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

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/26/2024 at 10:41 PM, Robert Morrow said:

As for John Connally insisting on the Trade Mart - nothing suspicious there because John Connally was not involved in the JFK assassination. The Trade Mart was the bright shining modern object of Dallas in 1963; it was a much showier, flashier place to show off to the world a presidential visit. The dumpy Women's Pavilion on the Texas State Fair Grounds was very outdated. Connally merely wanted to put on a good show.

He was most likely unwitting, as already pointed out or he would have refused to ride with JFK, or at least been ducking (ha!).  But, he was told to advocate strongly for the Trade Mart by someone, which he did.  Second in line beneath LBJ, who told LBJ it was essential, a month or more before?

[Robert Morrow]

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

He was most likely unwitting, as already pointed out or he would have refused to ride with JFK, or at least been ducking (ha!).  But, he was told to advocate strongly for the Trade Mart by someone, which he did.  Second in line beneath LBJ, who told LBJ it was essential, a month or more before?

I don't know. But LBJ, according to Connally, was advocating hard for JFK to come to Texas in fall, 1963.

But I do know this; the lure to get JFK to Texas was the Houston dinner for Cong. Albert Thomas, who happened to be a college roommate of GEORGE BROWN of Brown and Root (by 1962 Halliburton had bought out Brown & Root). George Brown and Hermann Brown were the crooked sugar daddies of Lyndon Johnson since he was elected congressman in 1937 in Texas' 10th Congressional District.

Cong. Albert Thomas met with JFK and pleaded for him to come to his dinner. Later that night Cong. Albert Thomas had an evening meeting with Lyndon Johnson. Those facts are in Sean Fetter's Under Cover of Night, which indicts LBJ for the JFK assassination. (No, I do not agree with *everything* that Fetter writes in his book).

Cong. Albert Thomas was the winking at Lyndon Johnson after LBJ got sworn in on Air Force One.

Remember, again, Houston, TX Cong. Thomas was extremely close to LBJ sugar daddy George Brown who under the guise of Kellogg Brown & Root made a TON of money off of the Vietnam War.

I once asked Barr McClellan if he thought that George Brown, even if he personally was not involved in the JFK assassination, would have figured out quickly that LBJ was and McClellan just start laughing: of course he would have said McClellan!

George Brown was CIA connected as Joan Mellen wrote about.

[Greg Doudna]

37 minutes ago, Robert Morrow said:

I don't know. But LBJ, according to Connally, was advocating hard for JFK to come to Texas in fall, 1963.

But I do know this; the lure to get JFK to Texas was the Houston dinner for Cong. Albert Thomas, who happened to be a college roommate of GEORGE BROWN of Brown and Root (by 1962 Halliburton had bought out Brown & Root). George Brown and Hermann Brown were the crooked sugar daddies of Lyndon Johnson since he was elected congressman in 1937 in Texas' 10th Congressional District.

Robert (or Vince Palamara) -- do you know if, in April 1963 when the press reported LBJ indicating a visit from JFK to Texas and Dallas may happen "late summer" ... was there, or could there have been, knowledge AT THAT TIME (April, that early), that the JFK visit would be occurring in November, as opposed to some other time in 1963 non-November?

(Because if it was not fixed or known to be in November already by April 1963, then LBJ's April 1963 "pilot over the Atlantic" image words, about critics who don't like the pilot should "shoot him down ... next November" would be less readable as a possible real-time double-entendre, but an accident. Reason for asking.)

[Robert Morrow]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Robert (or Vince Palamara) -- do you know if, in April 1963 when the press reported LBJ indicating a visit from JFK to Texas and Dallas may happen "late summer" ... was there, or could there have been, knowledge AT THAT TIME (April, that early), that the JFK visit would be occurring in November, as opposed to some other time in 1963 non-November?

(Because if it was not fixed or known to be in November already by April 1963, then LBJ's April 1963 "pilot over the Atlantic" image words, about critics who don't like the pilot should "shoot him down ... next November" would be less readable as a possible real-time double-entendre, but an accident. Reason for asking.)

I don't think LBJ specifically mentioned what day or month that Kennedy was coming to Texas. I think LBJ's attitude was just get Kennedy down here and we will know what to do with him.

I think LBJ's language was a Freudian slip by LBJ who was already plotting to murder JFK, but first he had to lure Kennedy to Texas where LBJ could control both the killing and the after assassination cover up. Here is my blog post on the topic - Robert Morrow Political Research Blog: Search results for shoot him down 

Lyndon Johnson told Robert Novak in summer 1962 that the Kennedys were losing the cold war against the Soviet Union, losing to conservatives in Congress and that Robert Kennedy was planning to dump him off the 1964 Democratic ticket.

Robert Novak later married Geraldine, a secretary to LBJ

           Notice how Johnson is telling Novak in the summer of 1962 how the Kennedy Administration was "losing" the cold war to the Russians. This is before the fall, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. I imagine Johnson was using these same arguments with the generals, the Texas oil men and the military intelligence in the lead up to the JFK assassination.

         Robert Novak:

 QUOTE

           "After a Texas-style cookout, LBJ reclined, nearly prone, by the swimming pool. It was just the two of us drinking Scotch, and he spoke with a candor he never bestowed on me before or after. He felt the Kennedy administration was in serious trouble, losing the cold war to the Soviet Union and losing the legislative war to conservatives in Congress. He said that he had done everything the Kennedys had wanted, including foreign missions that only guaranteed him bad publicity.

          He was repaid with insults and humiliation, especially from the attorney general. Johnson  was sure Bobby Kennedy was plotting to dump him in 1964. "But I'm going to fool them," he said. "I'm going to pack it in after the term ends and go home to Texas." That would have been a huge scoop, but I knew Johnson was just blowing off steam.

          As for going back to Texas, the political environment there was hardly more congenial for LBJ than it was in Washington. Johnson's protege, John B. Connally, had just won the Democratic nomination for governor of Texas, which still all but guaranteed election in Texas. As secretary of the Navy, Connally had been the highest Kennedy administration official bearing the LBJ brand.

           But campaigning for governor, Connally removed the brand. With JFK and LBJ both unpopular in Texas, Connally ran against the administration he had just left, and won. Talking about Big John in that summer evening in 1962 led Johnson into self-pity. "John has turned my picture to the wall," LBJ told me. "You know I would never turn his picture to the wall."

 QUOTE

 [Robert Novak, The Prince of Darkness, pp. 90-91]

 David Lifton analysis of what Lyndon Johnson was telling Robert Novak about his major bad blood with the Kennedys in summer, 1962.

 David Lifton email to Robert Morrow on 2/18/2020

 2/18/2020 - 8:20 AM CST

 Robert, 

 I think you missed an important “data-point.”

 Note the following quote:

 " He was repaid with insults and humiliation, especially from the attorney general. Johnson  was sure Bobby Kennedy was plotting to dump him in 1964. "But I'm going to fool them," he said. "I'm going to pack it in after the term ends and go home to Texas." That would have been a huge scoop, but I knew Johnson was just blowing off steam.

 Forget about what Novak thinks; and focus on what LBJ said.

 By stating this to Novak, LBJ was creating a public record of his having no future political ambition(s).  Rather, his intent is to “go home to Texas.”  IMHO: This statement is his (somewhat weak) attempt to create the appearance that he has no future political ambition; thus, removing him as having a “personal motive” in the upcoming assassination of JFK.   Think about it. . : The bank robber is outside the bank; a key person says, “I don’t know what you guys think you’re up to, but I’ve got to go to the bathroom.  Is there a bathroom nearby?  Oh well, I’m going down the street to that Texaco station. I think they have a toilet.”  etc etc. So. . . He’s no longer at the scene of the crime; he’s not “in charge.” He was just there, but that’s of no consequence, because he left when he suddenly needed to go to the nearest bathroom, down the street.” 

 IMHO: That’s what LBJ was doing with Novak. Creating a “political alibi.”  I disagree with Novak. Johnson was not “blowing off steam.”  He knew about—and was probably up to his neck—the upcoming plan to “get rid of JFK” . (And remember: it was LBJ who—as Manchester reported, based on extensive interviews with Jackie and with Kenneth O’Donnell’—pleaded with JFK to make the Texas trip ; and who (according to Jackie)“lured” him to go to Texas. 

 And that’s the word that she used: “lured” — and that’s after all the editing of what Manchester originally wrote. The word “lured” remained. G-D only knows what the original draft stated, before the editing by Sorensen (remember that?).

 So, the central notion that LBJ (according to the evidence  was deeply involved in getting Kennedy to “make the trip”; but, simultaneously was planning  to “go home to Texas”—is absurd. That’s just plain nonsense.  As I’ve heard they would say, down there in Texas: “That dog won’t hunt!”.

 DSL

 P.S. Also. . 

Lyndon Johnson told Robert Novak in summer,1962 that the Kennedys were losing the cold war against the Soviet Union, 

For Johnson to be saying this is significant because (a) That would echo the sort of thing coming from a Curtis Lemay, (and others of that ilk); and second: since when does a Vice President take up a political position that is so completely different than his boss, the President, who is pursuing reasonable compromise, so that the world is peaceful, and things don’t escalate into a nuclear exchange?  IMHO.  DSL

 Political Journalist and author Alfred Steinberg: LBJ was so concerned about being dropped from the 1964 Democratic ticket that he developed severe stomach pains in the fall of 1963

  QUOTE

 By the fall of 1963 talk was common in Washington that Johnson would be dropped from the 1964 ticket because he had turned into a negative factor. A Midwestern senator, who traveled to Connecticut with the Vice President for a fund-raising affair for the Vice President’s pal Senator Tom Dodd, reported to his Senate colleagues afterward that Johnson had lugubriously remarked during their New England visit, “I’m going to be out of it for a second term. Jack has another man in mind for Vice President.” So concerned was Johnson over what he believed would be his political doom that he developed severe stomach pains. But in this instance, the doctor’s diagnosis found it a coincidence of timing, that he was suffering from an oversupply of calcium and should eliminated milk from his diet.

 UNQUOTE

 [Alfred Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy: A Close-Up of the President from Texas, p. 589]

 Lyndon Johnson told Liz and Leslie Carpenter in the fall of 1963 that he was get off the 1964 Democratic ticket before the Kennedys could kick him off of it. Liz Carpenter was a longtime LBJ partisan who became Lady Bird’s press secretary in the White House

 

(LBJ’s “right hand man” Bobby Baker had resigned as Secretary of the Senate on 10/7/63)

 QUOTE

 But denying any intent to dump Johnson was good politics. There is no doubt that if scandal sank the vice president, not a tear would have been shed in the White House. More important, Johnson believed the Kennedys wanted him off the ticket. Shortly after the Baker scandal broke, Johnson had dinner with friends, including Liz and Leslie Carpenter. Johnson's car took the couple home and Johnson rode with them. "Park in the driveway and let's talk a few minutes," Johnson said. "I think I'm going to announce that I'm not going to run again for vice president so that I can get off that ticket before they try to knock me off. What I would like to do is go back to Texas and be president of Southwest Texas State Teachers College."

 UNQUOTE

 [Randall Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, p. 414, Leslie Carpenter oral history]

 

Edited April 28 by Robert Morrow

[Kirk Gallaway]

So Robert, Not to be disparaging but I  notice  your LBJ/ Clark "Texcentric" narrative complete with Barr Mc Clellan and Madeleine Brown is straight down the line with Nigel Turner's  retracted "Men who killed Kennedy" was it episode 9? Was that your first inspiration?

I noticed it was around the same time as the retraction wasn't Barr Mac Clellan's son Scott GW's Press Secretary?

No conspiracy, just an interesting fact.

[Robert Morrow]

6 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

So Robert, Not to be disparaging but I  notice  your LBJ/ Clark "Texcentric" narrative complete with Barr Mc Clellan and Madeleine Brown is straight down the line with Nigel Turner's  retracted "Men who killed Kennedy" was it episode 9? Was that your first inspiration?

I noticed it was around the same time as the retraction wasn't Barr Mac Clellan's son Scott GW's Press Secretary?

No conspiracy, just an interesting fact.

In spring of 2008, either in March or April, I came across a thread here at Education Forum that indicted Lyndon Johnson in the JFK assassination. Dawn Meredith, a lawyer from Austin, TX, was one of the posters. I called her up for a chat and asked for the names of the top 10 JFK assassination researchers in the country. I then called them up and each one recommended about 10 books for me to read.

And I have been on that path ever since.

Early on I did watch the Men Who Killed Kennedy and I found the "LBJ Did It" angle extremely persuasive. The Discovery Channel "retracted" 3 episodes under heavy pressure from LBJ hacks Bill Moyers, especially Jack Valenti (who used to let his wife Mary Margaret Wiley sleep with LBJ), Lady Bird Johnson, Gerald "JFK cover up" Ford and even Jimmy Carter wrote a letter.

Madeleine Brown's 11/22/63 Murchison Party was easily discredited because LBJ was down in Houston at the Albert Thomas dinner (a key lure to get JFK to Texas), but there are so many other things Madeleine Brown said about LBJ that was correct, including that he met with her at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, TX on 12/31/63 - that has been confirmed.

Barr McClellan to this day is a personal friend of mine. He is now in his 80s and helping to take care of his wife who has medical problems. Barr McClellan knew LBJ lawyers Ed Clark and Don Thomas extremely well and both men were adamant about Ed Clark's participation in the JFK assassination.

Barr McClellan in the 1960s was the golden boy, the bright young legal star of the Texas oil and gas industry. Every law firm coveted Barr McClellan whose father in law Page Keeton was the dean of the law school at the University of Texas in Austin.

George W. Bush's press secretary for a time was Barr's son Scott McClellan. Barr has other bright, very successful children and he once got his former wife Carol McClellan elected as the first female mayor of Austin, TX.

When I first called Barr McClellan in 2008, I feel sure my phone (or Barr's) was being tapped. We were both on landlines and weirdly the connection dropped! (Which almost never happens with landlines.)

As time has gone on I keep finding more and more things that indict LBJ in the JFK assassination - the latest being the revelation that Sen. John Sherman Cooper, a close friend of JFK, believed in real time, while he was on the Warren Commission, that LBJ had just murdered JFK. The very credible source for that is former RFK and Sen. Cooper aide Morris Wolff who wrote his memoirs a mere few years ago.

 

 

[Keyvan Shahrdar]

On 4/24/2024 at 1:00 PM, Roger Odisio said:

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.

I my head, what logic dictates is the following:

1. President John F. Kennedy confronted Governor George Wallace in 1963 over the issue of racial segregation in Alabama's schools. This confrontation came to a head on June 11, 1963, during the infamous "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" incident. Governor Wallace stood at the entrance of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the university. Wallace was making a statement against desegregation and in support of his pro-segregation stance. President Kennedy asserted his federal authority decisively and embarrassed Wallace.
2. General Curtis LeMay ran as the vice presidential candidate with George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. It is easy to make a claim that General Lemay was a racist.  He was in a segregationist ticket with George Wallace after all!
3. General Lemay was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
4. The Air Force tapes from that day have not been fully released, only redacted versions have.
5. After the assassination, did the General make it clear to LBJ that he needed to be sworn in before the plane took off from Dallas, probably by telling LBJ that they believed the Russians killed JFK?  I bet this is why the recordings have not been released.
6. My assertion is the secret service was in on the conspiracy.  JFK's original driver, Thomas Shipman "died" of a heart attach weeks prior to the assassination and the driver, William Greer, slowed the limousine down in the kill zone.  They probably forced the body be removed from Dallas.  There are no records that state Jaqueline wanted the body moved.
7. The Nix film has reference marks in places where shots were fired.  This makes me believe the FBI was probably investigating this to try to find out what happened.  My assertion is that J Edgar Hoover found out and told LBJ that there were multiple shooters and the assassination was a coup d'état by the generals.  LBJ had no choice but to go accept it and go along with it.  
8. I personally don't think LBJ knew anything about the assassination before hand.  
9. This assassination was a military operation by the JCS.

[Roger Odisio]

1 hour ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

I my head, what logic dictates is the following:

1. President John F. Kennedy confronted Governor George Wallace in 1963 over the issue of racial segregation in Alabama's schools. This confrontation came to a head on June 11, 1963, during the infamous "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" incident. Governor Wallace stood at the entrance of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the university. Wallace was making a statement against desegregation and in support of his pro-segregation stance. President Kennedy asserted his federal authority decisively and embarrassed Wallace.
2. General Curtis LeMay ran as the vice presidential candidate with George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. It is easy to make a claim that General Lemay was a racist.  He was in a segregationist ticket with George Wallace after all!
3. General Lemay was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
4. The Air Force tapes from that day have not been fully released, only redacted versions have.
5. After the assassination, did the General make it clear to LBJ that he needed to be sworn in before the plane took off from Dallas, probably by telling LBJ that they believed the Russians killed JFK?  I bet this is why the recordings have not been released.
6. My assertion is the secret service was in on the conspiracy.  JFK's original driver, Thomas Shipman "died" of a heart attach weeks prior to the assassination and the driver, William Greer, slowed the limousine down in the kill zone.  They probably forced the body be removed from Dallas.  There are no records that state Jaqueline wanted the body moved.
7. The Nix film has reference marks in places where shots were fired.  This makes me believe the FBI was probably investigating this to try to find out what happened.  My assertion is that J Edgar Hoover found out and told LBJ that there were multiple shooters and the assassination was a coup d'état by the generals.  LBJ had no choice but to go accept it and go along with it.  
8. I personally don't think LBJ knew anything about the assassination before hand.  
9. This assassination was a military operation by the JCS.

Thanks for the response. I have a few comments/questions.

Gen LeMay told LBJ he needed to be sworn in on the the plane before it took off from Dallas?  No, the swearing in was Johnson's idea as one way to delay departure while waiting for Kennedy's body, and Jackie, to arrive at the plane.  He knew he was already president under the Constitution; the swearing in was window dressing and could be done anytime later.  But he insisted on the ceremony and that it had to be done by local judge Sarah Hughes who had to be located and retrieved.  The length of the delay while most around him were urging him the get going is an indication that he knew he was in no danger of being attacked by JFK's killers.

The secret service, which now worked for Johnson, had no authority on their own to snatch the body from Dr Rose. But saying they had an order from the president probably was enough to stop Rose's resistance. Jack Valenti, who was sitting next to Johnson on the plane, has documented that Johnson gave such an order.

Are you clear about what the JCS, acting by themselves, wanted from the murder?  Did they get it? How could they be sure Johnson would go along with, protect them, and give them what they wanted, when he became president?