[AGL] Eat the rich!

[michele mason]

Hi Mike, I haven't had time to keep up with the thread, but I can tell 
you that its very likely I'm alive because of LBJ's commitment to civil 
rights and its workers. Can't tell the whole story right now, but I 
worked for the Community Action Program in Caddo and Bossier Parishes. 
Because he had an office of lawyers and such in Little Rock, the VISTA 
Volunteers were able to get a lawyer by private plane within around 30 
mins to get me out of the courthouse basement.
He didn't start Vietnam, his generals lied to him—I saw Westmoreland 
confess on 60 min.
Anyway, he made sure none of us died. That was a good and not so easy 
thing with the deputies doing drive by shootings when they felt like 
sumfun.  1967  mm

On Jul 17, 2007, at 12:49 PM, Michael Eisenstadt wrote:


> Another trick (Henry Holman told me this one), was as a

> congressman during WW II, he arranged that his building

> company got the only allocation of building materials

> right after the war. The other builders couldnt get any

> material. Henry Holman was a Union carpenter and

> so knew about it.

>

> His greatest good deed was to force the Civil Rights bill

> through congress. Kennedy couldnt do it, didnt have

> the chips to call in whereas as Senate majority leader

> he knew where every skeleton was and how deep it was

> buried.

>

> Mike

>

> Subject: Re: [AGL] !Re: LBJ and Walter....

>

>

>> Mike,

>> There is a book called "A Texan Looks at Lyndon" by an old 

>> conservative

> SOB

>> named J. Evetts Haley (I think I remember). In the book he tells the 

>> story

>> of how the Johnson family got the Austin radio station, the 

>> cornerstone of

>> their empire.

>>

>> Lady Bird's father was wealthy. But after his first wife died he 

>> remarried

>> and had another family. His first family was not high on the list in 

>> his

>> will. Lady Bird went to him and asked for her inheritance at a time 

>> when

>> they (Johnsons) needed cash to swing a deal for the station. They 

>> loaned

> the

>> owner of the station, who was broke and desperate at the time, some 

>> $30K

>> (her inheritance), to get him by until the FCC approved the sale of 

>> the

>> station (for around $100K) to a waiting buyer. Collateral on the loan 

>> was

>> the station. But Lyndon had connections at the FCC and made sure that 

>> the

>> sale never took place. Finally the owner went belly-up and they

> foreclosed,

>> taking the station. The FCC rapidly approved the takeover and they 

>> were in

>> the radio business. Caro confirms much of this story but not all.  

>> Haley

> was

>> such a hater that he might have exaggerated parts of the story.

>>

>> When TV was in its infancy they had another scam. The licenses were 

>> being

>> awarded to radio stations in each market. Often there were several 

>> radio

>> stations filing for the local license which had to be approved by the 

>> FCC.

>> The Johnson gang would side with one of the stations in exchange for a

>> partnership agreement. The FCC would award the license to the station 

>> that

>> had taken in the Johnsons (Texas Broadcasting) as partners. And so it

> went.

>> I watched this happen in Waco where the license was awarded to a

> relatively

>> new station over the old established station. They ended up with a 

>> piece

> of

>> many stations in areas that grew into large markets.

>>

>> Don't know how they got the FCC connection but they certainly 

>> parlayed it

>> into a fortune. They had a similar connection with the Navy which led 

>> to

>> contracts for Brown and Root (Lyndon's campaign financers for many 

>> years)

>> like the Corpus Christi naval base. Brown and Root's initial fortune 

>> was

>> made constructing federal dams on Texas rivers, deals which he helped 

>> them

>> attain. Some say that the Viet Nam war was ramped up to obtain major

>> construction contracts for B&R, like Cam Ranh Bay (a billion dollar 

>> deal).

>>

>> But, you know, Lyndon had a coterie of loyal supporters who would have

> died

>> for him, gladly, had nothing to do with money. I met some of them in

> Austin.

>> He could do no wrong in their eyes. He did bring electricity to the 

>> Hill

>> Country in the 1940's, and all kinds of incentives for depression era

>> farmers which saved their asses (while he was Kleberg's secretary). 

>> But

> his

>> reward for these acts was power, he knew how to accumulate it and

> ultimately

>> when to cash it in.

>> G

>