Edward Bennett Williams

[Douglas Caddy]

As I still resided in the Washington, D.C. area at the time, I followed Connally's 1975 trial closely and early on came to the conclusion that he would not be convicted, although he was obviously guilty, because of the character witnesses who spoke up for him that had been called to testify by Edward Bennett Williams.

As a result of the demographic makeup of Washington, D.C., any criminal defendant who could have Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the Rev. Billy Graham testify in his behalf was assured of being found not guilty.

According to Wikipedia, at his trial, he called as character witnesses Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Jordan (the first African American woman state senator in Texas history), Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, and Billy Graham. Connally was acquitted."

Someone who knew LBJ intimately once told me that the only person LBJ was truly afraid of was Connally, who would stop at nothing at achieve his ends. On a later occasion, another person, Shearn Moody, informed me that one of his friends, a Galveston (Texas) County official, had just received a telephone call from her close friend, Nellie Connally, who was terribly upset because John is in a killing mood.

Ray Hill of Houston was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 160 years in prison. He has told the story on his award-winning Pacifica radio program, The Prison Show, that shortly after his conviction he and his father journeyed to Connallys ranch in Southwest Texas where they purchased a calf for $150. When Hill reported to prison a short time later to begin serving his time, the warden came out to greet him personally. Ultimately he served only 4 ½ years.

In 1972, I had my deposition taken by Edward Bennett Williams at his law firm in connection with his representation of the Democratic National Committee in its civil law suit brought in the wake of the break-in at the DNC at Watergate. Because the Washington Post had built me up as a "mysterious" person in the case, I arrived an hour early at the law firm to avoid the press, which I knew would gather outside the building, and sat unnoticed in the firm's reception area until the time for deposition. I then took an elevator up to the floor where Williams' office was located. As I stepped off the elevator, I saw his secretary conferring with Leslie Stahl of CBS News. His secretary, not knowing who I was, started screaming at the top of her voice, "Get off this floor! Leave! You have no right to be here!" I was so taken aback by this violent outburst that I automatically stepped back into the elevator but before the door closed heard my name called by the secretary. Leslie Stahl, who had covered my appearances before the federal grand jury in prior months, had informed her who I was. The flustered secretary then ushered me into Connally's conference room, crowded with lawyers, where my deposition taken. Of course, I was not named subsequently as a defendant in the Democrats' civil suit.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Douglas Caddy