Bobby Kennedy and LBJ
At Least in the Same Party

"Bobby, when are you going to get a haircut?"
     - Lyndon Baines Johnson, in conversation.

It just wasn't the style of follicular arrangements that irritated Lyndon Baines Johnson. Bobby, as you know, was the brother of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and all the Kennedy Brothers (including the youngest Ted) were famous for their tousled hair, toothy smiles, and high-pitched Bostonian-accented speech. If you read the various books - and there are a lot of them - you learn LBJ and RFK didn't get along a-tall.

Oh, there are plenty of explanations of the Lyndon/Bobby brouhaha. But understanding the problem is something else. After all, both RFK and LBJ were adults and you'd think they could put aside petty differences.

Differences in backgrounds certainly don't explain things. One friend of the Kennedys remembered that Bobby was always interested in talking with people from other,less fortunate upbringings. Bobby didn't have to surround himself with only rich fellow Bostonians.

Instead the major cause of the RFK-LBJ chaffing seems to be Lyndon's tactics of the presidential campaign of 1960. Now people know that JFK and Richard Nixon ran against each other in 1960 and that JFK just squeaked out the win. But don't forget that earlier JFK had to run against Lyndon. In politics there are, after all, those pesky little inconveniences called nominations where the parties have to decide who their final candidate will be. So before it was JFK vs. RMN it was JFK vs. LBJ.

Bobby, it seems, took the campaign rhetoric too personally. LBJ particularly irritated Bobby when he spoke, not about the issues, but about John's qualifications. Lyndon became one of the primary questioners about JFK's Catholicism. Could a Catholic be President since his first allegiance was to the Infallible Pope in Rome? And were JFK's many illnesses - serious back problems and Addison's disease - too much for a sitting president to bear?

And yet when JFK won the nomination, he picked Lyndon as his running mate. That didn't soothe Bobby's feelings and there's the story that JFK really offered the #2 spot simply out of courtesy and expected Lyndon to politely turn him down. But Lyndon finessed Jack and accepted. So Bobby was dispatched to tell Lyndon they had just been kidding. But Lyndon wouldn't budge.

This story seems unlikely. Sure, Lyndon liked to be in charge, but he had ideas of increasing the VP's power. But once more we hear that Jack - and presumably Bobby - put a squelch on expanding the office that was, as John Adams wrote to Abigail, "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." What, we ask, was going on?

Often the simplest explanation is the correct one. JFK, a New England Boston Brahmin, needed to get votes from the South and West. And a plain-spoken and rough-hewed Texan like LBJ on the ticket would pull them in. JFK wanted LBJ on his ticket and that's that.

We can't deny that LBJ, though, was a bit miffed that JFK - who Lyndon thought had done little during his Senate terms except look young and vigorous - had emerged as a major presidential contender. And it seemed a bit hypocritical that Lyndon would grump about JFK's health since in 1955 while serving in the Senate, LBJ had a major heart attack. But at least Lyndon had given up smoking.

The truth is JFK and LBJ actually had always gotten along pretty well. And as far as the remarks flung back and forth during the primary campaign, both men knew that campaign rhetoric was, well, campaign rhetoric. It didn't bother them.

But it did bother Bobby and that's the point. Lyndon and John were politicians. Bobby was not.

For those who remember Bobby as the liberal-youth candidate of The Incredible Year 1968 may be shocked! shocked at Bobby's unusual career path. As a young lawyer, Bobby had been hired on the staff of - get this - Senator Joe McCarthy. Joe was, you'll remember, the ferocious anti-communist crusader whose tactics got him censured by the US Senate. Although some have attempted to rehabilitate non-Tail-gunner Joe and make it look like he was misunderstood and maligned, these efforts haven't been very successful. Bobby later served as a counsel for the Kefauver Commission on Organized Crime and later as chief counsel on the McClellan Committee investigating the mob ties with labor (where brother John was a member). In John's campaigns - both for the Senate and for President - Bobby was John's campaign manager.

Bobby himself never held office - that is, not until his brother appointed him Attorney General. Today some people point out that many of our elected leaders have never actually had "grown-up jobs" before they take office. And you can argue that someone whose work experience was limited to landing jobs on the staff of US Senate investigating committees only after his brother was elected to Congress does indeed fit the criterion of not having a grown up job. We do realize, though, that employees on senate committees would dispute this characterization, as the Kennedys would say, with "vigah".

In any case, JFK felt obliged to explain why Bobby - who had never appeared in a court to try a case - was handed the top law spot of the land. Obviously not wanting to give a real answer, John quipped "I see nothing wrong with giving Robert some legal experience as Attorney General before he goes out to practice law."

Bobby's most noted activity as Attorney General was his war on the mob - a continuation of his days as committee counsel. As AG, Bobby beefed up the organized crime section of the justice department and the FBI, and you can argue this was the beginning of the breakup of the mob as we know it.

Virtually every mobster, reputed mobster, or person with connections with mobsters or reputed connection with mobsters were hauled before the various congressional committees. Bobby repeatedly grilled them about their mob activities, going so far as asking Sam Giacana if he disposed people by putting them in the trunks of cars. Sam declined to answer.

Bobby's questioning produced much animosity toward Bobby in, well, let's just say in certain circles. And probably the #1 member of the Anti-Bobby Fan Club was not Sam or Jimmy Hoffa as many people think. Instead it was New Orleans Mob Boss Carlos Marcello.

Carlos is a good example of why it was always easy to say there was no organized crime. Yes, there was a Commission, but whether it is a group of all the criminal masterminds in the nation or just the heads of the New York based criminal families is something crime writers never seem to agree on.

For Carlos, it didn't matter. The wise guys in New York could spout all they want about territories and who would do what. If they wanted action in New Orleans, they worked for him.

Organized crime? Huh! More like disorganized crime!

Carlos was one of the mobsters called to testify to various congressional committees. Inevitably he said that he refused to answer because his answers may "intend" to incriminate him. He also used a lot of double negatives and would say things like "I am not in no racket" and "I am not in no organized crime" - which to a logician sounds like a confession.

But Carlos had a problem. You see, he was most likely born in Tunisia in 1910 and his Sicilian parents soon immigrated to America. But evidently they never became US Citizens. If they had, then the young Carlos would have been automatically granted his citizenship, just like comedian Bob Hope, whose parents moved from England and took out their naturalization papers when Bob was a kid.

Not being a citizen became a serious issue since Carlos fell afoul of the law at an early age. We know that at age 19, he was arrested for his part in a bank robbery. Supposedly his dad said he'd hide the dough for a $400 cut (Carlos got about $7000) but Carlos's brother, Peter, finked on them.

The charges were dropped but Carlos had found his métier. So he kept up with his robberies until again a gang member spilled his guts to the cops. Whacked with 12 years, Carlos was released on parole 4 years later. Then in 1938 he was arrested on drug charges for which he served a year.

Carlos's problem, then, was he could be a good boy from now on out, but he would always be subject to deportation for these early crimes. And that's the way it was (to borrow a phrase form Walter Cronkite) up to 1961.

The Saga to Deport Mr. Marcello reads almost like a comedic farce - which is some ways it was. The usual story is that on April 4 Carlos showed up at the officer of either a parole officer or immigration officer for a routine visit. To his surprise and amidst his voluble protests, Carlos was simply kidnapped and flown out of the country.

Actually the Immigration and Naturalization Services had indeed been trying to give Carlos the boot since at least the early 1950's. Once John was elected, Bobby decided they would redouble their efforts. So Carlos knew what was going on and an FBI report noted he was "extremely apprehensive" about his status.

However, Carlos's fancy-pants lawyer, who was an expert at "working the system" as they say, kept getting the deportation delayed by filing a never ending string of appeals. But nevertheless the INS had anticipated success and had been working on the logistics of getting Carlos out of the country.

Now deportees have the right to name their country of choice. And Carlos said if he had to go, then he preferred France, a choice that actually had some rational basis. When Carlos was born, Tunis was a protectorate of France. So you can argue that Carlos was French by birth.

But France said no, Carlos wasn't French (most likely his parents had never taken out French citizenship either). So he'd have to look elsewhere to be deported.

Well, then how about Italy? His folks were from Sicily, weren't they?.

At first Italy had said fine, they'd take Carlos. But then when it looked like Carlos would be coming, they changed their mind. Either they had real qualms about taking on one more Mafia member or - as has been suggested - Carlos had bribed a high Italian official to reverse the earlier permission. So as the Sixties rolled in, Carlos was still in the US.

The problem, then, was finding a country to which Carlos owed his allegiance de jure. After all, it's kind of hard to keep a person out of what is legally their home.

But where was home? Tunisia? But Tunisia was now independent and could say Carlos was not a citizen. How about Sicily, from whence Mama and Papa Marcello hailed? But that was part of Italy who had already said no.

Then the INS had a stroke of luck. You see, sometime earlier Carlos had a great idea - at least it seemed so at the time. He had given the government - quote - "documentation" - unquote - that he was born in Guatemala. We usually read he had a forged birth certificate and also had someone doctor up a parish registry in Guatemala to make it look like Carlos had been born there.

Well, if Carlos said he was from Guatemala, to Guatemala Carlos would go.

Now it is true that on what was a routine visit to an immigration officer - as an alien Carlos was required to do regular check-ins - and without any hearing or being allowed to talk to family, friends, or a lawyer, Carlos was handcuffed and put on a plane. He was dumped rather unceremoniously in Guatemala City.

Here things start getting complicated and there are different versions of the story. Here's one.

But Guatemala didn't want Carlos, either. Once in the country, he was detained. The government then decided to deport him. But they knew that America wouldn't take him back. So where to turn?

Well, immigration proceedings were even more casual in Guatemala than at the INS offices. The police simply drove Carlos to the border of El Salvador and dropped him off. There in the middle of the jungle and at the high altitude and sweltering heat, he walked over fifteen miles to the nearest village which happened to be across the border in Honduras. Still wearing his high priced but now rumpled and no doubt rather ripe business suit, he was put up for a few days at an army post, then put on a bus, and driven to the capital city, Tegucigalpa (always a good trivia question). Then somehow via his connections - he was a mob boss, after all - Carlos managed to get on a private plane and in secret was flown back to New Orleans.

Bobby was quite chagrined to learn that Carlos was back in the country. In addition to indicting Carlos for illegal entry with a forged passport, Bobby said they'd deport Carlos again. But in the interim, Carlos's lawyer had filed legal actions against what he said had been a kidnapping. After all, the Justice Department had known the Guatemalan birth certificate was bogus and using forged documents as a basis for deportation was not something one government should do to another. However, the courts ruled Bobby had not acted improperly. The judges, though, were a bit evasive, saying Bobby's actions were part of international relations whose responsibility lay solely with the President and the Executive Branch.

Back in New Orleans, Carlos was able to successfully fight further deportation. But it wasn't smooths sailing and eventually in 1982 the Feds nabbed him for corruption and labor racketeering. That sent him to jail for six and a half years. Later he was released, old and ailing, after a reversal of his conviction.

But his travels through Central America had, if nothing else, left Carlos with a very personal beef with Bobby. There were a number of people who said they had first hand knowledge that Carlos had said that the best way to take care of Bobby was to remove John. But the Commission had to give permission for such drastic action, and one of the mob lawyers said he communicated the go-ahead to Carlos and the other famous mobster Santo Trafficante. But, the lawyer said, he thought it was a joke.

Joke or not, Carlos and Santo were identified by the House Select Committee on Assassinations of 1975 as people who had the ability and motive and the means to conspire to assassinate JFK. For his part Santo actually testified before the committee and said he had nothing to do with JFK's death.

Of course there are other conspiracy theories as well, and they include people and organizations as varied as other Mafia members, the US Government, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups, the Soviet Union and the Russian Commies, some other foreign country, the Secret Service, the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover (either separately or in tandem), the Teamsters or some other labor union, the Military Industrial Complex, anti-government right-wing groups, other miscellaneous political groups, and, yes, the CIA.

"Conspiracy Theory" is a rather pejorative term and strangely does not necessarily refer to a theory about conspiracies. That there are conspiracies is not to be denied. For instance, there was definitely a conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. But the accounts of how John Wilkes Booth plotted the deed with a band of dunderheaded buffoons is not considered a conspiracy theory.

On the other hand the idea that there was a massive plot involving Jefferson Davis, his cabinet, and military leaders down to the operational level is a conspiracy theory. But such a theory has generally been rejected by modern historians. We see then that the term "conspiracy theory" has become to have the connotations of not just being a complex and convoluted to the point of absurdity, but false as well.

Actually there have been real conspiracies that were broad enough that they could have been touted by conspiracy theorists. These are the Internet monitoring of Americans by the NSA, The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the forensic scandal of the FBI. But as we see, these real conspiracies were never proposed as conspiracy theories. Instead, they only came to light when someone in the know 'fessed up. More on that later.

The appeal of conspiracy theories has been studied by psychologists and cognitive scientists. They tell us that the belief largely boils down to the adherents needing to believe something more than having the desire - or the ability - to evaluate if the theories are actually true. People are also strangely uncomfortable in thinking that causes of important and even earth-shattering events can actually have simple explanations that can be effected by few people. The general public - and many so-called experts - generally have a poor grasp of probability theory and don't understand that what appears to be a multitude of interconnected events and associations that could never occur by chance alone can indeed very likely be due to chance alone.

There's also what can be rather discourteously called the egotistical "I-know-something-you-don't-know" phenomenon. That is, if you believe something that hundreds of the world's greatest experts say is balderdash, horse hockey, and poppycock, then doesn't that mean you are smarter than hundreds of the world's greatest experts?

An important characteristics about conspiracy theories should be noted. The more individual theories you have about one event, the less likely that any one theory is true. That's simple mathematics. Another mathematical characteristic of conspiracy theories is that people can only keep a secret for so long. So the more massive the conspiracy is, then the more likely someone who was actually involved will spill the beans. A study at Oxford University found that many of the modern conspiracy theories would involve so many people that the hoaxes would have been revealed within a few years.

Then there's just good old fashioned common sense. We're told of interwoven cabals that wield such power and secrecy they can get away with assassinating world leaders - but they can't stop an author from publishing a book about it.

Bobby has been pictured as shy and aloof and ruthless and aggressive - something you might expect from someone who was - as one friend of the Kennedys put it - "the runt of a fairly competitive family". A profile written two years before Bobby ran as president show us a complicated and at times fractious individual. But while scarcely what we'd call positive, the article conceded that Bobby did have his good points.

Most of the "ruthless" moniker came from Bobby's fight against organized crime. His head-to-head confrontation with Jimmy Hoffa became a classic and clips are inevitably shown on the various "What Happened to Jimmy Hoffa" shows that even today still crop up from time to time.

At one time Bobby's friends told the press they shouldn't call him ruthless. But it soon became a joke. When the comedian William Minkin put out a recording of "Wild Thing" by "Senator Bobby", one of the lines was the director advising Senator Bobby how to sing. "Not so ruthless, Senator!"

There's the story about the time Bobby's younger brother, Ted, was recovering from serious injuries suffered in a plane crash. The family had gone to a night club and Bobby left the table for a minute. He returned to find Teddy rocking away on the dance floor - back brace and all. Bobby immediately led Ted back to the table, as Ted told the dancers, "See! He's ruthless!"

It seems that Bobby, like most people, could be nice at times and less pleasant at others. Art Buchwald, the satirical newspaper columnist, knew the Kennedy's personally, although he said he wasn't a real intimate. But he was invited to their homes. He said he couldn't remember when he first met Bobby but it was probably because he had been introduced to Mrs. Kennedy - Ethel - at various functions and that she later invited Art and his wife, Ann, to their McLean Virginia home. The entertainment at the Kennedys was varied and Art was a judge at pet shows where the Kennedys had such unusual animals that they inevitably got first prize. For his part, Art found that Bobby was good company if you could get him relaxed.

Art's columns were mostly satirical fiction. But one that was pretty much straightforward journalism involved Bobby, Ethel, and the kids. Art got the story from Bobby himself.

Bobby and Ethel wanted to take their kids to a movie (their brood eventually reached eleven). They noticed "That Man from Rio" was showing near-by and thought it was a nice cowboy movie. Instead it was a French comedy with English subtitles. At that time some of the kids were too young read and so Ethel went to the box office and explained the situation. She asked for a refund so they could go to another more kid-oriented movie. But the cashier said sorry, their policy was not to refund tickets. Ethel kept insisting and finally asked to see the manager.

The manager told her the same thing but Ethel was insistent. She wanted a refund since the youngest kids couldn't understand what was going on. Well, how about a partial refund for the youngest kids? She could take them to a movie down the street. Ethel said she didn't want to split the family up on their night out.

The manager then asked her name.

"Mrs. Ethel Kennedy."

"Any relation to the senator?"

"His wife."

The manager said he'd refund the money.

All this took about 40 minutes, and Ethel went back and told Robert they could go. But Bobby said he didn't want to leave; it was the funniest movie he had ever seen. The kids, likely finding the action funny enough, also said they didn't want to leave and wanted to stay. So Ethel had to go back to the box office and return the money that had been returned.

Lyndon kept most of JFK's cabinet on after November 22, 1963, and Bobby stayed on as Attorney General for nearly a year. He then moved to New York and put in the residency requirement to run for the US Senate, a seat which he won in November. This one term Senate seat was Bobby's only elected office, and he was still a senator when he ran for president.

At first, everyone assumed Bobby's running was mostly just because everyone thought it wouldn't be democracy if LBJ was guaranteed the nomination. So Bobby, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and South Dakota's Senator George McGovern all put in their names.

But then Lyndon announced he would not run for re-election. Various reasons have been advanced, most of which are simply that Lyndon was just sick of the hassle. Any backlash from showing everyone his cholecystectomy¹ scar or pulling the ears of his beagle, Him, probably had little to do with it.

There could have been more personal reasons as well. Lyndon was aware that his family was not particularly long lived. Lyndon had even gotten an estimate that he would not live past 64, and so he decided to retire. Lyndon did die at 64 although his decision to take up smoking again didn't help.

So Bobby and the rest - as well as Vice-President Hubert Humphrey - were suddenly real candidates. Naturally with his long hair and youthful appearance (he was actually 43), Bobby was #1 with the young voters.

For a long time there was no front-runner. Bobby was even falling behind and by late May, he admitted that for him to be a viable candidate he needed to win California. This he did and on the day he won, June 5, 1968, he was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and died the following day. In the end, Hubert Humphrey won the nomination and lost the presidency to Richard Nixon.

The most divisive issue during the 1968 campaign was how to end the war in Vietnam. Everyone wanted the war to end, but no one really agreed on how. You had the "bomb-them-back-to-the-stone-age" crowd, you had the "out-now" advocates, and every point on the continuum in between. However, virtually all candidates were for trying some kind of negotiated settlement, including the third party candidate, George Wallace.

In the ensuing years, we have learned that there is often a big gap in what politicians say and do and what they really think. We now know that from the first Lyndon himself had told his confidants that there was no way America could win a war 10,000 miles away. But America couldn't look weak.

Lyndon also had doubts that at least the second of the Gulf of Tonkin Incidents - where US ships had been reportedly attacked by North Vietnam boats - had really happened. Soon Lyndon was on the phone to his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, griping about how they hear one thing, and the the next day they don't know if anything happened at all.

For what it's worth one navy veteran who was actually at the incident told a friend that all that happened was a Vietnamese ship came out of the harbor and seeing the American ships, went back to shore. Part of the problem is that there were two incidents, not one. The first was when the American ship fired warning shots at approaching North Vietnamese torpedo boats which then fired torpedoes but missed. Then there was the second incident two days later where it's not clear if anything happened at all. But the incidents did result in Congress passing a resolution granting LBJ full war powers, marking the real start of the Vietnam War.

But how, the (ptui) skeptics ask, do we know what Lyndon thought and what he said in private conversations? We'd really like to know that.

I thought you would, as Captain Mephisto said to Sidney Brand. That's because Lyndon would often surreptitiously record his conversations. Unfortunately - or fortunately if you're a history buff - Lyndon sometimes seemed to forget that he was on record, and you got all sorts of tidbits about the daily life of the president. There was one now famous call to the owner of Haggar Slacks when Lyndon asked for some custom fitting.

Now the pockets [Lyndon said], when you sit down in a chair, the knife and your money comes out. So I need it at least another inch in the pockets. Now another thing, the crotch - down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight. So when you make 'em up, give me an inch that I can let out there because they cut me. It's just like riding a wire fence...

But when I gain a little weight they cut me under there. So, leave me - you never do have much of margin there - see if you can't leave me an inch from where the zipper [Loud Belch] ends, round under my back to my bunghole so I can let it out there if I need to.

Throughout this we realize we've been a bit harsh on Lyndon. Other people also thought Bobby should do something about his tonsorial dishabille. When he was running for president his mother, Rose, told him that unless he got his hair cut a lot of older people might not vote for him.

"And," she added, "that might include me!"

References

The Years Of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro, Alfred A. Knopf.
     Volume 1: The Path to Power, 1982.
     Volume 2: Means of Ascent, 1990.
     Volume 3: Master of the Senate, 2002.
     Volume 4: The Passage of Power, 2012.

On His Own: Robert F. Kennedy, 1964-1968, William Jacobus Vanden Heuvel and Milton Gwirtzman, Doubleday, 1970.

Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade. Jeffrey Shesol, Norton, 1997.

The Amazing, but True, Deportation Story of Carlos Marcello, David A. Martin and Peter H. Schuck, Nota Bene, O'Quinn Law Library, University of Houston.

"U.S. vs. Marcello", George Lardner, Jr., The Washington Post, February 19, 1980

"Carlos Marcello", Spartacus Education.

"The Smothers Brothers: Laughing at Hard Truths", David Bianculli, The New York Times, February 3, 2017.

"What is Robert Kennedy Up To?", Hugh Sidney, Life Magazine, November 18, 1966.

"Art Buchwald Oral History Interview - RFK #1, 3/12/1969, Administrative Information", Roberta Greene (Interviewer), John F. Kennedy Library.

"The Death of Robert Kennedy", Theodore White, Loudon Wainwright, Life Magazine, June 14, 1969. pp. 32 - 41.

"The Long, Complex, and Futile Deportation Saga of Carlos Marcello", Daniel Kanstroom, Immigration Stories, David Martin and Peter Schuck (Editors), Foundation Press, 2005.

"U.S. vs. Marcello", George Lardner, Jr., The Washington Post, February 19, 1980.

"When LBJ Ordered Pants From the White House", Emily Spivack, Smithsonian, July 30, 2012.

"The Last Days of the President", Leo Janos, The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1973.

"Carlos Marcello, New Orleans Underworld Chieftain Deported from the United States", Associated Press, April 5, 1961.

"Fraud Trail Begins Today for Man U. S. Has Tried to Deport Since '53", Robert Pear, The New York Times, March 30, 1981

"On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs", David Grimes, PLOS One, January 26, 2016.

"Hearings Before the Select Committee On Improper Activities in the Labor or Management", United States Government Printing Office, 1959.

And Then I Told the President: The Secret Papers of Art Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Putnam, 1965.

"Carlos Marcello: The Times-Picayune Covers 175 Years of New Orleans History", Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune, January 29, 2012.

Other References. A number of stories about Bobby's hair being too long were published in magazines during the 1960's including Lyndon asking Bobby when he was going to get a haircut and Bobby's mother, Rose, saying older voters - including herself - might not vote for him. Exactly what the references were is sadly an Official CooperToons Undocumented Reference.
For those think that such references are at odds with a website devoted to eradicating ignorance and superstition, as an American president once said, "Trust me!"