Nixon, LBJ and the Assassination of JFK

[John Simkin]

The Daily Mail, the newspaper with the largest online readership in the world, has an article about the JFK assassination today:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322981/Former-Nixon-aide-claims-evidence-Lyndon-B-Johnson-arranged-John-F-Kennedys-assassination-new-book.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Compare that coverage to what is going on in the USA: the Daily Caller has a piece; the Examiner has a piece and pretty much nothing else: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=roger+stone&oq=roger+stone&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.2211.4147.0.4379.11.6.0.5.5.0.151.528.5j1.6.0...0.0...1ac.1.dZ9-NRKkitU#hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&sclient=psy-ab&q=roger+stone+lyndon+johnson&oq=roger+stone+lyndon+johnson&gs_l=serp.3...54776.56644.0.56849.15.13.0.0.0.0.127.1132.9j4.13.0...0.0...1c.1.12.psy-ab.MvCEprkYFIo&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46340616,d.dmQ&fp=911cde0346df7190&biw=1239&bih=886

This news story is definitely getting coverage outside the USA.

Here are some tweets between Roger Stone and me from January of last year:

Roger Stone tweet to me on January 9, 2012 (at 1:19)

"LBJ had it done. Mob, CIA, Hoover, all in on it. RFK knew. So did Nixon."

Then on 1/17, I sent Roger Stone a Tweet from Morrow321

"Roger, did Richard Nixon directly tell u these things @ the JFK assassination? My number is 512-306-1510. And yours? Can we talk about JFK?"

Roger Stone on 1/17/12 tweet to me:

"RN was oblique on this subject. He would just snort and say "You don't want to know" and once said Warren Comm Report was "bullxxxx""

Edited May 13, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

I sure would like to go through the video archives of ABC News on the day of the JFK assassination, especially when JFK is at the airport in Washington, DC. From the comments section of this article at Msn.com on the Roger Stone book:

"Unkyjack" remembers LBJ at the Airport on 11/22/63 in Wash DC

"I remeber LBJ getting off a plane on the ABC news and a mike picked up Johnson's words, "...I don't give a damn where he goes, just get the s..o..a..b.....". I remember my Grandma putting her hands over my ears and telling me,...."don't listen to that dirty talk".......I don't know the who or why, but I've heard JFK's speech at Columbia 10 days before his assasination how "there's a cancer growing on the Presidencey of the United States and I'm going to destroy that cancer".....he was speaking about the CIA. I guess they didn't like the idea of being put out of business. They certainly ARE a cancer on our government."

http://now.msn.com/lbj-had-jfk-killed-alleges-book-by-roger-stone

Edited May 14, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Daily Beast interviews Roger Stone on this topic: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/roger-stone-s-new-book-solves-jfk-assassination-johnson-did-it.html

Roger Stone’s New Book ‘Solves’ JFK Assassination: Johnson Did It! May 14, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

The colorful GOP consultant Roger Stone is out with ‘The Man Who Killed Kennedy.’ He tells David Freedlander why he thinks LBJ did it, how Nixon backed him up, and why he isn’t likely to run for Florida governor.

Roger Stone has had a long and colorful career in the darker undersides of Republican politics, from working on Richard Nixon’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President, to helping bring down New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, to, more recently, laying the groundwork for Donald Trump’s aborted run for president.

Now Stone, who sports a tattoo of Nixon on his back and serves as the fashion editor for the conservative website The Daily Caller—among his must-haves for men: a seersucker three-piece suit and a velvet blazer—is working on his latest takedown, a new examination of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, Stone lays the half-century-old murder at the feet of Kennedy’s vice president, who Stone claims “had John F. Kennedy murdered and then as president used those powers to cover up the murder.”

Among the facts Stone says he is giving a full airing for the first time are Lyndon B. Johnson’s alleged complicity in at least six other murders, including that of a Department of Agriculture official who had been investigating a close Johnson associate and that of his own sister, Josefa Johnson, who Stone says “was a fairly high-profile bisexual at the time.”

“Johnson is facing jail, ruin, and the end of his political career. He is a very desperate man,” Stone said from Miami Beach, where he lives part-time. “Johnson knows that he is about to be indicted. He knows that Life magazine is going to publish an exposé regarding his relationship with Bobby Baker [a Johnson protégé accused of bribery]. After Kennedy’s death, Life magazine spikes the story. Johnson knows that the source of the story is Bobby Kennedy, then the attorney general desperate to get Johnson off the ticket. Johnson knows that [John F.] Kennedy has told a number of people, before leaving Washington, that he will dump Johnson and take Terry Sanford, then the governor of North Carolina, for vice president. He’s got a set of hearings coming up about his relationship to Billie Sol Estes [a Johnson ally later jailed for fraud]. On top of that, the two Kennedy brothers treat him like dogxxxx.”

Nixon “never flatly said who was responsible [for Kennedy’s death]. But he would say, ‘Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but the only difference was I wouldn’t kill for it.”

Still, the juiciest parts of Stone’s book may be a series of interviews he conducted with his former boss Nixon toward the end of the former president’s life. According to Stone, Nixon “never flatly said who was responsible [for Kennedy’s death]. But he would say, ‘Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but the only difference was I wouldn’t kill for it.”

When pressed on who he thought killed Kennedy, Nixon “would shiver and say, ‘Texas,’” said Stone.

Nixon, Stone says, had a long relationship with Jack Ruby, dating back to the time Nixon served on the House Un-American Activities Committee. There, Stone says, Ruby acted as an informant at Johnson’s request.

Stone is vague when asked to lay out exactly how Johnson was able to organize a team of assassins in Dallas for Nov. 22, 1963, but said the Dallas police force and the Secret Service were complicit.

Sean Cunningham, a professor of communication studies at Texas Tech and something of an expert on Kennedy conspiracy theories, said no evidence pointed to Johnson’s involvement. But he added that it made sense for Kennedy’s vice president to be the subject of many questions surrounding Kennedy’s death.

“Johnson has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories throughout his career, and some of them are rooted in the fact that Johnson was making friends and making deals with people throughout his career, which seems to undermine the values that he was trying to promote,” Cunningham said. “He is going to invite conspiracy theories from both liberals and conservatives because it is so hard to put your finger on who is, other than someone who will do whatever it takes to get elected.”

The professor noted that Johnson presided over a conspiracy-laden era, with the assassinations of both Kennedys, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, as well as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

“It was the era of investigative journalism, of declining credibility,” he said. “Johnson makes for a good story and is an easy way to explain things.”

As for Stone, the new book marks the first in a series he intends to produce for Skyhorse Publishing, an independent publisher in Manhattan. Also in the pipeline are a memoir-advice book for would-be political operatives and what Stone says is a look at Ronald Reagan’s plans to run for president in 1968. Ever the showman, the colorful Stone is planning a book tour that will include a stop in front of the Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas, and a possible demonstration in front of the Manhattan home of former Johnson aide and public television broadcaster Bill Moyers.

For much of the past year, Stone, who once took a New Yorker writer to his favorite swingers’ club in Miami, has been toying with the idea of a libertarian run for governor in Florida on a platform that calls for legalizing same-sex marriage and liberalizing marijuana laws.

But Stone told The Daily Beast that he probably won’t run, focusing instead on getting a medicinal marijuana ballot measure passed and, of course, on his newfound publishing career.

“I have tossed around the idea, but it is unlikely I will do it in the end,” he said. “I am not really candidate material anyway.”

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

David Freedlander is senior political correspondent with Newsweek & The Daily Beast. He can be reached at David.Freedlander@newsweekdailybeast.com or on Twitter @Freedlander.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

[Dawn Meredith]

Billie sol Estes died this morning. Age 88. I am sure he will feature larger than life in this new book.

Dawn

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Roger Stone reports:

Nixon “never flatly said who was responsible [for Kennedy’s death]. But he would say, ‘Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but the only difference was I wouldn’t kill for it.”

Barry Goldwater also believed, by 1973, that Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination.

Sen. Barry Goldwater (1973) was convinced that Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination

Goldwater told Jeffrey Hoff that in October, 1973

At the 2012 Dallas JFK Lancer conference I ran into JFK researcher Jeffrey Hoff of Arizona. Jeffrey Hoff was a leadership position in the local Cochise County Democratic Club from 1980-1983. He used to be a member of SDS in the 1960's. Now he installs "off the grid" solar systems. I briefly interviewed Hoff on Saturday, November 17, 2012 in Dallas, TX, at the JFK Lancer conference.

Jeffrey Hoff told me that in October, 1973 he met Barry Goldwater at a Republican political picnic in Willcox in Cochise County, AZ. I asked him how he ended up at a Republican picnic and he told me his friend Louise Parker, a friend and "real estate lady" from an Arizona "pioneer" family, had invited him. She said do you want to meet Barry Goldwater? Hoff said yes.

When Hoff met Sen. Barry Goldwater, Hoff, who had a keen interest in the JFK assassination, brought up that topic. Sen. Barry Goldwater told Hoff in October, 1973, that he (Goldwater) was convinced that Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination and that the Warren Commission was a complete cover up. Hoff got the impression that Goldwater had told others privately the same thing. I asked Hoff how confident was Goldwater when he was making these statements. Answer: Goldwater was very confident.

Jeffrey Hoff currently (2012) lives about 35 miles from Pierce, AZ. Lyndon Johnson died in January, 1973. J. Edgar Hoover had died in May, 1972. Allen Dulles died in January, 1969.

Barry Goldwater also read and complimented Fred Newcomb's book Murder From Within (1974) on the JFK assassination. Newcomb pointed the finger at the Secret Service, with deep suspicions of LBJ.

Barry Goldwater: "... the book ... seems to be very concise, detailed and documented" which he told Fred Newcomb in a letter complimenting his book. (Sen. Jesse Helms and Russell Long also read this book according to Tyler Newcomb, the son of Fred Newcomb.)

The book has been re-released (2011) and retitled as "Murder From Within: Lyndon Johnson's Plot Against President Kennedy."

Barry Goldwater column “Leftist Dementia” on Dec. 19, 1963 blames JFK assassination on “a single kill-crazy Communist.”

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uUc0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=smUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3709,4844450&dq=jfk+assassination+barry+goldwater&hl=en

Goldwater sure changed his tune 10 years later (at least privately)

Lyndon Johnson basically threatening to murder Robert Kennedy

Robert Caro says "hate" is an accurate description of the LBJ-RFK relationship

This description is from post 1960 Democratic convention:

"At the end of that long afternoon, after he had stepped down from the chair in the Biltmore corridor on which he stood to make his acceptance statement, he came back into his suite, and closed the door behind him, and cursed Robert Kennedy. He called him, Bobby Baker was to write, "'that little xxxxass' and worse." Perhaps much worse. John Connally, who during long days of conversation with this author was willing to answer almost any question put to him, no matter how delicate the topic, wouldn't answer when asked what Johnson said about Robert Kennedy. When the author pressed him, he finally said flatly: "I am not going to tell you what he said about him." During the months after the convention, when Johnson was closeted alone back in Texas with an old ally he would sometimes be asked about Robert Kennedy. He would reply with a gesture. Raising his big right hand, he would draw the side of it across the neck in a slowing, slitting movement. Sometimes that gesture would be his only reply; sometimes, as during a meeting with Ed Clark in Austin, he would say, as his hand moved across his neck, "I'll cut his throat if it's the last thing I do." [Robert Caro, "The Passage of Power," p. 140]

[David Andrews]

I really don't know why the Kennedys ever got drawn in, politically, by this dangerous bastard. I do know the history of the V-P candidacy 1960, but I can't see why a less personally ambitious choice couldn't have been made to work by the Kennedy machine. The deep south, West Virginia, and Kentucky, after all, stayed Democratic for Stevenson in 1952, with Eisenhower opposing. Could the anti-Catholic onus really have stood up to all of Joe Kennedy's money?

Edited May 15, 2013 by David Andrews

[Guest Robert Morrow]

I really don't know why the Kennedys ever got drawn in, politically, by this dangerous bastard. I do know the history of the V-P candidacy 1960, but I can't see why a less personally ambitious choice couldn't have been made to work by the Kennedy machine. The deep south, West Virginia, and Kentucky, after all, stayed Democratic for Stevenson in 1952, with Eisenhower opposing. Could the anti-Catholic onus really have stood up to all of Joe Kennedy's money?

Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary, reports that Johnson, with J. Edgar Hoover’s dark help, got on the 1960 Democratic ticket by using BLACKMAIL on the Kennedys

“During the 1960 campaign, according to Mrs. Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of Lyndon Johnson's modus operandi—abetted by Edgar. "J. Edgar Hoover," Lincoln said, "gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and senators so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, `How about this little deal you have with this woman?' and so forth. That's how he kept them in line. He used his IOUs with them as what he hoped was his road to the presidency. He had this trivia to use, because he had Hoover in his corner. And he thought that the members of Congress would go out there and put him over at the Convention. But then Kennedy beat him at the Convention. And well, after that Hoover and Johnson and their group were able to push Johnson on Kennedy."LBJ," said Lincoln, "had been using all the information Hoover could find on Kennedy—during the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on Kennedy at the Convention." (Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 272).

Read the Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh, p.124-129:

Close JFK friend Hy Raskin: “Johnson was not being given the slightest bit of consideration by any of the Kennedys… On the stuff I saw it was always Symington who was going to be the vice president. The Kennedy family had approved Symington.” [Hersh, p. 124]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford on July 13, 1960: “We’ve talked it out – me, dad, Bobby – and we’ve selected Symington as the vice president.” Kennedy asked Clark Clifford to relay that message to Symington “and find out if he’d run.” …”I and Stuart went to bed believing that we had a solid, unequivocal deal with Jack.” [Hersh, p.125]

Hy Raskin: “It was obvious to them that something extraordinary had taken place, as it was to me,” Raskin wrote. “During my entire association with the Kennedys, I could not recall any situation where a decision of major significance had been reversed in such a short period of time…. Bob [Kennedy] had always been involved in every major decision; why not this one, I pondered… I slept little that night.” [Hersh, p. 125]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford in the morning of July 14, 1960: “I must do something that I have never done before. I made a serious deal and now I have to go back on it. I have no alternative.” Symington was out and Johnson was in. Clifford recalled observing that Kennedy looked as if he’d been up all night.” [Hersh, p. 126]

John Kennedy to Hy Raskin: “You know we had never considered Lyndon, but I was left with no choice. He and Sam Rayburn made it damn clear to me that Lyndon had to be the candidate. Those bastards were trying to frame me. They threatened me with problems and I don’t need more problems. I’m going to have enough problems with Nixon.” [Hersh, p. 126]

Raskin “The substance of this revelation was so astonishing that if it had been revealed to me by another other than Jack or Bob, I would have had trouble accepting it. Why he decided to tell me was still very mysterious, but flattering nonetheless.” [Hersh, p. 126]

CBS Reporter Nancy Dickerson's Account of how Lyndon Johnson got selected at the 1960 Democratic co, who was handling the campaign of Senator Stuart Symington. The first was a luncheon at Kennedy's Washington house, where, through Clifford, he offered the Vice Presidency to Symington, provided Symington's Missouri delegation votes went to Kennedy. Symington turned down the deal. The second conversation, which took place in Los Angeles, was a repeat of the first, and again it was refused. The third conversation was in Kennedy's hideaway in Los Angeles, during which he told Clifford that he was fairly certain of a first-ballot victory and asked if Symington would be his running mate. As Clifford later told me, "There were no strings attached. It was a straight offer." The Symington and Clifford families conferred, Symington agreed to run, and Clifford relayed the news to Kennedy.

Clifford was playing a unique role: he was not only Symington's campaign advisor but JFK's personal lawyer as well. He is one of the world's most sophisticated men, and he does not make mistakes about matters like this. As he told me, "We had a deal signed, sealed and delivered."

[Nancy Dickerson, "Among Those Present: A Reporter's View of 25 Years in Washington," pp. 43-44]

Edited May 15, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[David Andrews]

I really don't know why the Kennedys ever got drawn in, politically, by this dangerous bastard. I do know the history of the V-P candidacy 1960, but I can't see why a less personally ambitious choice couldn't have been made to work by the Kennedy machine. The deep south, West Virginia, and Kentucky, after all, stayed Democratic for Stevenson in 1952, with Eisenhower opposing. Could the anti-Catholic onus really have stood up to all of Joe Kennedy's money?

Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary, reports that Johnson, with J. Edgar Hoover’s dark help, got on the 1960 Democratic ticket by using BLACKMAIL on the Kennedys

“During the 1960 campaign, according to Mrs. Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of Lyndon Johnson's modus operandi—abetted by Edgar. "J. Edgar Hoover," Lincoln said, "gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and senators so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, `How about this little deal you have with this woman?' and so forth. That's how he kept them in line. He used his IOUs with them as what he hoped was his road to the presidency. He had this trivia to use, because he had Hoover in his corner. And he thought that the members of Congress would go out there and put him over at the Convention. But then Kennedy beat him at the Convention. And well, after that Hoover and Johnson and their group were able to push Johnson on Kennedy."LBJ," said Lincoln, "had been using all the information Hoover could find on Kennedy—during the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on Kennedy at the Convention." (Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 272).

Read the Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh, p.124-129:

Close JFK friend Hy Raskin: “Johnson was not being given the slightest bit of consideration by any of the Kennedys… On the stuff I saw it was always Symington who was going to be the vice president. The Kennedy family had approved Symington.” [Hersh, p. 124]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford on July 13, 1960: “We’ve talked it out – me, dad, Bobby – and we’ve selected Symington as the vice president.” Kennedy asked Clark Clifford to relay that message to Symington “and find out if he’d run.” …”I and Stuart went to bed believing that we had a solid, unequivocal deal with Jack.” [Hersh, p.125]

Hy Raskin: “It was obvious to them that something extraordinary had taken place, as it was to me,” Raskin wrote. “During my entire association with the Kennedys, I could not recall any situation where a decision of major significance had been reversed in such a short period of time…. Bob [Kennedy] had always been involved in every major decision; why not this one, I pondered… I slept little that night.” [Hersh, p. 125]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford in the morning of July 14, 1960: “I must do something that I have never done before. I made a serious deal and now I have to go back on it. I have no alternative.” Symington was out and Johnson was in. Clifford recalled observing that Kennedy looked as if he’d been up all night.” [Hersh, p. 126]

John Kennedy to Hy Raskin: “You know we had never considered Lyndon, but I was left with no choice. He and Sam Rayburn made it damn clear to me that Lyndon had to be the candidate. Those bastards were trying to frame me. They threatened me with problems and I don’t need more problems. I’m going to have enough problems with Nixon.” [Hersh, p. 126]

Raskin “The substance of this revelation was so astonishing that if it had been revealed to me by another other than Jack or Bob, I would have had trouble accepting it. Why he decided to tell me was still very mysterious, but flattering nonetheless.” [Hersh, p. 126]

CBS Reporter Nancy Dickerson's Account of how Lyndon Johnson got selected at the 1960 Democratic co, who was handling the campaign of Senator Stuart Symington. The first was a luncheon at Kennedy's Washington house, where, through Clifford, he offered the Vice Presidency to Symington, provided Symington's Missouri delegation votes went to Kennedy. Symington turned down the deal. The second conversation, which took place in Los Angeles, was a repeat of the first, and again it was refused. The third conversation was in Kennedy's hideaway in Los Angeles, during which he told Clifford that he was fairly certain of a first-ballot victory and asked if Symington would be his running mate. As Clifford later told me, "There were no strings attached. It was a straight offer." The Symington and Clifford families conferred, Symington agreed to run, and Clifford relayed the news to Kennedy.

Clifford was playing a unique role: he was not only Symington's campaign advisor but JFK's personal lawyer as well. He is one of the world's most sophisticated men, and he does not make mistakes about matters like this. As he told me, "We had a deal signed, sealed and delivered."

[Nancy Dickerson, "Among Those Present: A Reporter's View of 25 Years in Washington," pp. 43-44]

A reason to cave in? Apparently the Kennedys thought so and crumpled under time exigences re: nomination. Otherwise, they could have ruined Johnson's rep first, had not both Dems and GOPs patronized Bobby Baker's brothel.

The Kennedys should have been politically accomplished enough to see that Johnson, in pressing so hard for the number 2 spot, was really angling for the top seat, and they should have neutralized him with his own scandals well ahead of 1963. As incumbents they might have been re-electable without LBJ, but still chose to ride him to the verge of 1964, and then drop him in an anticipated volte-face. But LBJ out-manuvered them, which is possible when you are willing to murder.

Edited May 15, 2013 by David Andrews

[Guest Robert Morrow]

"But LBJ out-manuvered them, which is possible when you are willing to murder."

David Andrews, that is absolutely right. On the day of the 1961 inauguration, here is what Bobby Baker was saying:

Bobby Baker told Don Reynolds on 1/20/61 that the s.o.b. John Kennedy would never live out his term and that he would die a violent death

Bobby Baker, one of Lyndon Johnson’s closest associates, said this during the inauguration of John Kennedy

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

(11) Edward Jay Epstein, Esquire Magazine (December, 1966)

”In January of 1964 the Warren Commission learned that Don B. Reynolds, insurance agent and close associate of Bobby Baker, had been heard to say the FBI knew that Johnson was behind the assassination. When interviewed by the FBI, he denied this. But he did recount an incident during the swearing in of Kennedy in which Bobby Baker said words to the effect that the s.o.b. would never live out his term and that he would die a violent death.”