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Worse Than He Ever Imagined: Final Thoughts on Lyndon Johnson

By John Crandell

Near three years before the killing, John Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson took a ride in a convertible, rode nearly thirty miles of fate, from Fort Worth eastward into Dallas. 14th District Judge Sarah T. Hughes went along for the ride and later related that not a word was spoken between the two politicians. Driven on surface streets, they entered downtown Dallas on Commercial Street, under what would become known as The Triple Underpass, and right on center entered Dealey Plaza. A large crowd greeted the candidates gathered at the intersection of Main and Houston, and the University of Texas band accursed the firmament with its Longhorn Fight Song. Surely it was the most ironic event in the history of presidential campaigns. The most intriguing event in human history would occur at this place thirty-five months later–what has been described by Norman Mailer as "The 20th Century's largest mountain of mystery, a black hole in space absorbing great funds of energy."

After twelve years of servitude to Lyndon Johnson, Bill Moyers resigned from Johnson's White House in late 1966. LBJ never spoke with him again. And until his dying day, Moyers adamantly refused to be interviewed by acclaimed Johnson biographer Robert Caro. Wherefore might years of guilt have lain for the one-time seminarian? Bobby Baker and Lyndon had been collaborating since 1948, when Lyndon hired Bill. In the summer of 1963, J. Edgar would manage to skirt past RFK to brief JFK on Baker's numerous mob ties (spartacus-educational.com/JFKbakerF.htm). Why had LBJ's senate consiglieri gone so far out on a limb? Had he figured that Johnson's close ties to Hoover would protect him?

Philadelphia mob boss Angelo Bruno admitted to an associate that Baker unwisely underestimated Robert Kennedy's interest in finding ways to push Johnson out of office. The New York Times had launched a five-part expose of Baker on its front page beginning on 18 November 1963. The lingering effects of Dallas, as well as Johnson's masterful speech before Congress in January of '64, combined with Democrats having majority control of both houses, served to put a quick end to the Capitol's investigation of the Baker-Johnson association. Author Jonathan Marshall has recently remarked that, given what is now known about Baker's associates and their activities, the questions are larger than ever. The extraordinary depth of research in his 2021 book Dark Quadrant has provided a historical revelation, revealing the perfidy of Johnson and his sidekick. The nation had been hammered on November 22, 1963. Thus, two major scandals were suppressed by Democratic officials. Nonetheless, twelve years of Baker, Moyers, and LBJ having interacted? Go figure. History begs for clarification.

William McChesney Martin was appointed as Federal Reserve chairman in 1951 by Harry Truman. He served for nineteen years, thereby outlasting the Johnson administration. In 1965, LBJ attempted to counter the inflationary effects of guns and butter on the American economy by summoning Martin to the Texas White House. The hulking president shoved Martin against his living room wall. The reserve board had announced a rate increase just days before. Johnson yelled, "My boys are dying in Vietnam, and you won't print the money I need!" The chairman stood his ground. Johnson's regime began its slide into oblivion.

Lyndon Baines Johnson imposed an acute cost on so many–those he employed and enjoined with, those he targeted and suppressed, victims of the violence he spawned, and perhaps as well the man he instantly replaced on Elm Street. The possibility of the latter remains an open question in light of the known activities of then White House security officer Joseph Shimon as well as the recent revelation regarding the infamous Magic Bullet by former Secret Service agent Paul Landis. At the Rice Hotel in Houston, around forty hours before he died, Kennedy summoned LBJ, and they joined in a short, raging argument. The veep stormed past Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving the encounter. Bug-eyed, she asked her husband what had happened. He replied, "Lyndon is in trouble." Before departing the White House the day previous, Kennedy had told his secretary that Johnson would not be his running mate the next year. Early on the morning following the assassination, Johnson ordered Kennedy's secretary to clear out of her office in thirty minutes.

On the previous Easter Sunday, Shimon had visited his daughter in New Jersey. He intimated that Kennedy would be hit. Her response only clarified the remark, and he simply said, "Good girl!" A presidential visit to Texas had been agreed upon in the Oval Office in the previous week. LBJ left the meeting and immediately summoned Shimon, requesting that he be provided with greater security than the president. In future years, Shimon would be prosecuted for witness tampering and intimidation. As part of his (under cover) CIA credentials, he had been chief liaison to the mob in efforts to eliminate Castro. Bill Harvey, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, and Santo Trafficante were regular visitors to his residence, with occasional sit-ins by J.J. Angleton. He would consider the efforts of the House Select Committee on Assassinations to have been a joke–"They aren't really serious enough to get to the bottom of anything" he would tell his daughter in '76. In '74, Trafficante had taken out contracts on her and her mother. Grieving, the daughter had called him at his office in the White House following the assassination in Dallas. "These things happen, honey," he advised.

The foremost political sleight in modern American history occurred years before Donald Trump ever went to college; Tricky Dick had nothing to do with it. The singular politician—the one most prescient in modelling and casting illusions, creating smokescreens and false impressions has been Lyndon Baines Johnson, bar none—ever since Washington crossed the Delaware River. He has been described by his contemporaries as the greatest actor—anywhere and of all time. A phenomenon of human energy: a multitude of wheels spinning in his head, and his trademark was to get right up close to your face with his insistence. With the approach of the 1960 election, he'd toned down his aggrandizing, maniacal, relentless behavior above the Capitol Steps. But he would never manage to shed his innate aura of unctuousness. Gaining widespread admiration, his wife had demonstrated sufficient smarts by adroitly administering his congressional office during his West Coast assignment during World War II. In return, social occasions provided him the opportunity to caustically assail her appearance. Nonplused would be her only reaction, leading one to wonder whether it all was a pose, a horse-and-pony act casting an aura of innocence upon the former Claudia Alter Taylor. Married to Lyndon for twenty-nine years, what questions coursed through the mind of Lady Bird as she sat shaking in Parkland's emergency room? By 1963, what had come to benefit the couple was her sole ownership of the Johnson Corporation.

Reflecting upon his past acquaintances, one Texan has been known to say that upon former House Speaker Sam Rayburn's death, "Lyndon Johnson's brain died with him!" Rayburn died of cancer on November 16, 1961, and one can easily speculate what thereafter metastasized within the mind of LBJ. Sam had been the one and only individual whom Johnson dared never to dominate. Given his storied integrity, how could he have been so blind all along, ever since Johnson had introduced himself to the then House Majority Leader in 1937? Long afterwards, only two other persons would dominate LBJ. While vice president, Johnson repeatedly expressed positive regard for Kennedy. No one had to guess his feelings regarding the attorney general. However, had he changed after having sunk into a rage, viciously insulted, and spread rumors about Kennedy as the naval hero had far outshone him in the 1960 contest for the Democratic nomination? Kennedy's inauguration as president tossed Johnson into an emotional pit of sheep dip, and he remained there in misery until marksmen zeroed in on Kennedy above Elm Street a thousand days into the whirl of Camelot. Johnson then constructed what he thought would be his enduring record and reputation with his Great Society agenda as President.

In the early months of the Kennedy administration, Johnson had arrogantly attempted a novel role for himself in US history—proposing to JFK that he serve simultaneously as vice president as well as continue as Senate majority leader. Soon, he arrived at 1600 in his limousine, jumped out, and slammed the door at the north portico before the first-ever African-American Secret Service agent could reach the vehicle. The agent accompanied the veep to the Oval Office. Jack and Bobby were waiting for the showdown. While Johnson fulminated, they smiled at one another, which ticked Sam Rayburn's protege into getting himself up and stomping out. At the door, he stopped and turned around. To John Kennedy, he heatedly yelled, "You gotta stop fuckin' with me, you son of a bitch! I'm gonna get enough with you fuckin' with me!"

An era of sorrow in the wake of John Kennedy's death provided Johnson a grand opportunity to recast himself and distract the nation from his extensive and essential role in Washington. Being a genius at creating distraction and lacking a moral center, his creation of Medicare and Equal Rights might appear to have been tools, artifacts, and misdirection in his sidestepping or in his having to acknowledge financial gain, capitalist largess from violence in Southeast Asia. This antithetical smokescreen was most evident when domestic adviser Joe Califano volunteered that LBJ "gave new meaning to the word Machiavellian, as he gave hope to the disadvantaged."

Always it ought be remembered: one final fact within any piercing ray of light upon Parallax Man—the Senate Majority Leader: he who once drove his hulking Cadillac to the only gas station in Johnson City, Texas and during the fillup, asked the Black attendant to check the tire pressure in the trunk: when the attendant jumped back after being surprised by a rattling sidewinder, he did so want to crush the skull of the magister magician who remained sitting behind his driving wheel, laughing uproariously.

In 1969 in the Central Highlands, John Crandell was confined inside chain link cages serving Fourth Infantry postal customers at Camp Enari as well as Camp Radcliffe.