President Andrew Johnson escaped impeachment in 1868 by just one vote. He was under a cloud of suspicion for complicity in the Lincoln assassination after it was established he had met with John Wilkes Booth before the killing. Exactly 100 years later, another Southerner named Johnson, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, would quit politics under the suspicion of complicity in the Kennedy assassination.
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In 1977, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was also investigating the Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. killings. The curious parallels between the Lincoln assassination and Kennedy’s was noted because the latter seemed a copy cat coup. A key piece of evidence was an obscure but damning book by Finis L. Bates, “The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth” and Booth’s diary. Years later, however, King’s assassination would go to trial and the government would be found guilty of conspiring to kill King.
The first thing one needs to understand is that this exact plot happened once before, in 1865, but in that case conspirators were hanged, albeit all were patsies or small, disposable players.
The three key players in the JFK assassination were President Lyndon Johnson, President Richard Nixon, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. According to witness Madeline Brown, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hunt, Clyde Tolson, Lyndon Baines Johnson, John McCloy and Richard Nixon were present at a meeting regarding the assassination of President Kennedy at the home of Clint Murchison the night prior to the killing. Nixon would himself appear in Dallas on the day of the killing. Behind them were a cadre of right-wing military officers, such as Gen. Edwin Walker, intelligence officers like Allen Dulles, oilmen like Howard Hunt and bankers like John McCloy. Dulles and McCloy would be appointed by Johnson to a “blue ribbon panel” later known as the infamous Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s death, so the findings were, of course, absolutely misleading, and insultingly absurd. At the time, the Justice Department wanted an independent commission to investigate the assassination but Johnson stopped it. This particular plot was big enough that it leaked to Klan members like Joseph Milteer, a rabid segregationist like Gen. Walker who was caught on tape boasting of a plan to kill Kennedy in Dallas, November 22 1963, “from an office building with a high-powered rifle” and that they would arrest a patsy immediately afterwards to throw off the public.
The plot could have only succeeded if Johnson, upon becoming president and assuming control of the armed services and the CIA and FBI, agreed to protect conspirators after the fact, which he clearly did. One often speaks of the unusual Lincoln-Kennedy parallels, but the most obvious one of all is this:
Andrew Johnson’s presidency almost 100 years prior was the result of conspirators who also knew they could count on his pardons and assistance after the fact, when his presidential powers could ensure immunity. As Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth is said to have put it in a conversation with Vice-President Andrew Johnson:
“‘Make as sure of your aim as I have done in arranging for your escape. For in your complete success lies our only hope.
“I replied, ‘I will shoot him in the brain.’
“‘Then practically, from this time I am President of the United States,’ replied Vice-President Johnson and he added, ‘goodbye.’
If there was any truth to this assertion, the first thing you would expect after a coup would be endless cover-ups with witness intimidation and disappearances. You would expect to see things like Kennedy’s missing brain and x-rays, which along with the Zapruder film which demonstrated conclusively there were shots from the Grassy Knoll and underscored the absurdity of the Lone Gunman theory, all designed to distract you from Johnson. President Johnson was terrified of being implicated in that conspiracy, as you can listen to here, discussing the assassination with John Connally, who was also shot in Dallas. They were discussing mobster Jimmy’s Hoffa’s threat to “tell all” in 1967 prior to Johnson’s re-election campaign, which he eventually withdrew from. Johnson talks about a statute of limitations for conspiracies regarding that assassination but it is already clear he knows there is none for murder.
You would expect to see things like Kennedy’s casket being dumped into the sea, in a munitions dump, and widespread destruction of evidence. You would expect to see Johnson seal records relating to the assassination for over 50 years, more than enough time to ensure those documents would be destroyed before the seal was lifted. You would expect Nixon to do the same. You would expect to see things like Nixon using code terms like “Bay of Pigs” to refer to the assassination and of course, you would expect 15 minutes of Watergate tapes erased numerous times by an idiotic secretary.
You would expect powerful media assets controlled by wealthy conspirators to tell you black is white, up is down, to do everything they could to mislead and confuse Americans. You would expect a state-mandated disinformation script. You would expect a widespread and continuing effort by the CIA and FBI to conceal all evidence pointing to a conspiracy or Johnson’s involvement. As with any coup, you would expect a national and concerted media campaign attacking anyone who came close to the truth, and we saw that.
You would expect to see the corporate media use the national trauma that was the Kennedy assassination to manipulate our cognitive dissonance as we saw painfully contradictory evidence to the official story; to use the psychological defensive mechanisms of denial and anger to shut down our rational thinking and rather than question the actions of our government, trust them even more.
As you can see from the CIA’s 1967 memo to media assets in the broadcast and print media, from the New York Times to Washington Post, ABC, NBC,CBS, etc. this is exactly what happened and continues to this day. It was this memo from which the term “conspiracy theorist” emerged as a calculated derogatory label for anyone who connected the dots leading to Johnson. There is no jailer more potent than one which can imprison your mind, and that is what the corporate media does and will continue to do. It is for this reason that the greatest threat to American freedom has been, and will always be a controlled and unaccountable media that won’t tell you the truth because they are now parties to treason.
As there is no jailer more powerful than one who can imprison your mind, the corporate media is an active conspirator in the cover-up still protecting the resulting secret government. Your slave masters behind the petrodollar are not elected but are now extremely vulnerable, and until we rip the tongue out of the corporate media’s gaping maw, you will never be free. Had they been on our side since the assassination, the guilty would have been tried, and this would still be a democracy.
[easyrotator]erc_72_1425566638[/easyrotator]Jim Garrison Destroys the Warren Commission
The Copy Cat Crime: Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson
[pullquote]You would expect to see the corporate media use the national trauma that was the Kennedy assassination to manipulate our cognitive dissonance as we saw painfully contradictory evidence to the official story; to use the psychological defensive mechanisms of denial and anger to shut down our rational thinking and rather than question the actions of our government, trust them even more.[/pullquote]On January 23, 1923, William J. Burns, by then the acting director of the Department of Justice wrote “I have gone over with considerable interest the volume entitled “The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth” by Finis L. Bates of Memphis, Tennessee… The work contains very strong evidence in support of the old belief that Booth did escape and live many years after the assassination of President Lincoln…” Here’s a relevant portion:All the conspirators against President Lincoln met here with Andrew Johnson conversant of the purpose to kidnap the President. On arriving at the hotel, about 3 o’clock, I called on Vice-President Johnson, when we talked over the situation and the changed conditions because of the surrender of Gen. Lee; and the Confederate forces at Appomattox, which had made the purpose of the kidnapping of President Lincoln and his delivery to the Confederate government at Richmond, to be held as a hostage of war, impossible, as the Confederate government had abandoned Richmond and the war between the States was considered practically over, which left, to my mind, nothing that we could do but accept defeat and leave the South, whom we had made our best efforts to serve, to her own fate, bitter and disappointing as it was. When Vice-President Johnson turned to me and said, in an excited voice and apparent anger:
” ‘Will you falter at this supreme moment?’
“I could not understand his meaning, and stood silent, when with pale face, fixed eyes and quivering lips, Mr. Johnson asked of me:
” ‘Are you too faint-hearted to kill him?’
“As God is my judge, this was the first suggestion of the dastardly deed of the taking of the life of President Lincoln, and came as a shock to me. While for the moment I waited and then said:
” ‘To kill the President is certain death to me,’ and I explained to Vice-President Johnson that I had just been arrested by the guard as I was coming into the city over the East Potomac bridge that morning, and that it would be absolutely impossible for me to escape through the military line, should I do as he suggested, as this line of protection completely surrounded the city. Replying to this Mr. Johnson said:
” ‘Gen. and Mrs. U. S. Grant are in the city, the guests of President Lincoln and family, and from the evening papers I have learned that President Lincoln and wife will entertain Gen. and Mrs. Grant j at a box party to be given in their honor by the President and Mrs. Lincoln at Ford’s Theater this evening.’
“At my suggestion Vice-President Johnson assured me that he would so arrange and see to it himself, that Gen. and Mrs. Grant would not attend the theater that evening with the President and his family, and would also arrange for my certain escape. I replied:
” ‘Under these conditions and assurances I will dare strike the blow for the helpless, vanquished Southland, whose people I love.’
“Mr. Johnson left the room and after a little more than an hour returned, saying that it had been arranged as he had promised, and that Gen. Grant had been, or would be suddenly called from the city, and that, therefore, he and his wife could not attend the theater that evening with the President and Mrs. Lincoln, as had been prearranged, and that such persons as would attend and occupy the box at the theater with the President and wife would not interfere with me in my purpose and effort to kill the President, and this he thought an opportune time, and that I would be permitted to escape by the route over which I had entered the city during the forenoon of that day. That is, that I was to go out over the East Potomac river bridge, that the guards would be called in from this point by order of Gen. C. C. Augur that afternoon or evening, but if there should be guards on the bridge, I was to use the password *T. B.’ or *T. B. Road,’ by explanation, if need be, which would be understood by the guards, and I would be permitted to pass and protected by himself (Mr. Johnson) absolutely in my escape, and that on the death of President Lincoln, he (Vice-President Johnson) would become president of the United States, and that in this official capacity I could depend on him for protection and absolute pardon, if need be, for the crime of killing President Lincoln, which he had suggested to me and I had agreed to perform.
“Fired by the thoughts of patriotism, and hoping to serve the Southern cause, hopeless as it then was, as no other man could then do, I regarded it as an opportunity for an heroic act for my country and not the exercise of a grudge or any feeling of malice toward the President, for I had none against him as an individual, but rather to slay the President that Andrew Johnson, a Southern man, a resident of the State of Tennessee, should be made President of the United States, to serve the interests of the South. And upon the further promise made me by Mr. Johnson that he as President of the United States, would protect the people of the South from personal oppression and the confiscation of their remaining landed estates, relying upon these promises, and believing that by the killing of President Lincoln I could practically bring victory to the Southern people out of defeat for the South. Moved by this purpose and actuated by no other motives, assured by Mr. Johnson of my personal safety, I began the preparation for the bloody deed by going to Ford’s Theater, and among other things, arranging the door leading into the box to be occupied by Mr. Lincoln, which had already been decorated for the occasion, so that I could raise the fastenings, enter the box and close the door behind me so that it could not be opened from the outside and returned to the Kirkwood hotel. I then loaded afresh my derringer pistol so that she would not fail me of fire, and met Vice-President Johnson for the last time and informed him of my readiness to carry out the promise I had made him. About 8:30 that evening we * left his room, walked to the bar in the hotel and drank strong brandy in a silent toast to the success of the bloody deed. We walked from the barroom to the street together, when I offered my hand as the last token of goodbye and loyalty to our purpose, and I shall not forget to my dying day the clasp of his cold, clammy hand when he said:
” ‘Make as sure of your aim as I have done in arranging for your escape. For in your complete success lies our only hope.
“I replied, ‘I will shoot him in the brain.’
” ‘Then practically, from this time I am President of the United States,’ replied Vice-President Johnson, and he added, ‘goodbye.’
“I returned to the theater. I saw the President and party later take their seats in the box. I moved my position to a convenient space, and at the time when the way was clear and the play was well before the footlights I entered the President’s box, closed the door behind me and instantly placed my pistol so near it almost touched his head and fired the shot which killed President Lincoln and made Andrew Johnson President of the United States and myself an outcast, a wanderer, and gave me the name of an assassin. As I fired the same instant I leaped from the box to the stage, my right spur entangled in something in the drapery on the box, which caused me to miss my aim or location on the stage and threw my shin bone against the edge of the stage, which fractured my right shin bone about six or eight inches above the ankle. (At this point St. Helen, exposing his shin, called attention to what seemed to be a niched or uneven surface on the shin bone. This I did not notice closely, but casually it appeared to have been a wound or fracture.)
“From the stage I reached my horse in safety, which by arrangement was being held by David E. Herold, back of the theater and close to the door of the back entrance. With Herold’s assistance I mounted my horse and rode away with full speed without hindrance, and reached the bridge at the East Potomac river, crossing the same with my horse at full pace. When I came to the gate across the east end of the bridge there stood a Federal guard, who asked me a question easy to answer:
” ‘Where are you going?’
“I replied, using the simple letters ‘T. B.’ as I had been instructed, and the guard then asked: ” ‘Where?’
“I then replied, ‘T. B. Road,’ as I had been instructed by Mr. Johnson, and without further question the guard called for assistance to help raise the gate quickly, when I at once again urged my horse to full speed and went on to Surrattville, where I waited for Herold to overtake me, as prearranged, whom I expected to follow closely behind. After waiting a few minutes Herold caqie up and . we rode the remainder of the night until about 3 o’clock on the morning of the 15th of April 1865, when we reached the home of Dr. Mudd, where Dr. Mudd, by cutting a sfitin it, removed my riding boot from the injured right foot and leg and proceeded to dresd it by bandaging it with strips of cloth and pieces of cigar boxes, and the riding boot was left at the home of Dr. Mudd, where we remained during the rest of the day, and at nightfall proceeded on our journey, my bootless right foot being covered only by the sock and the leg as bandaged and splinted by Dr. Mudd.
“ESCAPE AND SUICIDE OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH ASSASSIN OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN” BY FINIS L. BATES 1907
In a country with some 313.9 million people, the only way to control a population is to control their minds. This is not some esoteric concept or science fiction. The process is simple and exists now: control the news media and you control the perception of reality for hundreds of millions of people. This has been achieved, in fact it was achieved long, long ago. Today, the number one objective of the corporate media is to shatter your ability to think logically. They do this through social conditioning, textbook psychological warfare, by ostracizing those who question obvious lies and absurdities and creating false consensus effects in their news broadcasts. News anchors and particularly pundits on the right and left are not your friends.
As far back as 1880, New York Times Chief Editor John Swinton made things painfully clear when at a gathering for newspapermen patting themselves on the back for their independent journalism, he stated:
“There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, I would be like Othello before twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to villify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an “Independent Press”! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
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