Succession

[Walt Cakebread]

You are suggesting that LBJ was planning the assassination of JFK in order to become president and he went to RFK (i.e. President's own brother) for legal advice on how to pull this off?  And when he was told something different, he did it anyway.  LOL.  My only recollection of LBJ asking RFK's advice on the topic came AFTER the assassination about taking the oath of office.

  You've demonstrated many times that your "recollection" of events is very poor.

You are suggesting that LBJ was planning the assassination of JFK in order to become president and he went to RFK (i.e. President's own brother) for legal advice on how to pull this off?


The wily conniving, and ruthless LBJ was merely attempting to get RFK to rule that The VP becomes the President in the event the President dies while in office..... (And yes LBJ was conniving to get into the drivers seat, months before the coup d etat)    Harry Truman became president when FDR died.   And in reality Truman should not have become the President.

[Richard Smith]

  You've demonstrated many times that your "recollection" of events is very poor.

You are suggesting that LBJ was planning the assassination of JFK in order to become president and he went to RFK (i.e. President's own brother) for legal advice on how to pull this off?


The wily conniving, and ruthless LBJ was merely attempting to get RFK to rule that The VP becomes the President in the event the President dies while in office..... (And yes LBJ was conniving to get into the drivers seat, months before the coup d etat)    Harry Truman became president when FDR died.   And in reality Truman should not have become the President.

Can you provide us with the source of your claim instead of just repeating it?  And why would LBJ need a "ruling" from RFK to become president?  You seem to be saying that he asked for such a ruling but then got a contrary opinion but then carried on anyway.  None of that makes sense.  Even before the assassination, there was consideration in the early 1960s for clarifying any ambiguity in the Constitution regarding succession of the VP to the presidency.  The JFK assassination prompted the 25th Amendment to make that clarification.  That is more likely the basis for RFK's opinion. 

[Walt Cakebread]

Can you provide us with the source of your claim instead of just repeating it?  And why would LBJ need a "ruling" from RFK to become president?  You seem to be saying that he asked for such a ruling but then got a contrary opinion but then carried on anyway.  None of that makes sense.  Even before the assassination, there was consideration in the early 1960s for clarifying any ambiguity in the Constitution regarding succession of the VP to the presidency.  The JFK assassination prompted the 25th Amendment to make that clarification.  That is more likely the basis for RFK's opinion.

Instead of asking dumb questions why don't you read "The Death of a President"

I believe chapter 4 has the information you don't want to accept.....

[John Iacoletti]

Can you provide us with the source of your claim instead of just repeating it?

Wow. Talk about pots and kettles.

[Charles Collins]

One of the many items I like about the book “The Death of a President” by William Manchester is how he expands on some of the conceptions that others tend to just touch on. An example is the matter of jurisdiction for the investigation of the assassination. Most texts just tell us that there wasn’t a federal statute to cover the murder of a president, so it was a local jurisdiction instead of a federal one. Here is another snip from the above referenced book:


Since 1902 every Secret Service chief had urged Congress to outlaw Presidential assassination, and all had failed. Threatening the life of a Chief Executive was illegal, but if the threat were carried out, if the bravo succeeded, the U.S. Code was silent. There was one exception. Should the assassin be part of a plot, the FBI could move in. This assassin had acted alone, however, and as soon as that became clear local authorities had exclusive jurisdiction. He was guilty only of a Texas felony. Technically, there was no difference between the shooting of the President and a knifing in a Dallas barroom.


I underlined the exception involving a plot. So, it seems to me that the FBI would have been looking for any possibilities of a plot from the very beginning. Shortly after LHO’s death, LBJ ordered the FBI to investigate. But before that, I believe the FBI had a strong incentive to look for a plot (aka: conspiracy).

[Richard Smith]

Instead of asking dumb questions why don't you read "The Death of a President"

I believe chapter 4 has the information you don't want to accept.....

It's a "dumb question" to ask you what the basis of your claim is?  I don't have the book.  Are you saying that it indicates that LBJ approached RFK and asked him for his opinion on succession prior to the assassination?

[Charles Collins]

It's a "dumb question" to ask you what the basis of your claim is?  I don't have the book.  Are you saying that it indicates that LBJ approached RFK and asked him for his opinion on succession prior to the assassination?

I am in the process of reading chapter four for the first time. So far, the only time that LBJ asked for information about the oath of office was on Air Force One, immediately after the assassination. There were a lot of people involved in this, not just LBJ and RFK.