LBJ Was a "Reluctant Warrior"? It Doesn't Even Pass the Laugh Test!

From front page of Dallas Morning News: Mar. 23, 1984.

According to a Sunday New York Times front page story ('Rescuing a Vietnam Casualty': Johnson's Legacy') LBJ's  family and hagiographers are desperate to reconstruct his image and legacy. For those of us who were alive back then and have followed Johnson's career, it makes us want to puke. The danger is that too many people alive today - who weren't back then (and that is the majority of the U.S. population) will swallow this revisionist bunkum hook, line and sinker.

According to daughter Luci Baines Johnson, quoted in the piece:

“Nobody wanted that war less than Lyndon Johnson”. 

REALLY?  Then pray tell us why, right after your pop succeeded Kennedy - after his life was snuffed out in Big D in a triangulated crossfire- he issued National Security Action Memorandum 273 which effectively repealed JFK’s NSAM 263. For those who need memory jogged, the latter was the NSAM which would have had the bulk of personnel out of ‘Nam by 1965.

What is often actually cited as JFK's NSAM, i.e.http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/w6LJoSnW4UehkaH9Ip5IAA.aspx


Is in fact only the cover letter by McGeorge Bundy. It has only passing relevance to the actual content of the NSAM, but it does clearly state “the President approved sections IB(1-3) of the report". Which report? To find these, the researcher must turn to Document 142 in The Pentagon Papers: ‘Report of McNamara Taylor Mission to South Vietnam'. Then the serious researcher will read:

IB(2) A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. military personnel by that time.

IB(3): In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

Note the wording and that a partial drawdown of 1,000 was due for the end of 1963 and the bulk by 1965. Most lazy wannabes never get this far while some others that do mistake the "1,000" total for the entire intended lot.

Not only did Johnson not preserve Kennedy's plans for drawdown as revealed in the NSAM,  he willingly  signed off on the decisions that dispatched the troops and ordered the bombing campaigns. Hell, the bastard even finagled to get the damned war on a full scale footing!   He instigated the Tonkin Gulf ruse which directly expanded the U.S. presence and incepted the eventual 58,000 deaths and the nefarious designs of Nixon himself!

Again, for the memory -lapsed, the Gulf of Tonkin incident involved two gunboats, the Turner Joy and Maddox,  allegedly being attacked without provocation in the summer of 1964. The claim of baby killer LBJ was that the attack(s) were initiated by the North Vietnamese.  The fucker wanted it as a pretext to start a full scale war!

In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified and  it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

and regarding August 4:

“It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2”


In other words, Johnson and the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. Like other pretext wars (e.g. Iraq, see the excellent MSNBC special ‘Hubris’) Vietnam never should have occurred. It was once again a case of congress abdicating responsibility as opposed to actually declaring a war. It was also a case of a criminal's ascension to power predicated on his promising to give the militarists and oilmen what they wanted even before JFK was hit!  Don't believe me? You need to check out:

http://jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html


Most of us in deep politics firmly believe that Vietnam was the “Devil’s deal” LBJ struck with his JFK assassination collaborators, in order that he be catapulted into office – while facing  felony charges(barely days before) .  This isn’t “blowing smoke” either. As Steve Kornacki reported in his ‘UP’ journal on MSNBC, the morning of Nov. 23, 2013. Using tapes and media documents, Kornacki showed that Johnson was about to be exposed as an influence peddler in conjunction with the Bobby Baker scandal by LIFE magazine in its upcoming issue (to be published the week of Nov. 25[1], 1963).

A paper trail of bank statements and payments was to have been included, and as Kornacki pointed out a Senate investigation would likely have ensued with LBJ being dumped from Kennedy’s 1964 ticket.  In other words, LBJ had by far the most to gain from JFK’s assassination, since he’d then be next in line as President, and not have to face justice in the Baker scandal. Just consider the contrasts: dishonor and imprisonment versus ascension to the top office in the land and the power to set in motion an “investigation” that would not only hide the real culprits but quash the Baker episode in its tracks.

Apart from motive, he had the will, means and opportunity to carry it out, especially given all his Texas connections. 

Former LBJ Personal Attorney, Barr McClellan, deals head on with the core question[1]: “Did Johnson have the motive, the means and the opportunity?”

He answers[2]:

"Johnson’s motivations included a determination to do anything to become the most powerful man in the world, a fear of total loss of power followed by indictment, and a willingness to go to the edge and beyond…

Johnson also had the means at his control: a legal system in Texas controlled by his attorney, Edward A. Clark. Johnson and Clark, in turn, had a hired gun on hand for the dirty work. Finally, when Kennedy, in June of 1963, included Texas on his travel agenda, the opportunity was there. Where better to commit a crime than on the home courts, or more appropriately, in the home courts?”

Philip Nelson, whose book ‘LBJ – The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination’ – is noteworthy for its exacting documented detail, observes (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

He goes on to note that no other conceivable person, whether Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt….or Lee Harvey Oswald…" had the motive, means, the opportunity, the demonstrated pattern of previous criminal – even murderous conduct, and the resolve to see it through.”

Could Johnson have actually stooped to have anyone killed? The Dallas Morning News story from March 23, 1984  (see image inset) is quite blunt about it. Billie Sol Estes reported that Johnson had Henry Harvey Marshall, a USDA official in charge of the federal cotton allotment detail,  killed because he had attempted to link Estes’ nefarious dealings to the then Vice-President.  While Estes ended up doing prison time, he did have his say before a grand jury (which subpoenaed him) after his release in 1984. As reported in news story, Estes linked Johnson and two others to the slaying of Marshall.  

 In the follow-up grand jury investigation, Johnson, his one-time aide Cliff Carter, and ‘Mac’ Wallace were all deemed “co-conspirators in the murder” of Marshall[1].

Let’s also -  one time - put the kibosh on the NY Times take that the two men- JFK and LBJ were “highly competitive” – one reason we are led to believe that the ardent Johnsonites have held back pushing their thug’s……errrr…..man’s achievements forward.  This is total hogwash! The two men “competitive”?    No way – there existed major, visceral hatred – especially on the part of LBJ for Kennedy, as both Nelson’s and Barr McClellan’s books make clear.

LBJ felt he was screwed out of the Presidency at the 1960  LA convention, when JFK did a neat end run about him  and already had the nomination sewed up at the first roll call – unbeknownst to the hot-headed Texan. LBJ accepted JFK’s offer for VP – but only grudgingly. Meanwhile, he stewed over time, entering the Oval office almost at will in the mornings – according to Kennedy’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln (in her book: Kennedy and Johnson,  Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968, pp. 149-151 ).  He felt he was entitled to be top dog or at least be co-president and even proposed on one occasion a “shared presidency” – at which point Jack kicked him out of his office and gave him some more scut work to do.

Make no mistake there was NO love lost between these two and the hatred likely festered until LBJ’s primo opportunity transpired – just before he was about to be investigated for his role in the Bobby Baker scandal.  The Johnson image purveyors who want to remake his image ought to be ashamed of themselves. If they had any scintilla of shame they'd keep themselves in the shadows lest we spill more beans about what LBJ did, and which they don't want circulated.

All this may appall some delusional Americans, and I can picture some of them holding fingers to their ears screaming ‘La la la la la la”.. But they had better damned well wake up to the facts. This guy not only saw to it Kennedy was offed, and he could take his sordid place in history without being prosecuted, he also paved the way for the Vietnam war as payback to his nefarious  allies (especially in the national security state) who helped him do it!

I understand Luci Baines’ effort to rehabilitate the old man’s “legacy” – but if she really had a clue, and an interest in national history, she’d be trying to expose the truth of how he came even remotely being able to have a legacy (as President) in the first place.

Enough political bullshit! We deserve the TRUTH and most of us, I believe, can handle it!

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[1] See also: Phillip F. Nelson: 2013, LBJ – The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination, Skyhorse Publications, p. 309.

2 Barr McLellan: 2003, Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K., Hanover House, p. 8.

3 Ibid.

4 McLellan, op. cit., page 159