This month will mark the 46th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A recently declassified oral history by Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy's military aide on the Dallas trip, sheds new light on the critical hours after the shooting. McHugh makes startling claims about Lyndon Johnson's behavior in the wake of the assassination.
The interview with McHugh, originally conducted for the John F. Kennedy Library in 1978, remained closed for 31 years. It was finally declassified in the spring of 2009. I just happened to be working at the Kennedy Library on the day the interview was opened to the public and have used it for the first time in my new book, The Kennedy Assassination -- 24 Hours After.
After being informed at Parkland Hospital that Kennedy was dead, Johnson raced back to Air Force One, where he waited for Mrs. Kennedy and the body of the slain president, and made preparations to take the Oath of Office. Back at the hospital, the Kennedy group loaded the body into a coffin, forced their way past a local justice of the peace, and hurried back to Love Field for the long ride back to Washington.
It was standard practice for the plane to take off as soon as the commander-in-chief was onboard. Even after McHugh had ordered the pilot to take off, however, "nothing happened." According to the newly declassified transcript, Mrs. Kennedy was becoming desperate to leave. "Mrs. Kennedy was getting very warm, she had blood all over her hat, her coat...his brains were sticking on her hat. It was dreadful," McHugh said. She pleaded with him to get the plane off the ground. "Please, let's leave," she said. McHugh jumped up and used the phone near the rear compartment to call Captain James Swindal. "Let's leave," he said. Swindal responded: "I can't do it. I have orders to wait." Not wanting to make a scene in front of Mrs. Kennedy, McHugh rushed to the front of the plane. "Swindal, what on earth is going on?" The pilot told him that "the President wants to remain in this area."
McHugh, like most members of the Kennedy entourage, did not know that Johnson was onboard. They believed that the new president was on his own plane flying back to Washington. If LBJ was on the plane, McHugh wanted to see for himself. Since he had not seen Johnson in the aisle -- and at 6'4" Johnson would be tough to miss -- McHugh assumed that he must then be in the bedroom. When he checked there Johnson was nowhere to be seen. The only place on the plane he had not inspected was the bathroom in the presidential bedroom.
What McHugh claimed to have witnessed next was shocking. "I walked in the toilet, in the powder room, and there he was hiding, with the curtain closed," McHugh recalled. He claimed that LBJ was crying, "They're going to get us all. It's a plot. It's a plot. It's going to get us all.'" According to the General, Johnson "was hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing."
I soon discovered that McHugh had told a similar story when he spoke by phone with Mark Flanagan, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Ironically, McHugh gave the interview to the HSCA a week before he sat down with the Kennedy Library in May 1978. "McHugh had encountered difficulty in locating Johnson but finally discovered him alone," Flanagan wrote in his summary to the Committee. Quoting McHugh, the investigator noted that the General found Johnson "hiding in the toilet in the bedroom compartment and muttering, 'Conspiracy, conspiracy, they're after all of us.'"
Author Christopher Anderson claimed that McHugh shared a similar, although slightly more dramatic, version of this story when he interviewed the General for his book Jackie after Jack, published in 1998.
If true, the story is explosive and reveals a completely different side of Johnson than the collected, calm presence he otherwise managed to convey throughout the hours and days following Kennedy's death.
But how credible is McHugh's account?
It is, of course, impossible to confirm or deny whether a private encounter took place between the two men, both of whom are now dead. There are a number of reasons to doubt McHugh's claim. The General intensely disliked Johnson and was fiercely loyal to JFK, and therefore had some reason to invent such a story. Most glaring, McHugh made no mention of what was surely a very memorable encounter in his long interview with William Manchester in 1964. It also stands to reason that if McHugh had witnessed Johnson in a state of utter breakdown, he would have told the story to others within the Kennedy camp. Surely, given how potentially damaging the story would be to LBJ, Kennedy partisans would have leaked it to the media at some point.
Although it is impossible to prove, my gut reaction is that McHugh is telling the truth. We know that Johnson was a man capable of dramatic mood swings, and occasional fits of hysteria were not unusual. McHugh's account of LBJ's behavior is similar to RFK's description of a trembling and tearful Johnson at the 1960 Democratic Convention when it appeared that JFK might renege on his promise to include him on the ticket. It was not surprising behavior to those who knew him best.
We also know from some eyewitnesses that LBJ's secret service agent, Rufus Youngblood, stood outside the door to the bedroom and controlled the traffic into the room. Aides went in and out, but it is possible that McHugh could have found LBJ alone in the bedroom suite.
If true, though, why did McHugh wait until 1978 to tell this story? When Manchester interviewed him in May 1964, McHugh was still in the military, although only a few months away from retirement. Is it possible that he worried the story would be too damaging to his commander-in-chief?
We will never know for sure, but McHugh's account is sure to add to the controversy surrounding that tragic November day in Dallas.
Steven M. Gillon: The Kennedy Assassination: New Details About the Transfer of Power
Loading comments… 
Actually, he gave the testimony 31 years ago, and it has just recently been made public. Hence, the "newsworth
After more than 45 years, don't you think at least one person in this conspiracy would come clean?
For those of you believeing in conspiracy
The Dallas cop that testified he was one of the two first cops on the scene of the "sniper's lair" at the TSBD, and saw them take a Mauser rifle (he said he saw "Mauser" distinctly stamped on it) was lying? Why?
The testimony given at the HSCA, where the "unknown" fingerprin
Did JFK fire the mayor of Dallas' brother? Was this mayor aware of the last minute motorcade route change? Was the fired CIA director appointed to the "Warren Commission
Did JFK order no support for the CIA-led "Bay of Pig's" disaster?
Did this assault focus on Zapata beach in Cuba?
Was G.H.W. Bush the owner of an oil company called Zapata? Were the CIA-commis
Think someone "would have talked", eh? Well, E. Howard Hunt did....you weren't listening.
Fanned
Oswald was not innocent. And I do not believe he was guilty.
I believe from evidence, that he was an FBI informant with CIA affiliatio
When he found out that low level CIA operatives and Anti-Castr
I'm not 100% sure if the Tippit Murder was another set-up so they could have a logical excuse to "get" Oswald. Likewise the premise that he just ran into the theater without paying was yet another excuse to apprehend him. I think the theater was a rendezvous place for intelligen
When the police stormed the theater, he screamed several times in the theater "I AM NOT RESISTING ARREST!" This probably saved his life....fo
Keep Reading (Sylvia Meagher; "Accessori
attilatheh
Kennedy's enemies together to take him out. Nixon, was there, because Kennedy was a crook, and did not win the election.
Lesson of Vietnam tragedy hasn't been properly learned by people and leaders.
Lesson of Vietnam-Ir
Now lesson of Vietnam-Ir
No, haunting tragedy of President Kennedy hasn't dissipated
"To be, or not to be,
that is the question.
Whether it's nobler in the mind
to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles, . . ."
Haunting tragedy of President Kennedy has far from ended, in national consciousn
.
The simple answer is, "It ain't over till it's over."
The horrendous national tragedy that had befallen this nation upon the murder of President John Kennedy left traumatic injury to people and body politic that had not as yet healed.
The immediate consequent
A second episode of that recurring trauma was witnessed just few years ago, and hasn't yet ended in invasion+o
Now third episode of that recurring trauma is intensifyi
You're right....t
Keep hammering, sir. You da man and in my fandom!
The media plays along, always framing things with enough reasonable doubt and never quite connecting the dots for the viewers.
Nowadays the word "conspirac
But clearly, there was a conspiracy of some kind at work. And not just in theory.
9/11 was the exception, though--an
Allen Dulles? Wouldn't that be the same Allen Dulles that JFK FIRED after
JFK told insider's on his staff that he was going to"tear the CIA into a
thousand pieces and let it scatter in the wind"? Think about it John..
Why was he even ON that committee? His love for JFK?
Do you know - well...I'm sure you don't actually - that Earl Warren
REFUSED LBJ's request to head up the commission
He only came on board when LBJ told Warren that if he didn't , LBJ
would call his buddy J. Edgar Hoover and tell him to "leak"
the info he had in Warren's file on his little "indiscret
in Mexico. John, if you actually read a little bit you would know this stuff.
But.. I understand
After all..if it's on TV, it MUST be true.
Hey John Russell...
Hey John Russell...
Let us have an answer. I am NOT saying that Oswald was completely innocent. I am saying that there are a lot of needles in the haystack and the Warren Commission is only jabbing the world with one of them.
Pony Up John Russell ANSWER THE EFFING QUESTIONS
Anyone interesete
A reminder to us all that things are never as they appear.
As has been well documented
That the new President of the United States turned out to be an actual human being is not shocking. Trying to still make money over a national tragedy that won't quit, is
Fact#1: The entire government apparatus --- CIA, FBI, NSC, Secret Service, and Dallas Police failed to avert the JFK assassinat
Fact#2: The same entire government apparatus failed to avert the second murder of the sole suspect in the most important capital murder case, allegedly by another "crazed lone gunman" inside police custody 2 days after the original crime.
Fact#3: 3 years later, this same second "lone gunman" successful
Now, based on those bare facts, nothing that this entire government apparatus can do can be trusted to do ANYTHING RIGHT, period ! Whether people call it "conspirac
What to do about it? Well, that's where people really need to think long and hard.
.
Fact 2. LHO was the only person who left the TSBD after the assassinat
Fact 3. Over 7 witnesses SAW the gun firing from the 6th floor of the TSBD.
Fact 4. A least 2 people were photogrape
Fact 5 LHO's fingerprin
"Fact 2"-not true. However LHO was seen in the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:25 (according to the schedule, the appointed time of the president'
"Fact 3"--no one saw LHO fire the gun from the 6th floor window except for Brennan who variously testified all over the place. No, it wasn't LHO, yes it was, no it wasn't.
"Fact 4" I don't think anyone doubts that shots were fired from the 6th floor. Nobody, however, can put Oswald there.
"Fact 5"-Oswald worked on the 6th floor handling boxes. How much of a surprise would it be to find his prints there. Your next sentence appears non-sensic
The parafin tests done on Oswald showed that he could have handled or shot a pistol and that he most probably did not shoot a rifle. Bugliosi botched this one, for sure.
http://www
Fact 6. While in police custoday, LHO lied abt having a rifle but oddly admited that after he left the TSBD, he went to his roming house, changed pants, got his pistol and went to the movies!
Asked why he took a pistol, he said, "I felt like it."
fact 7. LHO spent Thusday night in Irving Texas with his wife, the first time ever he had done that on a wedday night. His rifle was kept there. In the morning, he left his wedding ring on the dresser and left Maria $170 ( he made $1,25/hr- do the math). That morning, he left the house with a brown oblong bag under his arm. He told the co-worker who he was getting a ride to the TSBD with that it was curtin rods.
Fact 8. When police searched the garage in Irving for the rifle which Marina said was wrapped in a blanket, the blanket was empty and the rifle was missing.
et al.
fact: LHO tried to escape. once captured rather than take credit for his feat he claimed to be a patsy which makes no sense unless he expected some evidence to support that claim. if there was none it makes little sense to claim that. the most sensible and straightfo
Fact 7 is pure conjecture
Fact 8-if LHO was being set up to be the fall guy or patsy, those setting him up would need to plant evidence of his guilt. Hence, the rifle is missing.