lbj blog

kitty kelly

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385503245/ref=ase_counterpunchmaga/104-8495760-8544731
link to book on the bushes, also discusses lbj.
what i'm reading: memoirs of john kenneth galbraith, "A Life in Our Times"
one thing i didn't know:
galbraith, a tenured professor at harvard, recruited eugene mccarthy to run against lbj, over vietnam.
another: in the 1968 new hampshire primary, lbj beat mccarthy 49% to 42% -
in a write-in vote. He hadn't planned to enter the primary so hadn't filed.
Richard Winger could remind me which senator - the one who died age 100 recently - was elected by write-in. Strom Thurmond, that's it. So 49% is pretty good - for a write in.
LBJ just wanted no opposition at all. It was a tactic he had used before, being selected Kennedy's veep by acclamation at the convention.

JFK said the true story of LBJ's nomination can never be told. There are different versions of it. The camelot version is that Johnson was Kennedy's first choice, but that he expected him to say no. "Camelot version" is the term used for the whitewashed version of kennedy's life in books by insiders, Sorenson, Salinger, Slessinger. Galbraith is a little more independent, but of that ilk.

Another version has it that J. Edgar Hoover and Johnson blackmailed Kennedy with inside information on his mob connections and girlfriends.
Perhaps the most convincing is the version that his daddy ordered him to; that J. Edgar or whoever else made the deal with Joe, and Joe dictated terms to Jack. Bobby was appalled, not, at this point, being in on all the dirt.
One of these days I'll need to make a chart of who said what happened when. Kennedy was nominated. He had promised the veep spot to Symington... but Kennedies, Kennedys, are not known for truth telling, and he may have promised the veep spot to a number of people. At some point there was a phone call to LBJ. At some earlier point there had been a meeting. Johnson and the Ambassador, Joe Kennedy, were in contact, or were they? Like Hirohito, both Johnson and Joe Kennedy were masters of the phone. Joe stayed away from Jack, to prevent the appearance of pulling his strings, while calling him 4 times a day, pulling strings. The morning after the nomination, a call to LBJ, offering the veepship.
The chart, if i make it, could reference which books say what.
It comes down to what Jack said,the true story will never be known.
Let's say he got the Johnson treatment.


LBJ did not enjoy being vice-president. He took the job partly out of a calculation that presidents do not always live out their terms. He knew Kennedy had Addison's disease and perhaps other health concerns. I do not suggest or allege that LBJ participated in JFK's killing. He knew, though, that Kennedy was prone to risky behavior. Fast cars, sinking ships, drugs, booze, fast women, gangsters, plane crashes... the pattern was already well-established. If for some reason scandal had kept Kennedy from running again in 64, Johnson would be well-positioned.

posted by gt @ 6:09 PM