Rethinking LBJ

[Lance Payette]

LBJ is, of course, at the very pinnacle of likely conspiracy participants.

Cui bono? (“Who benefitted?”) is the standard criminal inquiry when looking for suspects.

Well, going from a vastly underused and ridiculed VP who was likely to be dropped from the 1964 ticket, was facing Congressional investigation and likely to be removed from office to POTUS in the blink of an eye has to be as “cui bono” as it gets.

HOWEVER, I recently finished all four of acclaimed historian Robert Caro’s massive and highly acclaimed books on LBJ, which are regarded as among the very best works of their kind. They are collectively thousands of pages – and the last one only takes us up to a few months after the JFKA as we await Caro’s final volume that he hopes to publish in his lifetime (he’s 90).

It was refreshing to read real history by a real historian instead of JFKA blather. Caro is aware of all the conspiratorial theorizing that swirls around LBJ but says he found nothing in his exhaustive research to suggest LBJ was actually involved. (For a counterpoint, and a glimpse of true conspiratorial insanity, search “Robert Morrow” at the Ed Forum and you’ll see what non-history by a foaming-at-the-mouth LBJ crank looks like.) Caro is no LBJ worshipper, so that charge can't be laid at his feet.

I lived through LBJ's Presidency but was astounded at who he really was. Yes, he was a roughhewn character who could be rude, crude, sneaky and manipulative, but he was a political genius of the first magnitude and had a preternatural talent for motivating those around him to work as unbelievably hard as he did. “Uncle Cornpone,” as he was derisively referred to by the Kennedy crowd, was actually far more politically sophisticated and savvy than all of them put together. Immediately after the JFKA, he pledged to push through JFK’s civil rights legislation that was then hopelessly bogged down. Civil rights leaders who met with him came away awed (and even crying), saying JFK and RFK were “children” in comparison to LBJ. Again and again, dating back to his days at a Podunk college in the Texas hill country, what he achieved and how he did it is difficult to believe. Simply a genius in more ways than one.

He had said repeatedly since early childhood, in circumstances where it seemed ridiculous at the time, that he would one day be President. He wasn’t kidding. He thought it was his destiny, and it was his obsession.

Just one example: He was also obsessed with becoming wealthy. Early in his Congressional career - he was in his 20s - a Texas multi-millionaire who enjoyed being a benefactor offered him a sweetheat deal on an oil operation that would have made him wealthy overnight. LBJ thought about it but decided he couldn't risk being associated with the oil industry. The benefactor was flabbergasted. No one in Texas would have cared about an association with the oil industry, even if LBJ decided to run for Governor or the Senate. He then realized that this impoverished twentysomething newbie Congressman wasn't thinking in those terms. He was thinking about the Presidency.

Everyone – and I mean everyone – urged him not to accept the Vice Presidency. He was “Master of the Senate” (the title of Caro’s third book), already fantastically more powerful than any VP could ever be. It made no sense to anyone but LBJ. He made no bones about why he was accepting the position. He expected to die early – all the Johnson men did – and this was likely his last shot at the Presidency.

He told people why he was accepting the position. On the night of JFK's inauguration, he told Clare Booth Luce. He had previously told other trusted friends and journalists. I may not have the quote exactly right, but it was very close to this: “I’m a gamblin’ man, darlin’, and this is the only chance I got. One in six Presidents dies in office. I’ve done the research.” And he actually had done the research.

As it turned out, of course, his gamble paid off. His Presidency turned into a Shakespearean tragedy as Vietnam escalated from something like 15,000 American advisers to more than 500,000 troops - but he had achieved the Presidency as he had always dreamed.

Suspicious? Sure. But on the other hand, who would have spoken this brazenly before JFK's inauguration and then actually have masterminded or even participated in the JFKA? Anyone involved, up to and including LBJ, would have been risking certain execution. LBJ was very aware of his place in history – he has a far larger place than I had realized – and there is no way in my opinion (or Caro’s, I surmise) that he would’ve risked throwing it (and the vast wealth he had achieved) all away. Just an aside, but there was far more to Ladybird than I had ever realized - and I don't believe LBJ would have done that to her, either.

He was a dutiful VP, remaining loyal through all the Uncle Cornpone stuff and the demeaning sideline role to which he was relegated. He utterly despised RFK (the feeling was mutual) but not so much JFK.

I have no doubt he regarded the JFKA as an unbelievable stroke of luck and wasn’t shedding any tears. However, the more I learn the less likely I think it is that he had any role in the JFKA or any preknowledge of it. Robet Morrow, as you will see if you care to do so, vehemently disagrees.

Here's wacky Robert, for whom a tinfoil hat simply isn't sufficient:



See https://www.wsj.com/articles/front-runner-for-texas-school-board-wants-to-teach-pole-dancing-conspiracy-theories-11583526093 ("AUSTIN, Texas—He wears a jester hat, frequently tweets photos of women’s breasts and advocates for teaching in schools that Lyndon Johnson assassinated John F. Kennedy.").

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

Verily I read the Caro books too...I am even a grad of the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin. Some of the Johnson Administration people made presentations while I was there, including Dean Rusk.

I doubt LBJ was involved the JFKA. I am less sure of what happened to a guy named Marshall.

The 1961 death of U.S. Department of Agriculture official Henry Marshall was initially ruled a suicide but later, in 1985, changed to homicide, following investigations linking it to Texas swindler Billie Sol Estes and claims that then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) ordered the killing to cover up fraud.

It sure looks like Marshall was murdered, and in the Texas of 1961, somehow that obvious fact was smoothed over.

Who knows?

I mean, aside from Robert Morrow.