Post by Rob Caprio on Feb 13, 2019 22:33:48 GMT -5
This post is by Gil Jesus from 9/2010. He writes about why Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) was so anxious to get Senator Ralph Yarbrough in the same limousines as President John F. Kennedy (JFK).
What isn't mentioned is that George H.W. Bush would run against Yarbrough in 1964 for his senate seat and would lose handily. If Yarborough had been killed the seat would have been open.
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An e-mail correspondence I recently had with author Robert Morrow.
I agree that Smathers' interpretation of "Johnson wants to ride with me" was in error. Secret Service regulations forbade the President and Vice-President riding together in the same car. At the time of the Dallas visit, there was a feud going on between Texas Democrats with the conservatives of the Johnson-Connally faction against the more liberal Democrats led by Sen. Ralph Yarborough, a JFK supporter. Yarborough was the one riding in Johnson's car with LBJ and Lady Bird.
It has been reported that on the morning of the assassination, LBJ came to the President's suite at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth and a loud argument broke out between the men. The subject of their disagreement, it was said, was the seating arrangements for the Dallas motorcade. Johnson, it appears, was making a last ditch attempt to get Connally out of JFK's car by using the excuse that Yarborough didn't want to ride with HIM. ( which was true ) But I believe that the seating arrangements were for a purpose --- to show solidarity by having Connally with JFK and Yarborough with LBJ, so there was NO WAY JFK was going to budge on the seating arrangements.
Had Kennedy yielded to Johnson's demands, which would have put Yarborough in JFK's limo, Yarborough, instead of Connally, would have been shot along with Kennedy.
More on that in a second.
H.L. Hunt, Johnson's financial backer and mentor, had a religious foundation called the LIFELINE FOUNDATION. It enjoyed religious status and Federal exemption from income taxes. But in its weekly radio broadcasts, its messages were more political than religious and when I say political, I mean anti-JFK.
In the weeks before the assassination, Hunt's radio program blasted the Administration and its policies.
It accused JFK of bypassing Congress to follow a line enunciated from Moscow.
It was a time, Lifeline broadcasts cried, for "extreme patriotism".
(Source: POWER TO DESTROY, The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon by John A. Andrew III,, published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago 2002-- pg 97)
Many of the funds that were "donations" to these tax-exempt religious organizations were in fact earmarked for right-wing extremist groups. These religious organizations allowed contributors to make donations to right-wing extremist groups and receive a tax deduction for them.
In 1961, the President asked Walter and Victor Reuther to come up with a plan to combat these extreme right-wing forces. Known as the "Reuther Memorandum", one of the things that the document suggested was to "choke off the flow of money to the radical right by challenging groups' tax-exempt status". (ibid. pg 21)
Hence, the IRS' Ideological Organizations Project ( IOP ) was formed.
A March 9, 1962 IRS internal memo listed the first groups to be investigated. Among them were Hunt's Lifeline Organization (Dallas District), the John Birch Society ( for which "Lifeline" was a front ) and the National Indignation Convention, Dallas District. (ibid. pg 29)
In February 1963, ( at a time when Oswald was "buying" his weapons ), the IRS recommended revocation of the tax-exempt status for Hunt's "Life Line". Lifeline had run into problems with the IRS because "approximately 50%" of its publications were "in the nature of propaganda. These releases discussed only one side of an issue and were not consistent with the purposes of an exempt educational organization". (ibid. pg 33 )
Now here's the kicker.
A Senate Sub-Committee was scheduled to hold hearings in January 1964 on the tax-exemption status of religious organizations with extremist political viewpoints.
The Chair of that Sub-Committee ? Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas. ( ibid. pg 34 )
Had Yarborough been in Kennedy's car instead of Connally, HE would have been the one shot up, not Connally. There would have been no hearings, no investigation of Hunt's organization and others.
I find this all extremely interesting in lieu of the fact that Johnson tried so hard, even up to the last minute, to change the seating arrangements for the Dallas motorcade.
Quote off
What isn't mentioned is that George H.W. Bush would run against Yarbrough in 1964 for his senate seat and would lose handily. If Yarborough had been killed the seat would have been open.
Quote on
An e-mail correspondence I recently had with author Robert Morrow.
I agree that Smathers' interpretation of "Johnson wants to ride with me" was in error. Secret Service regulations forbade the President and Vice-President riding together in the same car. At the time of the Dallas visit, there was a feud going on between Texas Democrats with the conservatives of the Johnson-Connally faction against the more liberal Democrats led by Sen. Ralph Yarborough, a JFK supporter. Yarborough was the one riding in Johnson's car with LBJ and Lady Bird.
It has been reported that on the morning of the assassination, LBJ came to the President's suite at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth and a loud argument broke out between the men. The subject of their disagreement, it was said, was the seating arrangements for the Dallas motorcade. Johnson, it appears, was making a last ditch attempt to get Connally out of JFK's car by using the excuse that Yarborough didn't want to ride with HIM. ( which was true ) But I believe that the seating arrangements were for a purpose --- to show solidarity by having Connally with JFK and Yarborough with LBJ, so there was NO WAY JFK was going to budge on the seating arrangements.
Had Kennedy yielded to Johnson's demands, which would have put Yarborough in JFK's limo, Yarborough, instead of Connally, would have been shot along with Kennedy.
More on that in a second.
H.L. Hunt, Johnson's financial backer and mentor, had a religious foundation called the LIFELINE FOUNDATION. It enjoyed religious status and Federal exemption from income taxes. But in its weekly radio broadcasts, its messages were more political than religious and when I say political, I mean anti-JFK.
In the weeks before the assassination, Hunt's radio program blasted the Administration and its policies.
It accused JFK of bypassing Congress to follow a line enunciated from Moscow.
It was a time, Lifeline broadcasts cried, for "extreme patriotism".
(Source: POWER TO DESTROY, The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon by John A. Andrew III,, published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago 2002-- pg 97)
Many of the funds that were "donations" to these tax-exempt religious organizations were in fact earmarked for right-wing extremist groups. These religious organizations allowed contributors to make donations to right-wing extremist groups and receive a tax deduction for them.
In 1961, the President asked Walter and Victor Reuther to come up with a plan to combat these extreme right-wing forces. Known as the "Reuther Memorandum", one of the things that the document suggested was to "choke off the flow of money to the radical right by challenging groups' tax-exempt status". (ibid. pg 21)
Hence, the IRS' Ideological Organizations Project ( IOP ) was formed.
A March 9, 1962 IRS internal memo listed the first groups to be investigated. Among them were Hunt's Lifeline Organization (Dallas District), the John Birch Society ( for which "Lifeline" was a front ) and the National Indignation Convention, Dallas District. (ibid. pg 29)
In February 1963, ( at a time when Oswald was "buying" his weapons ), the IRS recommended revocation of the tax-exempt status for Hunt's "Life Line". Lifeline had run into problems with the IRS because "approximately 50%" of its publications were "in the nature of propaganda. These releases discussed only one side of an issue and were not consistent with the purposes of an exempt educational organization". (ibid. pg 33 )
Now here's the kicker.
A Senate Sub-Committee was scheduled to hold hearings in January 1964 on the tax-exemption status of religious organizations with extremist political viewpoints.
The Chair of that Sub-Committee ? Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas. ( ibid. pg 34 )
Had Yarborough been in Kennedy's car instead of Connally, HE would have been the one shot up, not Connally. There would have been no hearings, no investigation of Hunt's organization and others.
I find this all extremely interesting in lieu of the fact that Johnson tried so hard, even up to the last minute, to change the seating arrangements for the Dallas motorcade.
Quote off