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LBJ and the cover-up of JFK’s Murder (Book Review)

Bill Hughes

On Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, I was working as a clerk in the Baltimore City courthouse and going to law school at night. In the early afternoon, a policeman walked into our office. He said he had just heard on the radio that “the president had been shot in Dallas!”

I was in shock on hearing that dreadful news. I thought to myself: we finally get an Irish-Catholic in the White House, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), and the b……. are taking shots at him in Texas! Minutes later we learned our president had died.

Before the country could absorb that thunderbolt, the regime of the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), was pushing its cover-up spiel about the assassination. It went like this: “There was only one gunman in Dealey Plaza – Harvey Lee Oswald. The so-called ‘Commie-lover’ killed JFK, firing three shots from the 6th floor of the Book Depository. Oswald was then shot and killed by Jack Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby. Case closed!”

Ruby, with ties to Meyer Lansky’s bloody Chicago Mob, was the owner of a sleazy Dallas night club. He had also been a snitch for the FBI. Ruby supposedly shot Oswald dead because he was upset that Jackie Kennedy might have to testify at Oswald’s trial. Doesn’t that vile lie want to make you throw up?

Enter the LBJ-dominated Warren Commission Report (09.24.64). It can be summarized as follows: “Oswald acted alone! Praise the Lord for Sen. Arlen Specter’s ‘Magic Bullet’ theory. No more doubting. Go back to sleep, America. Case Closed!”

On cue, the Establishment Media shamefully followed suit – just as they would later in covering-up for the Bush-Cheney Gang in the Iraq War, re: the fake WMD. If you questioned LBJ’s lone gunman edict, you were labeled a “conspiracy nut.”

I regret to note that one of the Left’s fave gurus – Noam Chomsky – was also shamefully dismissive of any conspiracy involving the murder of Kennedy. He was quoted as saying: “Who knows and who cares.” Author Robert Stone took him to task for that ignorant crack, as did author Peter Dale Scott on the issue of JFK’s wanting to get out of Vietnam. (1)

For years, LBJ’s orchestrated cover-up worked. When New Orleans’ DA Jim Garrison launched his probe into JFK’s death, cracks began to show in it. Lately, however, there have been some earthquake-like fissures in that silly “only one-shooter” yarn.

The publication of some well-documented new books on the assassination of JFK all yell out loud and clear: “Conspiracy!” They have also taken a different path than their predecessors. They asked: “Cui Bono?” Latin: To whom is it a benefit?

These authors pointed the finger of culpability for the murder of our 35th president at his then vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) – one of the shadiest figures in all of U.S. political history.

Background: JFK didn’t want to put Johnson on his ticket as VP back in 1960. He knew about his unsavory reputation. Johnson, however, with the aid of FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, put the squeeze on Kennedy. Unless Johnson got the nod, then the want-to-be president’s extramarital affairs would be made public. Kennedy caved. Johnson got the job.

How sinister was LBJ? He was suspected of being involved “in at least five murders,” using a hit man, Malcolm “Mac” Wallace, to perform his dirty work. LBJ was also “implicated in the corruption scandals surrounding Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes,” according to Phillip F. Nelson’s book. (2)

In 1998, Nelson reported, it was discovered that Mac Wallace’s fingerprints were found on “Box A in the “sniper’s nest,” on the 6th floor of the Book Depository building. It was a positive i.d. for “legal identification” purposes. “So far neither the FBI nor the Texas DPS” have done anything more about it.

The hit job on JFK covered such a vast area that it is impossible to replay it all here. I’m only offering a few observations here on what author Nelson, and others, claimed may have been LBJ’s role, if any, in that crime and cover-up. (3)

Nelson relied on the James “Ike” Altgens photos to show that LBJ “knew” JFK was going to be killed in Dallas. The photos revealed that, before any shots were fired at the motorcade on Elm Street, LBJ had “ducked down” in the car. Here’s the statement of Police Officer B.J. Martin confirming that fact: “he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired.”

Phillips continued: “There is only one realistic explanation… for LBJ’s absence from the Altgens photograph: he knew that Dealey Plaza was to be the killing zone…he knew bullet would be flying from three different directions.”  (4)

The night before JFK was murdered, there was a party held in Dallas, at the mansion of Clint Murchison, a fat-cat Oil Man, Nelson underscored. Murchison was a crony of LBJ. The party was to honor – J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover’s “lover” Clyde Tolson was also present, along with, among others, John J. McCoy, Richard Nixon, H.L. Hunt and LBJ’s mistress, Madeline Brown. “LBJ arrived very late,” Nelson continued.

After having a private session with some at the party, LBJ spotted Brown. He squeezed her hand and whispered into her ear: “After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again – that’s no threat – that’s a promise.”

Incidentally, Brown had also written that she had seen Oswald and Ruby together around town. Nelson submitted a whole chapter dealing with “Unsolved Murders and other lingering LBJ scandals.”

Who was LBJ really? He was many things, of course, but Nelson put it this way: LBJ was “a chronic liar, a paranoid and a sociopath, who was suffering from manic depression.” He also offered the damning opinion of a psychiatrist on LBJ.

JFK’s Gravestone (Courtesy of Arlington National Cemetery)

A shrink, Gerald Tolchin, Ph.D., wrote: “Johnson may well have been the most psychologically unstable person ever to assume the presidency. He was a tragic figure pursued by demons, real and imagined. It appears likely that LBJ suffered from a bipolar disorder throughout his life, a condition that grew worse as he grew older, peaking just as he reached the zenith of his influence and power.”

Author Roger Stone argued: “The supposition that Johnson was behind the plot to kill Kennedy is the key that unlocks the greatest of Johnson’s crimes: knowing the futility of the Vietnam War that  would eventually claim more than fifty-eight thousand lives.”   (5)

As for the so-called “patsy,” Oswald, Nelson added: “He was a US intelligence asset” who worked for both the CIA and FBI and had close ties to the Mob.

It’s worth noting, too, that from 1963 to 1993, “21 witnesses with first-hand knowledge of the Kennedy assassination were murdered.” (6)

Nelson maintained Johnson was one of the key “plotters of JFK’s death.” His supposed evidence, like others, is mostly circumstantial, speculative, hearsay and falls far short of proving that critical point. There is no smoking gun!

However, Nelson arguments about LBJ orchestrating the cover-up and having “prior knowledge” of the assassination are much stronger in his book and also supported by other sources.

Let me finish with a line from Col. Wilson’s excellent book, which I believe says it all about how complicated this murder plot was: “A lot of people breathed sighs of relief when Jack Kennedy died.

If you just want to read only one book on this complex subject matter, in which “Deep State” is also exposed, I highly recommend Wilson’s “JFK: An American Coup D’etat.” It’s an easy read, gets the job done, and cuts to the chase on all of the issues.

Read more on Kennedy on the Post-Examiner archives.

Footnotes:

  1. “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ,” Roger Stone with Mike Colapietro; and “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK,” by Peter Dale Scott
  2.  “LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination.”
  3.  “JFK-911: 50 Years of Deep State” by Laurent Guyenot; and “JFK: An American Coup D’etat and The Truth Behind the Kennedy Assassination,” by Colonel John H. Wilson
  4.  Incidentally, Nelson also has a riveting book out on the Israeli attempt to sink the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967, titled, “Remembering the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas.” He spotlights LBJ’s supposed role in that controversy.
  5. Stone also has a separate chapter, captioned “Liberty,” in his book detailing LBJ’s alleged complicity in the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty.
  6.  Author Colonel John H. Wilson’s book – ibid