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Originally posted by HollyDolly
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My dad worked at Security Service at KellyAFB,in military intelligence.He was at IBM at computer school when it happend.I recall him saying that one gentleman said Johnson did it.I guess that was the belief of many locals at the time, that LBJ had some hand in it.Why I have no idea,but they felt he was behind it.
It is not unusual in American Presidential assassinations to look at the successors as potential key figures in the predecessor's assassination.
Andrew Johnson was "implicated" by John Wilkes Booth purposely on April 14, 1865, when Booth (guessing that the weak and drunken George Atzerodt would not carry through the killing of Johnson) left his calling card with a message about a meeting in Johnson's hotel mail box. Later, during his impeachment trial, one of the Congressman on the prosecution team tried to make this the basis of a claim hat Booth worked with Johnson, but the evidence did not exist.
Chester Arthur had a similar hard time to overcome, because that nut Charles Guiteau identified himself with the Stalwart wing of the Republican Party of 1880-81 that was led by Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, and that Arthur was a member of (in fact, when arrested, Guiteau shouted, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts, and Arthur is now President!"). Arthur's sterling performance as a reform minded President freed him of any suspicions that he had a hand in the death of Garfield.
Theodore Roosevelt was not immediately suspected of being involved with Czolgosz's killing of McKinley. The worst comment was that of Senator MarK Hanna of Ohio who said, "Now that damned cowboy is President!" But Hanna was McKinley's friend and booster, and he was upset (later he and Roosevelt worked better together than he thought). Oddly enough, Alice Roosevelt (the President's oldest daughter) later admitted that she had wished McKinley would die so that her Dad could get a chance.
But subsequently one person did suspect T.R. John Schrank, a bartender from New York City, would tell of dreams he had where President McKinley would rise from his coffin and accuse a Monk (with Roosevelt's face) of being his murderer. These dreams egged on Schrank to kill Roosevelt as a usurper and would - be dictator. In 1912 T.R. ran for President against the incumbent Republican Taft and the Democrat Wilson (and the Socialist Debs) as the Progressive "Bull Moose" Candidate. Although T.R. had been only elected President once, he had two administrations (1901-1905; 1905 - 1909), and was now seeking a third term. Schrank felt this was a threat to our democracy, and he shot Roosevelt in October 1912 in Milwaukee. The bullet was deflected by a speech and eyeglass case, and T.R. was able to give a brief speech before he was rushed to the hospital. He survived, and Schrank was sent to an insane asylum where he died in 1943 (he was saddened when FDR won a third term in 1940). The two term amendment (which I keep referring to as the "Schrank" amendment) came out in 1951.
So Lyndon Johnson was not the first Vice President who succeeded accused of involvement. However sometimes a bad reputaion hurts one. Chester Arthur had been Roscoe Conkling's right hand man in his political machine, and therefore he was fully involved in the corruption of that group. It did not take much of a stretch to link Arthur with Guiteau after the latter's insistance of being a Stalwart. With Johnson, his reputation for corruption went back to that Senatorial Victory he had in the late 1940s over a popular opponent by questionable tallies of votes in a close election. Furthermore, there were some rumors (since insisted upon by Billy Sol Estes) of Johnson's involvement with Estes' swindles and the mysterious killing of a government employee who was investigating the swindles. So yeah, I can see Johnson's enemies believing his involvement in killing Kennedy in his own state of Texas.
By the way, before I leave this area, as far back as 1835 suspicions regarding political backers of assassins were always pushed by the targets.
When a nut named Richard Lawrence tried to shoot Andrew Jackson in 1835,
Jackson found out that Lawrence (a house painter) had done work for Senator George Poindexter of Mississippi. Poindexter had once been a Jackson supporter, but had become disenchanted and was in opposition now.
He denied that he plotted the assassination with Lawrence, but the smear stuck and his political career collapsed. Similarly, former Vice President (now Senator) John C. Calhoun was also targetted, but got up on the Senate floor and declared he never knew Lawrence and had nothing to do with the attack.
Calhoun's carreer, unlike Poindexter's did not suffer in the long run.
Best wishes,
Jeff
, but if anyone can bear to look at that footage again, I'd love to hear your opinions on this. 
) and having done more reading today; you're right, jason_c, and I was wrong. It was Kennedy's family who insisted on his body being removed from Dallas and taken to Washington. Bobby Kennedy flew down there and brought 'em back.
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