| Texas attorney says lbj ordered jfk killed Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4386,220305,00.htmlhttp://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4386,220305,00.html
NOV 16, 2003 John F. Kennedy's assassination 'LBJ did it' A former lawyer of Lyndon B. Johnson says in a book his boss was behind the conspiracy
By Felix Soh DEPUTY EDITOR
HERE is yet another JFK conspiracy theory - LBJ did it.
The latest claim by a respected member of former vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson's legal team comes as America marks the 40th anniversary this week of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
It is the latest in a never-ending chain of theories in a whodunit that continues to grip the American consciousness even after the passing of so many decades.
'For too long, many researchers have known Johnson was behind the conspiracy. No one has been able to say it. Stated simply, LBJ killed JFK,' said Mr Barr McClellan, who represented LBJ and his interests from 1966 to 1971.
JFK was killed by a sniper (the official version) - or snipers (the conspiracists' version) - as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas, on Nov 22, 1963.
The youngest to be elected president (44 years old), he was also the youngest to die (46). He was hardly past his first thousand days in office when he was killed.
His death has haunted Americans ever since.
They could remember what they were doing at the time of the assassination on the same level of recall that was experienced with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, the landing on the moon by US astronaut Neil Armstrong and the terrorist attacks in New York on Sept 11, 2001.
The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a solitary gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot and killed JFK. He worked alone.
Oswald himself was killed by Jack Ruby as he was being transferred from one jail to another. The Warren Commission decided that Ruby also acted alone.
But a House Select Committee on Assassinations created a sensation in 1978 when it said that JFK's slaying was the result of a conspiracy, although it did not go further than that.
Now, the controversy is being refuelled as a LBJ insider accuses the then vice-president of suggesting, if not actually issuing the order, to have JFK killed.
In a recently published book, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, Mr McClellan points the accusing finger at his former boss and a LBJ intimate, Texan attorney Edward Clark, as the man who personally orchestrated the assassination.
The motive: To save LBJ from political ruin and possible imprisonment due to past financial misdeeds. US attorney-general and JFK's younger brother, Mr Robert Kennedy, was then investigating LBJ and applying heat on him and his associates. But the ultimate trigger point was JFK's decision to drop LBJ as his running mate in his campaign for a second term as president.
'There was only one thing between him (LBJ) and the presidency,' said Mr McClellan of LBJ's presidential ambition.
Hours after JFK was assassinated, LBJ was sworn in as president.
Tragically, the position he coveted so much eventually led to his being a broken man. The frustrations and pressures of office became so intolerable that he declined to seek re-election in 1968. He died in 1973.
Mr Clark, now dead, controlled LBJ's financial, legal and political fortunes for three decades. Mr McClellan was a member of Mr Clark's law firm and was privy to specific conversations and shared confidences.
Mr McClellan's political pedigree lends credence to his claims. His son, Scott, is President George W. Bush's new press secretary. Another son, Mark, is the Drug and Food Administration czar, while first wife Carole Keeton Strayhorn is comptroller of Texas and former three-term mayor of Austin, with an eye on the governorship of the state.
In his book, Mr McClellan uses voluminous court records, letters, photographs, fingerprints, personal memos and other documents to buttress his claim that LBJ engineered JFK's assassination.
According to him, other than Oswald, a second gunmen - Mac Wallace - was hired by Mr Clark. It was Wallace's marksmanship which was responsible for the fatal shot through JFK's head. He escaped in the ensuing confusion.
Critics called Mr McClellan's 'revisionist smear campaign' against LBJ and Mr Clark a 'journalistic novel' and 'uncorroborated hearsay'.
Whatever it is, one thing is certain: The book will not be the last word on JFK conspiracy theories.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
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