Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Lyndon Johnson used SEXUAL BLACKMAIL ON JFK to force his way onto the 1960 Democratic ticket

 

Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary, reports that Johnson, with J. Edgar Hoover’s dark help, got on the 1960 Democratic ticket by using BLACKMAIL on the Kennedys

 

https://tinyurl.com/yvx6z3fj

Web link:

https://books.google.com/books?id=VyuCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT85&lpg=PT85&dq=%E2%80%9CDuring+the+1960+campaign,+according+to+Mrs.+Lincoln,+Kennedy+discovered+how+vulnerable+his+womanizing+had+made+him.+Sexual+blackmail,+she+said,+had+long+been+part+of+Lyndon+Johnson%27s+modus+operandi%E2%80%94abetted+by+Edgar.+%22J.+Edgar+Hoover,%22+Lincoln+said,+%22gave+Johnson+the+information+about+various+congressmen+and+senators+so+that+Johnson+could+go+to+X+senator+and+say,+%60How+about+this+little+deal+you+have+with+this+woman?%27+and+so+forth.+That%27s+how+he+kept+them+in+line.+He+used+his+IOUs+with+them+as+what+he+hoped+was+his+road+to+the+presidency.+He+had+this+trivia+to+use,+because+he+had+Hoover+in+his+corner.+And+he+thought+that+the+members+of+Congress+would+go+out+there+and+put+him+over+at+the+Convention.+But+then+Kennedy+beat+him+at+the+Convention.+And+well,+after+that+Hoover+and+Johnson+and+their+group+were+able+to+push+Johnson+on+Kennedy.%22LBJ,%22+said+Lincoln,+%22had+been+using+all+the+information+Hoover+could+find+on+Kennedy%E2%80%94during+the+campaign,+even+before+the+Convention.+And+Hoover+was+in+on+the+pressure+on+Kennedy+at+the+Convention.%22+(Anthony+Summers,+Official+and+Confidential,+p.+272).&source=bl&ots=2H_yNIgiPi&sig=ACfU3U0ZGxmJI9U3dgWn5EKejbYsFuK4kA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-2N6Dpcv-AhXrRDABHfxtBZQQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CDuring%20the%201960%20campaign%2C%20according%20to%20Mrs.%20Lincoln%2C%20Kennedy%20discovered%20how%20vulnerable%20his%20womanizing%20had%20made%20him.%20Sexual%20blackmail%2C%20she%20said%2C%20had%20long%20been%20part%20of%20Lyndon%20Johnson's%20modus%20operandi%E2%80%94abetted%20by%20Edgar.%20%22J.%20Edgar%20Hoover%2C%22%20Lincoln%20said%2C%20%22gave%20Johnson%20the%20information%20about%20various%20congressmen%20and%20senators%20so%20that%20Johnson%20could%20go%20to%20X%20senator%20and%20say%2C%20%60How%20about%20this%20little%20deal%20you%20have%20with%20this%20woman%3F'%20and%20so%20forth.%20That's%20how%20he%20kept%20them%20in%20line.%20He%20used%20his%20IOUs%20with%20them%20as%20what%20he%20hoped%20was%20his%20road%20to%20the%20presidency.%20He%20had%20this%20trivia%20to%20use%2C%20because%20he%20had%20Hoover%20in%20his%20corner.%20And%20he%20thought%20that%20the%20members%20of%20Congress%20would%20go%20out%20there%20and%20put%20him%20over%20at%20the%20Convention.%20But%20then%20Kennedy%20beat%20him%20at%20the%20Convention.%20And%20well%2C%20after%20that%20Hoover%20and%20Johnson%20and%20their%20group%20were%20able%20to%20push%20Johnson%20on%20Kennedy.%22LBJ%2C%22%20said%20Lincoln%2C%20%22had%20been%20using%20all%20the%20information%20Hoover%20could%20find%20on%20Kennedy%E2%80%94during%20the%20campaign%2C%20even%20before%20the%20Convention.%20And%20Hoover%20was%20in%20on%20the%20pressure%20on%20Kennedy%20at%20the%20Convention.%22%20(Anthony%20Summers%2C%20Official%20and%20Confidential%2C%20p.%20272).&f=false

“During the 1960 campaign, according to Mrs. Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of Lyndon Johnson's modus operandi—abetted by Edgar. "J. Edgar Hoover," Lincoln said, "gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and senators so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, `How about this little deal you have with this woman?' and so forth. That's how he kept them in line. He used his IOUs with them as what he hoped was his road to the presidency. He had this trivia to use, because he had Hoover in his corner. And he thought that the members of Congress would go out there and put him over at the Convention. But then Kennedy beat him at the Convention. And well, after that Hoover and Johnson and their group were able to push Johnson on Kennedy."LBJ," said Lincoln, "had been using all the information Hoover could find on Kennedy—during the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on Kennedy at the Convention." (Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 272).

According to Lincoln, Kennedy had definite plans to drop Johnson for the Vice Presidency in 1964, and replace him with Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. In 1964, new President Lyndon Johnson gave FBI director J. Edgar Hoover a lifetime waiver from the mandatory retirement age of 70 that Hoover would hit on 1/1/65! In other words, Hoover could live to age 120 and still be head of the FBI.  In my opinion, both LBJ and Hoover were conspirators, along with the CIA, in the JFK assassination. LBJ’s and Hoover’s jobs were to cover up the murder.

Evelyn Lincoln: In the famous photo of JFK and RFK huddling together, sitting on a bed, at the 1960 Democratic convention, they were trying to figure out how to keep Lyndon Johnson off the 1960 Demo ticket, but they could not because in the words of Lincoln, “Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover had them boxed into a hole or a corner. They were absolutely boxed in” in regards to Hoover’s sexual blackmail of JFK. This shame is why the Kennedys never told anyone how LBJ got onto the ticket.

https://isgp-studies.com/american-security-council-membership-list

Evelyn Lincoln, President John F. Kennedy's personal secretary, claims in the FRONTLINE documentary that Hoovers's files on Kennedy's personal life were used to pressure Kennedy to choose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in the 1960 Democratic convention. Mrs. Lincoln was the only other witness to some of the private conversations between John and Robert Kennedy on the day Johnson was chosen. ''When I came in (the hotel room), they were huddled together closely on the bed discussing this tremendous issue about Lyndon B. Johnson being on the ticket,'' says Mrs. Lincoln. ''Bobby would get up and go look out the window and stare. Kennedy would sit there and think. In fact, they hardly knew I came into the room they were so engrossed in their conversation ... trying to figure out how they could maneuver to get it so he wouldn't be on the ticket.'' Mrs. Lincoln told FRONTLINE that what she heard that day convinced her that the Kennedys were being blackmailed. ''One of the factors that made John F. Kennedy choose Lyndon B. Johnson for vice president were the malicious rumors that were fed to Lyndon B. Johnson by Edgar Hoover about his womanising,'' said Mrs. Lincoln. ''Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover had them boxed into a hole or a corner. They were absolutely boxed in.'' 

"Hoover and Johnson both had something the other wanted,'' said Robert Baker, the Texan's longtime confidant. ""Johnson needed to know Hoover was not after his ass. And Hoover certainly wanted Lyndon Johnson to be president rather than Jack Kennedy. ""Hoover was a leaker, and he was always telling Johnson about Kennedy's sexual proclivities. Johnson told me Hoover played a tape for him, made by this woman who had rented an apartment to one of John Kennedy's girlfriends. And she turned the tape over to the FBI. '' One senior official, William Sullivan, said flatly that Edgar tried ""to sabotage Jack Kennedy's campaign. '' Surviving records suggest agents in charge had standing orders to report everything they picked up on him. ... Historians have tried repeatedly to analyze the tense negotiations between the Kennedy and Johnson camps that led to Johnson accepting the vice presidential slot. Kennedy himself told his aide Pierre Salinger cryptically that ""the whole story will never be known. And it's just as well it won't be. '' ""The only people who were involved in the discussions were Jack and myself,'' said Robert Kennedy. ""We both promised each other that we'd never tell what happened. '' According to new testimony, what happened was blackmail. For John Kennedy, a key factor in giving Johnson the vice-presidential slot was the threat of ruinous sex revelations that would have destroyed the ""American family man'' image so carefully seeded in the national mind and snatched the presidency from his grasp. The blackmailers, by this account, were Johnson himself -- and Hoover. The new information comes from Evelyn Lincoln, John Kennedy's personal secretary for 12 years, before and throughout his presidency, and herself a part of the Kennedy legend. Sexual blackmail During the 1960 campaign, according to Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of Johnson's ""modus operandi'' -- abetted by Edgar. ""J. Edgar Hoover,'' Lincoln said, ""gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and senators so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, "How about this little deal you have with this woman? ' and so forth. That's how he kept them in line. He used his IOUs with them on what he hoped was his road to the presidency."

More on how Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn blackmailed and threatened John Kennedy to get Lyndon Johnson on the Democratic ticket in 1960

The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. Through Seymour Hersh, you get the voices of the CIA people and perhaps Secret Service people who hated John Kennedy. JFK was not murdered because he was a reckless and prolific womanizer. But it gave JFK's killers one more justification to kill someone they did not respect ... and actually hated for reasons both personal and ideological.

Seymour Hersh really does a fantastic job detailing how the psychopathic serial killer LYNDON JOHNSON BLACKMAILED HIS WAY ONTO THE 1960 DEMOCRATIC TICKET ... with last minute threats and blackmails issued by him and Sam Rayburn late in the night of July 13th, 1960 at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. By the morning of July 14th, Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn (using Hoover's blackmail info on Kennedy) had TWISTED THE ARM of John Kennedy enough to force him to break his deal with Symington and INSTEAD put the homicidal maniac and Kennedy-hater Lyndon Johnson on the 1960 Demo ticket.

That my friends, was a FATAL decision. Because Johnson works like this: blackmail you today, kill you tomorrow. Like Jack Ruby famously said, if John Kennedy had picked Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy would still be alive... or at least would not have been shot like a dog in the streets of Dallas.

In reality John Kennedy was all set to pick Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri who was very popular in California, which had a whopping 35 electoral votes at that time. With Johnson on the ticket, Kennedy lost California by a razer close 1/2 of a percent. It is very possible that a Kennedy/Symington ticket would have WON California.

JFK’s good friend Hy Raskin tells how Lyndon Johnson forced his way onto the Democratic ticket as VP in 1960: read the Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh, p.124-129:

Close JFK friend Hy Raskin: “Johnson was not being given the slightest bit of consideration by any of the Kennedys… On the stuff I saw it was always Symington who was going to be the vice president. The Kennedy family had approved Symington.” [Hersh, p. 124]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford on July 13, 1960: “We’ve talked it out – me, dad, Bobby – and we’ve selected Symington as the vice president.” Kennedy asked Clark Clifford to relay that message to Symington “and find out if he’d run.” …”I and Stuart went to bed believing that we had a solid, unequivocal deal with Jack.” [Hersh, p.125]

Hy Raskin: “It was obvious to them that something extraordinary had taken place, as it was to me,” Raskin wrote. “During my entire association with the Kennedys, I could not recall any situation where a decision of major significance had been reversed in such a short period of time…. Bob [Kennedy] had always been involved in every major decision; why not this one, I pondered… I slept little that night.” [Hersh, p. 125]

John Kennedy to Clark Clifford in the morning of July 14, 1960: “I must do something that I have never done before. I made a serious deal and now I have to go back on it. I have no alternative.” Symington was out and Johnson was in. Clifford recalled observing that Kennedy looked as if he’d been up all night.” [Hersh, p. 126]

John Kennedy to Hy Raskin: “You know we had never considered Lyndon, but I was left with no choice. He and Sam Rayburn made it damn clear to me that Lyndon had to be the candidate. Those bastards were trying to frame me. They threatened me with problems and I don’t need more problems. I’m going to have enough problems with Nixon.” [Hersh, p. 126]


Raskin “The substance of this revelation was so astonishing that if it had been revealed to me by another other than Jack or Bob, I would have had trouble accepting it. Why he decided to tell me was still very mysterious, but flattering nonetheless.” [Hersh, p. 126]

Hy Raskin Oral History – JFK Library – 5/08/1964 – interviewed by Sander Vanocur

https://www.jfklibrary.org/sites/default/files/archives/JFKOH/Raskin%2C%20Hyman%20B/JFKOH-HBR-01/JFKOH-HBR-01-TR.pdf          

Who was Hy Raskin?

https://dailyjfk.com/hyman-raskin/

Hyman Raskin was the little known JFK aide who was given the task of managing the Kennedy political machine in the years preceding the run for the Presidency. He was also reportedly given the reins of the day-to-day political operation at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angelos.

Hyman Raskin was a Chicago lawyer who entered the political scene when he helped manage the 1952 and 1956 Presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson. He was recruited into the Kennedy effort by Joe Kennedy in 1957. He slipped back into relative obscurity and his old life at his law practice after the 1960 election. He died in 1995 in Rancho Mirage, California at the age of 86.

After leaving the Kennedy campaign, Raskin wrote a memoir of his time in the campaign entitled A Laborer in the Vineyards, which was used as a source by Semour Hersh in his book The Dark Side of Camelot

At the convention, Raskin ran the communications center which, in an technical political innovation for which the Kennedys’ were known, was located in a leased trailer outside of the convention building. This enabled the political team to keep in constant contact with the state delegations.

In his book, as quoted by Hersh, Raskin reported that the Kenendy machine had done its work well and was confident of the nomination,

“We were confident that the numbers which the state reports produced would closely approximate those we had before the initial [convention] meeting was held…. It appeared impossible for Kennedy to lose the nomination. The votes merely needed to be officially tabulated; therefore, in my opinion, if he failed, it would be the result of some uncontrollable event.

[250,p.90-91]

 

 

 

JFK to Pierre Salinger on how LBJ got to be picked as Vice President: “The whole story will never be known. And it’s just as well that it won’t be.”

Stuart Symington (spartacus-educational.com)

QUOTE

Following the nomination and selection of Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate Thursday night, I returned to the office and was immediately called by a number of newspaper men who were checking on a story by John S. Knight, publisher of the Knight Newspapers, which purported that Johnson had forced Kennedy to select him as the vice-presidential candidate.

Earlier that day I had gone to Bob Kennedy's room which was across from mine in the Biltmore Hotel. Ken O'Donnell was there and after I came in they were discussing the possibilities for Vice President. Bob Kennedy asked me to compute the number of electoral votes in New England and in the "solid South." I asked him if he was seriously thinking of Johnson and he said he was. He said Senator Kennedy was going over to see Johnson at 10 a.m. Ken O'Donnell violently protested about Johnson's being on the ticket and I joined Ken in this argument. Both of us felt that Senator Stuart Symington would make a better candidate but Senator Johnson seemed to be on Bob's mind. I remembered all of this later that night when I saw the news report about Johnson forcing himself on the ticket.

I called Bob Kennedy that night to check the Knight story. Bob said it was absolutely untrue. From my conversation with him, however, I gathered that the selection of Johnson had not been accomplished in the manner that the papers had reported it had. I got the distinct feeling that, at best, Senator Kennedy had been surprised when he asked Senator Johnson to run for Vice-President and Johnson accepted...

A day or two after the convention, I asked JFK for the answer to that question. He gave me many of the facts of the foregoing memo, then suddenly stopped and said: "The whole story will never be known. And it's just as well that it won't be."

UNQUOTE

[Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy, p. ]

CIA journalist Joe Alsop and CIA friendly Phil Graham of the Washington Post were pushing JFK hard to pick Lyndon Johnson as Vice President on the Democratic ticket

Stuart Symington (spartacus-educational.com)

QUOTE

Phil and I flew to California early, five days before the Democratic Convention was to open on July 11. I was already committed to Kennedy. Phil remained loyal to Johnson until he lost the bid for the nomination, but he was entirely realistic, and he, too, admired JFK...

Phil called on Bobby Kennedy and got from him confidential figures on his brother's strength, numbers that showed JFK very close to the number of votes needed to win the nomination close enough so that the Pennsylvania delegation, or a big chunk of it, could put him over. On Monday, Pennsylvania caucused and announced that the state delegation would give sixty-four of its eighty-one votes to Kennedy, which made Phil and the Post reporters write that it would be Kennedy on the first ballot.

At that point, Phil got together with Joe Alsop to discuss the merits of Lyndon Johnson as Kennedy's running mate. Joe persuaded Phil to accompany him to urge Kennedy to offer the vice-presidency to Johnson. Joe had all the secret passwords, and the two men got through to Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's secretary, in a room next to his dreary double bedroom and living room. They took a seat on one of the beds and nervously talked out who would say what, while they observed what Joe termed "the antechambers of history." Joe decided he would introduce the subject and Phil should make the pitch.

When they were then taken to the living room to see JFK, Joe opened with, "We've come to talk to you about the vice-presidency. Something may happen to you, and Symington is far too shallow a puddle for the United States to dive into. Furthermore, what are you going to do about Lyndon Johnson? He's much too big a man to leave up in the Senate." Then Phil spoke "shrewdly and eloquently," according to Joe - pointing out all the obvious things that Johnson could add to the ticket and noting that not having Johnson on the ticket would certainly be trouble.

Kennedy immediately agreed, "so immediately as to leave me doubting the easy triumph," Phil noted in a memo afterwards. "So I restated the matter urging him not to count on Johnson's turning it down, but to offer the VPship so persuasively as to win Johnson over." Kennedy was decisive in saying that was his intention, pointing out that Johnson could help not only in the South but elsewhere in the country.

Phil told the Post's reporters they could write that "the word in L.A. is that Kennedy will offer the Vice-Presidency to Lyndon Johnson."

UNQUOTE

[Katharine Graham, Personal History, p.  , 1997]

Did Lyndon Johnson use his knowledge of JFK’s affair with Pamela Turnure as leverage to force his way onto the 1964 Democratic ticket? Sounds probable to me.

https://www.duhocchina.com/wiki/en/Pamela_Turnure

In The Dark Side of Camelot published in 1997, author Seymour Hersh alleged that Kennedy had an extramarital affair with Turnure in 1958 when she was working in his Senate office.[16] In 1958, Turnure's landlady Florence Kater allegedly took a photograph of the senator leaving Turnure's apartment building in the middle of the night, a photograph that Kater tried repeatedly to bring to public attention to ruin the senator's presidential campaign, according to Hersh. Kater and her husband allegedly rigged a tape recorder to pick up sounds of the couple's lovemaking and made an enlargement of their picture of Kennedy as he exited the building.[17] The credibility of The Dark Side of Camelot was called into question immediately after its 1997 publication.[18] One of Hersh’s allegations in this book, that the Washington, DC newspaper known in 1960 as The Evening Star reported at the time what the Katers were trying to do, is patently false. [19] The entire output of the newspaper for 128 years has been digitized and can be searched by keyword and by date of publication.[20]

Florence Kater and her husband allegedly sent their information about JFK’s adultery to various print media publishers. A company called Stearn Publications supposedly passed it along to J. Edgar Hoover. Soon after, Hoover "quietly obtained a copy of the compromising sex tapes and offered them to Lyndon Johnson as campaign ammunition." Johnson "had been using all the information Hoover could find on Kennedy - during the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on Kennedy at the Convention." A few days after Kennedy was extorted to offer Johnson the vice presidency or be outed as a womanizerPierre Salinger, Kennedy's campaign's press secretary, had asked Kennedy whether he really expected Johnson to accept the offer or if he was merely making a polite gesture. Kennedy responded cryptically: "The whole story will never be known. And it's just as well that it won't be."  

 

CBS Reporter Nancy Dickerson's Account of how Lyndon Johnson got selected at the 1960 Democratic convention: the Kennedys greatly wanted Stuart Symington for VP and repeatedly had made that known.

QUOTE

            As the convention drew nearer, JFK had three secret meetings with Clark Clifford, who was handling the campaign of Senator Stuart Symington. The first was a luncheon at Kennedy's Washington house, where, through Clifford, he offered the Vice Presidency to Symington, provided Symington's Missouri delegation votes went to Kennedy. Symington turned down the deal. The second conversation, which took place in Los Angeles, was a repeat of the first, and again it was refused. The third conversation was in Kennedy's hideaway in Los Angeles, during which he told Clifford that he was fairly certain of a first-ballot victory and asked if Symington would be his running mate. As Clifford later told me, "There were no strings attached. It was a straight offer." The Symington and Clifford families conferred, Symington agreed to run, and Clifford relayed the news to Kennedy.

          Clifford was playing a unique role: he was not only Symington's campaign advisor but JFK's personal lawyer as well. He is one of the world's most sophisticated men, and he does not make mistakes about matters like this. As he told me, "We had a deal signed, sealed and delivered."

          [...]

          Early the next morning, Thursday, July 14, John Kennedy walked down the flight of stairs from his suite to call on Senator and Mrs. Johnson. There was a new sense of seriousness about him, a reserved inner calm that was perceptible not only in the way he walked, but in the way reporters and onlookers gave him a new deference, standing aside to let him through. I never dreamed that he was there to offer the Vice Presidency to LBJ- and if any of those among the more than fifty other reporters outside the door were thinking about it, they didn't say so. It never crossed my mind because Johnson had sworn to me a dozen times, both on the air and off, that he would never take the Vice Presidency.

          For his part, Johnson had been expecting the offer; he took it at face value and said he'd think it over. A politician to his bones, he could see the merits of a Kennedy-Johnson combination. All the Johnson aides believed it was a serious offer, and LBJ went to his grave saying he thought so, but there were many in the Kennedy camp who believed that it was only a courtesy.

UNQUOTE

[Nancy Dickerson, "Among Those Present: A Reporter's View of 25 Years in Washington," pp. 43-44]

 

Robert Kennedy stormed into LBJ’s hotel room in Los Angeles and told him if he (LBJ) knew what was good for him, he would get off the 1960 Democratic ticket!

 

LBJ and Unity: Kennedy vs. Johnson

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzJn7vaA3ZQ

 

John Connally, Bobby Baker and a third man are in this video


01:29

Finally, the candidate's brother, Robert Kennedy, paid Johnson a visit.

01:35

I was in the room, in Johnson's bedroom with Johnson and John Connally, the three of us

01:40

alone on the morning of the nomination for the vice presidency at about 10:30, when Bobby

01:49

Kennedy stormed in and started screaming at Johnson that if he knew what was good for

01:55

him, he'd get off that ticket.

01:56

So what happened was that Mr. Rayburn and John Connally went in to meet with Bobby Kennedy.

02:01

And Bobby Kennedy said that all hell had broken loose on the convention floor and that Johnson

02:08

was going to have to withdraw, just change his mind and not accept the vice presidency.

02:12

And Mr. Rayburn looked at him and he said, "Aw," and uttered an expletive that I am not

02:18

going to use.

02:19

Old man Rayburn said, "Shit, sonny," and kicked him out.

02:22

I said, "Your brother came down here and offered him the vice presidency and Mr. Johnson accepted it.

02:29

Now, if he doesn't want him to have it, he's going to have to call and ask him

02:33

to withdraw."

02:34

And I am grateful, finally, that I can rely in the coming months on many others, on a

02:42

distinguished running mate who brings unity and strength to our platform and our ticket,

02:48

Lyndon Johnson.

Nancy Dickerson had known Lyndon Johnson since the early 1950s and had covered him for both CBS and NBC. Nancy Dickerson was a friend of Lyndon Johnson.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/11/nancy-dickersons-reporting-on-lyndon-johnson-inside-lbjs-house-the-night-after-jfk-died.html

“Inside LBJ’s Home the Night After JFK Died,” by John Dickerson for Slate, Nov. 22, 2013

John Dickerson, the son of Nancy Dickerson:

On the evening of Nov. 23, 1963, at the end of Lyndon Johnson’s first full day as president, my mother and father stood in his living room talking to his daughter Luci. They had been invited to dinner and were greeted by Johnson’s 16-year-old daughter who was barefoot in a green Chinese robe. Lady Bird was upstairs, after having attended a prayer service for the slain president and spending some time with Jackie Kennedy. Johnson was not yet home from the White House. To avoid the constant talk about Kennedy’s assassination, the conversation turned to the practicalities of being 16 in the White House. “How would you like it to have Secret Service men with you every minute of the day?” Luci asked. Even now she couldn’t talk to a boy late at night without the phone light going on in her parents’ bedroom. Her father, seeing it, would either monitor the call or interrupt to tell her that she ought to be asleep. She concluded that living in the White House would only be worthwhile if she could have her own private line. 

My parents were there because my mother, Nancy Dickerson had known Johnson since the early 1950s and had covered him for CBS and NBC. The night of the shooting, Mom had been at Andrews Air Force Base with fellow journalist Bob Abernethy covering the return of the president’s body. Afterward, she had stood in the rain outside of Johnson’s home hoping to catch him when he returned late that night. Arriving accompanied by Secret Service agents with their guns drawn, Johnson waved but did not stop. The next day, she was on a TV panel discussing what his presidency might be like. After she was off the air, Mom was handed the phone. Johnson was on the line. He complimented her and issued the dinner invitation.

When Johnson arrived home that evening, Lady Bird came downstairs with a drink and popcorn. The president immediately launched into a review of the broadcast Mom had been on earlier that day. It was clear that he had spent much of the day monitoring television coverage. The night before he had an extra television delivered to the house so that he could watch all the networks simultaneously. On the NBC show, one of Mom’s colleagues, Martin Agronsky, had said that the powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn had tried to persuade Johnson not to join John Kennedy on the presidential ticket. Mom very gently tried to correct Agronsky, suggesting that once all the history was out, it might turn out that Rayburn had actually been supportive, despite initial qualms. (History suggests she was right.)

“You corrected Agronsky without making a fool of him,” said the new president about her colleague. “Rayburn changed. He did want me to take the nomination, and you set the record straight without making him eat crow in public. Only way to do it.”

Johnson was appreciative because in the days after the shooting he didn’t want anyone suggesting that there had been any ambivalence about him becoming vice president or any distance between Johnson and the slain president. Johnson paced and turned back to the TVs. He started talking back to NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report. He was determined that the country should be calm, and whenever the broadcasting duo said something he thought was inflammatory, Johnson would bark: “Keep talking like that and you’ll bring on a revolution just as sure as I’m standing here.”

He wished Rayburn were alive to counsel him, Johnson said to no one in particular. Returning to Mom’s gentle correction of her colleague, Johnson then told a Rayburn story. In his early days in the House, he explained, he was trying to get funds for a public works project but an older, stronger congressman had opposed it. Johnson maneuvered the program into committee and then onto the House floor. He won the debate on the floor but in doing so publicly put down his older opponent. Afterward, Rayburn took him aside and said, “Lyndon, you feel pretty smart because you got what you wanted. But you also got yourself an enemy. A really clever fellow would have won without ridiculing a man on the way, and earning himself an enemy for life.” Everyone nodded.

The president’s speechwriter Horace Busby and Judge Homer Thornberry arrived. Johnson explained that he’d ordered the Secret Service to protect House Speaker John McCormack because he was worried about a government-wide coup. That afternoon the Soviets had made a show of good faith by turning over a complete dossier on Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities during his years in Moscow. Johnson was relieved but not settled. “Maybe they’re out to get us all,” he said. He was going to keep the armed services on alert. He wasn’t sure the assassination was the work of just one man. He worried about conspiracy theories, too. He talked about how Lincoln’s assassination still had unanswered questions: “… Damn sure that kind of mystery doesn’t happen here. I’m going to make sure there isn’t one damn question or one damn mystery that isn’t solved about this thing. You can be sure of that … not one damn unanswered question.” 

He interrupted himself, walking over to the phone and pushing one of its buttons. He picked up the receiver. “Is this the White House?” Johnson said. “Oh, sorry.” Then he punched another: “The White House? Sorry.” He looked over at his wife. “Bird! Come over here and get me the White House. That’s going to have to be changed! The whole damn world could go up in smoke and I wouldn’t even be able to get Dean Rusk. Take me 10 damn minutes to reach the secretary of state.”

The White House secretaries who logged Johnson’s activities every day as president recorded the moment with almost comical blandness. “[President Johnson] said that one of the first things he would like to do is revise the White House operator system. It was too slow for him. … All other things would be left the same at the White House. Didn’t want to change anything.” (For every change the new president would make in those early days, no matter how small or worthwhile, Johnson was always careful to assure everyone that he would keep continuity with Kennedy). 

Finally the president got through to his National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy. He reminded him to “get those wires out fast” to every country recognized by the United States to assure them of the continuity of our government. Then, without irony after his inability to work the phones, he told Bundy: “I don’t want any of them thinking that we don’t know what to do.” 

Next in the secretary’s log is: “Told Nancy about Rufus bravery.”

Johnson’s first letter as president had been to the Kennedy children. His second had been to the head of the Secret Service commending agent Rufus Youngblood. Immediately after the first shot was fired in Dallas, Johnson told the group that Youngblood threw Johnson and his wife onto the floor of the car. “There we were hunkered down in the car and he had his body on us,” said Johnson. “And Bird was hunkered down there with us, too. We were hunkered. Rufus moved so fast. It was one of the greatest things I have ever seen, Nancy. I didn’t know Rufus had that many reflexes.” 

At one point during the evening, Judge Thornberry called his daughter to reassure her, just as millions of parents called their children that night. LBJ took the phone from Thornberry and started talking. “Is he your boyfriend?” he asked. “What’s his name? Buddy? Well, put Buddy on, I want to talk with him … Buddy? This is Lyndon Johnson, your new president … just fine thank you … you … Thank you … need all the help we can get … Well, Buddy, take good care of that little girl who is with you …” 

It was as if Johnson was trying to comfort the country one person at a time, a job that would consume him for the first days of his presidency. If the president was ready, his wife was not. Before my mother left, Lady Bird said she was running out of black clothes to wear to all of the events. When Mom got home after dinner, she gathered her black coats and dresses to send over the next day. She would also call a local shop and have them send Lady Bird some black hats. She then sat down to the typewriter, set the caps lock, and typed out everything she could remember. 

Kenny O’Donnell said that JFK took him into the bathroom for privacy and told him something that he was instructed to never reveal about why he had picked Lyndon Johnson to be Vice President:

QUOTE

I’m 43 years old, and I’m the healthiest candidate for President in the United States. You’ve traveled with me enough to know that. I’m not going to die in office. So the Vice-Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m thinking of something else, the leadership of the Senate. If we win, it will be by a small margin, and I won’t be able to live with Lyndon Johnson as the leader of a small majority in the Senate. Did it occur to you that if Lyndon Johnson becomes the Vice President, I’ll have Mike Mansfield as the leader in the Senate, somebody I can trust and depend on?

UNQUOTE

[Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, p. 155-156]

JFK did not want Lyndon Johnson as a the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate

In his oral history Robert Kennedy said that JFK was glad to have LBJ as a neutered Vice President because otherwise he would be majority leader “and that would be just impossible. Lyndon Johnson would screw him all the time.” RFK said that “Mansfield was loyal to [JFK]. So he was very pleased.”

[Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, p. 156]

Alfred Steinberg describing the last moments of the JFK-LBJ 1960 Demo ticket being created. LBJ fell into a “deep depression” after getting on the 1960 Demo ticket.

QUOTE

          Graham told him to speak again to Johnson, and when he handed the receiver to him, Johnson lay sprawled over the bed. “Yes… yes … yes,” he said into the phone at intervals. Kennedy was telling him he had already told reporters that Johnson would be the Vice Presidential nominee.

          While Graham ahd been putting through the phone call, Bobby Baker was sent to find Bobby Kennedy and bring him into Johnson’s bedroom. When they returned, Bobby Kennedy spoke to his brother, “Well, it’s too late now,” he said before half slamming down the phone.

          With the subject now settled beyond recall, Lyndon and Lady Bird walked into the hall, stood on chairs before the sweaty crush of reporters and cameras, and he read his statement accepting the Vice Presidential nomination. Then he signified the complete change in his relations with Kennedy since the week began by going to Kennedy’s suite, when he pledged “total commitment” to his new leader. Afterward, Johnson confessed, he fell into a deep depression.

UNQUOTE

[Alfred Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy: A Close-Up of the President from Texas, p. 533]

At 1960 Democratic convention, Robert Kennedy told journalist Robert Novak that the Kennedys were considering 3 people for Vice President: Senator Stuart Symington (MO), Senator Scoop Jackson (WA) and Gov. Orville Freeman (MN)

QUOTE

          We had asked JFK campaign manager Bobby Kennedy for help. Strictly for guidance and not to be published, would he give us the names of all possibilities as his brother’s running mate? We would then write a profile on each, and at the last minute slip in the story on the one selected. He gave us three names: Senator W. Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson of Washington, and Governor Orville Freeman of Minnesota. We thought it odd for the little-known Freeman to be in that company.

          I don’t believe Bobby intentionally misled us. I came to believe Freeman already had been chosen, and Bobby put up the two senators as decoy. Bobby only knew about the selection of LBJ only a few hours before we did.

UNQUOTE

[Robert Novak, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years of Reporting in Washington, p. 68]

After JFK’s election, Lyndon Johnson plotted with his key Senate allies Richard Russell, Robert Kerr, George Smathers & Hubert Humphrey to get himself elected the chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, where he would be a de facto Democratic Majority Leader.

The reaction to that was

QUOTE

…to meet an eruption of opposition that soared to what one participant called “a crescendo of denunciation, sarcasm and indignation.” His face flushed, Albert Gore Sr., a moderate from Tennessee, cited a long list of indignities that he attributed to Johnson and declared angrily, “We might as well ask Jack Kennedy to come back up to the Senate and take his turn presiding.” To Johnson’s surprise and embarrassment, several longtime members of his senatorial inner circle joined in the general criticism. Many of the objections were couched in Constitutional terms, on grounds that Johnson would henceforth would be an official of the executive branch rather than a member of Congress, but the passions expressed were deeply personal. Johnson had ridden herd on the Senate Democrats like the overseer of Texas ranch hands for nearly a decade, persuading, insisting, mastering the political nuances of every senator’s vote, intimidating the recalcitrant with what became known as the Johnson Treatment. They were eager to be relieved of his oppressive presence and appalled the he might somehow continue to afflict them. The very thought created spontaneous revolt.

UNQUOTE

[Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, p. 157]

On July 4th, 1960, just before the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, Lyndon Johnson surrogates John Connolly and India Edwards incensed & embittered the entire Kennedy family by exposing that JFK had Addison’s Disease

QUOTE

          Sam Shaffer: “Before Johnson announced his candidacy John Connally and India Edwards came out to Los Angeles and held a press conference in which they said that John Kennedy suffered from a fatal disease - Addison’s disease. They held that press conference on the 4th of July. On the fifth Bob Kennedy held a press conference, denied it, had doctors’ certificates. Said his brother suffered from an adrenaline insufficiency which is frequently handled by medication.”….

          Clark Clifford: “Ambassador Kennedy, Senator Kennedy’s father, was outraged by the charge. The entire family - Senator Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, all the sisters, and all the rest of them - was embittered as far as Senator Johnson was concerned. They felt that it was grossly unfair.”

UNQUOTE

[Merle Miller, Lyndon: an Oral Biography, p. 246]

LBJ ally Sam Rayburn visited Symington supporter Harry Truman and convinced him to not attend the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles

QUOTE

          In preparation for the 1960 Democratic national convention in San Francisco [Typo, it was in Los Angeles in 1960], Johnson nearly overreached himself. Truman had planned to attend, and had even chosen his suite. Then Sam Rayburn came out to Independence on a Friday and stayed overnight and told him what was going to happen. The Kennedys were going to offer the vice presidency to Johnson, who had announced publicly he would not take it; but Johnson was going to fool them and take it. For Truman this information amounted to a double blow. He had been supporting Symington for the presidential nomination, and about this time the Kennedys were talking to Symington about the vice presidency. Rayburn recommended that Truman not go to San Francisco and find himself, as in 1956, an outsider. After Rayburn left the next day, Truman announced he would not go.

UNQUOTE

[Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life, pp. 393-394]

Photographer Hank Walker describes his photo, taken in morning of July 14, 1960, of JFK sitting in a chair and RFK sitting on the edge of the bed, talking quietly and intensely over the VP selection

QUOTE

Life magazine photographer Hank Walker captured one of the most enduring photographs to come out of the convention. The morning after the nomination, he followed Bobby up to Jack’s room and made a photograph of them talking quietly. “Jack told Bobby who he was going to choose as vice president,” said Walker. “I only made one picture in there and then I waited outside for Bobby to come out. When he did he was furious. We were walking back down the stairs, and Bobby was hitting his hand like this, saying ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ You know he really hated Johnson.”

UNQUOTE

[Norman Mailer, JFK: Superman Comes to the Supermarket, p. 160]

 

LBJ surrogate India Edwards, standing with John Connally, at the 1960 Democratic convention, accusing JFK of having Addison’s Disease

“Doctor’s have told me he would not be alive if not for cortisone.” - India Edwards

[Thomas Oliphant & Curtis Wilkie, The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign, p. 242]

Lyndon Johnson, on July 11, 1960, at the Democratic National Convention, speaking to the state of Washington delegates and refering to JFK’s dad Joe Kennedy:

“I wasn’t any Chamberlain umbrella man. I never thought Hitler was right.”

[Thomas Oliphant & Curtis Wilkie, The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign, p. 242]

Thomas Witt, “Umbrella Man” on how “umbrellas” were associated with the Kennedys. Witt says it was not about accusing JFK of appeasement but hit was!

HSCA Volume IV: 9/25/78 - Testimony of Louie Steven Witt (history-matters.com)

ype of thing usually went down Main Street. Mr. FAUNTROY. I wonder if you would care to tell us a little more about your understanding of the significance of the umbrella, and why you felt that it would heckle the President to raise the um[1]brella? Mr. WITT. I know the generalities of the thing. It had something to do with the-when the senior Mr. Kennedy was Ambassador to England, and the Prime Minister, some activity they had had in appeasing Hitler. The umbrella that the Prime Minister of Eng[1]land came back with got to be a symbol in some manner with the British people . By association, it got transferred to the Kennedy family, and, as I understood, it was a sore spot with the Kennedy family, like I said, in coffee break conversations someone had men[1]tioned, I think it is one of the towns in Arizona, it is Tucson or Phoenix, that someone had been out at the airport or some place where some members of the Kennedy family came through and they were rather irritated by the fact that they were brandishing the umbrellas. This is how the idea sort of got stuck in my mind. Mr. FAUNTROY. Is it true that what you felt was that Mr. Kenne[1]dy would be sensitive because of the appeasement image of the umbrella as related to his father? Mr. Wirr. Not the appeasement thing. It was just-excuse me-I just understood that it was sort of a sore spot with them and this was just one thing. I personally never thought too much of liberal politics in general. In this case the Kennedy family just happened to be in office . Mr. FAUNTROY. I see . And it had no relationship in your own thinking between Mr. Kennedy's posture with; say, the Russians? Mr. WITT. No. No. No. That was not it at all . Mr. FAUNTROY. But someone had-no-you had read in the paper that someone had used an umbrella to heckle the President and that it was a sore spot, and that was the reason-- Mr. WITT. Not read in the papers. Mr. FAUNTROY. Someone told you? Mr. WITT. Yes. This was in a conversation somewhere at work. I wish that I could remember now who brought the subject up and put this idea in my head. I am sure that I would have taken that umbrella and clouted him over the head somewhere in this last 2 or 3 weeks. Mr. FAUNTROY. OK. Now, Mr. Witt, I wonder if you would again show us what happened, what you did? As I understand your testimony, you found your way into Dealey Plaza because there were not many people there, and you thought you would have an opportunity to in fact see the President and perhaps even heckle him

JFK had already selected Stuart Symington for Vice President, then LBJ moved in for a hostile takeover of the Vice Presidency. Source Dick Donahue

QUOTE

          Clifford and the six Symingtons talked far into the night. In a separate interview Jim Symington remembered that he and his brother discouraged their father. “We told him, ‘You don’t want to go and carry another guy’s water for him. Go back to the Senate where you can make a difference.’ He said, ‘Thanks, boys.’”

          Clifford was ultimately persuasive in convincing Symington to give his assent to second place on the Democratic ticket on the grounds that he could do more for Missouri as vice president than as senator.

          They all went to bed waiting word from Kennedy.

          At the top of the Kennedy high command, a similar belief prevailed about Symington’s imminent selection. According to Dick Donahue, who spent time with Larry O’Brien and Ken O’Donnell after a brief period of celebration, “We were satisfied it was Stuart Symington. You know, that was it, and there wasn’t any doubt about it.”

          The choice of Symington had actually leaked into public print hours before Kennedy won the nomination. Both Charles Bartlett and John Seigenthaler filed stories for Wednesday citing unnamed sources who confirmed Symington’s selection. (Jack and Robert Kennedy were later identified, respectively, as the unnamed sources.) Then all hell broke loose.

[Thomas Oliphant & Curtis Wilkie, The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign, p. 259-260]

Dick Donahue is described by Wikipedia as “A member of President Kennedy’s inner circle, which was sometimes dubbed the “Irish Mafia” since 1952– and in the evening of July 13, 1960 he most definitely thought that Clark Clifford was going to be JFK’s pick for Vice President, as did both Larry O’Brien and Ken O’Donnell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Donahue

QUOTE

As a young attorney, Donahue was active in Democratic Party politics.[1] In 1952, Donahue met Democratic United States Senate candidate John F. Kennedy in Lowell. After being recruited by Kennedy associates Larry O'Brien and Kenneth O'Donnell,[4] Donahue soon after joined Kennedy's team, becoming key in its grassroots organizing efforts.[3][2] Donahue would become not just a political advisor to Kennedy and his family, but also a friend to the Kennedy family.[8] He later referred to O'Brien and O'Donnell as his "godparents in politics".[4]

In their book, The Road to Camelot, which details Kennedy's later presidential run, Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie describe Donahue as having at this point been, "an impressive young man," who, "was beginning to attract notice in the [Democratic] party

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