Fix the Bus

LBJ did not kill JFK. LBJ was a politician, not a master killer of men. Now that does not mean that LBJ was not unhappy that JFK was out of the way, but that’s not the same as killing someone.

Yes, it’s true that Mac Wallace may have killed on behalf of LBJ with regard to Henry Marshall, but again that was a local murder, not the President of the United States – which would have entailed far more complexity and visibility.

Based upon LBJ’s reaction that day, his reported comments, it’s fair to say that LBJ thought he also might be targeted that day. In other words, he had no idea of what was going on.

Yes, LBJ certanly had the motive and possible desire to kill JFK, given all the humilations he had suffered at the hands of his brother, RFK, but that’s a far cry from committing the deed. There were many others who also suffered the indignites and impetuous anger of Rober t Kennedy, many with more money, more means and more power to cover it up than LBJ.

RFK didn’t spare his anger toward anyone who he felt might be a threat to his brother. He ripped into Averell Harriman at hs home, Richard Bissell of the CIA, and many others.

It’s fair to say that when including the people responsible for JFK’s assassination, his own brother must be included as an instigator. RFK was ruthless in his treatment of Johnson and many others.

People do not forgive disrepsect, and RFK was anythng but respectful of many people in power.

As Fredo Corleone tried to explain to his brother, Michael, in The Godfather: “Mike, you don’t come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that.“

The same could be said of powerful players in Washington where respect is important.

Now some have stated that Mac Wallace was on the sixth floor of the TSBD, the implication being that if Wallace was there, then LBJ must be the mastermind.

There is no eveidence Wallace was there, not is there any concrete proof of anynone in the window. It wouldn’t make sense for Wallace to be in the window or anywhere else on the sixth floor. But let’s assume for grins that LBJ had told Wallace to conduct a hit. We have to assume that Wallace as a lawyer and college graduate would have some modicum of intelligence. Given that, it would seem logical to him (and us) to ask how he was going to case the joint let alone be on the sixth floor and get away after the deed was done without being spotted.

The staircase in the TSBD on that northwest corner of the building is what can be called an old-world staircase, not your modern self enclosed new-world staircase. What this means is that to get from one floor to the next one has to walk into the room and be seen by all.

Mac Wallace would have to run the risk of being seen and identified as a stranger to the building.

Plus there woulld logically be lots of cops bounding up the only staircase to the higher levels on the fifth and sixth floors.

Let’s give Mac Wallace, and by extension LBJ, some credit. They didn’t get to where they got by being stupid.

In fact, the only person who can be logically assumed to have been there (if he was there) would be someone who worked in the building and would therefore be expected to be there- and therefore not seen as a sore thumb.

That man would be Lee Oswald.

In fact, since Lee Oswald was up on the sxith floor right before lunch, and one is assuming that in this scenario he was an innocent patsy, then his being there might be a potential obstacle to other men desiring to “off Kennedy” from the sixth floor.

A man like Mac Wallace would have to get by Oswald, Bonnie WIlliams, Harold Norman and any other number of people unknown to him. The unknown would be an obstacle thus making the LBJ connection even more tenuous.

Finally, at least for now, LBJ had aready calculated the odds of him becoming President by becoming vice-President back in 1960. According to Robert A Caro in The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, LBJ knew that of the vice-Presidents before 1960, 10 had succeeed their President as President, and 7 of those had become President either through death or assassination. He figured those were pretty goods in themselves. Why mess that up by engaging in a plot that might be discovered?

Copyright 2024 Archer Crosley All Rights Reserved