Posted on 08/20/2003 6:18:44 PM PDT by new cruelty
GULFPORT, Miss. - (KRT) - The father of the White House press secretary claims in his upcoming book, "Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.," that former President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Barr McClellan, father of White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark McClellan, is preparing for a Sept. 30 release of a 480-page book by Hannover House that offers photographs, copies of letters, insider interviews and details of fingerprints as proof that Edward A. Clark, the powerful head of Johnson's private and business legal team and a former ambassador to Australia, led the plan and cover-up for the 1963 assassination in Dallas.
Kennedy was shot and killed while throngs watched his motorcade travel through Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as president shortly after on Air Force One.
"(Johnson) had the motive, opportunity and means," said McClellan, 63, who was a partner in an Austin law firm that served Johnson. The book, McClellan said in an exclusive interview at his Orange Grove home, is about "(Johnson's) role in the assassination. He was behind the assassination, how he was and how it all developed."
McClellan and his wife have lived in Gulfport since 1998, where his wife's family lives. McClellan consults for some businesses on the Coast and writes books.
McClellan said he includes information in the book that alludes to Johnson's role in the assassination. An example is a story that was told to him by the late Martin Harris, former managing partner at the law firm, as told to Harris by Clark.
McClellan writes in his book that in a 1961 meeting on Johnson's ranch outside Johnson City, Texas, Johnson gave Clark a document that may have helped the assassin:
"Johnson suddenly let Clark go. `That envelope in the car,' he said quietly, almost an afterthought, `is yours.' Stepping toward the car, he muttered, `Put it to good use.' He turned, putting his arms across Clark's shoulders, pulling him along, (and) the two walked toward the convertible.
"As they drove back to the ranch, Clark opened the envelope. It contained the policy manual for protection of the president."
Barry Bishop, senior shareholder of Clark's former law firm, defended the attorney.
McClellan's theory is "absurd," Bishop said over the phone. "Mr. Clark was a big supporter of Mr. Kennedy. The day that President Kennedy was assassinated, there was going to a be a dinner that evening in Texas. Mr. Clark was a co-sponsor of that dinner."
McClellan's book is just one of numerous conspiracy theory books that criticize the conclusion of the FBI's investigation of the assassination, that found that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman.
According to the Warren Commission's 1964 report, "Examination of the facts of the assassination itself revealed no indication that Oswald was aided in the planning or execution of his scheme."
But that hasn't stopped people from writing books that challenge the Warren Commission's findings. Other ideas about who was behind the assassination include U.S. intelligence agents, the Mafia, Nikita Khrushchev, the military-industrial complex and Cuban exiles.
So why should people believe McClellan? What makes his book different?
"The big beauty is, (readers) don't have to believe a word I say," McClellan said. "They can believe the fingerprint examiner. They can believe the exchange of memos and letters."
"The book is the evidence," said Cecile McClellan, McClellan's wife, who has edited much of the book. "When you read that book and look at those exhibits, and say, `Do I believe this?' There it is … It's like (McClellan is) a lawyer presenting this book to the jury. You make your own decision. He's putting it all out there."
The theory that Johnson was involved is "exceedingly unlikely," said John C. McAdams, who is an outspoken supporter of the Warren Commission's findings and teaches a course on the JFK assassination at Marquette University in Milwaukee. "What did he (McClellan) find in the documents, and what does it, in fact, indicate? If he's looking at all the documents everyone else is looking at, I would want to know which documents he's interpreting as L.B.J."
Eric Parkinson, president of Truman Press Inc., the parent company of Hannover House, said the book comes out at a good time.
"Now, 40 years later, it's appropriate that this additional information be brought to light. It (the book) will provide closure for a lot of people."
McClellan began working with Clark in 1966 and said he had no role in the conspiracy. But he did hear rumors about it.
"When I first started work there and was told that Clark was behind the assassination, I didn't believe it. It was, `This guy you really liked, John Kennedy - he was killed by the guy you're working for now.' I think I went into a bad case of denial."
McClellan said he learned of Clark's role several times, from Clark and others in the law firm, including while he was acting as Clark's lawyer. The case involved the 1969 application for Clark to drill an oil well and name it after himself.
At the time, McClellan said he asked Clark about the rumors he had been hearing. He said Clark talked in code, but he said, "He wanted the payoff for it. When you mention Dallas, you were talking about the assassination. We had a discussion about it. That's in the book, pretty much verbatim."
But why didn't McClellan go public with the information back then?
"When you get inside the attorney-client privilege, you find out a whole lot," McClellan said. "At the time I thought everything I learned was privileged. I've since found out that there's no privilege for lawyers who plan crimes," he said, referring to Clark.
McClellan said he left the law firm in 1982 because Clark wanted him to represent a company that would conflict with interests of McClellan's other clients. Then, he said, Clark sued him over a personal loan. McClellan counter-sued. Then the bank holding the loan sued.
"When I found out what they were going to do to me, I got mad. The gloves came off. I said, `Forget it. They're not going to get away with this anymore.'"
But it took years before McClellan was able to publish the book that he said supports his assassination theory.
Finally in 1994, the 14-year legal battle with the lawsuits ended with dismissals. By that time, Clark had been dead for two years.
McClellan said he was trying to get a book out in 1984, while Clark was alive. "He knew I was going public - from the affidavits in one of those three lawsuits," McClellan said. And he said a book agent he approached in 1984 told him to "do an investigation."
So he began.
"I wanted to be comfortable with what I knew," McClellan said. He said it took a long time to verify fingerprints with several experts and to find a publisher.
"A lot of it wouldn't have been available except that old Clark's records" were bequeathed to Southwestern University, McClellan said, making them available for research. Previously "they were stored in his private records. I'm sure if he had thought about it before he died, he would have probably thrown away a few."
McClellan had been writing bits and pieces of the book since he left the law firm. He logged numerous hours of research and 10 researchers helped him, he said.
Supporters and detractors have talked to McClellan about possible repercussions from the book, McClellan said, but he's not losing any sleep.
McClellan said he hasn't had any overt threats. He said people imply retributions, like suggesting that "I'm not going to make it in Austin. `You're going to be out of here.'"
McClellan said at least some in his family accept his work on the book.
"They said, `OK, I guess that's what Dad's doing now,'" McClellan said.
But he said he has not had the chance to ask sons Scott and Mark for their reactions.
"I assume that they know about it," McClellan said. "They know what I'm doing. They're not going to comment on it. The oldest, Mark, was then maybe 15 when I left the law firm."
When asked if he was concerned for the safety of his twin sons, Dudley, an Austin lawyer in private practice, and Bradley, a Texas state associate attorney general, McClellan said: "The Democrats are pretty much out of power, really, in the state of Texas. So as far as Republicans go, they're in good shape. My ex-wife (Carole Keeton Strayhorn) - she's the comptroller of the state of Texas. There's really none of this influence or anything like that."
Since the Kennedys' were running Murder, Inc., Castro got fed up being a target, and made arrangements with the mafia (whom
he had booted out along with most of the brothels and casinos ...) to do it.
The it was a breakeven-win since RFJ was going after the them anyway, and the Kennedys dissed the beloved Frank Sinatra.
Zirbel points to Johnson's real exposure to jail-time in the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals, and to Johnson's knowledge and rage that he was to be dropped from Kennedy's ticket for the 1964 race.
Zirbel and others have indicated a similar predicament for Hoover. Kennedy had also made it clear he would not renew the traditional waiver enabling Hoover to serve as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation despite his advanced age.
It is a matter of record Kennedy had fired Allen Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence, as well as Deputy Director of CIA Gen. Charles Cabell, whose brother Earle was mayor of Dallas.
Ruby or Rubenstein was sent from Chicago to Dallas in 1947, had connections with organized crime figures including Hoffa, Marcello, Giancana, Lansky, Rosselli.
Rosselli was involved with the CIA's attempts to assassinate Castro, had bragged that Ruby was "one of our boys" and had been sent to silence Oswald. Rosselli was found in a floating drum, garrotted, stabbed and dismembered in July 1976.
Hoover would provide the Warren Commission with its evidence; Dulles was one of seven Commission members.
Kennedy's National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 of October 11, 1963, was supplanted by Johnson's NSAM No. 273 of November 26, 1963: Kennedy's withdrawal of U.S. military advisors was to have been 1,000 per month, with all 15,000 removed by 1965. Johnson ended that the first business day after Kennedy's funeral.
The Mannlicher-Carcano could not be test fired until technicians made corrections to the scope mount and the action of the bolt.
But Johnson's legacy has a staunch defender in Doris Kerns Goodwin.
Author Zirbel on page 90 indicates Johnson had a "sexual encounter" with Dr. Kerns, which is corroborated in Victor Lasky, It Didn't Start With Watergate, Dial Press, 1977, page 203, and via email from Lasky's book agent at the time Lucianne Goldberg.
Miracles do happen, and Commission Exhibit 399 is the pristine bullet which caused seven wounds in Kennedy and Connally, including two through bone. Such ballistic paranormality has not been duplicated, Arlen Specter and Gerald Posner to the contrary notwithstanding.
Oh really, what is the basis for your gratuitous allegation?
I had just turned 21 in November 1963, and I remember reading an article in one of the Pittsburgh papers on Nov 22 or 23 that stated that JFK had decided to dump LBJ as VP for the '64 election. It was just a tiny item on the inside pages.
I've always believed LBJ was behind the murder of JFK.
I'll tell you what. Take a couple of canned hams still in the can to duplicate the bones. I know, there are four sides not two, but I'm doubling your chances. Take those two canned hams and hold them in front of you. Have someone take a military rifle and shoot those canned hams.
If you're right, you should still be alive to tell me I was wrong.
Or stupid enough to hire Lee Harvey Oswald to do the job.
Anyone who ever viewed Oswald's mother on television needed no conspiracy theory to explain the assasination.
I did put up the Zappruder film, post #80 if you want to take a look at it.
Doing some quick research on this, it's been a while but according to witnesses Kennedy's occipital bone was shattered, which is in the back of the head. That's been disputed and now it's claimed it was the parietal bone, indicating a back hit.
There's also some dispute that there may have been two brain examinations, the second one that confirms what you're saying about the small entrance hole in the back. Here's the link to that which contains the following quote about the first examination:
"Horne contends that the damage to the second brain reflected a shot from behind. He says the first brain was Kennedy's and reflected a shot from the front."
So there's conflicting versions of events from supposedly credible sources. But the witnesses who claimed the occipital bone was shattered like Dr. Harper and Dr. Cairns said that from the very beginnning, and those are the ones I tend to believe.
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