Faustian Bargains by Joan Mellen

Author:Joan Mellen [Mellen, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620408070
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Johnson embraced being President, entertaining at his Texas ranch foreign dignitaries, like the German chancellor, the press, and politicians. His character may be illuminated by his telephone call in 1966 to the brother of a man he had destroyed, but who was now dead. From Robert J. Kleberg Jr., Johnson sought advice on stocking the LBJ Ranch with exotic wildlife to amuse visiting “drugstore cowboys” from Congress.

A worldly man, Kleberg laughed and offered to send Johnson a herd of Nilgai antelopes. They were “perfectly delicious eating,” although “hard to catch.” Next came a needle. “Nobody will know what the hell they are,” Kleberg said, indulging in a private joke at the expense of this man who at best he did not take seriously, at worst despised. Unlike Edward Kennedy, Kleberg not only choked on the locution “Mr. President” when talking to Lyndon Johnson, but never used it.

“They’re native to Indo-China and Cambodia,” Kleberg said.

Johnson laughed nervously, sensing that the joke was on him. By 1966, when this conversation took place, every mention of Vietnam was fraught with irony. Nilgai antelope were native not to Vietnam, but to India and East Pakistan. Kleberg was no opponent of the Vietnam War, of course. “I agree with everything you’re doing up to a point,” he said, “and internationally one hundred percent.”

The Kennedy assassination continued to bedevil Johnson throughout his presidency. Johnson’s preoccupation with the assassination is revealed in a February 10, 1966, document from the files of Johnson secretary Mildred Stegall. Johnson ordered that the Justice Department investigate lawyer and assassination researcher Bernard Fensterwald. Fensterwald had worked for Senator Estes Kefauver, for the State Department, and as chief counsel for Senator Edward V. Long of Missouri, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. Fensterwald’s interest in the assassination troubled the President. The ensuing report revealed a minor infraction that occurred when Fensterwald was in the U.S. Navy. Otherwise his record was impeccable.

During his presidency, Lyndon Johnson still faced some media scrutiny for his habitual selling of government contracts for his own profit. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1966 that Charles Luckman, a contributor to Johnson’s fund-raising President’s Club, “had been granted an unusual favor,” a contract to build a veterans’ administration building in California. The Tribune neglected to mention that Johnson’s relationship with Luckman dated back to the 1950s. This deal was but one more quid pro quo between the two men. As in all media attempts to penetrate Johnson’s private interests, the matter soon disappeared from public attention.

Johnson continued in the pursuit of his financial interests, using as his partner and front man Judge A. W. Moursund of Johnson City. In the press, Moursund was described as “an attorney who has represented Johnson interests and who has been associated with the President in ranching ventures.” By 1964, Johnson “had acquired or is acquiring or is attempting to acquire some fifty thousand acres around Santa Rosa and Clovis, New Mexico,” Holland McCombs discovered.

There was a method to Johnson’s acquiring ranch properties not only in New Mexico, but in old Mexico as well.

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