According to an article published in the Huffington Post by Steven M. Gillon, a resident historian with the History Channel, new revelations about the alleged plot to kill former President John F. Kennedy do indeed point to a conspiracy.
“After being informed at Parkland Hospital that Kennedy was dead,” Gillon writes, “Johnson raced back to Air Force One, where he waited for Mrs. Kennedy and the body of the slain president, and made preparations to take the Oath of Office.” Meanwhile, the widowed first lady waited on board the plane, desperate to leave. Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh had been Kennedy’s military aide on the fateful Dallas trip, and interacted with Mrs. Kennedy on board the plane, and at her request, tried to find out why the plane couldn’t leave immediately. According to a newly declassified oral history McHugh has released, certain claims made about Lyndon Johnson’s behavior in the wake of the assassination are startling at best.
After being told “the President wanted to remain in the area,” McHugh says he went throughout the plane in search of Johnson, if he was indeed on board Air Force One at the time. “I walked in the toilet, in the powder room, and there he was hiding, with the curtain closed… hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing.” Johnson frantically warned McHugh “They’re going to get us all. It’s a plot. It’s a plot. It’s going to get us all.’”
Interestingly, McHugh had apparently discussed this incident at another time. Gillon recalls, “I soon discovered that McHugh had told a similar story when he spoke by phone with Mark Flanagan, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations.” In the interview with Flanagan—which took place only one week before he sat down with the Kennedy Library in May 1978—McHugh had then recounted his difficulty finding Johnson on the plane “but finally discovered him alone,” as written in Flanagan’s summary to the Committee. Flanagan’s notes go on to state that General McHugh had found Johnson “hiding in the toilet in the bedroom compartment and muttering, ‘Conspiracy, conspiracy, they’re after all of us.’”
Does this admission that McHugh speaks of lend weight to theories implicating LBJ in an assassination conspiracy? Is there enough evidence to support the claims, and if so, what could their implications be? Perhaps another piece of the mystery to what is arguably the greatest conspiracy to ever erupt in American politics will continue to capture the public imagination, just as it has for so many decades already.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I don’t know Micah, it might be a bit tough for me to find a picture of Johnson on a toilet but I’ll try.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Playing a bit of devil’s advocate here: This anecdote, if true, doesn’t really confirm that there was a conspiracy cooked in the highest echelon of power to murder JFK; it just shows that Johnson was hysterical and not in full control of his senses. The man might have been a manic-depressive.
On the other hand, it might show that, if there really was a conspiracy, that Johnson was not part of it; at least at the beginning of it.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Just found this other new development in the JFK plot controversy:
“Iconic Photo Of JFK Assassin Oswald Was Not Faked, Professor Finds
ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid has new evidence regarding a photograph of accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, digitally analyzed an iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other.”
Read more:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105121209.htm
November 6th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Hey RPJ,
Yeah, I agree that there is a possibility LBJ might have just suffered from something along the lines of manic depressive disorder… would he necessarily have had to be involved in a conspiracy to express irrational fear immediately after JFK’s assassination? He was no doubt in shock, although there are many stories that talk about the odd ways LBJ tended to handle stress, etc.
Also an interesting bit about the photograph of Oswald holding the gun you found… it’s amazing that so many decades later “fresh” evidence continues to stream forth about this mother-of-all conspiracies.
Here’s one more:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/11/jfk-jackie-a-dying-wish.html
Was the official time of death reported by the Warren Commission a fabrication to ease Jackie’s concerns for JFK’s mortal soul?
-Micah!
November 8th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
“it’s amazing that so many decades later “fresh” evidence continues to stream forth about this mother-of-all conspiracies.”
Well, maybe nt that amazing. After all, that trauma is what made America lose its innocence; before that the American people still believed in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, apple pie, and that good always triumphs against evil —that’s why they went overseas to fight the bogeyman (Hitler).
But with JFK the notion that authorites may lie to the citizens, and the realization that evil overcomes good most of the time, ended the childhood of the American people.
And now here we are: We’ve reached a point in history when never before has the private citizen had access to more information; and it’s completely useless because nobody trusts anything the government or appointed officials say! Swine flu? I don’t trust the vaccine; Financial rescue? I don’t trust Washington; Global Warming? I don’t trust the UN…
And I think a lot of that it’s because of that infamous day in Dallas.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
[Addendum]: what kind of cacamammy Catholicism do you practice in the Sates, anyway??
The last rites cannot be perfomed if the person is already dead. Not even if recently dead; the priest needs to confess you, so you may cleanse your soul before facing God during your final judgement. I imagine a corpse would be quite reticent to utter its sins…
That’s why in all those old b&g movies you see the grave-looking doctor exit the room of the sick character, stating that there’s nothing more left to do, immediately followed by the priest rushing in, for his time “at the at” had come.
So the charade that JFK was still moribund when he was rushed to the hospital is even more ridiculous. It’s probable the man died instantly after the second shot (from who knows where) pierced his cranium and shattered his brain.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Um… I meant to write “b&w” movies. I’m so used to the “preview” option of your comments @ TDG >_<
November 8th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Ha ha, it’s okay RPJ! I know how that can go… maybe there’s some way I can update the comment features here as well. I should comment more at TDG myself, since I visit the site every day (it’s my fav).
I agree… it seems a little silly, considering discrepancies in the official time of death as a result of trying to convince the widowed (or soon to be widowed) Jackie Kennedy that her husband had received last rights.
In all likelihood, it seems less plausible that he survived long after the second shot, in my mind.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Abandon this line of thought. A more worthy task for intelligence is pursuit of higher certitude of any mode.
Or fail to participate in one’s perfection through grace. (fail to grow as a person)