Dallas Assassination
"I knew Connally had been a great advocate for a conspiracy theory. He was adamant that Lee Harvey Oswald had help. Connally’s position seemed like a vanity to me. He did not share a bullet with the President, but had a separate one just for himself."
TIME cover piece Nov. 28, 1988
In 1986 I received an invitation from the distinguished publisher of Harper & Row, Edward Burlingame, to write a biography of the scurrilous, ultra-conservative senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms. I reviled the right-winger---not a good attitude for a biographer---but the offer was good, and I was casting about for my next project. So I took a big gulp and said yes. To my great relief a few months later I learned that another book on Helms was about to be published. In imparting this news to Burlingame, I said I did not think the villain was worthy of two biographies in a short time. Gentleman that he is, Burlingame offered to keep the contract in place and search for a replacement subject. At about that time John Connally of Texas---he of Dallas assassination fame, confidante of LBJ, party-switching Treasury secretary in the Nixon Administration, and presidential candidate in 1980 who famously got only one vote for the nomination at the Republican Convention---had gone bankrupt in Texas and owed over $50 million. His fall from the mountaintop out of greed and hubris had a certain Shakespearean quality. He was a much better subject than Helms. Happily, I switched topics.
Both Burlingame and I wrote flattering letters to Connally telling him of my intention. When I did not hear from him, I called. His first words were: “I’ve been getting these letters from you and Harper & Row, and there’s been no discussion of a financial relationship.” In his first words the subject of the intended biography was trying to rip off his biographer!
His ploy, however, raised a fundamental point: was this to be an authorized or unauthorized biography? If authorized, money and the right to edit and veto the text were appropriate enough. I was not about to allow either. And so, by default, mine would be an unauthorized biography. I did not at first appreciate what that meant. For the next three years Connally did everything he could to undermine the book, including asking all his friends not to talk to me. Only when he heard that I had finished my first draft, did he have his henchman call up to offer Connally for an interview. But I had to stick “to the facts.” I thanked him and declined.
“I think I have my facts straight,” I said. Lone Star, the Life of John Connally was published in 1989.
"Texas breeds politicans and economic buccaneers of mythic power and capacity for failure....A robust biography..."
-Foreign Affairs Magazine on The Lone Star
In the essay below called “Unauthorized’ I tell the story of our testy relationship. There is, I believe, a middle ground between a beholden, authorized biography and a hostile unauthorized one. Connally might have agreed to several interviews only over the three years it took me to write the book. Such an arrangement would have been neither time-consuming nor intrusive for him, and he might actually have enjoyed the interviews. The biographer would have been grateful. By taking the stance he did, Connally risked alienating me, and thereby inviting an unflattering portrait. He may have assumed the portrait was going to be unflattering regardless. My work in helping David Frost convict Connally’s friend and boss, Richard Nixon, preceded me.
My standard for the correct attitude of the subject to his biography comes from, of all places, the wonderful New Yorker writer, E.B. White. When his biographer, Scott Elledge, wrote to White announcing his intention, White responded with wit and good cheer:
"Dear Mr. Elledge: As a man who has frittered away the best years of his life writing about E.B.White, sometimes with affection, sometimes with distaste, always with charity aforethought, I can sympathize with your project without envying your labors. But whether I sympathize or not, the Constitution empowers you to write about anything that comes along, and although being written about is not my favorite diversion (I prefer sailing), I deem it my civic duty to meet you half way---which in this case would be somewhere around Damariscotta, Maine. Or you could come here and view Fred's thorny grave, if you want to begin at the bottom of the barrel." (Fred was White's beloved dachshund.
Sometimes approaching a very well known event from a different angle of attack can provide very real insights. I had thrown myself into the fascinations of the Dallas assassination and only with difficulty had weaned myself from that event to move on to other aspects of the life. I knew Connally had been a great advocate for a conspiracy theory. He was adamant that Lee Harvey Oswald had help. Connally’s position seemed like a vanity to me. He did not share a bullet with the President, but had a separate one just for himself.
In studying the raw transcripts of the Warren Commission interviews, I came to pay special attention to the three interviews with Marina Oswald, the assassin’s widow. She put forward the astonishing possibility that on that fateful day Connally, not Kennedy, had been the intended target. I found other evidence to support the theory. Eventually, my biography had three chapters on the Dallas assassination. In advance of publication, Time Magazine excerpted those chapters and made them its cover story on the 25th anniversary of Dallas, under the headline: “Who was the Real Target?”
The last essay below was also inspired by my research for the book. On November 22, 1963 JFK was strapped into a very tight girdle to support his back problem (a vestige of his World War II service) and give him an erect posture in his public appearances. “That Damned Girdle: The Hidden Factor That Might Have Killed Kennedy” suggests the theory that the girdle held the president erect in his seat after the first bullet passed through his neck and into Connally’s back, so that nearly six seconds later, the president still presented a stationary target for Oswald’s second shot. That second shot blew off the top of Kennedy’s head.
Both Burlingame and I wrote flattering letters to Connally telling him of my intention. When I did not hear from him, I called. His first words were: “I’ve been getting these letters from you and Harper & Row, and there’s been no discussion of a financial relationship.” In his first words the subject of the intended biography was trying to rip off his biographer!
His ploy, however, raised a fundamental point: was this to be an authorized or unauthorized biography? If authorized, money and the right to edit and veto the text were appropriate enough. I was not about to allow either. And so, by default, mine would be an unauthorized biography. I did not at first appreciate what that meant. For the next three years Connally did everything he could to undermine the book, including asking all his friends not to talk to me. Only when he heard that I had finished my first draft, did he have his henchman call up to offer Connally for an interview. But I had to stick “to the facts.” I thanked him and declined.
“I think I have my facts straight,” I said. Lone Star, the Life of John Connally was published in 1989.
"Texas breeds politicans and economic buccaneers of mythic power and capacity for failure....A robust biography..."
-Foreign Affairs Magazine on The Lone Star
In the essay below called “Unauthorized’ I tell the story of our testy relationship. There is, I believe, a middle ground between a beholden, authorized biography and a hostile unauthorized one. Connally might have agreed to several interviews only over the three years it took me to write the book. Such an arrangement would have been neither time-consuming nor intrusive for him, and he might actually have enjoyed the interviews. The biographer would have been grateful. By taking the stance he did, Connally risked alienating me, and thereby inviting an unflattering portrait. He may have assumed the portrait was going to be unflattering regardless. My work in helping David Frost convict Connally’s friend and boss, Richard Nixon, preceded me.
My standard for the correct attitude of the subject to his biography comes from, of all places, the wonderful New Yorker writer, E.B. White. When his biographer, Scott Elledge, wrote to White announcing his intention, White responded with wit and good cheer:
"Dear Mr. Elledge: As a man who has frittered away the best years of his life writing about E.B.White, sometimes with affection, sometimes with distaste, always with charity aforethought, I can sympathize with your project without envying your labors. But whether I sympathize or not, the Constitution empowers you to write about anything that comes along, and although being written about is not my favorite diversion (I prefer sailing), I deem it my civic duty to meet you half way---which in this case would be somewhere around Damariscotta, Maine. Or you could come here and view Fred's thorny grave, if you want to begin at the bottom of the barrel." (Fred was White's beloved dachshund.
Sometimes approaching a very well known event from a different angle of attack can provide very real insights. I had thrown myself into the fascinations of the Dallas assassination and only with difficulty had weaned myself from that event to move on to other aspects of the life. I knew Connally had been a great advocate for a conspiracy theory. He was adamant that Lee Harvey Oswald had help. Connally’s position seemed like a vanity to me. He did not share a bullet with the President, but had a separate one just for himself.
In studying the raw transcripts of the Warren Commission interviews, I came to pay special attention to the three interviews with Marina Oswald, the assassin’s widow. She put forward the astonishing possibility that on that fateful day Connally, not Kennedy, had been the intended target. I found other evidence to support the theory. Eventually, my biography had three chapters on the Dallas assassination. In advance of publication, Time Magazine excerpted those chapters and made them its cover story on the 25th anniversary of Dallas, under the headline: “Who was the Real Target?”
The last essay below was also inspired by my research for the book. On November 22, 1963 JFK was strapped into a very tight girdle to support his back problem (a vestige of his World War II service) and give him an erect posture in his public appearances. “That Damned Girdle: The Hidden Factor That Might Have Killed Kennedy” suggests the theory that the girdle held the president erect in his seat after the first bullet passed through his neck and into Connally’s back, so that nearly six seconds later, the president still presented a stationary target for Oswald’s second shot. That second shot blew off the top of Kennedy’s head.
Articles:
"Was Connally the Real Target?"
Appeared in TIME Nov. 28, 1988: 30-41. view PDF
"Unauthorized!"
Transcript about John Connally’s efforts to block my biography, published version in the Washingtonian Magazine, 1989 view PDF
"That damned Girdle: the Hidden Factor That Might have Killed Kennedy"
Appeared in Los Angeles Times Nov. 22, 2004 view PDF
"Lee Harvey Oswald's Little Green Book Shows JFK wasn't the real target"
Appeared in the LA Times November, 2016 View PDF
Appeared in TIME Nov. 28, 1988: 30-41. view PDF
"Unauthorized!"
Transcript about John Connally’s efforts to block my biography, published version in the Washingtonian Magazine, 1989 view PDF
"That damned Girdle: the Hidden Factor That Might have Killed Kennedy"
Appeared in Los Angeles Times Nov. 22, 2004 view PDF
"Lee Harvey Oswald's Little Green Book Shows JFK wasn't the real target"
Appeared in the LA Times November, 2016 View PDF
Lyndon Johnson and John Connally at Sam Rayburn Connally leaving hospital, Connally and wife at president's
Library, Bonham, Texas, October 1957, December 15, 1963 grave, February 28, 1964
Library, Bonham, Texas, October 1957, December 15, 1963 grave, February 28, 1964