Read Online If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy: AnAlternate History by Jeff Greenfield - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeff Greenfield
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license for the only radio station in Austin, Texas, back in 1943 (his wife, Lady Bird, was the nominal owner, but everybody knew who really ran it), and how was it that the Johnsons now owned the only commercial TV station in the town? How had the company managed to build such significant holdings in other radio and TV stations, in banks, in real estate?
And then the phones started ringing, all of them, every line at once.
• • •
In the moment and hours when John Kennedy’s survival was in doubt, the same thoughts had filled the minds of everyone in that Washington hearing room, and everyone in the executive offices of
Life
magazine.
What if he’s about to become president? Don’t we have to give the guy a chance? What will it mean to the country if they hear that their new leader is a crook in the middle of a national crisis?
Without question, the Washington investigators and the New York editors would have quietly stepped back and let the allegations settle for a while . . . a good, long while.
But when it became clear that John Kennedy would live, a very different thought took hold:
Lyndon Johnson is a heartbeat away from the White House. He came close, very close to becoming president. We’ve got to get the facts out on the table now.
Life
magazine, like every other major news publication, spent the next two weeks covering the attempted assassination of Kennedy—coverage that gained worldwide attention when the magazine published frames from a home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder, a fifty-eight-year-old women’s clothing manufacturer, that showed the plexiglass bubble top exploding, the President clutching at his upper chest, Jacqueline’s pink suit spattered with flecks of blood. But in its January 8 issue, which went on sale just after the holidays,
Life
hit the stands with a cover story: LYNDON JOHNSON’S MILLIONS—HOW DID A LIFELONG PUBLIC SERVANT GET SO RICH?
The story created a press firestorm (no one was using the word“media” then). When word of the impending publication broke, the wire services, New York newspapers, and TV networks sent messengers up to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons printing plant in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to grab advance copies of the issue.
(“What do you want me to do?” a
Life
editor yelled at a friend at the
New York Times
who pleaded for an early look. “Should I try to stuff the magazine into the phone so you can read it when it comes out the other end? It’s
print
, Arthur!”)
The news from Washington was even worse for the Vice President. From the moment the Bobby Baker story emerged, it had drawn the attention of Delaware senator John Williams, who regarded government waste and corruption as among the deadliest of sins, and who had made himself into something of a one-man FBI. He’d exposed rampant corruption in the Wilmington branch of the IRS; forced one of Harry Truman’s top aides out of the White House for arranging for Mrs. Truman to receive a Deepfreeze from a government contractor; and driven Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, out of public life for accepting gifts from a wealthy financier. Now, armed with the canceled checks from Don Reynolds, and fueled by the
Life
magazine revelations, Williams took to the Senate floor on a daily basis, asking the same question every day: “What is the Vice President worth, and how did he earn it?”
After weeks of obsession with John Kennedy’s health and the motives of the alleged shooter, the country was ready for a new story. The details of Lyndon Johnson’s fortune might be complex—FCC license allocation hearings, real estate transactions with straw purchasers and dummy corporations—but the core of the
Life
magazine story was easy to understand: a public servant had used his power to accumulate a vast private fortune. The Washington end of the story was even easier to grasp: that same public servant had used one of his closest aides to pry campaign cash and luxurious gifts
And then the phones started ringing, all of them, every line at once.
• • •
In the moment and hours when John Kennedy’s survival was in doubt, the same thoughts had filled the minds of everyone in that Washington hearing room, and everyone in the executive offices of
Life
magazine.
What if he’s about to become president? Don’t we have to give the guy a chance? What will it mean to the country if they hear that their new leader is a crook in the middle of a national crisis?
Without question, the Washington investigators and the New York editors would have quietly stepped back and let the allegations settle for a while . . . a good, long while.
But when it became clear that John Kennedy would live, a very different thought took hold:
Lyndon Johnson is a heartbeat away from the White House. He came close, very close to becoming president. We’ve got to get the facts out on the table now.
Life
magazine, like every other major news publication, spent the next two weeks covering the attempted assassination of Kennedy—coverage that gained worldwide attention when the magazine published frames from a home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder, a fifty-eight-year-old women’s clothing manufacturer, that showed the plexiglass bubble top exploding, the President clutching at his upper chest, Jacqueline’s pink suit spattered with flecks of blood. But in its January 8 issue, which went on sale just after the holidays,
Life
hit the stands with a cover story: LYNDON JOHNSON’S MILLIONS—HOW DID A LIFELONG PUBLIC SERVANT GET SO RICH?
The story created a press firestorm (no one was using the word“media” then). When word of the impending publication broke, the wire services, New York newspapers, and TV networks sent messengers up to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons printing plant in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to grab advance copies of the issue.
(“What do you want me to do?” a
Life
editor yelled at a friend at the
New York Times
who pleaded for an early look. “Should I try to stuff the magazine into the phone so you can read it when it comes out the other end? It’s
, Arthur!”)
The news from Washington was even worse for the Vice President. From the moment the Bobby Baker story emerged, it had drawn the attention of Delaware senator John Williams, who regarded government waste and corruption as among the deadliest of sins, and who had made himself into something of a one-man FBI. He’d exposed rampant corruption in the Wilmington branch of the IRS; forced one of Harry Truman’s top aides out of the White House for arranging for Mrs. Truman to receive a Deepfreeze from a government contractor; and driven Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, out of public life for accepting gifts from a wealthy financier. Now, armed with the canceled checks from Don Reynolds, and fueled by the
Life
magazine revelations, Williams took to the Senate floor on a daily basis, asking the same question every day: “What is the Vice President worth, and how did he earn it?”
After weeks of obsession with John Kennedy’s health and the motives of the alleged shooter, the country was ready for a new story. The details of Lyndon Johnson’s fortune might be complex—FCC license allocation hearings, real estate transactions with straw purchasers and dummy corporations—but the core of the
Life
magazine story was easy to understand: a public servant had used his power to accumulate a vast private fortune. The Washington end of the story was even easier to grasp: that same public servant had used one of his closest aides to pry campaign cash and luxurious gifts
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