LBJ was behind JFK's assassination, upcoming book contends

Knight Ridder Newspapers ^ | Aug. 20, 2003 | HYE JEONG

[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."

[Reaganwuzthebest]

If that picture does show a man's head where you circled...

No I didn't circle anything, that was already placed there. Those who have examined the photos, which have been blown up several times over the ones posted concluded there were three men behind the fence, two with rifles known as "Badge Man" and "Black Dog Man". Witnesses said they heard shots come from the Grassy Knoll and saw smoke, and one policeman said he still smelled gunpowder at the fence immediately afterwards. Then there's the initial statement from Kennedy's personal physician Admiral George Burkley it was a right temple hit.

It's strong circumstantial evidence which can't be easily dismissed unless you want to believe the "magic bullet" theory and that it was the act of a lone gunman.

Isn't that pretty dad gum hard to do accurately on a moving target with a bit of distance?

The limo slowed down somewhat, almost to a crawl right at the Grassy Knoll following the first hit to the neck, which would have made the target a whole lot easier. Yes it was risky to attack Kennedy from that spot, but I consider this to have been a professional hit and was well planned out.

[swarthyguy]

THanks for that info. Learn something new everyday.

I also like reading Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK.

[PhilDragoo]

Here is a discussion of that bullet Commission Exhibit 399 which includes remarks by autopsists and forensic experts who express disbelief it caused the wounds attributed to it:

Governor Connally's Wrist Wound and CE-399.

The criticality of the bullet is that it is tasked to account for the seven wounds to exclude additional shots and the subsequent explosion of the lone gunman theory.

The trajectory of the rear shot with throat exit is likewise impossible with its entry placed at the FBI's measurements, which are corroborated by autopsy measurements.

The throat exit is denied by the Parkland personnel who stipulate it was a wound of entry.

Charles A. Crenshaw, M.D., Conspiracy of Silence, Signet, 1992, says he and his fellow Parkland Memorial physicians and nurses saw a large defect deemed an exit wound in the occipital region.

The back wound was located by the FBI as 5-3/8" below the jacket collar, and 5-3/4" below the shirt collar, confirmed by autopsists.

It was found to be not greater than the depth of the first digit of the autopsist's finger, hence, could not be the path of the pristine magic bullet as claimed by the Warren Report.

The Warren Report, and Gerald Ford specifically, claimed that back wound was in the neck, and that it exited through the throat, neither claim having basis in fact, a fatal blow to the lone gunman theory.

[swarthyguy]

Crenshaw Bump.

[PhilDragoo]

Thanks for the Peter Dale Scott tip. I'm not familiar with his work.

Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, Laurel, 1997, has five Peter Dale Scott works in its bibliography:

Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection, Open Archive, 1993;

Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, UC Press, 1993;

Deep Politics II: Essays on Oswald, Mexico, and Cuba, Green Archive, 1995;

The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond--A Guide to Cover-Ups and Assassinations, Random House, 1976;

Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, UC Press, 1991.

I have a friend who was in the Air Force in Vietnam who's read Scott.

Col. L. Fletcher Prouty was chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. I have read his:

JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, Birch Lane, 1992;

The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, Institute for Historical Review, 1973.

[breakem]

Bringing back some details. Thanx.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

This is why I think the Warren Commission already knew what they were going to conclude from the very beginning:

"The Warren Commission ignored their own expert witnesses when they concluded that "All the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor's stretcher could have caused all his wounds."

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Here's the blowup of the "Badge Man" from the Mary Moorman photo:

[Lando Lincoln]

This is going to be a hit and run......for that I apologize in advance.......

Oswald acted alone. End of story.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Thanks for the additional picture.

[ntnychik]

"Hunt's alibi was his wife who died in the plane crash near Chicago on an alleged errand to deliver hush money."

His wife died as you described during the Watergate period. In what way did Hunt use his wife as an alibi in 1963? Did she confirm his claim?

BTW, thanks for the great list of books.

[PhilDragoo]

Hunt was brought to court by Mark Lane in the late 'eighties by which time Hunt's wife was dead.

Hunt claimed he was home with his wife and children November 22, 1963 when he was on the stand in the 'eighties.

His wife, dead, was his alibi, as were his children, who were too young to remember what happened in 1963.

In fact, Hunt claimed Lane had caused Hunt's children "trauma" by causing them to doubt their father's veracity and character.

Plausible Denial, by Mark Lane.

[Shooter 2.5]

Pumpkins don't work because there's too much open space inside. This was also written on a thread a couple of days ago by someone else.

[Shooter 2.5]

The definition of a "Pristine Bullet" is one that follows it's axis in flight. It has nothing to do with it's appearance.

The bullet keyholed out of Connelly's chest after hitting a rib. That's evident from the long wound. It then entered into his arm six inches above his wrist. It left a shallow wound in the thigh.

That's all consistent with a late 1800's-early 1900 design. They were designed to go through as many people lined up as possible or their equipment. A 150 grain bullet at 2000 feet per second can easily go through two people.

The bullet was damaged at the nose and the lead was squeezed out of the flattened rear. Look at the rear view.

[Rennes Templar]

The only theatrics in the whole affair were conducted by the Warren Commission.

[First Conservative]

A good common sense answer as to why Connally did not have the bullet fragments removed. Thanks.>

(I have had TWO bypass operations, so I know what you mean. Of course, in a real search for the truth, a way would have been found to obtain the fragments after he died. Then, on the other hand, they obviously believed they already had the truth, or wanted everyone else to believe that they already had the truth!)

[First Conservative]

Gee, It is difficult to believe all those experts had their facts wrong. The sound evidence was only one of many holes shot in the Warren Commission fable.

[Timesink]

I remember the inside the beltway talk when the klintoons 1st came to town. It was that they have an open marriage. That turned out to be an understatement.

The very first weekend after the 'Toon was sworn in, the GOP had some sort of gathering in Washington. I'll never forget that one of the seminars at that mini-convention was entitled "The Clinton Administration: What Went Wrong?" A lot of people forget that the "BJ and the Un-Bear-able" show was a complete disaster from the very first moment, and there were already several scandals making the news in the 72 hours between the inauguration and the GOP meeting.

And liberals wonder why the Clintons ended up so despised.

[SteveH]

Also check out

The Yankee and Cowboy War, by Carl Oglesby.

Especially the chapter containing the annotated testimony of Ruby before Warren in Dallas in 1964.

Excerpt:

Ruby: ... Chairman Warren, if you felt that your life was in danger at the moment, how would you feel? Wouldn't you be reluctant to go on speaking, even though you requested me to do so?

Warren: I think I might have some reluctance if I was in your position, yes; I think I would. I think I would figure it out very carefully as to whether it would endanger me or not. If you think that anything that I am doing or anything that I am asking you is endangering you in any way, shape, or form, I want you to feel absolutely free to say that the interview is over.

...So much for the Warren commission's interest in the truth, along with anyone who would defend the Warren Commission report.

A few years ago I ran into a fellow who was a serviceman visiting Dallas in November 1963. He wandered into a nightclub and ordered a drink. He was underage and looked it, so they refused. He persisted so they told him to go to the back room to talk to the owner. He did and found the owner deep in discussion with another guy. The owner told him it was OK to order the drink so he went back. A few days later he was surprised to see the "other guy" on TV: it was Oswald. From the outset, the media took care to stress that Ruby had never known Oswald and vice versa, because to do so would have indicated a conspiracy and an investigation into Ruby's Mafia and police bag man past. The serviceman decided it was much wiser for him to keep quiet than to risk his own life by becoming involved in the JFK assassination. No verification, just passing it along...

[des]

Tears of Autumn/ McCarry