HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF - MENDING FENCES IN TEXAS.

 

History has a way of repeating itself. The Republican Party of today is in total disarray just as the democrats were some 6-decades ago. Let’s look back 60 years ago when First Term President John F. Kennedy was faced was a total split in the Democrat Party much like the Republicans are facing today.

 It was a well-known fact that the Kennedy Clan detested Lyndon Johnson and those loyal to the Vice President. The only reason Johnson was on the ticket was because he was a powerful member of the party and Kennedy needed him on the ticket to deliver Texas in both the 1960 and the upcoming 1964 elections.

The democrat party in Texas was in bad shape as Governor John Connally and Senator Ralph Yarborough were engaged in a long running and bitter Feud that was threatening to split the state. Connally was perceived to be the leader of the conservative wing of the party and Yarborough was the head of the party’s liberal wing.

Even with Johnson on the Ticket, if the Texas Democrat Party continued the infighting, Kennedy stood little chance of being reelected. The conflict was further enhanced by the mutual dislike between President Kennedy and Johnson. As the saying goes, “Politics make strange be fellows.”

 But, as much as President Kennedy disliked his own Vice President, it could not hold a light to the pure mutual hatred that existed between the President’s Brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and Johnson. If Kennedy was to be reelected, he would have to carry Texas and in order to do that President Kennedy would have to find a way to unify the party and settle the Texas Feud. 

It was because of the turmoil in the Lone Star State that a plan was conceived for President Kennedy,
Vice President Johnson, and Governor John Connally and other prominent democrats to make a grand tour around state. In Connally’s own words, “This trip was a political fence mending trip.” 

During the tour, party unity and fund raising would be the name of the game. The tour would take place in Late November 1963. 

No one in the administration thought the trip was a good Idea and warned the President Not to Go. But the Party leadership convinced the President that it was the only way he would stand a chance of carrying the state in 1964. Without Texas there was no path for reelection.

The Texas Unity tour was a rocky road and didn’t go as Planned. With stops in Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth the infighting escalated. Johnson, who nobody would call a conservative, was accused by Yarborough of selling out and kissing Connally and Kennedy’s Ass. Senator Yarborough and Governor Connally refused to appear in the same room at the same time much less be seated on the same stage. When Vice President Johnson interceded it only made things worse, and Yarborough told Johnson to basically “go to Hell.”

By the time the tour reached Fort Worth, the Party was even more fractured and in danger of imploding. The plans for a motorcade through Dallas were finalized while the principals were in Fort Worth. It was decided that Governor and Mrs. Connally would ride in the Presidential Limousine with the President on Mrs. Kennedy. The Presidential Limousine would be followed by the Secret Service and behind the Secret Service Car would be the car carrying Vice President and Mrs. Johnson.

It was decided that Senator Yarborough would ride in the Car with the Vice President. Several reports indicate that when Johnson was told of the arrangements, he “blew a gasket” which eventually resulted in a heated conversation between Kennedy and Johnson with Robert Kennedy chiming in by Telephone from Washington. Bobby’s involvement further infuriated Johnson. He accused both the President and the Attorney General of trying to embarrass him in his own state. Later that night, President Kennedy called his brother back. According to some of those in the room, the Attorney General did not hold back on his hatred for Johnson and encouraged his brother to “step on Johnson and step on him hard.”

By the same token, when Senator Yarborough was told that he would be riding with Vice President Johnson, he flat refused telling President Kennedy’s assistant Kenny O’Donnell and Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood, “I am not riding in the same car with that son of a bitch!”  

The next morning before the large breakfast at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, President Kennedy was notified that Yarborough was refusing to ride in the Johnson Car. The entire Texas Unity Trip was falling apart, and it was up to President Kennedy to personally intercede in the Texas Size Feud.

Meeting with Yarborough, in the Hotel Texas, The President told Yarborough in no Uncertain Terms that he would be riding with the Vice President or Not at all. When Yarborough continued to object President Kennedy told him he had no choice and walked out of the Room.  On the way to the breakfast, President Kennedy told Special Agent Rufus Youngblood that he wanted Yarborough in that car and “I don’t care if you have to pick the Son of a Bitch up and thrown him in.”

When Air Force One landed at Dallas Love Field the President made his way to the fence to shake hand with the enthusiastic crowd. During that time the motorcade was formed, and the members of the motorcade made their way to their assigned cars.  One nearby reporter watched as Yarborough was involved in a heated conversation with Kennedy aides. That discussion got even more heated when Vice President Johnson walked right by Yarborough and got in the car without saying a word. The reporter said that it appeared that Special Agent Rufus Youngblood was nudging Yarborough not so gently toward the open door of the car. 

Yarborough eventually got into the car just as the motorcade was leaving Love Field. Agent Youngblood later said that there was not a single word uttered between Johnson and Yarborough. He said as they made their way through the streets of Dallas, the tension in the car was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. 

As the motorcade made its way down Elm Street in front of the Texas School Book Depository, shots rang out. Both Governor Connally and President Kennedy was struck by the gunfire. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35^th President of the Unites States died a short time later at Parkland Hospital.

Suddenly the turmoil that had engulfed the democrats no longer existed. Everyone in the party, except for Bobby Kennedy and those most loyal to him united behind the New President. 

For the next 5-years the Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson Feud intensified. Then in June 1968, for the second time, a Kennedy fell victim to an assassin’s bullet. Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in the Kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. 

For the second time in 5-years President Lyndon Johnson found himself at the funeral of a Kennedy. I told you that history has a way of repeating itself, if you think about it the Republican Party of today is fractured much like the democrats were some 60 years ago.