Bobby Baker talks about the Senate

[Douglas Caddy]

From the artice: On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, Don Reynolds, the Maryland broker who had written the life insurance policy for Johnson, was telling investigators for the Senate Rules Committee that he had been pressured to buy advertising time on an Austin television station owned by Johnson—even though the insurance salesman was unknown in Texas and could hardly expect to generate business there.
“And on November 22 … after lunch, in the Senate Rules Committee investigation [of] Bobby Baker, Don Reynolds was going to really spill his guts. But when President Kennedy was killed, it basically killed the Baker investigation. You know, President Johnson acted like he did not know me. … I think the Reynolds testimony plus the absolute hatred of Bobby Kennedy of Johnson [would have forced LBJ off the 1964 Democratic ticket if Kennedy had lived]. Poor old Walter [Jenkins, one of Johnson’s most trusted aides, who had worked with Reynolds to buy the advertising time on the Johnson station], had President Kennedy not been killed, he either would have had to take the Fifth Amendment and quit, or tell the truth and Vice President Johnson would have definitely been off the ticket in 1964, had it [been] shown that he had really been the party in the back of this.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/sex-in-the-senate-bobby-baker-99530_Page2.html#ixzz4mvPsIVOr
 

[David Andrews]

Be sure to read Bakers full interview (200+ pages) for the Senate history office, which is linked to in the article.  It's slow reading, but will reward you with an exhibition of how the sausages are made, and demonstrate that the 20th century Senate was little different from the Senate in the days of Thomas Nast's political cartoons.