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John Bowden Connally Jr. (February 27, 1917June 15, 1993) was an American politician who served as the 39th governor of Texas from 1963 to 1969 and as the 61st United States secretary of the treasury from 1971 to 1972. He began his career as a Democrat and became a Republican in 1973.
Connally was born in Floresville, Texas in 1917 and pursued a legal career after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. During World War II, he served on the staff of James Forrestal and Dwight D. Eisenhower before transferring to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. After the war, he became an aide to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. When Johnson assumed the vice presidency in 1961, he convinced President John F. Kennedy to appoint Connally to the position of United States Secretary of the Navy. Connally left the Kennedy Administration in December 1961 to successfully run for Governor of Texas. In 1963, Connally was riding in the presidential limousine when Kennedy was assassinated, and was seriously wounded. During his governorship, he was a conservative Democrat.
In 1971, Republican President Richard Nixon appointed Connally as his treasury secretary. In this position, Connally presided over the removal of the United States dollar from the gold standard, an event known as the Nixon shock. Connally stepped down from the Cabinet in 1972 to lead the Democrats for Nixon organization, which campaigned for Nixon's re-election. Connally was on Nixon's short list to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew after the latter resigned in 1973, but Gerald Ford was chosen instead. Connally sought the Republican nomination for president in the 1980 election, but withdrew from the race after the first set of primaries. Connally did not seek public office again after 1980 and died of pulmonary fibrosis in 1993.
Despite the initial hardship, John Bowden Connally was able to lift the family out of poverty by running a successful bus route, and by 1932 the family bought a 1000-acre farm. The income from the farm was enough to cover Connally's tuition. Connally attended Floresville High School and was one of the few graduates who attended college. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the student body president and a member of the Friar Society. It was at the University of Texas where he met his future wife Nellie Connally. He subsequently graduated from the University of Texas School of Law and was admitted to the bar by examination.
In 1936, Connally met and befriended Lyndon B. Johnson, of whom he remained a political ally and friend for Johnson's entire life. Johnson helped Connally get a job in the campus library, and Connally played a minor role in Johnson's bid for Congress in 1937. Johnson rewarded Connally for his help by taking him to Washington in 1939, where Connally remained until 1941, when he joined the Naval Reserve.
Connally practiced law in the Alvin Wirtz law firm, until Lyndon Johnson, then a newly elected senator, persuaded him to return to Washington, to serve as a key aide. He had close ties with Johnson before his navy days and maintained them until the former president's death in 1973.
Two of Connally's principal legal clients were the Texas oil tycoon Sid W. Richardson and Perry Bass, Richardson's nephew and partner, both of Fort Worth. Richardson's empire in the 1950s was estimated at $200 million to $1 billion. Under Richardson's tutelage, Connally gained experience in a variety of enterprises and received tips on real estate purchases. The work required the Connallys to relocate to Fort Worth. When Richardson died in 1959, Connally was named to the lucrative position of co-executor of the estate.
Connally was also involved in a reported clandestine deal to place the Texas Democrat Robert Anderson on the 1956 Republican ticket as vice president. Although the idea fell through when Dwight Eisenhower retained Richard Nixon in the second slot, Anderson received a million dollars for his efforts and a subsequent appointment as U.S. Treasury Secretary.
At the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, Connally led supporters of Senator Lyndon Johnson. His argument that John F. Kennedy would be an unsuitable president due to having Addison's disease and a dependence on cortisone was fruitless, as Kennedy had already secured the needed delegates for nomination before the convention even opened. Kennedy made Johnson his running mate in order to secure the support of Southern Democrats, and went on to win the 1960 presidential election.
Connally directed the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea on a new kind of "gunboat diplomacy." The landed in Naples, Italy, and brought gifts to children in an orphanage. Connally also ordered gifts for a hospital in Cannes, France, that treated children with bone diseases, for poor Greek children on the island of Rhodes and for disabled children in Palermo, Italy. Presents were also sent to Turkish children in Cyprus and to a camp in Beirut for homeless Palestinian refugees. The Bay of Pigs incident occurred under his watch.
Connally fought hard to protect the Navy's role in the national space program, having vigorously opposed assigning most space research to the Air Force. Time termed Connally's year as Navy Secretary "a first-rate appointment." Critics noted, however, that the brevity of Connally's tenure precluded any sustained or comprehensive achievements.
Connally ran as a conservative Democrat. Connally waged the most active campaign of any of the Democrats, traveling more than 22,000 miles across the state. He made 43 major speeches and appeared on multiple statewide and local telecasts. Biographer Charles Ashman called Connally a "total professional" when it came to campaigning. During the campaign, Connally courted crowds and travelled with aides to make for a more noticeable entrance when he arrived at events. Ashman claimed that Connally would have aides telephone airports ask to page him for an urgent message, in order to give the impression that he was much in demand.
According to a 1961 poll, only 1% of Texas voters were willing to back Connally, which forced him to make ground rapidly. Connally appeared conservative, but did often highlight his position in the Kennedy Administration in attempt to appeal to Hispanic and Afro-American voters. Connally refused to debate Yarborough, and resorted to attacking him in subtle ways instead, attacking him as a candidate of Americans for Democratic Action, which "was like equating him with the Communist party" in a Southern state like Texas.
Eventually he was placed in a primary runoff election against Yarborough, which he won by a close vote. Connally's Republican opponent for the governor's office was conservative Republican Jack Cox, also of Houston. Connally received 847,038 ballots (54%) to Cox's 715,025 (45.6%). In the campaign, Connally made an issue of Cox having switched to the Republican party the previous year; eleven years later, Connally made the same switch.
Connally was governor during a time of great expansion of higher education in Texas. He signed into law the creation of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. He appointed regents who backed the entry of women into previously all-male Texas A&M University in College Station, having been prompted to take such action by State Senator William T. "Bill" Moore of Bryan, who in 1953 had first proposed the admission of women to the institution.Robert C. Borden, "Bull of the Brazos dies: Moore was champion of Texas A&M," Bryan-College Station Eagle, May 28, 1999, pp. 1–3
Following the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Connally "became almost a demigod symbol to the voters in Texas which would assure him an overwhelming victory in 1964". The governor became very religious and believed that he had been saved by God for a reason. He wrote: "Now I feel that, rather than being elected, maybe I'm one of God's elect. The good Lord chose to leave me here, so I figure I'm one of God's elect."
Following his re-election in 1964, Connally grew critical of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and was willing to block its enaction in Texas. Connally was also a bitter opponent of and strongly supported right-to-work law in Texas, which led the AFL-CIO to call for his resignation. Texas Republicans strongly commended Connally for his conservative views, and a Houston Republican Albert B. Fay said that he wanted "to publicly commend him Connally and invite him into the Republican party."
Connally cemented himself as a very conservative Democrat, even by the standards of the Solid South, which led many to believe that he was aligned more towards the Republican Party than his own. During the presidency of Johnson, Connally "spoke out for state vetoes on anti-poverty programs, publicly went on television to oppose the civil rights laws guaranteeing all citizens access to public accommodations, and other Great Society legislation." The liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Texas believed that a break between Connally and the president was imminent, given Connally's support for racial segregation and his opposition to Johnson's welfare policies. The split did not come to fruition and according to The New Republic, Johnson and Connally "agree to disagree".
Despite clashing with Johnson on the issue of segregation and economic policies, Connally agreed with the president's foreign policy, supported escalating the Vietnam War, and kept supporting Johnson even after the Vietnam War grew deeply unpopular. Connally fiercely defended the war, and accused Democratic progressives such as Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern of supporting "appeasement and surrender"; in turn, Pierre Salinger accused Connally of endorsing "old-type Joe McCarthyism". Eugene Nickerson remarked that Connally's view on the Vietnam War was "blood thirsty" and that he expressed support "for bigger and better wars". Connally remained a hardline war hawk his entire life, and consistently pressured President Johnson to stay aggressive towards Vietnam.
As governor of Texas, Connally also had a strained relationship with Afro-Americans and Latin Americans, and was reported to have "snubbed a group of Latin Americans in 1966 who walked 350 miles to ask him to support a state minimum wage". This earned Connally a reputation of a reactionary, deeply conservative, and insensitive politician. In 1966, Connally defended his views by saying: "In a sense it is a dirty business, but not corrupt. It's mean... It's tough... People will say some mean things about you, but this is one of the burdens you have to bear. People say mean things about me-and they will this year".
Connally founded and thoroughly consolidated his political machine in Texas during his governorship, and said: "Texas is a one-party state, and I'll see to it that it stays that way." According to Robert Sherrill, Connally moved the state in a conservative direction, and "controlled the men who controlled the politics in Texas—all conservative". This allowed the governor to successfully prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 from being enforced in the state.
By Spring of 1967, Connally announced that he would not seek a fourth term because of his failing health: he suffered from stomach ulcer. Reevaluating the governorship of John Connally, Rita Lynne Colbert concludes:
As governor, Connally promoted HemisFair '68, the world's fair held in San Antonio, which he suggested could net the state an additional $12 million in direct taxes. He also supported turning the fair's Texas Pavilion into a permanent museum, the Institute of Texan Cultures, describing his vision for it as "a dramatic showcase, not only to Texans, but to all the world, of the host of diverse peoples from many lands whose blood and dreams built our state."
There was some talk of Connally being selected as Hubert Humphrey's running mate on the Democratic ticket in 1968, but liberal Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine was chosen instead. Connally publicly endorsed Humphrey, but the relationship was not always smooth. According to then-Representative Ben Barnes, in a private meeting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Connally angrily accused Humphrey of being disloyal to President Johnson by trying to soft-pedal Johnson's position regarding Vietnam. Ashman claims that during this time Connally was "privately helping Nixon, recruiting a number of influential Texans, members of both parties, to work for the Republican candidate."
Connally was succeeded as governor by Lieutenant Governor Preston Smith.
Connally later told the Warren Commission: "I said, 'My God, they are going to kill us all. He looked down and saw that his chest was covered with blood and thought he had been fatally shot. Then Connally heard the third and final shot, which sprayed blood and brain tissue on the car's passengers. He suffered a fracture of the fifth rib, a Pneumothorax, a shattered wrist, and had a bullet lodged in his leg. He underwent four hours of surgery after the shooting and recovered from his wounds.
Charles Gregory, the doctor who tended to his wrist wound, told the Warren Commission that the bullet that struck Connally went from the upper (dorsal) surface, near the midline, about 5cm above his wrist joint, to the under (volar) surface, much closer to the joint, at a distance of about 1.5 cm.Russel Kent, "The Wounding of Governor Connally --- Burying the Single Bullet Theory," The Education Forum, December 17, 2005. [2] retrieved February 25, 2021 at about 3:47 AM EST. The 10-month investigation by the Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Kennedy was assassinated by 24-year-old ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had acted entirely alone. Connally did not accept the single-bullet theory, which suggested that one shot passed through Kennedy's neck and caused all of Connally's wounds. He insisted that all three shots struck occupants of the limousine. Publicly, he agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
Nixon named Bush as ambassador to the United Nations in order to secure Connally's services at Treasury. Ben Barnes, then the lieutenant governor and originally a Connally ally, claims in his autobiography that Connally's insistence saved Bush's political career, leading to Bush's eventual presidency and indirectly to the presidency of his son, George W. Bush.
Shortly after taking the Treasury post, Connally famously told a group of European finance ministers worried about the export of American inflation that the dollar "is our currency, but your problem." www.project-syndicate.org Secretary Connally defended a $50 billion increase in the debt ceiling and a $35 to $40 billion budget deficit as an essential "fiscal stimulus" at a time when five million Americans were unemployed. He unveiled Nixon's program of raising the price of gold and formally devaluing the dollar, known as the Nixon shock—finally leaving the old gold standard entirely, a departure begun in 1934 by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Prices continued to increase during 1971, and Nixon allowed wage and price guidelines, which Congress had authorized on a stand-by basis, to be implemented. Connally later shied away from his role in recommending the failed wage and price controls, and announced guaranteed loans for the ailing Lockheed aircraft company. He also fought a lonely battle against growing balance-of-payment problems with the nation's trading partners, and undertook important foreign diplomatic trips for Nixon through his role as Treasury Secretary.
Historian Bruce Schulman wrote that Nixon was "awed" by the handsome, urbane Texan who was also a tough political fighter. Schulman added that Henry Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor, noted that Connally was the only cabinet member whom Nixon did not disparage behind his back, and that this was high praise indeed.^ Bruce Schulman: The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics, Da Capo Press
In the 1972 U.S. Senate election in Texas, Connally endorsed Democrat Barefoot Sanders, later a federal judge from Dallas, rather than the Republican incumbent John Tower, also of Dallas. Connally had considered running against Tower in 1966, but chose instead to run for a third term as governor.
After stepping down as Treasury Secretary, Connally served as the top adviser to Nixon's energy policy. In December 1972, Connally travelled to Saudi Arabia with Occidental Petroleum chairman Armand Hammer. Addressing speculation that he was on a "secret peace mission", Nixon said that Connally was travelling privately but that he had asked him to have informal discussions with various world leaders. On that trip Connally did meet with King Faisal and Prince Fahd where the Arab–Israeli conflict and its effect on Saudi Arabia–United States relations were discussed.
In January 1973, Johnson died of heart disease. He and Connally had been friends since 1938. Connally eulogized Johnson during interment services at the LBJ Ranch in Gillespie County, along with the Rev. Billy Graham, who officiated at the service.
In May 1973, Connally joined the Republican Party. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned five months later because of scandal, Connally was among Nixon's potential choices to fill the vacancy. However, Nixon instead tapped House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, because he believed Democrats in Congress were less likely to block Ford's appointment. Prominent Texas Democrat Bob Bullock, who had supported McGovern in 1972, disapproved strongly and publicly of Connally's switch, stating that "...I got some ideas on Mr. Connally. He ain't never done nothin' but get shot in Dallas." After William P. Rogers resigned as Secretary of State in September 1973, Nixon was reported to have considered appointing Connally to the position. Nixon admired Connally; to the point that he wished for him to be his successor, while the two of them discussed the idea of setting up (as noted by one historian) “a new, distinctly Whiggish party, which the president wanted to call the “Independent Conservative Party.”” More The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America By Robert M. Collins, Robert M. Collins Professor of History University of Missouri, 2002, P.104
Connally joined the Committee on the Present Danger, founded in 1976.
According to a November 1979 profile by Paul Burka in Texas Monthly magazine, "The case turned first on whether Connally would simultaneously be tried for perjury—some embarrassing inconsistencies had crept into his pretrial testimony—but his lawyer was able to prevent it, and then the issue came down to whether John Connally or Jake Jacobsen was telling the truth." On the strength of the defense's prominent character witnesses, Connally was acquitted.[5] | AUG. 10, 1974 | Connally Pleads Not Guilty to Bribery, Perjury and Conspiracy in the Milk Case | ANTHONY RIPLEY | [6][7] | JUNE 1975 | Not Guilty | The jury in John Connally's trial had been the only silent players on the courtroom stage. Now, while everyone else waited, they talked | [8]
Connally's views on foreign policy in the Middle East led to the New York Times calling him the "favored Saudi candidate". Most controversially, he gave a speech in front of the National Press Club where he called firmly for a two state solution in the Middle East in which Israel would permanently withdraw from all of the territory it occupied in 1967, while Palestine would either become a state or a region of Jordan, in exchange for the recognition of Israel by the Arab states and a firm flow of oil. The speech was blamed for many of the following failures of the Connally campaign, including a fall in the polls.
Following his loss in Iowa, Connally focused on South Carolina, an early primary state in which he had the support of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond. He lost there to Reagan 55 to 30 percent and withdrew from the contest. Despite spending $11 million during the campaign, Connally secured the support of only a single delegate, Ada Mills of Clarksville, Arkansas, who became nationally known for a brief time as the "$11 million delegate".
After withdrawing, Connally endorsed Reagan and appeared with the former governor at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, fundraisers and other campaign events. During a press conference, Connally was asked if he thought Reagan was the best man to be president. Connally joked, "I think he's the second best man I can think of."
Connally was reported to have been interested in becoming Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, but was only offered the post of Secretary of Energy, which he turned down. Governor of Texas Bill Clements said that Connally rejected the position for personal reasons and to focus on his law practice with Vinson & Elkins. He purchased a $1 million apartment in Washington, D.C., from one of the Shah's sisters, reportedly due to higher political aspirations. He was assigned as one of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board's 19 members.
While this trip has been verified and Connally was in touch with Reagan associates, it is unclear if he was acting at anyone's direction, or if his message reached Iran or had any impact there.
In 1986, Connally filed for bankruptcy as a result of a string of business losses in Houston. In December 1990, Connally and Oscar Wyatt, chairman of the Coastal Oil Corporation, met with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Hussein had been holding foreigners as hostages (or "guests" as Hussein called them) at strategic military sites in Iraq. After the meeting, Hussein agreed to release the hostages.
In one of his last political acts, Connally endorsed Republican congressman Jack Fields of Houston in the special election called in May 1993 to fill the vacancy left by U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Houston.
When Connally died, forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht and the Assassination Archives and Research Center petitioned Attorney General Janet Reno to recover the remaining bullet fragments from Connally's body, contending that the fragments would disprove the Warren Commission's single-bullet, single-gunman conclusion. The Justice Department replied that it "...would have no legal authority to recover the fragments unless Connally's family gave it permission." Connally's family refused permission.
His funeral was held on June 17, 1993, at the First United Methodist Church of Austin where he and his wife, Nellie Connally, had been members since 1963. Former president Nixon was in attendance. Connally's wife Nellie died in 2006; they are interred together at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
In January 1964, Connally donated the suit he wore on November 22, 1963, to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC). The suit was displayed to the public until March 1964. In 2000, TSLAC loaned the suit to the National Archives and Records Administration for examination purposes. From October 2013 to February 2014, the suit was featured as part of an exhibit at the TSLAC to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
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