Friday, May 24, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Why JFK Chose LBJ As VP

The U.S. president whose Warren Commission issued a report which apparently covered-up what actually happened in Dallas nearly 50 years ago was Lyndon Johnson. He apparently wasa chosen to be JFK's running mate in 1960 not because of any special qualifications for the U.S. presidency. As Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers noted in the early 1990s:

"For John Kennedy, a key factor in giving Johnson the vice-presidential slot was the threat of ruinous sex revelations, revelations that would have destroyed the `American family man' image so carefully seeded in the national mind, and snatched the presidency from his grasp. The blackmailers, by this account, were Johnson himself--and [J.] Edgar [Hoover].

"The new information comes from Evelyn Lincoln, John ennedy's personal secretary for 12 years...

"[Evelyn] Lincoln's diary, covering most of her Kennedy service, remains locked in a deposit box...

"During their day of decision over the vice-presidency...John [Kennedy] paced up and down and Robert [Kennedy] slumped on a bed. [Evelyn] Lincoln moved in and out of the room with messages. She heard enough, she says, to understand that Edgar's smear information on Kennedy was at the heart of the dilemma. `It was the information J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson--about womanizing, and things in Joe Kennedy's background...Johnson was using that as clout.'..."

(Downtown 11/23/94)

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