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I'm not convinced Oswald was the one who fired the deadly shots. Jesse Ventura couldn't make a simulated version of the shot with Carcano (sp?) rifle. Both shots fired at the back of the presidents body and head found their mark. Why weren't there some missed shots that hit others or missed people and made holes in the limo?
The people who profited off the Vietnam War had the most to gain from JFK's death. LBJ's friends, industry, etc.
Isn't it a shame some politicians motivation to rage war has to due with making money at the expense of people being maimed and killed?
I know Nixon came to the conclusion the war couldn't be won. It was about after half of the American servicemen were killed. I don't know how far into his presidency that was.
Oswald fired three shots. One missed and a fragment struck a bystander.
Lyndon Johnson was, first, last and always, a consummate politician; his willingness to bend with the winds of politics showed little more than a lack of spine.
Making a claim that LBJ was behind the JFK assassination because he had the most to gain is something that comes up occasionally. Obviously, LBJ had a motive. Everybody knows he wanted to be President. However, that is a very shallow look at the assassination. There were lots of perfectly reasonable motives, held by:
The Mafia
The CIA
The Military-Industrial Complex
Cuba (pro-Castro)
Cubans (anti-Castro)
The Soviet Union
The poor job done by the Warren Commission as well as the really bad jobs done by those investigating the events in 1963, resulted in all of these possible motives never being completely dispelled to the satisfaction of the American people and the world. LBJ wasn't the only one with a motive to kill Kennedy.
Oswald fired three shots. One missed and a fragment struck a bystander.
A shot that missed fragmented by hitting something else, then struck a bystander?
Two shots were right on the money. Even if one didn't hit the victim in the head, he would have died from the one hitting him in the back and exiting the chest.
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Originally Posted by mensaguy
...The poor job done by the Warren Commission as well as the really bad jobs done by those investigating the events in 1963, resulted in all of these possible motives never being completely dispelled to the satisfaction of the American people and the world. LBJ wasn't the only one with a motive to kill Kennedy.
There was some committee in congress that came to the conclusion the assassination probably was a conspiracy.
why does it seem that lyndon b johnson is an invisible president that had no importance on the sixties? days of the beatles . And why then did the seventies remember to not mention his name either?
All memories of presidents will fade over time as the people die who were alive during their presidencies. Washington and Lincoln are the two biggest exceptions.
There is a lot of attention paid to the 1960s today, especially the year 1968. There have been books and TV shows about that decade and year. You can't talk about the 1960s or 1968 without talking about LBJ.
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Originally Posted by Hollytree
All Presidents have pros and cons but overall, LBJ accomplished a lot.
LBJ'S Legacy:
War on Poverty: forty programs that were intended to eliminate poverty by improving living conditions and enabling people to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty.
Education: sixty separate bills that provided for new and better-equipped classrooms, minority scholarships, and low-interest student loans.
Medicare & Medicaid: guaranteed health care to every American over sixty-five.
The Environment: introduced measures to promote clean air and water.
National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities: program to support artists, performers, and writers.
Job Corps: provided enabling skills for young men and women.
Head Start: program for four- and five-year-old children from disadvantaged families.
Exxactly, however much of his accomplishments were overshadowed by the war in Vietnam.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
And please don't forget the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. These laws (and their enforcement by judges appointed by Johnson) took blacks from second class citizenship to standing on par with everyone in this country. That, alone, is a monumental achievement for which Johnson is entitled to tremendous praise.
Medicare undoubtedly contributes to a high-priced health care system, but I don't know anyone over 65 that wants to give it up. It has given our elderly access to healthcare for over half a century.
Johnson undoubtedly engaged in skulduggery when he was running for office. However, what is left out of it is that in Texas all his opponents were doing the same thing. It was the way things were done in that state back than and no one was prosecuted and no one went to jail. I'm fine if people want to criticize him for that, but a whole host of other people need to be criticized too. Coke Stevenson, Texas Governor, an opponent of his in 1946 for the Senate is one example.
Johnson's decision to involve this country in Vietnam was a mistake. However, he was essentially forced into doing so by the huge forces in America that were rabidly anti-communist. I submit most presidents would have made the same choice.
All in all, except for Vietnam, Johnson's actions served this country well.
Totally agree!
Quote:
Originally Posted by pvande55
That's right. Although LBJ supporters credit him for the popular Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps; they don't want to remember how he poured millions of dollars, and men, into a war that was s lost cause. And also forget how he dropped his reelection campaign early on because his war was unpopular.
I think most people credit him with the war in Vietnam and not with the accomplishments you mentioned.
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Originally Posted by blktoptrvl
LBJ was president over 50 years ago, there is no real reason for him to come up in most conversations or articles.
The 1960s will be highlighted in history books and pop culture for hundreds of years. How can you talk about the 1960s without mentioning LBJ (and the Beatles).
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Originally Posted by Hulsker 1856
Nonsense.
For every vote gained by the enfranchisement of blacks, he lost a vote ... because of white resentment over the enfranchisement of blacks. The Solid South was gone and LBJ knew it, telling special assistant (later press secretary) Bill Moyers: "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come" upon signing the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964.
Very true!
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Originally Posted by ss20ts
LBJ was looooong before my time. Same for millions of others. He was president over 50 years ago. There have been 45 presidents. How much do people really talk about any of them except the last few? When was the last time you heard someone say something about Millard Fillmore?
I usually only talk about them when I discuss history or politics, which is like every day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47
Re, Nixon.
Am I the only person getting Watergate flashbacks every time our 'president' backs further into the woodwork where nobody can tell him its not going to work to fire everyone who don't agree with him already and trying to run the government by yourself isn't good for anyone.
No, me too. I followed it closely during the summer of 1974 and was in the demonstration of Pennsylvania Ave the night Nixon resigned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa
The Kennedys still come up. In bad as well as good ways.Van Buren ran for President again as an antislavery candidate. He just had the bad luck to have to clean up Jackson's hangover.
And TR's picture hung in Governor Pataki's office. There are recent bestsellers about him.
Presidents that will always get little mention, bad or good, are John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Warren Gamaliel Hardin, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush. William Henry Harrison and James Garfield had terms that were too short for any real notice, bad or good.
If you asked me to name anything bad or good and gave me 60 seconds I couldn't think of anything, except maybe Chester Arthur's signing Civil Service into law as a reaction to Garfield's slaying.
Little mention about Eisenhower? Have you seen how many books have been published about Eisenhower? There have been at least three this year and at least 15 since 2000.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
Johnson's reasons for not wanting a second term are more complex than most people imagine. He had gotten much done in this first two years in office from 1963 to 1965. He doubted that he could beat or even equal his previous record of legislative accomplishment if he had a second term in office. He doubted he would be very effective.
His health was a big issue too. He had had a major heart attack in the 1950's that came close to killing him. Years of dieting and exercising after his coronary had helped, but he had angina (heart pain) regularly and even took nitroglycerin pills to control it. His family had a bad history with his hearts and his father had died at a young age of heart disease. He remembered how President Woodrow Wilson had had a stroke in office and had been rendered virtually incapacitated. He announced he would not seek reelection on March 31, 1968. However, the decision had been made before that. He simply postponed making it as long as he could.
However, the protests going on in the country were also absolutely a factor. He was shocked at the amount of division that had occurred within the country. Not only were there demonstrations against the Vietnam War, there were race riots in cities like Newark, Detroit, and Los Angeles.
A couple of years later, he was interviewed about leaving office. I remember he stated in very convincing language that leaving office as president gave him more relief than any other decision he had made in his life. He felt an enormous burden as President and was grateful to have it lifted off his shoulders.
Bottom line is he realized rather quickly in early 1968 that there was no way he could win. The Tet Offensive was the major reason.
The Johnson Theory relating to JFK's killing falls apart with one really obvious detail that people never discuss: LBJ didn't run again.
A man power hungry and corrupt enough to murder a sitting president and cover it up, just walks away a couple years later? That's absurd. Not to mention that if he wanted power all he had to do was wait for the end of JFK's presidency. Being VP wasn't a lock to get elected but he has to feel like he had pretty good odds coming off a relatively popular presidency under JFK.
The Johnson Theory relating to JFK's killing falls apart with one really obvious detail that people never discuss: LBJ didn't run again.
A man power hungry and corrupt enough to murder a sitting president and cover it up, just walks away a couple years later? That's absurd. Not to mention that if he wanted power all he had to do was wait for the end of JFK's presidency. Being VP wasn't a lock to get elected but he has to feel like he had pretty good odds coming off a relatively popular presidency under JFK.
He knew that he couldn't be elected dog catcher at that point. Once he didn't run away with the freak show that was the McCarthy candidacy as opposition (yes, people went "clean for Gene" but that was a transparent act) he knew he was cooked.
LBJ war on poverty did nothing to help reduce poverty. Poverty rate was already on a rapid decline when Great Society was signed into law. Poverty rate now isn't much different than it was in 1969. It's higher for kids today than in the early 70s. Biggest change has occurred for the elderly. Elderly people are better off today than any other time in history.
Oswald did? No proof he fired any shots. Circumstantial evidence shows he was not on the upper floors.
"There is no doubt about the fact that the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald; he ordered it from Klein's Sporting Goods;(11) he had his wife photograph him with it (it is identifiable by the same markings that allow it to be identified in the newsreel footage of Tom Alyea); his fingerprints and no one else's were found on it;physical evidence links this rifle, to the exclusion of all other rifles, to a bullet recovered from the motorcade;(12) one eyewitness, Howard Leslie Brennan, positively identified Oswald as the man in the "sniper's nest" window he saw fire at the President.(13) Oswald then fled the building, killed a police officer forty-five minutes later, and tried to kill a second police officer soon after that."
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