LBJ's reason for not picking Robert Kennedy as his VP in 1964: ""I'm not going to let them put somebody in bed with me that'll murder me."

 

LBJ to John Connally (7/23/64) on why he would not have RFK as his Vice President on the 1964 Democratic ticket: "I'm not going to let them put somebody in bed with me that'll murder me."

[Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 (1997), p. 470] 

[Lawrence Leamer, Sons of Camelot: The Fate of an American Dynasty (2004), p. 18] 

Also in  [Laurent Guyenot, The Unspoken Kennedy Truth, pp. 7-8]

QUOTE

 I think I’ll have that conversation…. I’ll call you afterwards and we probably will have to make a deep pitch to governors … and … leaders… and see if they’ll stay with the President. Then I just think I have to say that if they don’t, I’m not going to let them put somebody in bed with me that’ll murder me. Then I just can’t be president. Then that’s exactly what he wants. Because then with his having enough support to be Vice President and I got out, he’d have it more than anybody else has. … But I don’t think my self-respect could suffer a defeat at the convention and then take the presidency. Do you?

 UNQUOTE

 [Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 (1997), p. 470]

 

LBJ is telling John Connally he will have a conversation with Robert Kennedy and tell him that he is not going to pick him as his Vice Presidential candidate in 1964. Then LBJ feels he will need to have a talk with Democratic governors and party leaders on why this is so: that is not going to be on the same ticket with a vice president (RFK) who if elected would murder him (LBJ). [Which is precisely what had just happened in November, 1963 when LBJ murdered JFK to become president. LBJ is projecting here.]