corruption to a number of different Senate investigations any one of which could have ended LBJ’s

career and started his slide toward prison. But LBJ may not have needed the impetus of fear for his career and freedom to motivate him to kill JFK. As majority leader of the Senate, LBJ was arguably the second most powerful man in Washington. Many of his colleagues were surprised when LBJ accepted the nomination for vice president, an office which his fellow Texan and former VP

John Garner described as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss”.

Clare Boothe Luce asked LBJ why he agreed to be VP, and LBJ told her that he had done research and 6 out of 33 of the presidents had managed to achieve office without being electe d, and he told her

“I’m a gambl ing man.” But a s tudy of LBJ’s history shows that he was an ything but a gambling man. In

fact, LBJ was a man who left nothing to chance. Most likely, LBJ planned to kill JFK from the moment he considered becoming vice president. Although John F. Kennedy was finally killed in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963, the plot to kill him was active for at least a couple of year s. The first atte mpt to kill JFK , of which I am aware , was to take plac e in Mexico City at the end of June 1962 but was abort ed due to last minute escape pr oblems. From that time on, JFK was a hunted man. Other attempts were planned for Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Tampa, Miami, and Houst on. The planned assass ination atte mpt on JFK in Mia mi on June 18, 19 63 was foiled when people loyal to JFK leaked word of the plot and the planned motorcade was canceled in favor of helicopter transport. By the time Nov 22

nd

rolled around, LBJ was getting increasingly desperate. The Dec 6, 1963 issue of Life Magazine, due to be printed and mailed on Nov 29, 1963, was set to run an expose of Lyndon

Johnson’s corruption that could have ended his career. The earlier p lots to kill JFK

that were designed with more distance between the coup plotters and the trigger men had failed, and now Johnson risked more active involvement by having his people directly orchestrate both the motorcade planning and the take apart of the

president’s

secret service protection.

By the time JFK’s motorcade rolled through Dallas, little had been left to c hance.

As Chauncy Holt said,

“There were more mercenaries in D

ealey Plaza that day than at a Soldier of F

ortune convention”.

The success of the Coup depended not upon the ability of the shooters to escape undetected, but upon the certitude that the cabal behind the assassination could control the investigation and the story reported in the medi a. JFK had no i dea how lit tle chance he had of m aking it th rough Dealey Plaza alive. The Dallas police protec tion of the motorcade r oute ended right at the start of Deal ey Plaza. In fact, one of the shooters was probably a Dallas police officer. The secret service protec tion surrounding JFK was removed. In my estimate, 6 shooters awaited from a variety of vantage points. The secret service

agent driving JFK’s car brought the car to a complete stop, and a barrage of shots

from all directions

converged on JFK. After confirming that JFK had been killed, JFK’s dr

iver put the car in motion and continued driving.

The Coup of ’63 did not end with the killin g of JFK. The shooting part of the assassination was relatively