Episode 11: JFK - the LBJ / Jackie calls & the disturbing wink

A couple of points Jay Weidner makes in JFK X  is the odd phone call between LBJ and JBK that took place on December 2, 1963, less than two weeks after JFK's death, and the weird wink that's given to LBJ by Congressman Albert Thomas at the swearing in.

To be honest, given the chain of events, these factors are rather disturbing, IMO.   


Links:

https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkwha-244-001

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/prestapes/jklbj.html

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/happened-jackie-kennedy-answered-phone-183856490.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ykafh0/congressman_albert_thomas_winks_at_president/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Duncan_Brown

Clip from "Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Representative Albert Thomas, Houston, Texas, 21 November 1963"  public domain.


Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

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Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive the typos! 

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Ladies and gentlemen, when I came to the House of Representatives in 1947, as a fairly young congressman from Massachusetts, I heard the old saying that you spend the first six months in the House of Representatives wondering how you got there, and the next six months wondering how everybody else got there.

Nowadays, we don't wonder how they got there. We just naturally assumed that there was probably some corruption and string pulling involved. I played you in for tonight's episode with a brief clip from remarks at a dinner honoring representative Albert Thomas in Houston, Texas on November 21 1963. So the night before the Pop Pop happened in Dallas. According to the JFK Library, the copyright status on that audio is public domain. So I felt comfortable using a few seconds of it because we'll be talking about Albert Thomas in tonight's episode in the documentary JFK X that Jay Weidner released, which I reviewed more thoroughly in a previous episode, there are a couple of things that he mentioned, I didn't get into them in that episode, because it could have gone on all night. Really, my point was to review his documentary and the soap, operatic nature of thinking that the death was fake, and there was a trapdoor and an escape to Greece and all of that it sounds very soap opera and Lifetime movie. But he brought up a couple of additional points that I think are worth consideration. I had never heard, for example, the telephone call that took place between Jackie and LBJ on December the second, so less than two weeks after the death of JFK, they're having this phone call and yeah, for my money. Mmm hmm. No. No, if that were my husband talking that way to another woman. We would have some problems. Yeah, I found it weird. Okay, and that's just my opinion, and it could be wrong. opinions. You know what they're like, everybody's got one and most of them stink. My opinion is that's a weird effing phone call. And then also the photograph of Albert Thomas at the swearing in winking and smirking. And LBJ and LBJ smiling back at him. This is also weird. So in tonight's episode, I want to cover what the hell is up with the series of phone calls, and then what the hell is up with that photograph. So I don't have a glass, I just have a bottle of a cold beverage. Let's settle up and take this weird ass ride. So as I mentioned, I was not familiar with this audio of this phone call until it was played in J Weiner's film. And once I heard it, it was like, wait a minute, this doesn't really sound like what I would expect. And I know I'm gonna, I'm just gonna stop you. I'm going to make a preemptive strike. I'm going to stop you right there. I know that there will be people who say everybody's grief is different. And that's true. Everybody's grief is different. Every loss is different. Every person grieves differently and goes through a wide variety of emotions. And the process is not linear. Even though we have the five stages of grief. It's not like somebody goes through them one at a time. And once you get to bargaining means you're done with anger, once you're done with depression, that means you're into bargaining. It doesn't work that way. And grief can take a massive toll on your body, not just mentally and spiritually, but physically two people can gain weight can lose weight can stop eating can lose their own will to live. It is a very tough, emotional process to go through. So my point in saying all that is I understand conceptually as well as from my own losses in this life, that people grieve differently. Each loss is different. And it's really not for us to judge Well, why isn't somebody crying? Why isn't somebody more broken down and torn up? I get that. So my my goal here is not to try to be SMERSH somebody else's grieving process or carry tales about somebody else's grieving process. What What struck me in listening to this is if that were my husband talking to another woman, that way, it would make me feel really uncomfortable. I would have a problem with it. Yes, there are people who will say well Jackie doesn't exactly sound like the grief stricken widow, in in that audio recording, not not my place to judge somebody else's grief in terms of this man, still being married to another woman. It's just, it's weird. It's weird and it's uncomfortable. And then you think about the previous dynamic, this person is now the president of the United States under tragic circumstances. So it's sort of like this, this woman, if we just took away all of the fancy titles of a former first lady and a current president, and all of that, if we just imagine it was like, John and Jane Doe down the street. Jane Doe is calling John Doe, who used to be her late husband's co worker, and they sound awfully Chamsy whimsy pals he Wowsie. That then just seems a little bit weird. I will drop a link to American radio works, where you can hear the audio of this call for yourself. There are also people that have put it on YouTube. So if you go and do a Google search, you're not going to have difficulty finding it. American radio works was good enough to put up some transcripts of multiple phone calls that took place. And we start to see this theme of a lot of a lot of friendliness, there a lot of familiarity. And as I said, if you stripped away the titles, well, these people were famous, they were public figures, a former first lady and a current president, and they were in politics, if we just imagine it was John and Jane Doe from down the road, having this conversation and be like, I'm this, this feels just a little pinch bit weird. In fact, for all of you twi hearts out there, when I first heard it in Jay Weiner's documentary, I felt like Jacob Black, you know, there's that scene in the car in Breaking Dawn, part two, where he's like, come on Dracula one and Dracula to our curry baby. And to God, that was my reaction, I'm like, um, this phone call is cut reebie. Here is the transcript. And again, me just reading it to you, it's not going to give you the full depth and breadth of hearing the tones of voice, being able to sort of intuit the body language when you hear their voices. So I would recommend that you listen to the audio file as well. If I knew it was in the public domain, I would play it but I don't I don't know if somebody's going to show up and say they have a copyright to this audio or not. But you can find it on the American radio works website. So here's the transcript. This is Jackie calling in saying Mr. President, and then LBJ saying I just want you to know you were loved by so many and so much, and Oh, Mr. President, I'm one of them. I tried. I didn't dare bother you again. But I got Kenny O'Donnell over here to give you a message. If he ever saw you. Did he give it to you yet know about my letter that was waiting for me last night. Listen, sweetie. Now, first thing you've got to learn. You've got some things to learn. And one of them is you don't bother me. You give me strength. But I wasn't going to send you in one more letter. I was so scared you'd answer. Don't send me anything. Don't send me anything. You just come on over and put your arm around me. That's all you do. When you haven't got anything else to do. Let's take a walk. Let's walk around the backyard. And just let me tell you how much you mean to all of us, and how we can carry on if you give us a little strength. But you know what I wanted to say to you about that letter. I know how rare a letter is in a president's handwriting. Do you know that I've gotten more in your handwriting than I do in Jax now? Well, and for you to write it at this time. And then to send me that thing today of you know, your cape announcement and everything. I want. You too just know this that I told my mama a long time ago when everybody else gave up about my election in 48. Yes, my mother and my wife and my sisters and you females got a lot of courage that we men don't have. And so we have to rely on you and depend on you and you've got something to do. You've got the president relying on you. And this is not the first one you've had. So there aren't many women you know, running around with a good many presidents. So you just bear that in mind. You've got the biggest job of your life. Jackie laughs and says she ran around with two presidents. That's what they'll say about me. He also laughs Okay, anytime. Goodbye, darling. Thank you for calling Mr. President. Goodbye. Bye sweetie. Do come by. I will in quote. Again, me just sitting here reading the transcript to you doesn't give you the full like the giggles and the warmth of the language and him being like you don't bother me. You just come over here and you put your arm around me. Um, wait a minute. What? What? What am I just the whole We'll die. I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute, just just wait just a minute. And then also the comment that Jackie now has more handwritten presidential notes in her possession from LBJ than she does from her own late husband. This is also odd to me. There's a transcript from another telephone call that happened on December the seventh, where Linden says to her, your picture was gorgeous. Now you had that chin up and that chest out. And you look so pretty marching in the front page of The New York Daily News Today. Again, wait a minute. He goes on to say, Well, you look at the New York Daily News, I'm looking at it now. And I just came, sat in my desk and started signing a lot of long things. And I decided I wanted to flirt with you a little bit. And she says How sweet.

She tells him to take a sleeping pill, he says that they just stimulate him, he doesn't, he's not going to take a sleeping pill to be able to go to sleep. He tells her that whenever she's bringing the kid to school, that she needs to come by and walk down to the seesaw with him quote, like old times. Again, I'm sort of like, I feel like it's almost it's like we're hearing a conversation. And there's a subtext or there's some finer shade of meaning that we're not picking up on. Now that again, that's just my opinion, just my interpretation. And it could be wrong. The vibe feels weird to me, as the as the young folks say the vibes are off. There's another transcript from December the 21st, which is like a Christmas time phone call. But it's a bit more chaste. Because at some point, Lady Bird gets on the phone. And so it's like, Oh, hey, how are things going with Christmas? How are the kids it's a, it's a much more normal type of phone call that you would expect to take place between two people, one of whom is a recent widow. And the other is like, you know, the dead husband's former colleague. There's another Christmas time phone call on December the 23rd, in which ladybird doesn't appear to be involved, where they're still doing the Merry Christmas thing. And he says to Jackie, and all the world, and I'll come see you after Christmas, I hope. And if you ever come back here again, and don't come to see me why there's going to be trouble. And he tells her that he has the FBI at his disposal. So he's going to send for her if she doesn't come by Little different tonal change there when the wife is not on the line. There's a phone call that takes place on New Year's Day of 1964, where LBJ says, I think you are a pretty great girl myself. I just wanted to hear your voice and wish you a happy new year. And I'll see you next week. To which Jackie says great, Mr. President, you know, I'm so touched by and then there's something in audible, we can't tell what she says specifically, I'm so touched by something with all you've got to do. And he says, Well, I've gotten a lot to do with you yet, dear God. And then she says back to him. Oh, I just do anything for you because you've been so nice to me. Yeah, there's a phone call. Lastly, we find from January the ninth of 1964, where Jackie is suggesting to LBJ that he start taking a nap after his lunch. She said it was something that JFK did that really helped him. And he responds to her all started the day you come down here to see me. And if you don't, I'm going to come out there to see you. And I will just have all those motorcycle cops around your house, and it will cause you all kinds of trouble. And she says I can't come down there. I wanted to tell you, I've really gotten a hold of myself, you know, I would do anything for you. I'll talk to you on the phone. I'm so scared, I'll start to cry again. He says, Oh, you never cried honey. I never saw anyone as brave as you. So she says, as well that she'll do anything. Don't Don't make me come down there. Again, I'll talk to you on the phone. But don't make me come down there again. And so presumably, maybe she went for a visit and had some sort of crying breakdown. Maybe it was difficult to be back in there again. I don't know. And as I said, I do not like to judge somebody else's grief because I know the grieving process is so different for each person and we go through various emotions, not even one day to the next one hour, one minute, it seems like to the next one when a loss is fresh. Minute by Minute the way that you feel the way that you process it changes so for me this is not about trying to take her inventory about her grieving process. It For Me is more about the weird familiarity there. The obvious flirtation I mean he even admits that he's flirting with her. This is weird. It's a very weird way for these two people to behave in JFK X. J Weiner is using this phone call in particular the first one, this phone call the tone of their voice, the sort of the giggling as evidence for two things in his mind. These are his assertions in the documentary, a that Jack and Jackie's marriage was, for all intents and purposes over it was really, for public spectacle, but not so much for any type of private enjoyment or private relationship anymore. And be evidence that the death didn't actually happen. That Jack faked his own death and went off with his favorite mistress and lived on this Greek island like something out of a soap opera. Like they're laughing, they're giggling, they're having this phone call. Nobody's particularly upset. Nobody sounds grief stricken because a death for JFK didn't really happen that day. He escaped. And they're all friendly. And they're all chummy, because now everybody's problem is solved. Jackie is a widow. So she's free to go out and date or be with whoever she wants to be with Jack is off with the mistress in some island somewhere in Greece, and so everybody's happy. Do I personally believe that he faked his own death using Hollywood makeup and props? No. As I said, Whenever I was reviewing the JFK X documentary that is pretty pretty out there. And whenever we research the Pop Pop, you will find all kinds of theories and ideas, some that range from sounding pretty damn credible and believable to things that are just like something out of a Hollywood movie. In my mind, what goes on behind closed doors and somebody else's marriage, it's difficult for us to say, truly, I have seen many situations in my lifetime that I wouldn't have predicted I wouldn't have seen coming. I once heard Dennis Miller say that sex is the great unfixable. And damn, if that ain't true. There are some times you see couples that get together and you think how, how? How do they fit together? How does that relationship work? Yet it does. I've seen other people that on paper, seemingly, they would be incredibly compatible. You would just think match made in heaven Written in the Stars, true love. They date for two or three months and they break up and it's all over with. And then other people who would seem to be not compatible at all, stay married and stay happy, happy in a marriage for years. So it is it's really difficult to say I feel like as it relates to JFK and people that you know want to poke around into the more salacious details. There seems to be two narratives. One is that Jack and Jackie were actually happy. They were leaning a lot on each other because you know, there's a terrible, terrible, tragic event where they lost their young baby. Really a horrible, horrible thing for any person to have to go through. So one narrative is they were really supporting one another, and that their marriage was actually in a in a good place that they were on very good terms with one another because they had been through their own private grief over their last child. And then you have the the other narrative like what we see in JFK ex that no, they were still on the outs, things were over when things were done with. They were both having affairs with other people allegedly. And it was just for show. It was a different time, it would have really rocked the nation if they had gotten a divorce while he was in office. And I'm sure at that point in time it would have that people would have probably been scandalized by that, because there were a lot of people that really liked Jackie, I mean, here's this beautiful, elegant woman always is dressed so well and presents herself so friendly and so sweet. Like what kind of monster is going to divorce her that that would have just been a really horrible move, politically speaking. So I mean, Jay Weidner has a point if if their marriage was on the outs, maybe they were trying to figure out a way to avoid bad publicity avoid a divorce until he was out of office. Now does that mean I think he faked his death with Hollywood props? No, I don't. I think that's overstating it. But the truth of the matter is, we don't know what what was going on behind closed doors. what was being said between the two of them when they were in complete private. There was a book that came out I think, last year, called Jackie public private secret by Jay Randy Taraborrelli. And one of the things that that book talks about is this awkward phone call that happened between allegedly between Marilyn Monroe and Jackie because, again, allegedly, Marilyn Monroe called the house looking for JFK. And Jackie answered and said he was not at home and made her made her respond like who is this? She says, It's Marilyn Monroe. And she asked is this Jackie? Jackie says, yes, she confirmed who she was. And then Maryland said, Well, hey, let him know. I called and have him call me back. And naturally Jackie finds this phone call to be, quote off putting, and was weirded out by it.

You know, you hear a story like that. And you think Well, I mean, she definitely handled it better than I would have. Because if that had happened to me, I'd be like, if you ever call back here again, I'm gonna beat you out in the street to a bloody pulp. Don't ever call my house and ask for my husband again, ever. No, no, no, no. Huh? So look, I mean, more than likely with all of these things going on somebody's being a public figure like that. And attractive, a young, attractive public figure, oh, and then he's wealthy. On top of that, one imagines that he was probably getting a lot of offers and a lot of propositions from various and sundry women all the time. And there is no telling how much of that that Jackie had to put up with or felt like she had to put up with in order to stay in the marriage. She may very well have been completely worn the hell out. And as a fellow woman, I can understand how that would wear somebody out, it would become very tiring. In addition to this awkward string of phone calls between Jackie and LBJ, there's also the weird photograph of Albert Thomas winking and smirking at LBJ during his swearing in ceremony in terms of inappropriate behavior, inappropriate reaction that that seems to be in pretty poor taste. Now there are some people I'll I'll drop a link to a Reddit thread that has a copy of the photograph on it so you can see it for yourself and make up your own mind what you think there are people that say, Well, maybe he was just caught at a weird angle, or maybe somebody snapped the photograph. And it looks like he's winking and smiling but he's really not it was just a weird freeze frame. I don't really buy that to be honest with you because LBJ is looking at him and smiling himself. So there seems to be a very like clear, unspoken dialogue that's happening between the two of them. Most people who are looking at these photographs of the swearing in are looking at Jackie because she's in the foreground of the photo, she's still got the suit on and you know, she's obviously in in pain, she's having some type of emotional reaction to everything that's going on. So most people don't ever even look in the direction of the other people that were onboard the plane. I mean, why would you your your, this horrible thing has happened. And so most of your attention is going to be focused on Jackie and then on LBJ. But if you look to me, based on this photograph, it does indeed look like he's making and smiling. So for Jay Weidner in JFK X, his thought is that Albert Thomas is winking and smiling because it's as if to say no harm has really been done to anybody. Jack has gone off to live in Greece or he's off in the trap door waiting waiting to pop out again. He's wherever he went. After this. Suppose it fake death. Nothing really happened. You know, we've had a bloodless coup, so to speak, and nothing bad has really happened because Jack is still still alive and well somewhere. That's not really the way that I would interpret it. There may have in fact been a coup, but I don't think that it was a bloodless coup, and I don't think that the two of them are smiling and winking at one another because they're letting they're letting each other know that Jack made it into the trap door in the limousine. I don't think so. And one of the reasons why I wanted to play that clip is because it's like wow, I mean, it's even more raw. When you think about JFK having been at this dinner to honor Albert Thomas just the night before. And then there they are at the swearing in ceremony this emergency swearing in ceremony on the 22nd and Albert Thomas is winking and smirking at LBJ. Wow. There is a woman named Madeline or laws I should say was there was a woman named Madeline Duncan Brown, who claimed to have been a long term mistress of LBJ. She could really be her own separate episode, because she has appeared in several different TV shows. She also wrote a book to talk about her exploits. Supposedly, she claimed that she had a child by LBJ. But I think that the paternity suit was ultimately dismissed. And then the man died of cancer fairly young in life, which is also a sad thing. So we really don't know what the situation was there. But according to brown, she claimed that there was a party at Clint merchants house on the evening, prior to the JFK pop pop. And that Johnson was there, along with some other very wealthy, very powerful people, some of whom, according to her, were people like Jagger, Hoover, Richard Nixon, etc. And she said that these men all had a meeting and afterwards he was he was very angry. And he told her quote, after tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That's no threat. That's a promise in quote. Now, I've seen more than one interview with her and so sometimes the exact verbiage changes, sometimes it's after tomorrow, those fucking Kennedy's will never embarrass me again. Sometimes it's after tomorrow, those SOPs will never embarrass me again. The part that always stays the same is there's something derogatory about the Kennedys. And then him saying that's no threat. That's a promise. And we, you know, what, what do we make of that? Is that true? Is it not true? If we go down to the footnotes section on Wikipedia, and I'll drop links to all this so you can check it out for yourself. We read brown provided a similar account on A Current Affair. Remember that show for the 90s A Current Affair, I think Maury Povich was on it. Brown provided a similar account on A Current Affair stating on the day of the pop pop, but not a couple of hours prior to the Pop Pop. He said that John Kennedy would never embarrass him again. And that wasn't a threat. That was a promise and quote. So could this be this wink and the smile? Could this be evidence that LBJ knew what was coming? He knew what was going to happen that day? And he was fine with it, because it meant that he was going to ascend the throne and become the president. Did Albert Thomas know what was coming? Or did he just figure it out? And go Oh, yeah, wink wink? We don't know. We don't know. I wouldn't really want to read more about it before I drew any firm conclusion. Same thing with with this Madeline Brown. I mean, I, to me, if you are talking about this monumental event, where the vice president of the country came out of a meeting and made some comment about that's not a threat, that's a promise, it seems to me like you would want to be very consistent and very clear on when did it happen? Where were you at? And what were the exact words that you remember that person saying, it really shouldn't change over the course of time, and it shouldn't change based on who you're talking to.

I like how Jim Marrs in his book, crossfire at the very beginning, in the preface. He says, don't trust this book. Don't trust any one book or any one source. There's so much information, you're going to have to just look at all of it and judge it for yourself. And the same is true here. I mean, for me, in my opinion, the phone calls between Jackie and LBJ are weird. Creepy, off putting strange. Now that's just my opinion. And it could be wrong. Who knows? Maybe I am totally misreading the situation. Maybe he was just trying to be super nice to a widow woman. And I just have a dirty mind. I mean, in the transcripts, he admits that he's outright flirting with her. But you know, maybe I just have a dirty mind. Maybe Maybe the problem is me. Strikes me weird. Then we have the winking photograph, like what is what is he thinking about like Job well done, you did it, you pulled it off, or you stood out of the way and let other people do it or you got what you wanted? Or it this is all fake. It was all done with makeup and special effects. What the hell, we don't know. But these are additional components of the pop pop that that I put in the category of this whole thing stinks to high heaven. Now, whatever you may believe about who actually orchestrated it, who pulled the triggers, what was going on? The whole thing stinks. And we still all of these years later, don't have any firm answers about that. I plan to record another episode because there was somebody that made the comment that we're never going to get the answers because it's too profitable. All these people making movies all these people making documentaries, all these people writing books, it's become its own cottage industry. So it's too proud evitable if we got some firm answer, other than Well, Oswald was a lone nut commie sympathizer who did it because he was crazy and totally by himself. If we got any firm answer other than that, it would end all of this speculation. First of all, I don't think that's true. I don't think this speculation is ever going to end. But secondly, I mean, is that a valid point? Is that bullcrap? Is it somebody being a smart aleck on the internet? Or is that a valid point? Is there a way to profitable cottage industry around the Pop Pop? That's another point to ponder. So check this out for yourself. Go and look at the photograph for yourself. Go in and look and listen to these phone calls for yourself and decide what you think maybe to you it's not creepy. To me, it just seemed rather odd. Stay a little bit crazy. And I will see you in the next episode.

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