No matter what you do for Bobby Kennedy, he still makes you eat dirt!!!
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
On March 31st, 1968, the assassination of Lyndon Johnson by Bobby Kennedy had reached it's kill shot, as that was the day that Vice President Hubert Humphrey was to fly with diplomatic staff and press to Mexico City to sign a nuclear non proliferation treaty, but Humphrey and his lovely wife Muriel, did not arrive on Air Force II until two hours late.
Everyone was aggitated and Humphrey was not himself. He usually glad handed everyone and made new people feel comfortable, but this time he walked to this quarters and the jet took off.
Edgar Berman his physician went forward to ask him, "What the devil took you so long?"
Humphrey was preoccupied and all he said is, "The President dropped over to the apartment as he had an important speech tonight and he wanted to talk to me about it".
Berman let it drop, but should have known how strange this was as a sitting President just did not drop by to visit the Vice President in his apartment.
The group landed in Mexico City and Humphrey asked Berman to go for a walk, and walk they did, but Humphrey again was not the least himself in barely acknowledging anyone.
Berman was preoccupied as all the vendors seemed to look like people he knew, and then the Secret Service informed him that they were all his people.
Before Humphrey and Berman went to the dinner, Humphrey out of the blue said, "You know Johnson's a strange man, he takes delight in keeping people dangling".
Berman again did not comprehend what he was being told, but then neither did Muriel as she exploded at her husband after Lyndon Johnson gave his speech in stating he was not running for President in 1968. Humphrey tried to explain that he had been trying to prepare her, but no one had any idea what LBJ had been up to.
The democrats were all aghast and could not believe Johnson had bowed out. Bobby Kennedy's coup of blood in the water had worked in unseating a sitting President, but Kennedy was so absolutely weak that even being the darling of the media, labor and industry were terrified of his fascism and Eugene McCarthy was the real anti war soul. But Bobby Kennedy drew in that spoiled brat middle range baby boomer group who just had too much given to them and they needed something to whine about in order to make all their guilt have a purpose.
The Convention was in 5 months, and all that was there was Hubert Humphrey, without a campaign staff, without money, without a DNC as Johnson had gutted it for control, and now all the democrats who wanted to win, turned to Humphrey and demanded that he would run to save the party.
All the press was going wild in now converging on Humphrey in Mexico City, but Humphrey only stated he had to speak with the President first. The problem was in what Humphrey disclosed to Berman in the apartment meeting which was vintage LBJ.
LBJ had produced two speeches for Humprhey to read. One had Johnson accepting the nomination and the other is the infamous one which Johnson gave. Johnson was playing it close as something might happen in the few hours before the speech which would give LBJ the edge he was looking for. Until Humphrey received the nomination, LBJ still was hedging about getting into the race.
Humphrey had just assumed if the fickle LBJ wanted him, that Humphrey would serve as Vice President in that madhouse for another four years, but then all things changed and Hubert Humphrey was in the spotlight.
What Humphrey told Berman in the intimate details was the mind of LBJ at that moment in how tortured he was and how his focus was America. Johnson lamented, "As much as I have done for the Negro and the poor, even they are against me. Now don't get me wrong if I wanted the nomination I can get it. There's no two ways about it. But the only way I can unite ths nation is to do something about Vietnam now.
Maybe the people just don't like my face."
With that Johnson almost broke down and cried.
Humphrey was still questioning if it was LBJ's health as he had a heart attack and kept that medical mystery a secret even from Humphrey. The only thing Humphrey was certain of was that LBJ was not going to make it easy for him, as LBJ did not want a peacenik making peace and blaming Johnson's legacy for all the strife in America, just as Bobby Kennedy would.
It is interesting that even Humphrey could not unite the nation, as when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, young people lined the streets of DC with candles, and Humphrey lamented to Berman, that "these people should have been with us".
For Humphrey though, he was what Johnson was left with, because as much as Johnson did not want to give up the presidency to anyone, he had a vindictive hatred for Eugene McCarthy.
Johnson knew that McCarthy challenging him was McCarthy still in a fury that LBJ chose Humphrey over him in 1964 AD in the year of our Lord. As for Bobby Kennedy, LBJ hated him even more as he said, "That SOB never wanted meas his brother's running mate and resented my even setting foot in the White House".
The fact is with John Kennedy stealing the 1960 election from Richard Nixon, that without Johnson the Southern Vote would have been in jeopardy as much as the democratic Conservative vote.
Bobby Kennedy was always a trust fund brat. He offended the Humphreys when JFK beat them in West Virginia and there was always the infamous Bobby Kennedy press release when Vice President Johnson was in Europe, "That the Vice President does not speak for the government of the United States".
Jack Kennedy was one thing in getting along, as he could get along with Humphrey and did treat LBJ at least with more respect than Bobby, but Bobby could and would go low for every opportunity. Bobby Kennedy cost Jack Kennedy more politically than he was ever worth in going after labor, industry and conservatives. In some ways, whatever triggered the end result of the assassination of John Kennedy with Lyndon Johnson signing off on it, perhaps JFK being moved to replace LBJ on the ticket, it was Bobby Kennedy's heavy hand that moved too many people to agree to putting a bullet into JFK's head.
History proves that Hubert Humphrey even with the bad hand that LBJ dealt him in pulling out of the primaries and leaving Humphrey flat footed, was the real political master in the democratic party as with the delegates open to vote for who they chose, HHH easily was going to trounce RFK at the convention without ever entering a primary, even as Bobby Kennedy was smearing Humphrey and tried to goad him into the last California primary to beat Humphrey with that wacko vote group as a last ditch effort to neutralize the Humphrey juggernaut.
Humphrey always trusted Bobby Kennedy would have come on board in defeat as a good democrat. The Lame Cherry contends that a family that would steal elections time and again, would bring down a sitting President in LBJ of their own party, would later prove in the Kennedy machine to bring down an innocent Richard Nixon and later the bumbling Jimmy Carter by Teddy Kennedy, while they installed Birther Hussein Obama illegally into the White House who treated the Kennedy's like they treated Lyndon Johnson, that it is more than reasonable that Bobby Kennedy would have blackmailed Humphrey for the Vice Presidential slot, and when Humphrey chose someone else, Bobby Kennedy would have sabotaged Humphrey as it all looks like the Kennedy Machine was counting on a Nixon win, where via Nixon interesting funding would be impeached in the coming Watergate scandal which Teddy Kennedy ran with the nubile Hillary Rodham. That would leave the 1972 or 1976 Presidential slot open for the weak Bobby Kennedy to seize in a coup.
This is the not widely known history of the coup of Bobby Kennedy with interesting first person insights from Hubert Humphrey and Dr. Edgar Berman. All of this would have been lost to the People if not for Dr. Berman recording what Humphrey told him had taken place. It is though the stuff of the Kennedy's who literally brought down two sitting Vice Presidents in Richard Nixon and Hubert Humprhey, and three sitting Presidents in Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
Once again, another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
agtG
