little is known publicly

about the case.

McClellan's new book adds to those facts and names a second suspect he says

was a longtime assassin for Lyndon Johnson, whom he portrays as ...

well, as being homicidal whenever he or his many concealed interests were

threatened.

Add to that the incredible inconsistencies in the FBI and Secret Service

investigations, which reek with the stench of cover-up, and one can't escape

the conclusion that if LBJ did nothing else in dealing with the aftermath of

the assassination, he sure as hell clamped a lid on any evidence that

contradicted the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone

gunman acting solely on his own initiative.

I report all of this as a prelude to revealing what I know about the matter but have

never before written about - in the beginning, because I had a wife and

seven children to protect, and since, because I had no reason to revisit the

matter.

Let's start with this: McClellan and others before him have discussed the fact that

LBJ faced some pretty awful prospects, including not only being dumped

from the 1964 ticket but also spending a long, long time in the slammer as a

result of his role in the rapidly expanding Bobby Baker case - something few

have speculated about because the full facts were never revealed by the

media, which didn't want to know, or report, the truth.

Sometime in early 1963 I was approached by a young lady with whom I had

worked on Nixon's 1960 campaign staff. She asked me if I would meet with

her fiancé, who was in great difficulty - and in danger of being murdered.

At the time I was on the staff of the House Republican Policy Committee, and

one of my assignments was to keep my bosses up to date on what was

going on behind the scenes in the Cold War, analyzing intelligence that

came our way and otherwise engaging in a never-ending clandestine, back-

alley war with the Democrat majority.

I was also writing a Washington column for Bill Buckley's National Review

magazine under the cover name Cato, a fact known only to the top GOP

House leadership, which allowed me to do the column as long as I didn't use

my byline or write it on government time.

Moreover, in my Cato column I had recently broken the story about the Billie Sol

Estes scandal, which involved Estes' crony, Lyndon Johnson.

The young lady knew all that, and that's why she came to me. I agreed to meet

with her fiancé, a South Carolinian named Ralph Hill. We met at the Market

Inn, had a couple of martinis, and Hill told me his tale of woe.

He had come to Washington some time before and was steered to a fellow South

Carolinian, one Bobby Baker, the powerful secretary of the Senate and a

very close associate of Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

To make a long story short, Baker advised Hill to go into the vending machine

business and promised him he'd arrange to get some major defense

contractors to install the machines, which vended soft drinks, sandwiches,

cigarettes and the like.

There was only one catch - Baker wanted under-the-table payoffs for his part in

setting up what would be a very lucrative business opportunity with tens of

thousands of potential customers who worked in defense plants.

True to his word, Baker got a number of defense contractors to agree to allow Hill

the exclusive right to install his vending machines on their premises. It was

an opportunity to print money by the barrel, and with those golden

contracts in hand, Hill was able to go to the bank and borrow all the funds he

needed to buy the vending machines and go into business. For a while he

prospered - as did Baker.

But whatever he was paying Baker was not enough to satisfy the man who, for all

intents and purposes, had the Senate under his thumb. He saw that the

members of the Democrat majority got whatever they wanted - money, bimbos,

LBJ's help, you name it. They were all in his pocket.

He could arrange multimillion-dollar contracts for the defense industry or take

them away if he wanted. He was LBJ's guy and was all-powerful and a very

dangerous man to have as an enemy, a fact Ralph Hill learned when

Baker put the bite on him for bigger payoffs.

The problem for Hill was that he had big payments to make on the loans he'd

taken out to buy the equipment and set himself up in business, had

some pretty steep overhead, and simply didn't have enough left over to

boost his payments to Baker.

He tried to explain that fact of life to Baker, but the secretary of the United States

Senate wasn't having any. He simply repeated his demands and threatened

Hill that if he didn't pay up he'd see that Hill lost all those juicy defense plant

contracts.

Bad went to worse, Baker made good on his threats, and Hill was facing

bankruptcy. Moreover, it was made known to him that if he didn't simply fold

his tent and go off without making trouble for Baker, he might meet with an

unfortunate - and probably fatal - accident.

But Hill was facing bankruptcy and the loss of everything he had, and he simply

would not give up. He was fighting for his life. And he had the guts to hang in

there.

He asked me to help him. But I was completely a creature of the House side of

Capitol Hill - the Senate side was foreign territory and, I hate to admit it, I

didn't even have the vaguest idea of who this Bobby Baker, the Senate's

imperial potentate, was.

I told Hill that his only way out was to expose Baker publicly, to get the story out

- once it was public, Baker could not afford to retaliate. I advised Hill to file

suit against Baker, laying out all the sordid details in the complaint, and once

he had served Baker, to give me the complaint papers and I'd see that

the media on the Hill got their hands on copies.

He did and I did - and I now found myself a potential target, not only of Baker's

but of the media as well, but that's another story. I was able to get

only two reporters to write the story - the late Clark Mohlenhoff, one of the

best investigative reporters in Washington, and one other whose name I

don't recall.

For the most part, the Washington press corps kept the lid on the story - until the

late Bob Humphrey, then the GOP Senate leadership's spokesman, an

incredibly gifted strategist and a mentor, asked me to tell the story to the late

Delaware Republican Sen. John Williams, a crusader for good

government and a crackerjack of an investigator.

Sen. Williams asked me to introduce him to Hill and I did. They got together with

some Senate investigators for the GOP minority and Hill told them the whole

story, including the part played by Vice President Johnson. Williams

got his committee to launch an investigation and the lid came off.

A few days later, the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy, called five of

Washington's top reporters into his office and told them it was now open season

on Lyndon Johnson. It's OK, he told them, to go after the story they

were ignoring out of deference to the administration.

And from that point on until the events in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson's future

looked as if it included a sudden end to his political career and a few years

in the slammer. The Kennedys had their knives out and sharpened for him

and were determined to draw his political blood - all of it.

In the Senate, the investigation into the Baker case was moving quickly ahead.

Even the Democrats were cooperating, thanks to the Kennedys, and an

awful lot of really bad stuff was being revealed - until Nov. 22, 1963.

By Nov. 23, all Democrat cooperation suddenly stopped. Lyndon would serve a

term and a half in the White House instead of the slammer, the Baker

investigation would peter out and Bobby Baker would serve a short sentence and

go free. Dallas accomplished all of that.

Sometimes I wonder: If I had not met Hill and convinced him to go public with the

story, and the Bobby Baker case and Lyndon's part in it had not come out as

a result, would Dallas not have happened? I don't like to think about that.

And that's why I am convinced that McClellan is on to something. I hope he

persists. There's an incredible amount of sordid government corruption that

needs to be aired in public. As McClellan says, it's about time that the

American people learned the truth about the death of John Fitzgerald

Kennedy.

And a lot more.

* * * * * *

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor &

publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was

Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also

served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and

helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska

Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee

of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former

Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com.

Edited May 8, 2011 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Scroll down and read John Simkin's comments on the incredibly damaging information on Lyndon Johnson that Don Reynolds was giving the Senate Rules Committee at the VERY moment of the JFK assassination:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1435

"Evidence also emerged that Lyndon B. Johnson was also involved in political corruption concerning the placing of arms contracts. This included the award of a $7 billion contract for a fighter plane, the TFX, to General Dynamics, a company based in Texas. Fred Korth, the Navy Secretary, and a close friend of LBJ, had been involved in negotiating this contract.

On 7th October, 1963, Baker was forced to leave his post as LBJ’s secretary. On 1st November, 1963, Korth was forced to resign over the TFX contract.

Rumours began to spread that JFK was going to drop LBJ as his running mate in 1964. Robert Kennedy appeared to confirm this by briefing against LBJ. This including information that suggested that LBJ would be prosecuted for political corruption.

At this time the key witness had yet to testify. His name was Don B. Reynolds. A close friend of Bobby Baker, Reynolds claimed that for many years he had a business relationship with LBJ. Reynolds was due to provide evidence before a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee on 22nd November, 1963. LBJ would not be there to hear what was said for on that day he was to be visiting Dallas with JFK.

On returning from Dallas LBJ discovered what Reynolds had told B. Everett Jordan and his Senate Rules Committee that day. According to Reynolds he had seen a suitcase full of money which Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract".

LBJ immediately contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynolds's testimony to be released to the public."

====================================================================

So the bottom line is this, and it is incredibly important to the 1963 Coup d'Etat: the Kennedy brothers, specifically Robert Kennedy acting on behalf of President John Kennedy, was in the process of politially (and personally from Johnson's point of view) annihilating Lyndon Johnson once and for all. The Kennedys had told the Washington media that it was open season on LBJ. The Kennedys had made it clear to senators, both Democratic and Republican, that they wanted Johnson's scalp. They were giving a *green light* into investigations of corruption of Lyndon Johnson with goal of removing LBJ from the 1964 Democratic ticket.

There is no question in my mind that a big factor in the JFK assassination was Lyndon Johnson's and his Texas oil men's response to what the Kennedys were trying to do to him.

[Jim Phelps]

Sure sounds like the Zapruder Film saved LBJ's head from the public chopping block.

Zapruder's image outtakes dominated the news.

[Jim Phelps]

The rest of the story to connect for the RFK's loading of Time Magazine's story on LBJ's Crooked Dealings with Billy Sol Estes, is that one also has to include LBJ's DNC finacier "Morris Jaffe" for USAEC uranium land deals.

Most likely, when RFK and JFK found all the dirty dealings with Estes, they also found the even bigger LBJ deals with Jaffe and the USAEC for huge Uranium profiteering. Jaffe is one of the ones that forced LBJ onto the JFK ticket in California.

And that links to all the USAEC uranium good ole boys back in Texas, and even to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the kill JFK plot seems to have first been started by telling Jack Ruby these issues.

Read about the LBJ and Jaffe Uranium dealings, that were very similar to the Estes Games, and LBJ was sliding Jaffe into Estes place:

http://quixoticjoust.blogspot.com/2011/06/other-uranium-explorers-in-texas-in.html

The RFK Time Magazine piece on LBJ and Estes would either directly or indirectly lead to LBJ and the USAEC double dealing with the USAEC and Oak Ridge.

As Nov. 22, 1963 unfolds we find LBJ's and Big Oil's main hit-man in the Dal-Tex building that is owned, in part, by Morris Jaffe and he has Uranium Office there. LBJ's and big oil's hit man is "Eugene Hale Brading", who changes his name to "Jim Braden" on September 10, 1963. Braden is at the Dal-tex building to do LBJ and Texas Oil/Uranium a hit-man service to cover up the Jaffe, LBJ, and USAEC double dealings.

Jim Braden

LBJ's hit-man, Mac Wallace, is in the TSBD.

The Zapruder Film was absolutely necessary for LBJ to pre-empt the RFK Time story that would reveal LBJ and Estes and Jaffe, the DNC, the USAEC, and Oak Ridge.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Jim Phelps