- LBJ
I read with great interest today an article on CNN Online discussing the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, an act LBJ signed into law. In it, the author, CNN Senior Producer Kevin Bohn writes:
Some allies of Johnson feel the Vietnam War is the only prism through which the public now sees Johnson and his presidency and are working to make sure some of his major domestic achievements receive more recognition.
I see through another prism though, the prism of JFK’s assassination. Our 36th president’s legacy is indeed about the Vietnam War, but also his knowledge and actions before and after that horrible day in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Historians fail to mention this as well as the mainstream media. LBJ was from Texas. So am I. As an American and homegrown Texan, I am ashamed of many of this president’s actions. He was embroiled in many, many scandals long before the assassination. It isn’t his daughters fault. I don’t believe it was his wife’s fault. What I do believe is that this man was so morally bankrupt that he was ruthless in his pursuit of power. He lied to the Warren Commission as to his actions on Air Force One on 11/22/63. He made several phone calls that day and took over Mrs. Kennedy’s quarters on the plane. His own Presidential Library confirms this in his secretary’s files.
This is a man who had affairs. A man who is rumored to have had his sister, Henry Marshall and others killed. This is a man who had blatant affairs. This is a man who had no visible conscience.
Furthermore, ”Little Lyndon” aka Bobby Baker told Don Reynolds on the day of the 1961 inauguration, that JFK would never live out his term and that he would die a violent death. Bobby Baker, who as the secretary of the Senate was like a son to Lyndon Johnson, was in so much trouble for a vending machine kick back scam and numerous other scandals that he was being investigated by a Senate Committee along with long-time LBJ crony Billie Sol Estes. LBJ stayed clear of Baker in the media, even going so far as to say he had no relationship with him, while Baker continued to provide women for the senators who voted the way LBJ wanted them to vote. If LBJ had no relationship with Baker, then why did he hire his personal attorney to defend him? Why did Baker name two of his children after LBJ? Why did James Wagenvoord, an editor at Life magazine in 1963 tell me that Life had planned to run a story about LBJ’s involvement in the Baker and Billie Sol Estes scandals the week after the Dallas visit? Of course, as Wagenvoord told me, there was no need to run that story after the assassination— LBJ was president and no one wanted to stir the pot for the new President.
As a good Texas girl, my parents always taught me that I could “say” anything, but people would judge me by my actions. I think history should do the same for LBJ.
