Nelson's LBJ Mastermind book

[James H. Fetzer]

Well, Jim, some people can plan past their expectations for their next meal, and LBJ was clearly among them. For whatever reason, you seem to regard the limits of your own imagination as the boundaries of historical events. You should know that Stuart Symington was JFK's choice of a running mate. The invitation was extended to him and he went to bed in the belief he would run with JFK. Things changed, however, when Lyndon and his cronies, including Speaker Rayburn, used information they had obtained from J. Edgar about his sexual escapades to force Jack to change his mind. Telling Stu that things had changed, as I understand it, was one of the most regrettable events of his life--one that was fraught with tragic consequences. The argument, of course, was that if his escapades were publicized, his prospects for the presidency would have been buried, so he "bit the bullet"--literally, as it worked out. It would be a good thing if you were more conscientious about your own research and spent less time advancing false causes, of which you champion more than your fair share (against the CIA at the Pentagon, the heroic contributions of Seymour Hersh, and the role of LBJ in the assassination of JFK). That's three strikes, Jim! You can do better.

This is another point I did not bring up: CD's quote from p. 576 clearly states that LBJ had been dreaming up this plot for almost four years!

This was before Kennedy became president!!! Before LBJ became VP!!

This is what I mean about these solipsistic books that are written from a preconceived viewpoint.

And then Fetzer trots out Howard Hunt again. I wonder if Fetzer actually knows the real story behind Hunt's phony "confession" and the whole ersatz article in Rolling Stone? Probably not. Because Fetzer does not discriminate in finding sources. That article is sourced of course to Saint John Hunt. Seamus Coogan showed who this guy really was in his 1.) Alex Jones series, and 2.) His discussion of Jesse Ventura's special. Suffice it to say, there is another side to this story which Fetzer obviously does not care about. But its much more convincing and has much more documentation to it than Saint John's.

As I proved, Saint John lied to Rolling Stone. He could not have dumped the electronic surveillance stuff in a river with his father, as he told the magazine. Why? Two reasons. It was not Hunt who drove home the electronics stuff--since he was not directly involved with the taping. Alfred Baldwin, McCord's assistant drove the stuff to McCord's house that night. And Hunt did not go home that night right after the arrests. He got home very late since he first went to his office at the White House, and then went to the Mullen Company. These facts are all in Jim Hougan's masterful book Secret Agenda. Which, apparently, Fetzer has not read. Even though it has been out since 1984.

The idea that Sturgis would go to Hunt and ask him to become involved is ludicrous. For the simple reason that Sturgis had always been below Hunt in the chain of command. But what this fiction device does is 1.) Establishes that Hunt had some knowledge of a phony plot, and 2.) Keeps him out of it, and 3.) Keeps out the true uper echelon of the operational part of the conspiracy, i.e. Helms, Dulles, Angleton. Ha Ha Ha. The idea that anyone with any experience in the field would fall for this deception is stunning. It is clearly Howard getting a last laugh at Kennedy--a man he completely despised--and the researchers, like Weberman, who have pursued him ever since 1975.

So Jim, please don't bring up this motely crew again. You know, that twice convicted convict and con man Billy Sol Estes who says he has tapes of Carter explaining the plot to him. Yeah, sure, and he went to jail twice rather than playing them in court. Or Ruby, who everyone knows was being drugged by Jolly West. Or Madeleine Brown, who ended up subscribing to that ever enveloping Murchison assassination cabal, or McClellan who actually has Oswald on the sixth floor firing away.

This is what I mean by a tradition of the best the research community has to offer from Weisberg to Douglass. None of the above fits into that tradition. Just like Nelson's book does not. And if we lead with this at the 50th, we are lost.

[Charles Drago]

[quote=Charles Drago][quote=Morgan Reynolds]My dictionary says a mastermind is "A highly intelligent person; especially, one who plans and directs a project."

CD: As I've previously noted, "my" dictionary, Merriam-Webster, defines "mastermind" as "a person who supplies the directing or creative intelligence for a project."

MR: You asked for a definition and I gave one from a dictionary. What's your problem? Is your dictionary better than mine? This is Drago hair splitting because there is no significant difference between the two definitions. Both involve "intelligence" or "intelligent," "plans" or "creative," "directs" or "directing," and "project."[/QUOTE]

There is all the difference in the world. Your inability -- or is it unwillingness -- to see it tells us all we need to know about your intellectual acuity and dedication to truth.

[MR: There is no "extraordinary claim for LBJ." As I said earlier, when a president is assassinated, the vice president should automatically be suspect numero uno.

Resort to "automatic" knee-jerk responses to your hearts content. When you can demonstrate the discipline and learning to go beyond such childish responses, get back to me.

[It is a murder and Nelson assembles a rich assortment of evidence, virtually all of it previously known, but assembled via a new interpretation. This is common practice in history and criminal investigations, where facts are usually stipulated but a novel assembly of facts inspired by a "fresh" theoretical approach overthrows previously-held views.

Your "novel assembly" is my sinister disinformation. Until you can demonstrate more than a pathetically pedestrian appreciation of the JFK conspiracy, you are relegated to the peanut gallery. You offer no responses of substance to my criticisms. You are commiting the ultimate sin: You are boring me.

[You have a model? Impressive. The world is short of "models" with lots of moving parts, parameter estimates via exotic techniques and well-measured variables. Back tested against sound data sets? Confirmed by repeated assassination events? Oh joy. And you won't define false sponsor in 25 words or less? Spare me.

I will NOT spare you. The onus is on you to find the Evica/Drago model of the assassination and comment cogently upon it. You dare not. You bore me. And you reveal your limitations with every word you type.

[MR: Macbeth committed the murder directly, he was the killer, while LBJ and others at the hub relied on spokes and wheel (layers of seconds, if you will), especially shooters, as "real killers." That's all I meant.

There you go, in the Nelson mode, backpeddling. Until and unless you are willing to share your conspiracy model, your words will be appreciated as empty rhetoric.

We're waiting ...

[MR: LBJ would not get into very many technical details about execution of the crime or patsies like LHO. That's for experts in the trade like Dulles, Harvey, Angleton, Phillips, Hunt, etc. The biggest deal for LBJ pre-assassination was to "influence" the Secret Service to lower its shield so the shooters could do their work. That's one of the best parts of Nelson's work that I couldn't figure out earlier. I had even wondered if Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, a CFR/Rockefeller guy and overlord of the Secret Service, had issued coded orders for the stand down but Nelson makes a pretty convincing case for LBJ's staffers and Connally being the primary culprits, witting or unwitting depending upon individual, for lowering the shield. LBJ, probably in a panicky, jumpy mood, did get into "inadvisable" technical details post-assassination at times, like calling Dr. Crenshaw about a LHO deathbed confession or DPD Capt. Fritz to cease the LHO investigation, but I can't name one pre-assassination now.

Ahh, the panicked mastermind. With each word you type you reveal your intellectual and scholarly limitations. Ain't we got fun indeed!

[MR: As I wrote earlier, LBJ was no run-of-the-mill political operator. He was the absolute best, the best ever in the U.S. Senate if not the best in U.S. history. How many other Senators were elected whip with only two years of seniority, minority leader two years later, and then majority in another two years? The guy ascended to become Democratic U.S. Senate leader in four years! And then dominated the Senate like no other boss (assisted by J. Edgar's files on Senators of course). Not only ruthless, shrewd, a political genius, etc., but a workaholic to boot (if alcoholic too).

Which tells us WHAT, exactly, about his "mastermind" status? About his mastery of the deep political world? About his authority in the deep political world?

Where, outside Jim Fetzer's fetid imagination, do you find yourself in a position to influence any thinking person?

[MR: It's a matter congruent interests, not central command. Virtually everybody on a forum like this knows the background JFK and LBJ operated in 1960-63, including LBJ's back channels to intel, Pentagon, FBI, Secret Service, etc.

We are discussing Nelson's "mastermind" claim -- a claim of LBJ's "central command," as you put it. Stop squirming; you're on Nelson's hook, so get used to it.

[MR: Straw man.['QUOTE]

"Straw man" my ass! You have not earned the right to be dismissive. Nothing about what you've posted demonstrates mastery of the subject or sufficient wit to get away with it. Nice try. You fail.


[quote=Morgan Reynolds][MR: Straw man. Everybody knows that a newly elected government brings in its political appointees at the top of most departments and agencies, and they shift policies, within legal limitations, toward White House wishes, but the mil-intel-ind- complex, including FBI, and outside organizations like the Fed Res, they're different, they were/are not subject to those same "invasions" of new political appointees at the top. btw, I was Chief Economist at the US Dept. of Labor 2001-2002, a Bush-Cheney appointee and saw this from the inside. I was also a senior visiting economist for the Joint Economic Committee, 1993-94, minority, and a resident of Texas for 28 years.

I know your "qualifications." Or should I write, "DISqualifications"?

[MR: Good, stipulated that LBJ (crude rube, Colonel Cornpone, redneck, etc.) was not a dolt. Whew, what a relief! Now we're getting somewhere. My surmise that a lack of intelligence made the "mastermind" a thesis to hold up to public ridicule and reject out-of-hand was wrong, I guess. OK. That leaves the real reasons yet unexplained by the DiEugenio-Drago axis.

Tres drol, champ. But that's it. No substance. No argument. Just desperation.

[MR: Thanks for your advice, Mr. Drago. I'll pass your opinion on to my wife and the rest of my personal embarrassment damage-control team.

They have their work cut out for them.

I think LBJ was a hologram.

Chew on that, junior.

[Charles Drago]

Charles seems to derive more pleasure from restating his position endlessly than do I. My position has been defined here more than once and I stand by everything I have said about this. Lyndon Johnson had been nurturing his plan for years for the obvious reason that, as he well knew, he was not a personally attractive or charismatic personality. He was a genius at the manipulation of others and bending them to his will. But he well knew that his only access route to the presidency he coveted was to be in the position to assume the presidency after its occupant was removed. He set about implementing this plan with great skill and pursued it with enormous vigor and ultimate success with the help of his many friends, including Speaker Rayburn and J. Egar. What I cannot abide from anyone here, including especially Charles Drago, is this completely unjustified and intellectually dishonest slamming of a brilliant book, which is beautifully written, copiously documented, and--to any rational mind!--ultimately convincing. Charles vicious and unwarranted attacks on the book and its author are irresponsible and unwarranted. They are disgusting and discredit him, not Phil Nelson, whom I admire for the excellence of his research, even if he is unable to affect some of those here whose actions, in my opinion, are as corrupt and dishonest as those of Vincent Bugliosi in his assault on conspiracy research. In my opinion, Charles owes Phil and the whole forum an apology for the excess of his attacks, which have gone far beyond the boundaries of civil discourse and obviously violate the principles that are supposed to govern exchanges on this, the Deep Politics forum.

This has become a hangup over semantics.

I agree that words ought to always be used with great precision.

However, an argument over whether LBJ was a "mastermind" or a
"pivotal player" or an "essential part" is significant only in a slight
degree in describing the activity of a vile corrupt villainous criminal.

It is like arguing who was worse...John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy,
the Son of Sam, Charlie Manson, or the guy who shoots a 7-11 clerk
during a robbery.

Truth is, I think we all agree, that the plot was a conspiracy involving
many such people, and each played an important role, but none was
entirely responsible for all actions. A large group killed Caesar, including
Brutus.

Jack

I appreciate your thoughts here, Jack. But please consider the negative impact of Nelson's "mastermind" assertion in terms of its elevation of LBJ to Sponsor status.

Do you agree with Nelson that:

"[The conspiracy] was all according to the grand play -- a masterpiece of design and execution -- which had been developed over a period of nearly four years by the most brilliant, and evil, political force the country had ever seen: Lyndon Baines ('Bull') Johnson[.]" [emphasis in original] [p. 576]

and

"More than any other person, [LBJ] had the means, motive, and opportunity to have been the singular key conspirator-instigator and the mastermind of the operation." [emphasis added] [p. 668]

Or do you repudiate this outburst of comic book-level disinformation?

This goes beyond semantics, I'm afraid.

Nelson, knowingly or otherwise, is giving aid and comfort to the enemy and otherwise reinforcing the coverup when he bestows Sponsorship status on LBJ.

Charles

I cannot address a person whose critical faculties are so terribly diminished.

In which case my response, Professor Fetzer, is a most appropriate "bite me."

[James H. Fetzer]

I am sorry, Charles, but you are "living down" to my expectations as an emperor with no clothes! Rather fascinating, actually.

Charles seems to derive more pleasure from restating his position endlessly than do I. My position has been defined here more than once and I stand by everything I have said about this. Lyndon Johnson had been nurturing his plan for years for the obvious reason that, as he well knew, he was not a personally attractive or charismatic personality. He was a genius at the manipulation of others and bending them to his will. But he well knew that his only access route to the presidency he coveted was to be in the position to assume the presidency after its occupant was removed. He set about implementing this plan with great skill and pursued it with enormous vigor and ultimate success with the help of his many friends, including Speaker Rayburn and J. Egar. What I cannot abide from anyone here, including especially Charles Drago, is this completely unjustified and intellectually dishonest slamming of a brilliant book, which is beautifully written, copiously documented, and--to any rational mind!--ultimately convincing. Charles vicious and unwarranted attacks on the book and its author are irresponsible and unwarranted. They are disgusting and discredit him, not Phil Nelson, whom I admire for the excellence of his research, even if he is unable to affect some of those here whose actions, in my opinion, are as corrupt and dishonest as those of Vincent Bugliosi in his assault on conspiracy research. In my opinion, Charles owes Phil and the whole forum an apology for the excess of his attacks, which have gone far beyond the boundaries of civil discourse and obviously violate the principles that are supposed to govern exchanges on this, the Deep Politics forum.

This has become a hangup over semantics.

I agree that words ought to always be used with great precision.

However, an argument over whether LBJ was a "mastermind" or a
"pivotal player" or an "essential part" is significant only in a slight
degree in describing the activity of a vile corrupt villainous criminal.

It is like arguing who was worse...John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy,
the Son of Sam, Charlie Manson, or the guy who shoots a 7-11 clerk
during a robbery.

Truth is, I think we all agree, that the plot was a conspiracy involving
many such people, and each played an important role, but none was
entirely responsible for all actions. A large group killed Caesar, including
Brutus.

Jack

I appreciate your thoughts here, Jack. But please consider the negative impact of Nelson's "mastermind" assertion in terms of its elevation of LBJ to Sponsor status.

Do you agree with Nelson that:

"[The conspiracy] was all according to the grand play -- a masterpiece of design and execution -- which had been developed over a period of nearly four years by the most brilliant, and evil, political force the country had ever seen: Lyndon Baines ('Bull') Johnson[.]" [emphasis in original] [p. 576]

and

"More than any other person, [LBJ] had the means, motive, and opportunity to have been the singular key conspirator-instigator and the mastermind of the operation." [emphasis added] [p. 668]

Or do you repudiate this outburst of comic book-level disinformation?

This goes beyond semantics, I'm afraid.

Nelson, knowingly or otherwise, is giving aid and comfort to the enemy and otherwise reinforcing the coverup when he bestows Sponsorship status on LBJ.

Charles

I cannot address a person whose critical faculties are so terribly diminished.

In which case my response, Professor Fetzer, is a most appropriate "bite me."

[Jim DiEugenio]

Jim:

I have now read two more of Kennedy's inner circle first person memoirs on this whole LBJ as VP subject: Powers and O'Donnell, and Salinger's.

With little variance, they back up Sorenson and Schlesinger. And I should add, it is clear that none of these three men wanted LBJ as VP.

In each case, it is clear that LBJ was the favorite and that he was the only man JFK seriously considered. There is no mention of this extension of an offer to Symington in any of these four books. And I repeat, these were the closest men to Kennedy at the time to write about the subject. For instance, Schlesinger got hold of a memo written by Phil Graham after the convention. Because it was Graham and Alsop who were pushing for LBJ--not LBJ himself.

Now unless you can come up with a credible source written by one of Kennedy's advisers from this time period, then I do not find Hersh's reliance on a con man like Raskin 35 years later to be deserving of any worth at all. Especially since nothing else in Hersh's book is worth believing either.

You can always say that all five men were involved in a conspiracy and cover up, but then you have to extend it out to Alsop, Graham and JFK himself. And recall, THe O'Donnell and Powers book was written in 1972, many years later. ANd as I said, neither they nor Salinger liked LBJ. They preferred someone else, like Freeman, Jackson, or Symington. And they still do not back up Nelson's thesis.

[Dawn Meredith]

Ok everyone, can we get back to something more constructive than being critical of each other? Agree to disagree. Set egos aside. LBJ was a SOB and he was in on it. But he could no more mastermind the NO angle, CIA, joint chiefs, as veep than could any other pol. This event was masterminded by players lurking behind the scenes. Pulling the strings, making decisions of war, letting JFK know that the president was there solely for show. And every president since has known this.
Dawn

[Morgan Reynolds]

Does anyone else on this thread detect Drago's principal weapon: argument by intimidation? Such is not an argument of course, but rather a means to bypass reason and evidence by psychological pressure. Examples:
a) Your inability -- or is it unwillingness -- to see it tells us all we need to know about your intellectual acuity and dedication to truth.
b) Resort to "automatic" knee-jerk responses to your hearts content. When you can demonstrate the discipline and learning to go beyond such childish responses, get back to me.
c) The onus is on you to find the Evica/Drago model of the assassination and comment cogently upon it. You dare not. You bore me. And you reveal your limitations with every word you type.
d) Until you can demonstrate more than a pathetically pedestrian appreciation of the JFK conspiracy, you are relegated to the peanut gallery.
And so on.

It's all about the Drago superior intellect and the inferior learning and capacity of others who use their minds and come to different conclusions, defensible conclusions.

I've not heard Drago and company ID the principals in the assassination. And I doubt they ever will except to refer to "forces, the "puppet masters," powers that be, shadow government, international bankers, etc. They never name persons and offer their evidence to back it up, nor do I expect they ever will. Welcome to the matrix.

When I joined this forum, I was attracted by the "Deep Politics Forum" name alone, and a thread on Nelson was attractive if only because I was fascinated with the book and sought out to find informed criticism and assessment of evidence, praise, shortcomings, etc. Yet critics have showed me NADA thus far. I hoped to find rational assessment and debate about the evidence for and against Nelson's thesis of LBJ as the mastermind of JFK's assassination. That hope has been dashed.

This is probably a preview, unfortunately, of 9/11 research 47 years hence: honest researchers vexed by a den of vipers blocking and smearing legitimate hypotheses and empirical research.

[Charles Drago]

Does anyone else on this thread detect Drago's principal weapon: argument by intimidation? Such is not an argument of course, but rather a means to bypass reason and evidence by psychological pressure. Examples:
a) Your inability -- or is it unwillingness -- to see it tells us all we need to know about your intellectual acuity and dedication to truth.
b) Resort to "automatic" knee-jerk responses to your hearts content. When you can demonstrate the discipline and learning to go beyond such childish responses, get back to me.
c) The onus is on you to find the Evica/Drago model of the assassination and comment cogently upon it. You dare not. You bore me. And you reveal your limitations with every word you type.
d) Until you can demonstrate more than a pathetically pedestrian appreciation of the JFK conspiracy, you are relegated to the peanut gallery.
And so on.

It's all about the Drago superior intellect and the inferior learning and capacity of others who use their minds and come to different conclusions, defensible conclusions.

I've not heard Drago and company ID the principals in the assassination. And I doubt they ever will except to refer to "forces, the "puppet masters," powers that be, shadow government, international bankers, etc. They never name persons and offer their evidence to back it up, nor do I expect they ever will. Welcome to the matrix.

When I joined this forum, I was attracted by the "Deep Politics Forum" name alone, and a thread on Nelson was attractive if only because I was fascinated with the book and sought out to find informed criticism and assessment of evidence, praise, shortcomings, etc. Yet critics have showed me NADA thus far. I hoped to find rational assessment and debate about the evidence for and against Nelson's thesis of LBJ as the mastermind of JFK's assassination. That hope has been dashed.

This is probably a preview, unfortunately, of 9/11 research 47 years hence: honest researchers vexed by a den of vipers blocking and smearing legitimate hypotheses and empirical research.

You are not addressing a colleague in the Bush Administration.

Peddle your self-serving drivel somewhere else.

Jim Fetzer broke my heart.

You ... you are a transparent naif and a posturing fool.

No longer address me.

Go cuddle with the failing Fetzer.

[James H. Fetzer]

Here's a summary by Robert Morrow that has it right about LBJ and JFK:

John Kennedy was an out-of-control Sex Freak [Morrow's word: I would say, sex addict or "enthusiast"] who had many, many affairs. People who deny this are Kennedy groupies, not interested in the truth. It is not "slander" of someone if you really are a Sex Freak like John Kennedy or Bill Clinton who idolized JFK and tried to be just like him. (LBJ was also a notorious womanizer.)

That is too bad because if you don't understand this, then you will never understand that the ONLY reason Lyndon Johnson got on the Democratic ticket in 1960 was through the use of SEXUAL BLACKMAIL on John Kennedy to FORCE John Kennedy to put him on the Demo ticket.

On the night of July 13th, 1960, Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, using Hoover's dossier on John Kennedy used SEXUAL BLACKMAIL to force John Kennedy to put Lyndon Johnson on the Democratic ticket. Lyndon Johnson was not on short list of JFK for Vice President. He was not on the long list. LBJ was not on the list - period.

But John Kennedy picked because he was forced to. And that was an extremely dangerous thing because putting Lyndon Johnson a heartbeat away from the world's most powerful job would be about like putting Ted Bundy in a Florida sorority at 2PM.

Kennedy's close and trusted personal secretary for 12 years was Evelyn Lincoln. Here is a report about the Johnson blackmail:

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:

"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 operandiabetted 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 Kennedyduring the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on Kennedy at the Convention." (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.

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 likely that a Kennedy/Symington ticket would have WON California.

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]

Jim:

I have now read two more of Kennedy's inner circle first person memoirs on this whole LBJ as VP subject: Powers and O'Donnell, and Salinger's.

With little variance, they back up Sorenson and Schlesinger. And I should add, it is clear that none of these three men wanted LBJ as VP.

In each case, it is clear that LBJ was the favorite and that he was the only man JFK seriously considered. There is no mention of this extension of an offer to Symington in any of these four books. And I repeat, these were the closest men to Kennedy at the time to write about the subject. For instance, Schlesinger got hold of a memo written by Phil Graham after the convention. Because it was Graham and Alsop who were pushing for LBJ--not LBJ himself.

Now unless you can come up with a credible source written by one of Kennedy's advisers from this time period, then I do not find Hersh's reliance on a con man like Raskin 35 years later to be deserving of any worth at all. Especially since nothing else in Hersh's book is worth believing either.

You can always say that all five men were involved in a conspiracy and cover up, but then you have to extend it out to Alsop, Graham and JFK himself. And recall, THe O'Donnell and Powers book was written in 1972, many years later. ANd as I said, neither they nor Salinger liked LBJ. They preferred someone else, like Freeman, Jackson, or Symington. And they still do not back up Nelson's thesis.

[Charles Drago]

[B]Here's a summary by Robert Morrow that has it right about LBJ and JFK

Robert Morrow has been placed on moderation on DPF due to his addiction to displaying his sexual obsessions -- among other reasons.

I am allowing Fetzer's surrogate Morrow post to remain visible because it further reveals the poor old man's (Fetzer's) loss of faculties -- as if we needed additional evidence of his precipitous and dangerous (to the cause of defining and effecting truth and justice for JFK) decline.

Fetzer's endorsements of Morrow and E. Howard Hunt are related and speak -- sadly -- for themselves.

If Fetzer or anyone else attempts to post Morrow's filth and fiction here, he/she/they will risk losing posting privileges.

Charles R. Drago