Why LBJ was an essential participant in the plan to murder Kennedy

[Roger Odisio]

JFK's killers had 3 objectives. 1. A plan to murder Kennedy   2.  A plan to cover up their involvement and blame someone else.  3.The implementation of the policy changes that were the reason for the murder in the first place. Johnson was indispensable to the last two objectives.

 

All parts of the plan had be be in place before the murder. The murder was too risky and the planners too vulnerable to go ahead without a clear plan to get what they wanted and escape reckoning. Like most such plans alterations had to be made on the fly, but the murder would not have happened without the killers having confidence they could execute each part of the plan.

 

The killers' top priority was that Kennedy must not survive the ambush in Dealey Plaza.  If he did they were toast. If you have been to the scene you know how small the murder area in DP is. How simple the shots from several points were for an experienced shooter.

 

Still, near certainty of success required several shooters firing from different locations.  But that contradicted the coverup plan they were going with that Kennedy was murdered by a single shooter from the 6th floor window  That contradiction had to be resolved  and as the new president Johnson was one key in that process.

 

Unlike some other political coups the planners didn't get to choose who would replace Kennedy. The Constitution says it would be Johnson.  As the new president he would be in charge of the crucial second and third elements of the plan.  As such, he would literally have the success or failure of the whole project in his hands. For that reason alone, the others would need clear assurances from Johnson that he would do the part  that he was uniquely suited to carry out.

 

Johnson knew there were others besides himself who wanted to get rid of Kennedy.  As a powerful Washington figure in his own right, he had choices. He could turn on the perps, do a real investigation, and become a hero that likely would ensure his reelection in '64.  But he understood that way led to chaos for the country, (a coup by elements of the government!) that would probably leave the presidency he had lusted after for years in shambles. It was an easy decision to instead join the planners to help them get rid of Kennedy.

 

But in joining he would insist on certain prerogatives. Early on in the process, e.g., he would insist that there was to be no attack on Cuba.  That would surely have risked a war with the Soviets and his presidency would be likely to go up in smoke.  There would be those who refused to accept that and would continue planting the links of Oswald to Cuba.  But once he became president he quickly squelched them by making his preference officially known.

 

What kind of assurances would the others need from Johnson?

 

I suppose it could be argued that the others knew Johnson and his views well enough to proceed without getting clear assurances from him. That's implausible, to say the least.  The murder was too important and the others too vulnerable for that to be enough.  Moreover, we know enough about Johnson to conclude he would not sign on as some kind of junior partner.  He knew he was crucial to the plan's success and he wanted it to succeed.  He would be a major decision maker in the group in certain areas of the plan I discuss.

 

What we know about what Johnson did that weekend, from soon after the murder that afternoon in fact, verifies his role.

 

Top of the coverup agenda:  Oswald must be murdered before he could talk to a lawyer.  They knew he didn't do it; they could not prove he did in court.  Just one example:  after talking to him, a lawyer for Oswald would have immediately moved to prevent NBC from hiding the Darnell and Wegman films that could substantiate Oswald's alibi.

 

What happened instead was that without a lawyer there began that afternoon a series of interviews to discern Oswald's alibi so they could immediately begin to destroy elements of it. Besides burying the content of the interviews themselves as much as possible. (they ultimately failed when Hosty kept his notes from the first interview and turned them over to NARA after he wrote a book in the 90s to try to capitalize on the renewed interest in the JFKA)

 

Once Oswald was killed there would be no trial.  But there would have to be an investigation.  That weekend Johnson squelched an investigation by Waggoner Carr the Texas AG, and the talk in Congress of doing one as well.  He would control a federal investigation and he had already worked out exactly what he wanted: a commission to gather information to frame Oswald led by figureheads of the highest regard to sign the report. 

 

The Warren Commission was established by Johnson with the 7 figureheads in place one week after the murder.  Must be a modern record for such a thing in Washington.  Richard Russell had not yet agreed to do it, he was resisting, so Johnson simply announced the names he had chosen, his included,  and told him he was on the commission.  Naming his likely co-conspirator, Allen Dulles, to the Commission to guide it and particularly to shield the CIA from scrutiny, was the crowning touch.  In typical Johnson fashion, he later pathetically claimed appointing Dulles was Bobby's idea (I think that was after Bobby was murdered) to try to shield himself from scrutiny as the one who was pulling the strings;

 

Most laughable of the Johnson misdirections is the phone call you've heard where Joe Alsop tries to convince Johnson to appoint a commission of prominent people to investigate the murder. Johnson plays along and that is one piece of information from that hectic weekend that survives today.  Typical misdirection.  Johnson knew there would be an investigation.  He had already sifted through his long list of Washington denizens to decide who could be trusted to go along with the frame of Oswald

 

But first, the body had to be (illegally) snatched from Dr Rose at the hospital and taken back to DC where the autopsy could be controlled. A real autopsy exploring the actual wounds would have destroyed the Oswald story.

 

Roughly 2 hours passed between when Kennedy was shot and AF1 took off to fly back to DC. Kennedy was pronounced dead, and Johnson became president, a half hour after the shooting.  Johnson spent most of another half hour at the hospital before boarding AF1. 

 

Despite people  all around him on the plane imploring him the take off, (most of them didn't know what happened or how much danger they were in) Johnson spent another hour on the ground to wait for the body to be sent to the plane.  His transparent excuse: he had to wait because wanted to be sworn in first, only local judge Sarah Hughes could do the job, and she had to be located and brought to the plane.  He knew he already was president and the swearing in ceremony was window dressing for the public.

 

At some point, in the hour and a half after the became president, Johnson ordered the body sent to the plane.  When exactly?  Jack Valenti was sitting next to Johnson on the plane awaiting takeoff and later recounted that he heard Johnson ordering the body to be transported to him.

 

That's plausible.  Or Johnson could have given the order to his security people before heading to the plane and what Valenti heard was Johnson confirming it, or asking what was taking so long. Either could be true; it probably doesn't matter which.

 

Johnson also knew that the autopsy was jurisdictional to Dr. Rose.  That didn't matter.  He knew control of the body was crucial to the success of the coverup and it was his job to ensure a fake autopsy.  

 

That leaves, as the final piece, Johnson's assurance to the others that he would carry out at least some of the policies they wanted.  Kennedy had publicly challenged them by rejecting a "Pax Americano enforced by American weapons of war".  If Johnson agreed with Kennedy's foreign policies, a major reason for the murder would be lost.  

 

Johnson didn't agree, particularly with Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam. He later told McNamara that he had disagreed with Kennedy on Vietnam but kept his mouth shut.  There would be no war with the Soviets, Johnson decreed, but they could have their war in Vietnam. 

 

Indeed a draft of NSAM 273  on Vietnam reflecting Johnson's views and reversing essential parts of Kennedy's NSAM 263 had already been prepared before Kennedy was murdered. Johnson signed the new policy four days after the murder, one day after Kennedy was buried.  That clearly would be Washington record for a reversal of a major policy that had been painstakingly worked out by Kennedy over many months, were it not for the fact that subbing 273 was part of the premurder plan.

 

This is more evidence of Johnson's hand in the plan before the murder.  

[Robert Morrow]

Jeremy Kuzmarov’s scholarly 2023 article for Covert Action Magazine which indicts LBJ for the JFK assassination:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/11/22/60-years-after-jfks-death-it-is-more-and-more-apparent-that-kennedy-was-a-victim-of-a-palace-coup-spearheaded-by-vice-president-lyndon-b-johnson/

I would put D.H. Byrd, Ed Clark, close associates of LBJ, along with Gen. Edward Lansdale, whose career LBJ resuscitated, as front row participants in the JFK assassination.

In my rarely humble opinion (which changes) I have FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and fired CIA chief Allen Dulles as "murderers-after-the-fact" for their roles in covering up the JFK assassination.

I think people should focus more on the role of the Air Force than merely the CIA in the killing of JFK, although Oswald was obviously a CIA operative and a fake pro-Castro Marxist.

I do think Gen. Edward Lansdale roped in some CIA anti-Castro Cubans to help kill JFK ("Dark Complected Man" also known as "Radio Man" was for sure involved in the JFK assassination as a spotter for snipers on the Grassy Knoll.)

Edited April 24 by Robert Morrow

[Kevin Balch]

If the intention was to frame a single assassin, why would a triangulation scheme be used that requires hijacking and altering the body, modifying photographic and other evidence and apparently a clean up squad to eliminate troublesome witnesses when a single assassin with a proper rifle or working with another shooter in the DalTex building could easily do the job just as effectively, make it look like a single shooter and with far less risk?

If the assassins were anti-Castro Cubans and LBJ had no invasion of Cuba as a precondition for cooperating, why didn’t the Cubans get pissed and take out LBJ when they realized no invasion of Cuba was going to take place after taking such a big risk themselves?

Why did Oswald insist on getting a lawyer from across the country who, as far as I know, never tried a murder case?

[Robert Morrow]

51 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

If the intention was to frame a single assassin, why would a triangulation scheme be used that requires hijacking and altering the body, modifying photographic and other evidence and apparently a clean up squad to eliminate troublesome witnesses when a single assassin with a proper rifle or working with another shooter in the DalTex building could easily do the job just as effectively, make it look like a single shooter and with far less risk?

If the assassins were anti-Castro Cubans and LBJ had no invasion of Cuba as a precondition for cooperating, why didn’t the Cubans get pissed and take out LBJ when they realized no invasion of Cuba was going to take place after taking such a big risk themselves?

Why did Oswald insist on getting a lawyer from across the country who, as far as I know, never tried a murder case?

The number one goal of the murderers (LBJ) of JFK had was to kill John Kennedy as soon as possible because Johnson's destruction at the hands of the Kennedys was imminent and multiple shooters from front and behind JFK were used. Everything else was secondary. The killers of JFK (LBJ) knew that Lyndon Johnson would immediately become president and have the power to warp any investigation into the murder of JFK.

If some of the shooters of JFK were anti-Castro operatives they would not have had to be paid; they would more than gladly put a bullet into JFK's head for free, no questions asked, no demands made - that is how much some in the anti-Castro Cuban community "hated" JFK. I talked to anti-Castro Cubans in Miami - the inner circle - in 2013, 62 years after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and they STILL hated the guts of that "traitor" JFK.

Lee Harvey Oswald was playing his public and deceptive role of a "pro Castro Marxist" when he asked for New York's well known left wing lawyer Joe Abt to represent him. I think Oswald actually thought his handlers in intelligence would protect him and not orchestrate his death while he was in custody.

[Roger Odisio]

18 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

Jeremy Kuzmarov’s scholarly 2023 article for Covert Action Magazine which indicts LBJ for the JFK assassination:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/11/22/60-years-after-jfks-death-it-is-more-and-more-apparent-that-kennedy-was-a-victim-of-a-palace-coup-spearheaded-by-vice-president-lyndon-b-johnson/

I would put D.H. Byrd, Ed Clark, close associates of LBJ, along with Gen. Edward Lansdale, whose career LBJ resuscitated, as front row participants in the JFK assassination.

In my rarely humble opinion (which changes) I have FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and fired CIA chief Allen Dulles as "murderers-after-the-fact" for their roles in covering up the JFK assassination.

I think people should focus more on the role of the Air Force than merely the CIA in the killing of JFK, although Oswald was obviously a CIA operative and a fake pro-Castro Marxist.

I do think Gen. Edward Lansdale roped in some CIA anti-Castro Cubans to help kill JFK ("Dark Complected Man" also known as "Radio Man" was for sure involved in the JFK assassination as a spotter for snipers on the Grassy Knoll.)

One reason I wrote the post was to show you don't need to slog through all the dirt alleged about Johnson, as the cited article does, to reach an understanding of Johnson's role in the murder.  Once the basic plan was set to murder Kennedy in a crossfire at DP and blame Oswald, it was obvious that much remained to be done to make the story work.

 

It was equally obvious that Johnson's participation was essential for the reasons I cited.  Who else but Johnson could have ordered the security detail now working for him as president to snatch the body back to AF1.  In his book defending Johnson, Jack Valenti said taking the body back to DC was Johnson's first decision as the new president, "and a good one". 

 

It was Johnson who created the fake WC to frame Oswald and peopled it with figureheads who would go along with the farce.  Once Oswald was killed that weekend an investigation was necessary and Johnson made sure it reached the conclusion predetermined by the plan.

 

Johnson was not running or even involved in all facets of the plan.  The alteration to the Zapruder film that weekend was purely a CIA job, e.g.  

 

Less discussed is the crucial assurance the others must have gotten from Johnson, in whatever form it took, that he would go along with most of their policy plans. As he did, standing by while the Left opposition was decimated by more murders and acquiescing to more foreign adventures.  Murdering Kennedy was a critical first step in developing the policy known today as the rules based order in which the US makes the rules and enforces them with weapons of war..  

 

 

[Pete Mellor]

7 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

One reason I wrote the post was to show you don't need to slog through all the dirt alleged about Johnson, as the cited article does, to reach an understanding of Johnson's role in the murder.  Once the basic plan was set to murder Kennedy in a crossfire at DP and blame Oswald, it was obvious that much remained to be done to make the story work.

LBJ's aide Cliff Carter was the man who collected Connally's clothing from TR2 nurse Hinchcliffe.  He told her that he was Connally's agent.  We know what happened to those articles of vital evidence, or rather what didn't happen.  It's also interesting that Arlen Specter kept Carter away from any testimony to the W.C.

Edited April 25 by Pete Mellor
info

[W. Niederhut]

       If today's argument by Donald Trump's attorney at the SCOTUS is upheld by Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, et.al., LBJ may not be (posthumously) liable for any role he played in JFK's murder.  We could call it the MacBeth Immunity precedent... 🙄

Trump’s Lawyer Says a President Could Assassinate Rival (politicalwire.com)

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

       If today's argument by Donald Trump's attorney at the SCOTUS is upheld by Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, et.al., LBJ may not be (posthumously) liable for any role he played in JFK's murder.  We could call it the MacBeth Immunity precedent... 🙄

Trump’s Lawyer Says a President Could Assassinate Rival (politicalwire.com)

It's pretty shocking that the Supreme Court should be considering such in the first place.  It is revolting that a president that a president might be considered immune for assassinating anyone.

[Ron Bulman]

LBJ's prior knowledge is essential.  So he doesn't overreact.  So he knows what to do.

I think he was given an ultimatum.  His crimes exposed or cooperate.  

How long before?  I don't think he was trusted by the plotters.  A week, two, a month?

[Pete Mellor]

59 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

How long before?  I don't think he was trusted by the plotters.  A week, two, a month?

Yet LBJ & Connally were at Kennedy for months to tour Texas.  Connally was a major player in the tour organisation, selecting the Trade Mart against S.S. security concerns, leading to the Elm St., dogleg.  LBJ & Connally's feud with Yarborough caused press reports in Texas of Democratic party disunity, forcing JFK to tour with all three men.  Always been suspicious to me.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Pete Mellor said:

Yet LBJ & Connally were at Kennedy for months to tour Texas.  Connally was a major player in the tour organisation, selecting the Trade Mart against S.S. security concerns, leading to the Elm St., dogleg.  LBJ & Connally's feud with Yarborough caused press reports in Texas of Democratic party disunity, forcing JFK to tour with all three men.  Always been suspicious to me.

And Lyndon Johnson visited Dallas in April 1963 and was reported in a Dallas newspaper saying (as metaphor) to be loyal to the President (Kennedy), likening Kennedy (whom he privately hates) to the pilot of an aircraft flying over ocean waters upon whom the passengers depend, and therefore  "don't shoot him down until November".

Well, which November did he mean. November 1964 in the election. But he is speaking to Democrats (not the public) concerning criticism of the President, so is he recommending to critics inside the Democratic Party to stop their criticism, support the President, and if they don't like JFK undertake a primary challenge to deny JFK the nomination in 1964? Or does he mean all Americans regardless of party should support the president, then vote him out (by electing the other party) in 1964 if they disagree with him? The latter seems the right reading of that. But it is not quite clear. 

Or is it a double-entendre, "wait until November to shoot him down"?

Or was it a Freudian slip?

Or was it some kind of code or signal in a speech like JFK was alleged to give in a speech in Miami that Cubela would hear, in which someone in the netherworld of assassination plotting wanted to hear something from LBJ himself to assure that they were not being set up by false representations of top-level approval on something?

Has this last previously been raised or considered? I think it deserves to be. The whole pilot flying the aircraft across the Atlantic, and "don't shoot him down until November" seems so contrived, it is as if that image was invented for the purpose of being able to have a plausible pretext for a line in there "shoot him down in November". 

At best its an eery coincidence in light of what did happen in the same city, in November, in which LBJ was reported in the press personally speaking that phrase. But I'm not sure it was coincidence.

[Mark Ulrik]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

And Lyndon Johnson visited Dallas in April 1963 and was reported in a Dallas newspaper saying (as metaphor) to be loyal to the President (Kennedy), likening Kennedy (whom he privately hates) to the pilot of an aircraft flying over ocean waters upon whom the passengers depend, and therefore  "don't shoot him down until November".

I believe the correct quote is, "At least wait until next November before you shoot him down."

https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/lbj-announcing-kennedy-trip-to-texas.html

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/24/2024 at 12:00 PM, Roger Odisio said:

But in joining he would insist on certain prerogatives. Early on in the process, e.g., he would insist that there was to be no attack on Cuba.  That would surely have risked a war with the Soviets and his presidency would be likely to go up in smoke.  There would be those who refused to accept that and would continue planting the links of Oswald to Cuba.  But once he became president he quickly squelched them by making his preference officially known.

 

The CIA plotters went to a great deal of effort to create a false flag operation where the blame for the assassination would be placed on the Cubans and Soviets.

It's hard for me to believe they'd done that knowing in advance that LBJ would reject the opportunity to retaliate against either one.

To me it makes a lot more sense that it was a military-backed operation whose primary goal was to eliminate a treasonous Kennedy, and whose secondary goal was an add-on false flag operation that could give the military icing on the cake in the form of a Cuban invasion. Possibly even a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union during a period when it was thought that the Americans would win. That is what the JCS wanted.

Indeed, there is some evidence (a little) that the military sent fighter jets to Cuba the day of the assassination. Cooler heads prevailed when Undersecretary of State Averell Harriman shortly afterword declared that the top Sovietologists had all agreed that the Russians weren't involved in the assassination. Which was a false story. But it may have been the genesis of the decision to cover up evidence of a conspiracy and to blame only Oswald. Which seemed possible because there was evidence for both 1) a communist conspiracy with Oswald, and 2) a lone gunman Oswald. (This is Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 theory).

Obviously LBJ chose to go with the lone gunman scenario. Ironically, the CIA plotters had intentionally made that a viable choice so that, if chosen, the governments focus would be on blaming Oswald rather than looking for the real plotters. The CIA plotters made that choice viable by controlling the autopsy and Dealey Plaza films, and making it appear as though a lone gunman could have killed Kennedy. No conspiracy was required to explain the evidence.

But regardless of that decision by LBJ, the plotters' preferred outcome would have been a Cuban invasion or a war with Russia. Remember, it was a military coup. (Carried out by the CIA.)

 

[Robert Morrow]

5 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The CIA plotters went to a great deal of effort to create a false flag operation where the blame for the assassination would be placed on the Cubans and Soviets.

It's hard for me to believe they'd done that knowing in advance that LBJ would reject the opportunity to retaliate against either one.

To me it makes a lot more sense that it was a military-backed operation whose primary goal was to eliminate a treasonous Kennedy, and whose secondary goal was an add-on false flag operation that could give the military icing on the cake in the form of a Cuban invasion. Possibly even a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union during a period when it was thought that the Americans would win. That is what the JCS wanted.

Indeed, there is some evidence (a little) that the military sent fighter jets to Cuba the day of the assassination. Cooler heads prevailed when Undersecretary of State Averell Harriman shortly afterword declared that the top Sovietologists had all agreed that the Russians weren't involved in the assassination. Which was a false story. But it may have been the genesis of the decision to cover up evidence of a conspiracy and to blame only Oswald. Which seemed possible because there was evidence for both 1) a communist conspiracy with Oswald, and 2) a lone gunman Oswald. (This is Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 theory).

Obviously LBJ chose to go with the lone gunman scenario. Ironically, the CIA plotters had intentionally made that a viable choice so that, if chosen, the governments focus would be on blaming Oswald rather than looking for the real plotters. The CIA plotters made that choice viable by controlling the autopsy and Dealey Plaza films, and making it appear as though a lone gunman could have killed Kennedy. No conspiracy was required to explain the evidence.

But regardless of that decision by LBJ, the plotters' preferred outcome would have been a Cuban invasion or a war with Russia. Remember, it was a military coup. (Carried out by the CIA.)

 

Sandy, who were the "CIA plotters" of the JFK assassination? Do you have any names? For example was it Allen Dulles, James Angleton, Richard Helms, William King Harvey or David Morales? Would Gen. Edward Lansdale of the Air Force be considered a "CIA plotter" against JFK because of his long association with Allen Dulles?

You mention the JCS - do you have the names of any JCS plotters who were likely or definitely involved in the JFK assassination?

What do you think of Sean Fetter's thesis which is it is more likely that the right wing crazies of the Air Force were more likely involved in the JFK assassination than "CIA plotters?"

 

[Robert Morrow]

5 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Yet LBJ & Connally were at Kennedy for months to tour Texas.  Connally was a major player in the tour organisation, selecting the Trade Mart against S.S. security concerns, leading to the Elm St., dogleg.  LBJ & Connally's feud with Yarborough caused press reports in Texas of Democratic party disunity, forcing JFK to tour with all three men.  Always been suspicious to me.

I give John Connally a complete free pass in the planning of the JFK assassination. It was not his balls that were in the process of being roasted in real time by the Kennedys. Connally's star was on the rise, while Nixon and the newspapers were openly speculating that the Kennedys were getting rid of the hated LBJ - which, of course, they were with a vengeance in November, 1963.

John Connally (in 1982 to Doug Thompson): "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."

Web link:

https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=opedne_doug_tho_060330_is_deception_the_bes.htm

 March 29, 2006

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

By Doug Thompson for Capitol Hill Blue

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.

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.

Originally published at and © Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue