Off and on for either four or six years, I forget. I was state
committeeman when Jack Kennedy came down here and was killed. Ralph
Yarborough claimed that also was an effort to do him in and I think he's
right. Everybody denies it, but I think that it's right. I think that he
is right because although I was state committeeman, the John Connally
people were running the party and I was not given a pass to go into the
airport to meet the presidential nominee of my party although I
Page 34 was state committeeman. I was stopped at the
airport. So, I went down to south San Antonio to the military base and
was standing along the fence when he came along and I introduced myself
to Kennedy. That was the day before he was killed. He said, "Didn't
somebody in your family write
Washington Wife?" A
great-aunt of mine, Ellen Maury Slaton, who wrote
Washington Wife, it was one of the ten best sellers. It was a
gossipy, mean, smart, funny book and he called his wife over and threw
back his head, laughed and said, "God, that was a swell book." The next
day, he was murdered. That was an anti-Ralph Yarborough maneuver
partially, I think. I don't think that Kennedy realized it was, but the
Johnson-Connally people were doing Yarborough in.