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Ep 78: LBJ (Part 9)

  • Matt Crumpton
  • Aug 20
  • 14 min read

We have devoted the past 8 episodes to studying the life of Lyndon Johnson’s, with an eye towards whether he had any involvement in the assassination of his predecessor, President John F. Kennedy.

 

In this episode, we review all of the remaining claims against Johnson that we have not yet addressed, and then summarize what we know about Lyndon B. Johnson’s role in the assassination of President Kennedy.

 

Colonel Burris

 

Let’s circle back to someone we mentioned for the first time in the last episode, Colonel Howard Burris, Vice President Johnson’s military aide.

 

When Colonel Burris accompanied Johnson on a May 1961 trip to Vietnam, it marked the beginning of an back channel between Johnson and the CIA, which provided Johnson with unfiltered intelligence information that President Kennedy was not aware of.[1]  Burris was closely tied to Johnson. He was regularly in contact with Johnson’s right hand man, Cliff Carter. He also used Bobby Baker’s office from time to time.[2]  And, according to Larry Hancock, Burris made a mysterious trip to Lyndon Johnson’s ranch on the day before the assassination. We don’t know the purpose of this trip.[3]

 

We’ll cover Burris again when we get to the Military. But, to the extent Johnson would need a reliable back channel to the CIA and the Military, without involving President Kennedy’s administration, he had that in Colonel Burris.[4]

 

LBJ Before The Assassination

 

If Lyndon Johnson was involved in the plot to kill President Kennedy, we would expect there to potentially be some clues in the form of his actions before and after the assassination.

 

Some researchers argue that Allen Dulles met with Lyndon Johnson at his ranch in Texas before the assassination. We know that Dulles did visit Johnson at his Texas ranch in 1960.[5] In David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard, Talbot says that Dulles visited Johnson at his ranch in the summer of 1963 as noted in an August 15, 1963 Chicago Tribune article with a photo QUOTE “that showed the Vice President astride a horse, while a beaming Lady Bird and Dulles looked on.”[6]

 

However, upon further examination, the photo of Dulles and Johnson was published in papers around the country in August of 1963 as part of a story about Lady Bird Johnson as a hostess.[7] The picture of Johnson and Dulles was a file photo from a prior visit – almost certainly the 1960 visit. In other words, Allen Dulles did not visit Lyndon Johnson at his ranch just before the assassination.

 

While LBJ wasn’t plotting with Allen Dulles at his ranch in 1963, he apparently was plotting something else on the night before the assassination – changing John Connally’s seat in the motorcade. According to author Craig Zirbel, Vice President Johnson came to President Kennedy’s suite to demand that the motorcade seating be changed. Johnson was slated to sit with his political enemy, Senator Ralph Yarborough. But, instead, Johnson wanted to ride with his long-time close friend and political ally, Governor John Connally. President Kennedy did not go along with Johnson’s request.[8] According to author William Manchester, the argument was so loud that the First Lady asked what it was about, to which the President responded QUOTE “That’s just Lyndon. He’s having a bad day.”[9] Witness Max Peck said that Johnson QUOTE “left that suite like a pistol” with “long legs pumping and looking furious.”[10]

 

The idea that Lyndon Johnson would want to ride with his dear friend instead of his enemy is really not that surprising. But, for a grown man to throw a fit to the president about a seating arrangement implies that the issue had higher stakes than just who Johnson’s traveling companion would be during a 10 mile drive through Dallas. Yes, there was bad blood between Johnson and the Kennedys, and, perhaps Lyndon Johnson was just that petty. Still, it is also not crazy to say that it looks like Johnson is trying to do a last minute switcharoo to protect his boy, John Connally, and put his enemy, Senator Yarborough, in harm’s way.

 

This is one of those issues where the sourcing is not that strong for such an important point. Craig Zirbel says that the hotel staff heard the substance of the conversation, without specifying who it was. William Manchester does confirm that the argument happened, without commenting on what it was about. But, it would be nice to know who specifically heard these details given the incendiary nature of the claim from Zirbel.

 

Another conversation with Johnson from the Hotel Texas that night came to light thirty years later. Elliot Janeway was an economic adviser to Lyndon Johnson and was a fundraiser for Johnson’s campaign for president in 1960.[11] According to Gordon Ferrie (no relation to David), before Janeway’s death in 1993, Janeway confided to Ferrie that the night before the assassination at Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, there was a meeting between Janeway, Lyndon Johnson, and John Connally. Lady Bird Johnson and Mrs. Connally were also present. During this meeting, Johnson said it was necessary to go along with the plot to kill Kennedy.[12]

 

Finally, there is a controversy about whether Johnson ducked down before the shots were fired based on a photo by James Altgens. This picture was taken just after Kennedy had been shot, but before the deadly head shot. When we look two cars back in the photo, it appears that Johnson is nowhere to be seen in his seat. Of course, if Johnson knew that there were going to be shots fired in Dealey Plaza, that would be a reason for him to duck down. And, the photo does look like he ducked.

 

But, there are two counterpoints to be made on that topic. First, the photo was taken after at least one shot had been fired. So, it is possible that Johnson did duck, but he was simply reacting to the gunfire (although, as you can see from the photo, most other people did not assume it was gunfire, but they were searching for what the sound was). The other issue is that, according to Jim Marrs, he interviewed Senator Ralph Yarborough who was in the car with Johnson about Johnson ducking down, and Yarborough told Marrs QUOTE “It just didn't happen.... It was a small car, Johnson was a big man, tall. His knees were up against his chin as it was. There was no room for that to happen.”[13]

 

LBJ After The Assassination

 

We talked about LBJ’s actions before the assassination. But what did he do immediately after the assassination?

 

There is some evidence that Johnson was worried about a larger conspiracy in the aftermath of Dealey Plaza. At Parkland Hospital, Press Secretary, Malcolm Kilduff, told Johnson that he needed to announce President Kennedy’s death. Johnson then told Kilduff to wait until he left the hospital to make the announcement. Johnson said QUOTE "I think I had better get out of here...before you announce it. We don't know whether this is a worldwide conspiracy, whether they are after me as well as they were after President Kennedy, or whether they are after Speaker McCormack or Senator Hayden. We just don't know."[14] Johnson similarly told biographer, Merle Miller, QUOTE “"I asked that the announcement be made after we had left the room...so that if it were an international conspiracy and they were out to destroy our form of government and the leaders in that government, that we would minimize the opportunity for doing so."[15]

 

Although Johnson said he was worried about an international conspiracy, there is no record of him attempting to contact the national command center, the White House situation room, the joint chiefs of staff, or the secretary of defense. If there was a threat, Johnson didn’t take any action on it.[16]

 

Navy Admiral, Tazewell Sheperd briefed Johnson when he returned to the White House from Dallas. Shepherd said QUOTE “there was no sense of an imminent nuclear war” upon Johnson’s return.[17] The fact that Johnson was saying that he feared an attack, but was taking no actions to stop such an attack, suggests that he was either incompetent, perhaps choking under the pressure of the moment, or possibly, that he did not actually believe that such an international conspiracy was really happening.

 

On the other hand, Democratic National Committee advance man, Martin Underwood, told Vince Palamara that President Johnson sent him to Mexico City in 1966 to get information about what really happened to try to clear Johnson’s name as a potential conspirator. Underwood said that Mexico City CIA Station Chief, Win Scott, told him that the CIA, the FBI, and the mafia all QUOTE “knew JFK was going to be hit.” Underwood also asked Scott if Lyndon Johnson was involved in the assassination, to which Scott replied QUOTE “not in any way, none whatsoever.” Underwood provided typed notes to Palamara from his 1966 meeting with Win Scott, but while the notes confirmed the meeting, they did not provide any details about what Scott said.[18]

 

Fresh LBJ Did It Arguments

 

Over the course of the Solving JFK series on LBJ, we’ve put forth many anecdotes and witness claims that paint the former president in a negative light, some of which potentially implicate him in the assassination. Now, I’d like to quickly lay out a few additional arguments for Johnson’s involvement in the assassination that we have not yet discussed.

 

First, the biggest enemy of the United States thought Lyndon Johnson was involved. In a December 1, 1966 FBI memo, a source who furnished reliable information to the FBI in the past from the Soviet Union said that the KGB believed that Johnson was behind President Kennedy’s assassination. Soviet Communist Party officials QUOTE “believed there was some well-organized conspiracy on the part of the ‘ultraright’ in the United States to effect a coup. They seemed convinced that the assassination was not the deed of one man, but that it arose out of a carefully planned campaign in which several people played a part....”[19]

 

A few paragraphs later, that same memo says QUOTE “Our source added that ….the KGB was in possession of data purporting to indicate President Johnson was responsible for the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy.”[20] This information speaks for itself. We can’t easily dismiss some level of involvement from Johnson when even the KGB thinks he did it.  

 

Next, we have Jack Ruby on tape, apparently implicating Lyndon Johnson in the crime. Ruby says that if Adlai Stevenson were the Vice President the assassination never would have happened. Here’s the recording:

 

“I mention about Adlai Stevenson, if he was Vice President there would never have been no assassination of our beloved President Kennedy.

 

Would you explain it again?

 

Well, the answer is the man in office now.”[21]

 

This recording of Ruby could be taken to mean that the plotters disagreed with Adlai Stevenson’s politics, but they agreed with Johnson’s politics. Or, the more sinister interpretation is that Johnson was the one behind the assassination.

 

What about the opinion of Jackie Kennedy? According to entertainer Eddie Fisher, his one time girlfriend, Pam Turnure, who was the Press Secretary for the First Lady, told him that Jackie Kennedy told her on the flight from Dallas back to Washington QUOTE “Lyndon Johnson did it.”[22] This is one more nugget of hearsay, that would not be admissible in court, but is interesting nonetheless.

 

Attorney Morris Wolff worked on civil rights legislation in the Kennedy Administration alongside Bobby Kennedy.[23] After the assassination, Wolff went on to work with Senator John Sherman Cooper on getting the civil rights bill passed. In that role, he ended up spending a lot of time with Senator Cooper while Cooper was on the Warren Commission. Wolff says that Senator Cooper told him the following about the Warren Commission QUOTE “They want to bury the truth under a pile of stones. I think Lyndon Baines Johnson was involved in the planning and execution of Kennedy’s death.”[24] 

 

We also have the claim of long-time CIA officer, E. Howard Hunt, that Lyndon Johnson was at the top of the hierarchy for the planning of President Kennedy’s murder. Hunt is an important figure in the case overall, and we’ll be coming back to cover his career and claims in depth later. But, to make a very long story short, at a time when Hunt believed he didn’t have much time left to live due to failing health, Hunt made a confession to his son, St. John Hunt. He told St. John the identity of the planners of the JFK Assassination.

 

Hunt put LBJ at the top of the list, and then drew a line to Cord Meyer, who was in charge of covert action for the CIA. From there, Hunt also implicated CIA officers David Atlee Phillips, Bill Harvey, and David Morales, as well as Frank Strurgis, Antonio Veciana, and a French gunman on the grassy knoll. Hunt said that he was just a benchwarmer in the assassination plot. While Hunt’s statement may be self-serving and incomplete, it is, at a minimum, worth noting that a former high level CIA officer put Lyndon Johnson at the top of the conspiracy.[25]

 

LBJ Conclusion

 

So, where does that leave us? Remember, we already determined that Johnson was involved in the cover-up of the assassination after the fact, due to the phone call with Hoover on the day after the assassination where Hoover tells Johnson about an Oswald impostor in Mexico City. The audio from the full phone call was intentionally erased, but the part of the transcript that remains makes it clear that Johnson knew about the Mexico City Oswald impostor issue and never brought it up again, even though he used that same Mexico City meeting where Oswald was impersonated to pressure Earl Warren and Richard Russell to join the presidential commission to review the assassination.

 

So, LBJ was complicit in the cover-up. But, what about the assassination planning? Given what we know, let’s apply the classic investigatory technique of the means, motive, and opportunity test to see where Johnson objectively ranks as a suspect.

 

First, we turn our attention to whether Johnson had the means to order the assassination. Given what we learned over the last few episodes, the assassination eve Murchison party almost certainly did not happen and Mac Wallace’s fingerprint was not found on the 6th floor. However, the audio tape presented to the world this year by Billie Sol Estes’s grandson, Shane Stevens, does complicate matters. Just when I was ready to rule out Mac Wallace’s involvement, this tape comes in and revives the possibility that Wallace was somehow involved – if both the tape and the substance of what is being said are legitimate. I also believe it is possible that Estes was recording a false story for the tape to implicate Wallace and to protect Henry Marshall’s real killer. But, whether or not the tape is authentic, I do not see any possible way that Mac Wallace planned the assassination overall, not in the way Cliff Carter and Estes are implying on the tape.

 

Billie Sol Estes would have us believe that Wallace connected with Jack Ruby, who then connected with Lee Harvey Oswald. But, that doesn’t address what Oswald was doing in the Soviet Union, or New Orleans, or Mexico City. Are we to believe that Mac Wallace set up the Mexico City trip? Did Mac Wallace procure an Oswald imposter to talk to Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy? The answer to all of those questions for me are a resounding, no way. There is simply no evidence to support Mac Wallace as the chief plotter.

 

Now, outside of Mac Wallace, did Johnson have the means to control the assassination? Potentially, yes. He had relationships with military generals and the CIA through Colonel Burris. He also had relationships with intelligence agencies from his time in the House and Senate, not to mention his personal friendship with ousted CIA director, Allen Dulles. So, could LBJ have created the plot and set it in motion? I believe he could have had some role in that. It’s just that we don’t have any direct evidence for it. Still, if Johnson was involved and if the assassination was successful, as it ended up being, Johnson would have the means to control the investigation, and a compliant J. Edgar Hoover to help. That’s exactly what happened.  

 

The next question is whether LBJ had a motive for killing President Kennedy. This is an easy one. Aside from achieving his lifelong goal of becoming President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson had other strong motives to get rid of JFK. In the Fall of 1963, the walls were caving in around Johnson. The Billie Sol Estes investigation and the Henry Marshall murder sullied Johnson’s reputation. The Bobby Baker investigation would have led to Johnson’s arrest according to Life Magazine editor, James Wagenvoord.[26] And, on the day of the assassination, Don Reynolds was testifying about how Johnson required kickbacks for doing business with him.

 

When Johnson became president, he was able to sweep all of those misdeeds under the rug in the name of coming together as a country after President Kennedy’s death. Indeed, CIA director, John McCone met with President Johnson on November 30, 1963 and wrote in a subsequent memo that Johnson QUOTE “brought up a number of very personal problems” and asked that McCone and McGeorge Bundy, QUOTE “as a team…help him solve some of his problems.”[27] Similarly, a February 13, 1964 FBI report says that President Johnson confiscated the Bobby Baker file from the Department of Justice while Attorney General Robert Kennedy was out of the office on a peace mission trip.

 

We also cannot forget that Johnson and the Kennedy’s had an intense disdain for one another, so much so that insiders believed Johnson would not be on the 1964 ticket as Vice President, had President Kennedy lived. So, yes, LBJ had a very strong motive to want President Kennedy gone.

 

Finally, did Johnson have the opportunity to plan the assassination? Determining whether someone had opportunity is much easier if you are accusing them of committing the crime. When the accusation is that the person planned the crime, it becomes more difficult to clearly sort out this question. There is one person who sticks out to me when it comes to LBJ and opportunity: John Connally.[28]

 

As noted in Episode 70, John Connally wasn’t just the governor of Texas. He was Lyndon Johnson’s extremely close confidant. In addition to serving in the Navy with LBJ, Connally worked at LBJ’s radio station, served as his congressional assistant, managed his losing 1941 Senate campaign and his winning 1946 House re-election campaign, served as a strategist on Johnson’s notorious 1948 Senate campaign, and acted as the chief surrogate for Johnson in the 1960 presidential campaign before Johnson lost the top spot on the ticket to Kennedy.[29] And, don’t forget that upon becoming Vice President, Johnson got Connally the job as Secretary of the Navy, which positioned Connally to run for Governor of Texas.[30]

 

I point out how close John Connally’s relationship was with Johnson because it was Governor Connally who insisted that the Trade Mart be used for the site of Kennedy’s speech. And, according to White House advance man, Jerry Bruno, the Secret Service decided to go forward with the Trade Mart out of deference to Connally.[31] After the assassination, Lyndon Johnson and John Connally remained close, even operating a gold mining company together.[32]

 

In conclusion, I find that Lyndon Johnson, with the assistance of J. Edgar Hoover, covered up the assassination after the fact. I find it inconclusive, but likely, that Johnson had some sort of foreknowledge regarding the assassination. And I find the question of whether Lyndon Johnson had any role in planning the assassination to be inconclusive. It is possible, but not proven.

 

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We’ll have a recap and rebuttals episode on Lyndon Johnson with Jeff Crudele from JFK: The Enduring Secret.

 


[4] Burris wrote a memo about a planned nuclear first strike that Kennedy flat out rejected. https://prospect.org/world/u.s.-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963/

[6] David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard at 401; Photo - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27642-the-lbj-dulles-photo/

[7] Scottsbluff, Nebraska Star-Herald, August 23, 1963, at 6.

[8] Craig Zirbel, The Texas Connection, at 190-191.

[9] William Manchester, The Death of a President, at 82.

[10] Id.

[16] Nelson at 429.

[17] Id.

[18] Vince Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt, 214-218.

[20] Id. at 5.

[22] Eddie Fisher, Been There Done That, at 258.

[24] Morris Wolff, Lucky Conversations, at 112.

[28] I also considered Jack Puterbaugh as a person of interest. However, upon learning that Puterbaugh came from Minnesota to the Department of Agriculture with Orville Freeman, I am no longer persuaded that Puterbaugh has sinister involvement. (Unpublished text: As far as Jack Puterbaugh, I want to be clear that I have no specific incriminating evidence against him. However, you may recall that after N. Battle Hales continued to have suspicions about Billie Sol Estes, even after the Henry Marshall murder, Hales was replaced at the USDA by Jack Puterbaugh. That same man, Puterbaugh, served as Democratic National Committee advance man in Dallas. And, according to Agent Winston Lawson, who has his own issues as set forth in the series on the Secret Service, Puterbaugh is the one who re-arranged the order of the motorcade vehicles at Love Field.[28] According to Secret Service Chief, James Rowley, it was Puterbaugh who told him that the final decision for the luncheon location was the Trade Mart, which meant that the motorcade route would go through Dealey Plaza.)

[32] Joan Mellen, Faustian Bargains, at 224.

 

 
 
 

© 2025 by Matt Crumpton

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