Helen O’Donnell - Launching LBJ: How a Kennedy Insider Helped Define Johnson’s Presidency

Copyright 2018 Helen ODonnell

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo credit: AP Photo

ISBN: 978-1-5107-1700-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1701-5

Printed in the United States of America

For

Kathy & Tom Schlichenmaier

and

Jason, Allison, Erin & Jack

CONTENTS

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

John F. Kennedy

INTRODUCTION

O n November 22, 1963, my father, Kenneth P. ODonnell, had his world shattered. My dad was one of the most powerful people in the United States government, due in large measure to the trust and friendship placed in him by the thirty-fifth president President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. And yet, he couldnt save his friend and president.

In Dallas, Texas, on that day, the nation and the world witnessed the murder of Jack Kennedy. Jackie Kennedy and her children lost a husband and father. Bobby Kennedy lost his beloved, idolized older brother. My dad saw his president, his friend, and his hope for the future destroyed in a shattering crack of gunfire.

And that might well have been the end of the story, but for one mana man who needed Kenny ODonnell as much as Kenny needed to have a mission. Lyndon Baines Johnson became an unlikely hero not only for my father, but for the legacy of John F. Kennedy and, in the end, for the country.

This book is the untold story, from my fathers point of view and from taped recollections of the journey from Dealey Plaza in 1963 to Washington, DC, in November of 1964.

This is the story of Ken ODonnells journey after Jack Kennedys murder, the story of how Kenny and Lyndon Johnson became unlikely allies and, indeed, unlikely friends for a critical period of time, and who together became determined, for different reasons perhaps, to fulfill the final legacy of John F. Kennedy. In so doing, Johnson found his voice as president and ODonnell fulfilled a legacy he could not have done otherwise.

For a brief interlude, later interrupted by outside events and differing personal choices, this is the story of two men joining forces to finish the work begun by Jack Kennedy.

In so doing, they changed the course of American history and altered the very fabric of American society for the better.

CHAPTER ONE

A CALL FROM BOBBY

B obby Kennedy was my best pal from Harvard, Kenny recalled years later. I had gone to work for his older brother John Kennedy in 1952. Bobby and I worked on John Kennedys run for United States senator. We won! It was no small victory for us. We were outsiders and we took on the Democratic establishment and licked em. The plan had been for me to stay in Massachusetts and help build the political machinery that would eventually get then Senator Kennedy elected to the White House.

That might have been where Kenny stayed, but for an interruption in the form of a telephone call from his pal Bobby Kennedy, then in Washington, DC, working for the irascible Senator John McClellan, senior senator from the state of Arkansas. Bobby was chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, which was dubbed by the press the Rackets Committee. The purpose of the committee was to pursue organized crime infiltration in the labor unions. This was a tough gig if your older brother was a Democrat who hoped to be president with the help of the same labor unions. Bobby was a single-minded, relentless prosecutor, which didnt help things very much. John Kennedy had agreed to serve on the committee with his brother, but at the moment it wasnt going very well.

Still, none of that involved Kenny ODonnell, who, along with his so-called Irish Mafia pal Larry OBrien, was up in the Kennedy office in Boston happily chasing down votes and securing political power for Jack Kennedys future political plans in Massachusetts. That was until the shrill ring of the telephone late one evening in the small living room of the ODonnell home in the seaside town of Winthrop, Massachusetts, a blue-collar, working-class suburb just across the bay from Boston.

John Kennedy was then happily in Washington, DC, as the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, having been one of the few Democrats to overcome the Eisenhower political tide in that years presidential contest. Kenny and Larry OBrien were at the state Democratic headquarters when Bobby first called. Kenny presumed he was calling for Jack on political business, but it turned out to be something else entirely.

Bobby had this crazy idea that I should come down to Washington and work with him on his subcommittee. I said no. But Bobby can be a pain in the ass sometimes. He doesnt take no very well, if at all, Kenny said.

Bobby explained to Kenny that he had just begun this investigation. He thought it was sort of a minor thing when it began, but suddenly it had gotten blown out of proportion with Teamsters head Dave Beck involved in some deep, dark waters that could potentially involve a fellow named Jimmy Hoffa and the mob. Bobby told Kenny he needed him down in Washington. I need someone down here to give me some protection and have my back. Someone who is a friend, someone I can trust to watch my back. I need you, Bobby explained.

Kenny remained unmoved. While he knew in general terms who Dave Beck was, he had only a remote sense of this guy Hoffa and he couldnt quite grasp the mob angle. He made it plain to Bobby he was happy doing what he was doing, and so he told Bobby it was, as Kenny remembered it, a flat out no. Bobby was not easily deterred. Undaunted, he picked up the telephone to Kennys wife Helen and they began to hatch a plan.

Reddish-blonde with sparkling blue eyes, an athletic build, and a wicked sense of humor, Helen was a good balance for Kenny, who could be intimidating and taciturn to those who didnt know him well. Helen and Bobby had become, as she put it, great pals going back to their first meeting at Harvard. So it was no surprise that Bobby enlisted her help to get Kenny to change his mind.

The following week, Kenny and Helen were just sitting for a drink and a chance to catch up on the days events. She had put the last of their three children to bed and was looking forward to this evening ritual with her husband. He poured each of them a drink and lit her cigarette. While Kenny never smoked, his wife loved Pall Malls each evening with her cocktail. Kenny had just begun to tell her of their efforts on Jacks behalf with the committee, when the ring of the black phone broke into their conversation. Not wanting the children to wake up at this late hour, Helen jumped up and grabbed it. Kenny stood and refreshed his drink while he listened to Helens happy chatter. Before he even took the telephone he knew it was Bobby. There had been enough references to Washington, Ethel, and babies on the way that when he heard Bobbys voice, he could skip the preliminaries. He knew Bobby well enough to know he would not call at this hour without a reason.