Ep 74: LBJ (Part 5)

One of the primary questions in the study of the JFK Assassination is whether Lyndon Johnson was involved as a plotter. This question has become a wedge issue among the critical research community.

For those who say Johnson is behind President Kennedy’s assassination, what usually follows is evidence related to Malcolm Wallace – a mysterious man who, without a doubt knew Lyndon Johnson and worked with him on occasion. Proponents of the LBJ did it theory rely on testimony from Billie Sol Estes about Wallace being LBJ’s hitman, a fingerprint that allegedly matches Wallace’s, and a showstopping tape recording with what sounds like a confession from Cliff Carter about Mac Wallace’s involvement. We’ll get to the fingerprint and the tape in the next episode.

In this episode, we cover Billie Sol Estes 1984 grand jury testimony, the alleged LBJ kill list, the background of Mac Wallace, and Wallace’s alleged involvement in the murder of USDA official, Henry Marshall.

The 1984 Grand Jury

By 1984, Billie Sol Estes was out of prison after having served a total of ten years behind bars. During his incarceration, Estes remained in contact with Texas Ranger, Clint Peoples, who convinced Estes to tell the world what he knew about the mysterious, still unsolved 1961 death of Henry Marshall.^[1] Estes had promised Ranger Peoples in 1979, as Peoples was transporting him to serve his second stint in prison, that he would solve Henry Marshall’s death when he was released.^[2]

Keeping his promise to Peoples, on March 20, 1984, Estes once again entered the Robertson County Courthouse to speak to a grand jury about the death of Henry Marshall, just like he did in 1962.^[3] This time, however, Billie Sol Estes didn’t plead the 5^th Amendment. He answered many of the same questions that had been put to him in 1962, this time with immunity from the prosecutor.^[4]

Estes told the grand jury that Henry Marshall was murdered for fear that he would blow the whistle on Estes’s cotton allotment scheme. According to Billie Sol, Marshall was killed on the orders of then Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, who was worried about being linked to Estes’s fraud through Cliff Carter. Specifically, Estes said that Carter personally ordered Henry Marshall to approve 138 cotton allotment transfers as payback to Estes for campaign contributions.^[5] 

Estes said that, at first, Johnson suggested that Marshall be promoted out of Texas so that he was no longer a problem. But, Marshall turned that promotion down.^[6] After that, Estes said that LBJ made the decision to kill Henry Marshall using Johnson associate, Mac Wallace, as the hitman. But Estes gives two different accounts of the details of how the assassination of Henry Marshall came to be.

At the 1984 Texas grand jury, Estes said that sometime in late January 1961, he was in Washington for the inauguration. In the backyard of Lyndon Johnson’s home, Estes spoke privately with Johnson, Cliff Carter, and Mac Wallace about the situation with Henry Marshall. Estes said it was at that point that Johnson made the call to kill Marshall, and Carter assigned the job to Mac Wallace.^[7]

On the other hand, in his 2005 autobiography, Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend, he says that in January of 1961, he did meet with Johnson, Carter, and Wallace, but they discussed the difficulty Marshall was causing for them and the idea of giving him a promotion to make him go away. There was no mention of killing Henry Marshall during this January backyard Washington chat – as Estes told it in 2005. Instead, Estes’s book says that he met with Cliff Carter in Bryan, Texas in late May of 1961. At that time, Cliff told him that Henry Marshall may go to meet with Bobby Kennedy in Washington the next week and LBJ asked Cliff to care of it. Estes says that Carter then contacted Mac Wallace in California, and he came in to kill Henry Marshall.^[8]

There is a lot of overlap in both versions of the story. Estes talks about a January backyard meeting in Washington with LBJ, Carter and Wallace in both versions. The big variation is in exactly when the decision to kill Marshall using Mac Wallace was made. I honestly can’t determine whether this inconsistency in the story is based on confusion or if the inconsistency shows that Estes was just making the whole thing up.

This is a core issue with the Bille Sol Estes/Mac Wallace story: the primary witness to it is also a conman. We know that Billie Sol Estes would not hesitate to tell a lie. But, all of his lies were for his own financial benefit or to protect himself. So, the question is why would Billie Sol Estes lie about LBJ ordering Mac Wallace to kill Henry Marshall? The fact that Estes had no obvious motive for lying here makes his story much more plausible. As Billie Sol’s daughter Pam once said about her father QUOTE “Even liars sometimes tell the truth.”^[9]

Estes told the grand jury that, after the murder, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter met with him at his home in Pecos. Wallace described waiting for Marshall at his ranch. He said that there was an awful scuffle before Wallace overwhelmed Marshall and put a plastic bag over his head and the exhaust pipe of Marshall’s pickup truck. But, while Wallace was in the process of poisoning Marshall, he heard a car coming, and then panicked and shot Marshall five times with his own rifle.^[10]

Unlike the first grand jury to look in to Henry Marshall’s death in 1962, the second grand jury in 1984 decided unanimously that Marshall was killed by someone else.^[11] The question of who killed Marshall remained an open one.

The LBJ Kill List

When Billie Sol Estes was released from prison in December of 1983, he still had parole restrictions and tax liens that he had to pay. He hoped that the information he had to offer the government about LBJ would lead to a presidential pardon. After Estes testified at the 1984 Robertson County grand jury, he retained attorney, Doug Caddy to help him obtain a pardon from Ronald Reagan. Caddy had previously been the lawyer for CIA agent, E. Howard Hunt, during Watergate. Estes said that Caddy was retained because he was a Republican and Estes had a long history of being a Democrat.^[12]

Caddy determined that the best course of action for Estes would be to contact the Attorney in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, Stephen Trott. Incidentally, Trott worked on the 1975 reinvestigation of the murder of Robert F Kennedy when he was a Deputy District attorney in Los Angeles.^[13]That probably is a coincidence, but it’s worth noting for the record.

After several phone calls and letters, Assistant Attorney General Trott asked for Estes to put in writing exactly what evidence he had to offer. On August 9, 1984, Doug Caddy wrote a letter on behalf of Estes to Stephen Trott at the DOJ. The letter said QUOTE:

Mr. Estes was a member of a four member group, headed by Lyndon Johnson, which committed criminal acts in Texas in the 1960s. The other two, besides Mr. Estes and LBJ were Cliff Carter and Mack Wallace. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose his knowledge concerning the following criminal offenses:

Murders:

1.    The killing of Henry Marshall

2.    The killing of George Krutilek

3.    The killing of Ike Rogers and his secretary

4.    The killing of Harold Orr

5.    The killing of Coleman Wade

6.    The killing of Josefa Johnson

7.    The killing of John Kinser and

8.    The killing of President J. F. Kennedy

Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mack Wallace, who executed the murders.^[14]

The letter goes on to say that QUOTE “Mr. Estes states that Mac Wallace, whom he describes as a "stone killer" with a communist background, recruited Jack Ruby, who in turn recruited Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Estes says that Cliff Carter told him that Mac Wallace fired a shot from the grassy knoll in Dallas, which hit JFK from the front during the assassination.^[15] Estes claimed that his personal knowledge that LBJ ordered all of these murders came from meetings he had with Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace after each killing.^[16] Caddy also said that Estes had tape recordings of certain conversations QUOTE “as a means of Carter and Estes protecting themselves should LBJ order their deaths.”^[17]

Stephen Trott at the Justice Department responded to Doug Caddy’s letter on September 13^th, by saying that if any errors were found in Estes’s testimony the government’s promise of immunity for his statements would be null and void.^[18] Shortly after receiving this letter, Estes decided to stop talking to the DOJ. According to Estes, he didn’t break off presidential pardon negotiations because of the threat of being prosecuted if he lied. Instead, Estes says that, after a meeting with the DOJ had been set at a hotel in Abilene, Texas, he received calls from his Italian friends who told him that if he went through with the meeting, his life would end.^[19] When Estes didn’t show up, the DOJ sent him a frustrated letter in November of 1984 that precluded any chance of further discussions.^[20]

Estes’ attorney, Doug Caddy, confirmed to author Joan Mellon in January of 2006 that Estes never provided him with any evidence that confirmed his accusations. Caddy told Mellon that he was QUOTE “messed up by Billie Sol Estes.”^[21]

The 1984 Billie Sol Estes Grand Jury and DOJ Letter saga raise a lot of questions. If what Estes said is true, then it would change the contemporary understanding of American History. But, you have to admit that it does not look good for Estes that he walked away from talking to the feds when he had a chance to come clean and get immunity. Then again, it’s also likely that Estes had mob connections and not beyond belief that someone could have told him not to talk.

Who Was Mac Wallace?

The claims from Billie Sol Estes rely heavily on long time Johnson aide Cliff Carter and a man named Mac Wallace. We’ve already established that Estes had a very close relationship with Carter. So, who was Mac Wallace?

From a young age, Wallace was an overachiever. He was the quarterback of the Club football team at the University of Texas. More importantly, he was elected the president of the student body in 1944, about eight years after John Connally held the same position.^[22] After graduating from UT, Wallace attended Columbia University in New York, to pursue a doctorate in economics, which he never finished.^[23]

Wallace went on to work at a Steamship Company and a bank before going back to Austin to get his Masters in Economics from the University of Texas. He then worked as an economics professor at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus, and later at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.^[24]

Around this time, Cliff Carter, Wallace’s friend from college, introduced Wallace to one of LBJ’s attorneys, Ed Clark.^[25] Wallace then worked on Johnson’s 1948 Senate campaign, without formally joining his staff. In 1949, Johnson returned the favor by having Cliff Carter get Mac Wallace a job as an economist for the Department of Agriculture in Washington.^[26]

According to Texas journalist, Holland McCombs, once Wallace was working at the USDA, he traveled to Texas doing odd jobs for Senator Johnson. One of those jobs included strong-arming small businesses to pay a cut of their federal loan proceeds to Lyndon Johnson.^[27]

Wallace The Hitman?

In 1947, Wallace married a woman named Mary Andre Barton, who went by Andre. While Wallace was in Washington, Andre stayed in Austin with their small children. One of Wallace’s jobs, according to Johnson aide, Horace Busby, was to QUOTE “rein in Josefa Johnson,” Lyndon’s alcoholic troublemaking sister.^[28] This assignment led to Wallace spending time with Josefa and eventually having an affair with LBJ’s sister from 1949 until 1951.

During the same time that Wallace was sleeping with Josefa Johnson, she began to date John Kinser when she was back in Austin.^[29] Then, in the Summer of 1951, Kinser began an affair with Mac Wallace’s wife, Andre.^[30] Yes, you heard that right, John Kinser, a man Wallace had never met, was sleeping with Mac Wallace’s mistress and his wife.

With knowledge of these affairs in his mind, Mac Wallace drove to the Pitch and Putt on the afternoon of October 22, 1951 and ordered a pack of cigarettes from Kinser who was working the cash register. As Kinser was ringing up the sale, Wallace shot and killed him at point blank range in front of several witnesses, one of whom took down Wallace’s license plate number as he fled.^[31]

When Wallace was arrested he told the police QUOTE “I work for Johnson. That’s why I have to get back to Washington.”

Kinser Trial

Mac Wallace was bailed out of jail by LBJ attorney, Ed Clark.^[32] At first, Wallace’s main lawyer was Polk Shelton, who worked for George Parr and was involved in Johnson’s 1948 Senate Campaign.^[33] Eventually, Johnson’s go to criminal defense lawyer, Jon Cofer, was hired to represent Wallace.^[34] If you’re keeping score, that’s 3 lawyers closely connected to LBJ so far.   

The jury found Wallace guilty of murder, but recommended a suspended sentence of only five years. The suspended sentence meant that Wallace would not have to serve any time in prison, and that if he could avoid racking up another felony over the next five years, the murder conviction would later be expunged from Wallace’s record.

Researcher Glen Sample spoke to one of the jurors who told him that each of the jurors had been threatened, including men coming to the front door with guns pointed at them and telling them to QUOTE “be careful about your decision.”^[35] Some of the jurors later called John Kinser’s parents to apologize for the suspended sentence, saying that they had no choice because their families were threatened.^[36]  

The selection of lawyers alone in the Kinser trial makes it likely that Lyndon Johnson had some involvement in coordinating the defense. The fact that the jurors were threatened would also support the idea that Johnson’s team was backing Mac Wallace. On the other hand, Wallace had to borrow money from his family to pay his lawyers. LBJ did not cover the legal fees.^[37] But, given what we know about LBJ, we wouldn’t expect him to do that.

Years Between Alleged Murders

Once Wallace was able to go free as a convicted murderer, he left the USDA and began to work for defense industry contractors. He worked briefly for Jonco Aircraft Corporation in Oklahoma, before taking a longer term position at the Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Company, also known as TEMCO. TEMCO, a contractor for the Navy and Air Force, was owned by David Harold Byrd, a strong supporter of LBJ, who would go on to purchase the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building.^[38]

In February 1961, Wallace left TEMCO to go work for Ling Electronics, which had merged with Temco. It’s owner, James Ling, was friends with Johnson and donated $250,000 to the 1960 Kennedy-Johnson ticket. But Ling claimed that he did not know Mac Wallace.^[39]

In a September 1962 memorandum, the Office of Naval Intelligence Screening Board unanimously denied Mac Wallace’s request for a security clearance at Ling Electronics because of his prior murder conviction, a 1959 allegation from Wallace’s ex-wife that Wallace raped his 9 year old daughter, and a 1961 conviction of Wallace for public intoxication. Despite the findings of the ONI Screening Board, Mac Wallace was still given the requested security clearance.^[40] Texas Ranger, Clint Peoples, who investigated the Kinser murder, was interviewed about Wallace by the Office of Naval Intelligence as part of this process. When Peoples asked the interviewer how he could even consider Wallace for a clearance, he was told QUOTE “politics.” When Peoples asked who could be so strong in politics to give this guy a clearance, he was told QUOTE “the Vice President.”^[41]  

Did Wallace Kill Henry Marshall?

We’ve established with certainty that Mac Wallace murdered John Kinser. But, that wasn’t a professional hit. It was a revenge killing due to a love triangle, or quadrangle, in this case. For most researchers, a pre-requisite to the idea that Mac Wallace was involved in killing President Kennedy is that Wallace was the assassin of Henry Marshall, which would demonstrate that he was willing to kill for LBJ. So what does the evidence say about Wallace’s involvement in the Henry Marshall murder?

Aside from what Billie Sol Estes said in his 1984 grand jury testimony, there are some other facts in support of Mac Wallace as Marshall’s killer. During the original Marshall grand jury in 1962, local gas station attendant, Nolan Griffin, testified that someone stopped by the gas station around the time of Marshall’s death and asked where the Marshall farm was located. That same man came back the next day and said “You gave me the wrong Marshall, but that’s all right. I got my deer lease.”^[42] Griffin remembered the man a year later because it was rare for to see strangers in town.^[43]

According to Griffin, the man drove a 1958 or 1959 Plymouth or Dodge Station Wagon, which is the same type of car that Wallace drove according to author Phillip Nelson.^[44] The man wore dark rimmed glasses, had dark hair, and a scarred, dark face. A Texas Ranger sketch artist drew a facial sketch of the man, which did appear to resemble Mac Wallace.^[45]

Griffin would later sign an affidavit that said the man he saw was another man (whose name was not released), not Mac Wallace. However, Griffin said that he was given the document by his friend, Sheriff Stegall. So, he signed it without looking at it and he does not agree that he identified some other man. The unidentified man was never charged.^[46] Griffin received threatening phone calls around this time warning him to QUOTE “keep an eye on his children and watch what he said.”^[47]

There is evidence that on the day Marshall was killed, a man who looked similar to Mac Wallace, and drove the same type of car, stopped at the local gas station asking for directions to the Marshall farm. But, there are also arguments, advanced by author Joan Mellon in her book Faustian Bargains, that, if true, make it impossible for Wallace to be Henry Marshall’s killer.

Mac Wallace had moved to California in February of 1961. According to a 1984 Texas newspaper article, we know that Wallace was in California on June 1, 1961 – two days before the Marshall murder – because he filled out a portion of his security access renewal paperwork that day.^[48]

According to what Wallace’s brother, Harold, told the Dallas Morning News, Wallace had a rock solid alibi: Wallace’s brother and his family arrived in California on June 2^nd and stayed at Wallace’s home. Mac Wallace could not have been in Texas killing Henry Marshall on June 3, 1961 because Wallace was at the beach in California all day with his son, Michael, and his brother Harold, and his children.^[49] Wallace’s son, Michael, later reiterated the same story to Joan Mellon.^[50]

As you just heard, we have arguments on both sides. For me, the alibi from Wallace’s brother and son, as well as the date on his security renewal application, have more evidentiary weight than the evidence supporting Wallace’s guilt, which is really just Estes’ story, plus the somewhat matching vehicle and artist rendering from the gas station attendant. On the other hand, as you will soon hear, Billie Sol Estes mentioned Mac Wallace and the Henry Marshall shooting specifically in a recorded conversation allegedly with LBJ aide, Cliff Carter, which tends to support the idea that Mac Wallace was involved in the murder of Henry Marshall.  

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We continue to study Mac Wallace’s role in the assassination of President Kennedy, as we focus on a sniper’s nest fingerprint that is alleged to match Wallace and a recently unearthed tape recording of Billie Sol Estes and Cliff Carter, that names Mac Wallace as assassin of President Kennedy.  

^[1] Phillip Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination, at 244.

^[2] Bill Adler, The Killing of Henry Marshall, The Texas Observer, November 7, 1986, at 17 - https://issues.texasobserver.org/pdf/ustxtxb_obs_1986_11_07_issue.pdf

^[3] Id.

^[4] Id.

^[5] Id.

^[6] Nelson at 243.

^[7] Adler at 17.

^[8] Billie Sol Estes, Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend, at 89; https://www.narrowbandimaging.com/incoming/Billy%20Sol%20Estes%20A%20Texas%20Legend%20by%20Billie%20Sol%20Estes%20(2005).pdf

^[9] Id. at 17.

^[10] Adler at 17.

^[11] Adler at 19.

^[12] Estes at 162.

^[13] https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=240684#relPageId=207&search=%22stephen_trott%22

^[14] Letter from Douglas Caddy to Stephen Trott, August 9, 1984 - http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files%20Original/J%20Disk/J%20Letter/Item%2041.pdf 

^[15] Contents of Letter reposted by Douglas Caddy - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28790-texas-corruption-the-murder-of-usda-agent-henry-marshall/

^[16] Id.

^[17] Id.

^[18] Nelson at 247.

^[19] Estes at 162-163.

^[20] https://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2014/07/the-explosive-billy-sol-estes-documents-re-lbjs-hitman-malcom-wallace-kennedy-assassinationmurders-.html

^[21] Joan Mellon, Faustian Bargains, at 240-241.

^[22] Id. at 21, 24.

^[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Wallace

^[24] Mellon at 71, 76.

^[25] Nelson at 209.

^[26] Mellon at 76.

^[27] Id. at 80.

^[28] Mellon at 80; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Busby

^[29] Id. at 83.

^[30] Id. at 82.

^[31] Id. at 86.

^[32] Nelson at 214.

^[33] Mellon at 89.

^[34] Nelson at 214. (Henry Scarborough says that Lyndon Johnson stayed at the Stephen F Austin Hotel during the trial, but this statement does not have much context or support. Mellon at 105.)

^[35] Nelson at 216.

^[36] Adler at 18.

^[37] Mellon at 104.

^[38] Id. at 108.

^[39] Id. at 132-133.

^[40] Id. at 222.

^[41] Adler at 19.

^[42] Id. at 14.

^[43] Mellon at 152.

^[44] Nelson at 242. Notably, Joan Mellon does not mention that Wallace’s vehicle matched the vehicle description.

^[45] Mellon at photo insert; Nelson at 242.                                

^[46] Adler at 15.

^[47] Id. at 15.

^[48] Was Bille Sol Estes Telling the Truth, Victoria (Texas) Advocate, September 25, 1984.

^[49] Mary C. Bounds, “Accused Man’s Relatives Dispute Estes’ Story,” Dallas Morning News, March 29, 1984, 1A.

^[50] Mellon at 235.