I just finished reading the ebook version of Jacob G. Hornberger’s brilliant new book The Kennedy Autopsy 2: LBJ’s Role in the Assassination. It is excellent, fast paced and logically seamless, a decisive presentation of his thesis regarding the clear cut circumstantial evidence in this case leading the attentive and objective reader to concur with and fully share his powerful conclusion.

I was particularly intrigued by his introduction of the concepts of “the deeper state,” and the pretext for LBJ’s decision to not run for re-election in 1968.

Here are two LRC blogs I authored which touch on this issue –

Eugene McCarthy and the Myth of the 1968 New Hampshire Primary

Of particular note is the passage –

So what led to LBJ’s withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race and his abdication of the presidency?

As historian/economist Murray N. Rothbard noted:

“Increasingly, however, the power elite became divided over the morass of the Vietnam War. Under the blows of the Tet offensive in January 1968, Robert McNamara had become increasingly dovish and was replaced as Secretary of Defense by hard-liner Clark Clifford, with McNamara moving gracefully to take charge of the World Bank. But, on investigating the situation, Clifford, too, became critical of the war, and Johnson called a crucial two day meeting on March 22, 1968, of his highly influential Senior Informal Advisory Group on Vietnam, known as the “Wise Men,”made up of all his key advisors on foreign affairs. Johnson was stunned to find that only Abe Fortas and General Maxwell Taylor continued in the hard-line position. Arthur Dean, Cabot Lodge, John J. McCloy, and former General Omar Bradley took a confused middle-of-the-road position, while all the other elite figures such as Dean Acheson, George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, C. Douglas Dillon, and Cyrus Vance had swung around to a firm opposition to the war.

“As David Halberstam put it in his The Best and the Brightest, these power elite leaders “let him (Johnson) know that the Establishment—yes, Wall Street—had turned on the war. . . . It was hurting the economy, dividing the country, turning the youth against the country’s best traditions.” LBJ knew when he was licked. Only a few days afterward, Johnson announced that he was not going to run for re-election and he ordered what would be the beginnings of U.S. disengagement from Vietnam.”

Could this Senior Informal Advisory Group on Vietnam constitute key elements of “the deeper state” to which Hornberger referenced? I believe the evidence and case for this is irrefutable. These were some of the highest echelon of the power elite, and had been there since the inception of the national security state during the Truman administration. But I believe their reasons for pressuring Johnson’s abdication went much further.

War Criminal LBJ Declares His Abdication Fifty Years Ago Today

Did those reasons “the deeper state” wanted LBJ to drop out of the active race for president in 1968 have a further dimension —

Check out this DC Dave article I referenced:

Did Lyndon Step Down So Bobby Could Be Killed?

Hornberger wanted his book to solely focus on the John Kennedy assassination and the fraudulent autopsy, either without uncluttered extraneous details to confuse the readers or because of space limitations.

But I strongly believe that the subsequent assassination of Robert Kennedy and Johnson’s involvement is directly related to that of his brother, as is the assassination of Martin Luther King.  Here is a recent article by author Phil Nelson to that effect,

Perhaps in a future work Hornberger will address these issues.

The Best of Charles Burris