05-01-2011, 05:22 PM
Here is another good example of Lyndon Johnson's foreknowledge of the JFK assassination as well as his "hands on" participation in the details of it. Lyndon Johnson, before the Texas trip, was making seeming absurd demands such as (incredibly) having Jackie ride in HIS limo and not with John Kennedy (in the kill zone, which LBJ knew the CIA was organizing). LBJ would much rather have his progressive enemy Sen. Ralph Yarborough in the death limo than Jackie, who he was trying to space out of a misplaced sense of "honor" (which, of course LBJ had none).
Sen. George Smathers, U.S. Congress 1946-1968:
"I came back to Washington with the President. He was lying down. They had a bed in the Air Force One for him to lie on. So he said, "Gee, I really hate to go to Texas. I got to go to Texas next week and it's just a pain in the rear end and I just don't want to go. I wish I could get out of it." And I said, "Well, what's the problem?" He said, "Well, you know how Lyndon is." Lyndon was Vice President. "Lyndon wants to ride with me, but John Connally is the governor and he wants to ride and I think that protocol says that he's supposed to ride and Johnson wants Jackie to ride with him." And Connally was, at that time, a little bit jealous of Lyndon and Lyndon was a little jealous of him, so it's all these fights were going on. He said, "I just don't want to go down in that mess. I hate to go. I wish I could think of a way to get out of it."
Transcript from PBS "American Experience - The Kennedys Part II - The Sons" available on line here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien...ranscript/
about 1/2 way down the page on the transcript.
You can watch the George Smathers' clip here at PBS. It is at the 1 hour 44 minute 30 second mark:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien...ys/player/
I asked a fellow JFK researcher: Does it seem funny that Lyndon Johnson would be asking to be in JFK's car if Lyndon knew that JFK was going to be slaughtered in a kill zone during the motorcade? The key point is that nothing that Lyndon Johnson ever did in his life justifies giving him "the benefit of the doubt." Precisely the opposite. And here was his reply:
Re: "But the part that puzzles me is Johnson wanting to ride with Kennedy."
JFK Researcher: I wouldn't worry about this at all, and here's why:
Lyndon Johnson wanted JACKIE to ride in his car in Texas!! Source: Sen. George Smathers, a good friend of JFK (11/18/63 talk on Air Force 1)
**Lyndon did not want Jackie's brains to get blown out, too**
Sen. George Smathers, U.S. Congress 1946-1968:
"I came back to Washington with the President. He was lying down. They had a bed in the Air Force One for him to lie on. So he said, "Gee, I really hate to go to Texas. I got to go to Texas next week and it's just a pain in the rear end and I just don't want to go. I wish I could get out of it." And I said, "Well, what's the problem?" He said, "Well, you know how Lyndon is." Lyndon was Vice President. "Lyndon wants to ride with me, but John Connally is the governor and he wants to ride and I think that protocol says that he's supposed to ride and Johnson wants Jackie to ride with him." And Connally was, at that time, a little bit jealous of Lyndon and Lyndon was a little jealous of him, so it's all these fights were going on. He said, "I just don't want to go down in that mess. I hate to go. I wish I could think of a way to get out of it."
Transcript from PBS "American Experience - The Kennedys Part II - The Sons" available on line here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien...ranscript/
about 1/2 way down the page on the transcript.
You can watch the George Smathers' clip here at PBS. It is at the 1 hour 44 minute 30 second mark:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien...ys/player/
I asked a fellow JFK researcher: Does it seem funny that Lyndon Johnson would be asking to be in JFK's car if Lyndon knew that JFK was going to be slaughtered in a kill zone during the motorcade? The key point is that nothing that Lyndon Johnson ever did in his life justifies giving him "the benefit of the doubt." Precisely the opposite. And here was his reply:
Re: "But the part that puzzles me is Johnson wanting to ride with Kennedy."
JFK Researcher: I wouldn't worry about this at all, and here's why:
- The Smather's on-camera statement was made decades later, so there has to be some allowance here for a slight jumbling in recollection and "re-transmission"
- (and more important) :very likely, Lyndonwhen he talked to JFK about this-- dissembled (as he always seemed to do), beat around the bush, and very likely sent a confusing message to JFK, which, in the re-telling to Smathers, may have been jumbled (and/or misunderstood) ; and then we have (as noted in my point 1) the re-telling, by Smathers, to a camera, decades later.
So this is a very interesting problem of separating "the signal from the noise" (as they say in information theory); and I think what is truly important is that Smathers remembers JFK complaining, on 11/18, and on a ride aboard AF-1 from Florida, that (a) he didn't want to go to Texas and (b) among the many problems he had to deal with was this business of LBJ wanting Jackie to ride with him.
This interview by Smathers provides really excellent "first hand" evidence of the extent to which JFK was being personally lobbied, by his own Vice President, on matters pertaining to the Texas tripi.e., on getting him to go there (to Texas, AND to Dallas) in the first place; and then to the extent of the actual configuration of which car she would ride in, in the Dallas motorcade (!). If it weren't for Smathers, all we'd have is the mealy-mouthed cop-out language of Sorensen, and others like him.
3. Also, please do note the logical problem if LBJ really wanted to ride with JFK: IF that little snippet of a quote were to be taken seriously (and I do not take it seriously), then the actual configuration (i.e. Car-seating) would be that Lyndon Johnson would want to be in the same car as JFK, so if that were to be sothen how could it then be that LBJ "wanted Jackie to ride with him"? The phrase "ride with him" implies separate cars. Clearly.
And, finally, for the same reason that the President and the vice President do NOT ever fly on the same aircraft, I am positive thatjust on those grounds aloneit would be a complete violation of security for the President and the Vice Presient to appear in an open car together.
So my appraisal of this "re-transmission" (by Smathers) of what he heard JFK saying, is that: (a) Lyndon was making a bunch of noise, complaining about this and that; and (b) buried in that "noise" was his real message; and that his real message was that he, as a "galaant" Texas, wanted the President's wife to ride with him. I think that the rest of what Smathers heardor thinks he heard, and then re-transmitted, in this interviewis simply false.
And again, let me repeat my reasons for saying so. . .
Because:
(1) Common sense rules out that the Pres and the Vice Pres would ride in the same limo. (Ever).
(2) IF LBJ really wanted "to ride with JFK," then his request that he wanted Jackie "to ride with him" would make no logical sense.
OK. . . Those are my beliefs about this remarkable little piece of information.
First of all; I think its valid; and secondly, it shows what a sneaky bastard LBJ wasto try to actually lobby the President so that he would not have his wife within inches, and it would make him an easier target.
Of coursehad LBJ succeeded in this gambit, he would have to have had a lot of explaining to do afterwards, to credibly explain why Jackie was not seated next to her husband, in Dallas, as she obviously was in other cities.