awakensong
22-08-2008, 08:50 AM
This is from a multi-sectioned article. I will post the highlights and provide a link for the full article and end notes. It explains that Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife were "crypto-Jews" and that Lyndon Johnson was also "bedfellows" with J. Edgar Hoover during the Warren Commsion.
PART III: THE SUCCESSORS, JOHNSON & NIXON
Chapter 9: Johnson’s Hidden Loyalties
Secret Ethnicity
As previously stated, the Johnson administration implemented a dramatic shift in US-Middle East policy. Every president after Johnson has totally capitulated to Israel and ignored the plight of Palestinians. But Johnson marked the turning point. The reason he was so loyal to Israel lies within his own ethnicity. It appears that he and his wife were secretly Jewish. To many, this may seem laughable at first, but in reality Jews were an integral part of Texas history throughout the nineteenth century.1 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 1) Jacob and Phineas De Cordova sold land and developed Waco. Simon Mussina founded Brownsville in 1848. Michael Seeligson was elected mayor of Galveston in 1853. Morris Lasker was elected to the state Senate in 1895.2 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 2) The list goes on.
The first Jewish settlers of note in Texas were Samuel Issacks (1821) followed by N. Adolphus Sterne (1826).3 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 3) By 1838, Jews were living in Galveston, San Antonio, Velasco, Bolivar, Nacogdoches, and Goliad.4 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 4) In the early part of the twentieth century, a large of number of Russian Jews migrated to Texas to escape persecution from the Russian Czar. Between 1900 and 1920, the Jewish population in Texas grew from 15,000 to 30,000. Major cities, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, experienced enormous growth in Jewish populations.5 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 5) The overall number of Jews in Texas has steadily increased ever since. After World War II, the abundance of Jewish residents grew from an estimated 50,000 in 1945 to 71,000 in the mid-1970s and 92,000 in 1988.6 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 6)
Before 1821, Texas was still a Spanish colony where only Catholics could take up residence. Jews who openly acknowledged their ethnicity could not legally live there.7 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 7) Originally, Jews migrated to Texas to seek fortune and freedom. The earliest Jews, who arrived with the conquistadors, came from Sephardic (Spanish-North African-Israel) communities.8 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 8) After the Mexican period, Jewry in Texas was essentially populated by immigrants from Germany, eastern Europe, and the Americas.9 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 9)
Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germany sometime in the mid-eighteenth century. Later they moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and eventually settled in Texas in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.10 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 10)
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines.11 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 11) Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.12 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 12) John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman,13 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 13) who married Joseph Baines14 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 14) and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines,15 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 15) Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.
To recap, the following is Lyndon Johnson’s maternal family tree:
Mother: Rebekah Baines (married Sam Johnson, Lyndon’s father)
Maternal grandparents: Ruth Ament Huffman and Joseph Baines
Maternal great-grandparents (parents of Ruth Huffman): Mary Elizabeth Perrin and John S. Huffman, III
Maternal great-great grandparents (parents of Mary Perrin): Dicea Kerby and William Perrin16 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 16) (Footnote 20 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/footnotes.htm#Footnote 20))
Maternal great-great grandparents (parents of John Huffman, III): Suzanne Ament and John S. Huffman, II17 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 17)
Maternal great-great-great grandparents (parents of John Huffman, II): Cathrine Lyter and John Huffman18 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 18)
As previously stated, many Jews migrated to Texas from Germany. A Johnson family friend, Cynthia Crider, observed that Lyndon’s mother, Rebekah Baines (Johnson), often boasted of her Baines ancestry, but rarely mentioned the maternal side, the Huffmans. In fact, Crider recalled that Lyndon’s father, Sam Johnson, used to tease his wife occasionally about her German heritage. When she would get stubborn about something, Sam would say, "That’s your German blood again. German blood! Look at your brother’s name. Huffman! Probably was Hoffmann once—in Berlin." Rebekah would respond, "Sam, you know it’s Holland Dutch."19 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 19)
As far as I can determine, Rebekah’s German ancestors, the Huffmans, came to America in the mid-1700s and had a son, John Huffman, in about 1767 in Frederick, Maryland. I cannot find records of John Huffman’s parents. They were probably German immigrants. Huffman married Catherine Lyter in 1790 in Frederick, Maryland.20 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 20) At some point Huffman and Lyter moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and had a son, John Huffman, II, who married Suzanne Ament. Huffman, II and Ament had a son, John S. Huffman, III, born on May 7, 1824 in Bourbon, Kentucky; and died on June 22, 1865 in Collin, Texas. John Huffman, III was Rebekah’s great-grandfather. He married Mary Elizabeth Perrin. Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman, who married Joseph Baines. Huffman and Baines were Rebekah’s parents, Lyndon’s grandparents.
As a young adult, Lyndon Johnson taught school in Cotulla, a poor "Mexican" community south of San Antonio.21 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 22) Many of his former students marvelled at his spirit, dedication and self-discipline.22 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 22) Lyndon strongly encouraged the young Mexicans to learn English in order to get ahead.23 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 23) Possibly he truly had a yearning to help those in need; however, that does not fit most historical accounts of Lyndon Johnson the man. From early adulthood, virtually all of his actions were calculated. Given Lyndon’s Huffman, Perrin, Ament family line, it is more likely that he was assisting descendants of Sephardic Jews who migrated to Texas from Spain centuries earlier.
Recently it was disclosed that there are many hispanic Jews living in the San Antonio area. Richard Santos, a hispanic Jew and native of San Antonio, wrote a book entitled Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600.24 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 24) Santos spoke of his "crypto-Jewish" heritage at the Texas Jewish Historical Society’s 22nd conference on May 11, 2001. Crypto-Jews are Sephardic groups of families who secretly retained their religion and culture after the 15th-century Spanish royal decree deemed it punishable by death. Santos has spent his entire adult life trying to educate the masses about the secret history of his bloodline.25 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 25)
Stan Hordes, a former New Mexico state historian and professor at the University of New Mexico, described his observations at the same conference.
"One person told me, ‘My family just doesn’t eat pork—we’re allergic to pork,’" Hordes said, explaining the pockets of crypto-Jews who maintain Jewish traditions without even realizing it.26 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 26)
Among the crypto-Jews that Hordes described, some of the women light menorahs without realizing what they’re doing.27 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 27)
Given this new information about crypto-Jews, plus Johnson’s heritage; it is highly plausible that he began his early adult life as a teacher at Cotulla not merely to help disadvantaged hispanics students, but rather to help descendants of Sephardic Jews—crypto-Jews—from Spain who migrated to Mexico and what is now southern Texas. And the reason he felt obliged to help these crypto-Jews was because of his own secret ethnicity.
This information about Sephardic Jews in southern Texas sheds new light on the ethnicity of Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (aka, "Lady Bird"). She is apparently a Sephardic Jew of Mexican origin. Although her facial features are consistent with Semitic origin, that alone is not definitive proof. Claudia’s mother, Minnie Lee Pattillo, was likely a Sephardic Jew from Mexico. Pattillo is a common Spanish/Mexican name; however, there are no records of Minnie Pattillo’s parents so it is entirely possible that they were immigrants. It is quite odd that a first lady—one who lived in the White House less than 40 years ago—has maternal grandparents whose identity is unknown and undocumented.
Minnie Pattillo died in 1918 when Claudia was only five.28 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 28) Minnie was born in about 1890 in Karnack, Texas (Harrison County);29 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 29) however, she apparently lived in Alabama when Thomas Taylor married her.30 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 30) All that is known about Minnie Pattillo is that she had a "spinster" sister, Effie Pattillo (also from Alabama), who helped raise Claudia.31 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 31)
Claudia Taylor’s father was Thomas Jefferson Taylor, II, a prosperous businessman and philanthropist.32 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 32) He was the son of Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Emma Louisa Bates.33 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 33) Historian Robert Caro wrote that Claudia’s father was the "richest man in [Karnack, Texas]."34 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 34) Caro also indicated that Johnson’s previous two girlfriends—Carol Davis and Kitty Clyde of San Marcos and Johnson City, respectively—were also daughters of the richest men in town.
1931: Johnson Came to Washington as Congressman Kleberg’s Assistant........
Johnson’s Mentor, Senator Alvin Jacob Wirtz......
Brown & Root: Johnson’s Primary Financial Supporter......
Friendship With J. Edgar Hoover
It has been well documented that Hoover and Johnson had been friends since 1945 when a young Senator Johnson and his family moved onto the same block of Washington’s Thirtieth Place where Hoover lived.71 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 71)
John Edgar Hoover (1895 - 1972) was born in Washington, DC—the youngest of four children—and rarely left the city his entire life. He lived with his mother at 413 Seward Square until her death in 1938. Afterward he continued living there with his companion and associate director at the FBI, Clyde Tolson.72 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 72) It is common knowledge that the two were homosexual lovers (http://www.thebird.org/host/dcdave/article4/011118.html).
In 1917, Hoover entered the Department of Justice as a file reviewer. Within two years he became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in the Woodrow Wilson administration. In that position, he oversaw the mass roundups and deportations of suspected Bolsheviks (Communists) after World War I. In May of 1924, he was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (as it was then called) and confirmed as director seven months later. Finding the Bureau in disarray because of the scandals of the Harding administration, he reorganized and rebuilt it, establishing a fingerprint file, which became the world's largest; a scientific crime-detection laboratory; and the FBI National Academy, to which selected law enforcement officers from all parts of the country were sent for special training.73 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 73)
By the early 1930s, the Bureau was involved in the pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde and the Ma Barker Gang, the shooting and killing of notorious bank robber John Dillinger, investigating the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s infant son, and countless other sensational stories.74 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 74)
In the summer of 1936, Hoover began to have secret meetings with President Roosevelt where the FBI was granted executive authority to expand into intelligence gathering—particularly in areas of subversive activities in America, including Communism and fascism. With Roosevelt’s support, the FBI grew from 391 agents in 1933 to nearly 5,000 by the end of World War II.75 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 75)
After war, the Hoover exploited anticommunist hysteria of the Cold War to intensify the FBI’s intelligence activities. It is widely known that Hoover leaked derogatory material on Martin Luther King in the 1960s as part of his secret counterintelligence (COINTELPRO) program. Former assistant FBI Director William Sullivan commented on Hoover’s surveillance of Kennedy and King in a book, The Bureau, published posthumously in 1979.(Footnote 22 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/footnotes.htm#Footnote 22)) The following is an excerpt from that book:
Hoover was always gathering damaging material on Jack Kennedy, which the President, with his active social life, seemed more than willing to provide. We never put any technical surveillance on JFK, but whatever came up was automatically funneled directly to Hoover. I was sure he was saving everything he had on Kennedy, and on Martin Luther King, Jr., too, until he could unload it all and destroy them both. He kept this kind of explosive material in his personal files, which filled four rooms on the fifth floor of headquarters.
(William Sullivan, The Bureau, p. 5076 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 76))
Hoover’s view of organized crime was astonishing, to say the least. As late as January 1962, Hoover denied its existence in the United States. He stated that "No single individual or coalition of racketeers dominates organized crime across the nation." It was not until gangster Joe Valachi was brought to Washington by Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department to testify before the Senate that Hoover was forced to admit that his opinion about organized crime in American needed some serious re-thinking.77 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 77)
In January 1964, shortly after Hoover’s 69th birthday (Jan. 1st) and less than two months after Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson signed an Executive Order exempting Hoover from retiring on his 70th birthday, which was mandatory at that time. It should be noted that Johnson was also gearing up the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s death in that timeframe. Consequently, it is not implausible to think that Johnson’s Executive Order may have been an incentive to Hoover not to conduct a serious investigation of the assassination. It might have been a reward as well, since many of the FBI’s cover-up activities had already been accomplished by January.78 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 78)
Sullivan also observed that the relationship between Johnson and Hoover changed after Johnson assumed the presidency. The following is an excerpt from Sullivan’s posthumous book, The Bureau:
They remained close when Johnson served as Vice President, but there was a change in their relationship when Johnson became President. The Director was over 65 by that time, past retirement age for federal employees, and he stayed in office only because of a special waiver which required the President’s signature each year. That waiver put Hoover right in Johnson’s pocket. With that leverage, Johnson began to take advantage of Hoover, using the Bureau as his personal investigative arm. His never-ending requests were usually political, and sometimes illegal… And Hoover hot-footed it to Johnson’s demands… he found himself very much in the back seat, almost a captive of the President …
(William Sullivan, The Bureau, pp. 60 - 6179 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 79))
Source (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm)
(http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm)
PART III: THE SUCCESSORS, JOHNSON & NIXON
Chapter 9: Johnson’s Hidden Loyalties
Secret Ethnicity
As previously stated, the Johnson administration implemented a dramatic shift in US-Middle East policy. Every president after Johnson has totally capitulated to Israel and ignored the plight of Palestinians. But Johnson marked the turning point. The reason he was so loyal to Israel lies within his own ethnicity. It appears that he and his wife were secretly Jewish. To many, this may seem laughable at first, but in reality Jews were an integral part of Texas history throughout the nineteenth century.1 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 1) Jacob and Phineas De Cordova sold land and developed Waco. Simon Mussina founded Brownsville in 1848. Michael Seeligson was elected mayor of Galveston in 1853. Morris Lasker was elected to the state Senate in 1895.2 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 2) The list goes on.
The first Jewish settlers of note in Texas were Samuel Issacks (1821) followed by N. Adolphus Sterne (1826).3 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 3) By 1838, Jews were living in Galveston, San Antonio, Velasco, Bolivar, Nacogdoches, and Goliad.4 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 4) In the early part of the twentieth century, a large of number of Russian Jews migrated to Texas to escape persecution from the Russian Czar. Between 1900 and 1920, the Jewish population in Texas grew from 15,000 to 30,000. Major cities, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, experienced enormous growth in Jewish populations.5 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 5) The overall number of Jews in Texas has steadily increased ever since. After World War II, the abundance of Jewish residents grew from an estimated 50,000 in 1945 to 71,000 in the mid-1970s and 92,000 in 1988.6 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 6)
Before 1821, Texas was still a Spanish colony where only Catholics could take up residence. Jews who openly acknowledged their ethnicity could not legally live there.7 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 7) Originally, Jews migrated to Texas to seek fortune and freedom. The earliest Jews, who arrived with the conquistadors, came from Sephardic (Spanish-North African-Israel) communities.8 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 8) After the Mexican period, Jewry in Texas was essentially populated by immigrants from Germany, eastern Europe, and the Americas.9 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 9)
Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick, Maryland from Germany sometime in the mid-eighteenth century. Later they moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and eventually settled in Texas in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.10 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 10)
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines.11 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 11) Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.12 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 12) John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman,13 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 13) who married Joseph Baines14 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 14) and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines,15 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 15) Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.
To recap, the following is Lyndon Johnson’s maternal family tree:
Mother: Rebekah Baines (married Sam Johnson, Lyndon’s father)
Maternal grandparents: Ruth Ament Huffman and Joseph Baines
Maternal great-grandparents (parents of Ruth Huffman): Mary Elizabeth Perrin and John S. Huffman, III
Maternal great-great grandparents (parents of Mary Perrin): Dicea Kerby and William Perrin16 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 16) (Footnote 20 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/footnotes.htm#Footnote 20))
Maternal great-great grandparents (parents of John Huffman, III): Suzanne Ament and John S. Huffman, II17 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 17)
Maternal great-great-great grandparents (parents of John Huffman, II): Cathrine Lyter and John Huffman18 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 18)
As previously stated, many Jews migrated to Texas from Germany. A Johnson family friend, Cynthia Crider, observed that Lyndon’s mother, Rebekah Baines (Johnson), often boasted of her Baines ancestry, but rarely mentioned the maternal side, the Huffmans. In fact, Crider recalled that Lyndon’s father, Sam Johnson, used to tease his wife occasionally about her German heritage. When she would get stubborn about something, Sam would say, "That’s your German blood again. German blood! Look at your brother’s name. Huffman! Probably was Hoffmann once—in Berlin." Rebekah would respond, "Sam, you know it’s Holland Dutch."19 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 19)
As far as I can determine, Rebekah’s German ancestors, the Huffmans, came to America in the mid-1700s and had a son, John Huffman, in about 1767 in Frederick, Maryland. I cannot find records of John Huffman’s parents. They were probably German immigrants. Huffman married Catherine Lyter in 1790 in Frederick, Maryland.20 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 20) At some point Huffman and Lyter moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and had a son, John Huffman, II, who married Suzanne Ament. Huffman, II and Ament had a son, John S. Huffman, III, born on May 7, 1824 in Bourbon, Kentucky; and died on June 22, 1865 in Collin, Texas. John Huffman, III was Rebekah’s great-grandfather. He married Mary Elizabeth Perrin. Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman, who married Joseph Baines. Huffman and Baines were Rebekah’s parents, Lyndon’s grandparents.
As a young adult, Lyndon Johnson taught school in Cotulla, a poor "Mexican" community south of San Antonio.21 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 22) Many of his former students marvelled at his spirit, dedication and self-discipline.22 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 22) Lyndon strongly encouraged the young Mexicans to learn English in order to get ahead.23 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 23) Possibly he truly had a yearning to help those in need; however, that does not fit most historical accounts of Lyndon Johnson the man. From early adulthood, virtually all of his actions were calculated. Given Lyndon’s Huffman, Perrin, Ament family line, it is more likely that he was assisting descendants of Sephardic Jews who migrated to Texas from Spain centuries earlier.
Recently it was disclosed that there are many hispanic Jews living in the San Antonio area. Richard Santos, a hispanic Jew and native of San Antonio, wrote a book entitled Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600.24 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 24) Santos spoke of his "crypto-Jewish" heritage at the Texas Jewish Historical Society’s 22nd conference on May 11, 2001. Crypto-Jews are Sephardic groups of families who secretly retained their religion and culture after the 15th-century Spanish royal decree deemed it punishable by death. Santos has spent his entire adult life trying to educate the masses about the secret history of his bloodline.25 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 25)
Stan Hordes, a former New Mexico state historian and professor at the University of New Mexico, described his observations at the same conference.
"One person told me, ‘My family just doesn’t eat pork—we’re allergic to pork,’" Hordes said, explaining the pockets of crypto-Jews who maintain Jewish traditions without even realizing it.26 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 26)
Among the crypto-Jews that Hordes described, some of the women light menorahs without realizing what they’re doing.27 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 27)
Given this new information about crypto-Jews, plus Johnson’s heritage; it is highly plausible that he began his early adult life as a teacher at Cotulla not merely to help disadvantaged hispanics students, but rather to help descendants of Sephardic Jews—crypto-Jews—from Spain who migrated to Mexico and what is now southern Texas. And the reason he felt obliged to help these crypto-Jews was because of his own secret ethnicity.
This information about Sephardic Jews in southern Texas sheds new light on the ethnicity of Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (aka, "Lady Bird"). She is apparently a Sephardic Jew of Mexican origin. Although her facial features are consistent with Semitic origin, that alone is not definitive proof. Claudia’s mother, Minnie Lee Pattillo, was likely a Sephardic Jew from Mexico. Pattillo is a common Spanish/Mexican name; however, there are no records of Minnie Pattillo’s parents so it is entirely possible that they were immigrants. It is quite odd that a first lady—one who lived in the White House less than 40 years ago—has maternal grandparents whose identity is unknown and undocumented.
Minnie Pattillo died in 1918 when Claudia was only five.28 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 28) Minnie was born in about 1890 in Karnack, Texas (Harrison County);29 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 29) however, she apparently lived in Alabama when Thomas Taylor married her.30 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 30) All that is known about Minnie Pattillo is that she had a "spinster" sister, Effie Pattillo (also from Alabama), who helped raise Claudia.31 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 31)
Claudia Taylor’s father was Thomas Jefferson Taylor, II, a prosperous businessman and philanthropist.32 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 32) He was the son of Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Emma Louisa Bates.33 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 33) Historian Robert Caro wrote that Claudia’s father was the "richest man in [Karnack, Texas]."34 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 34) Caro also indicated that Johnson’s previous two girlfriends—Carol Davis and Kitty Clyde of San Marcos and Johnson City, respectively—were also daughters of the richest men in town.
1931: Johnson Came to Washington as Congressman Kleberg’s Assistant........
Johnson’s Mentor, Senator Alvin Jacob Wirtz......
Brown & Root: Johnson’s Primary Financial Supporter......
Friendship With J. Edgar Hoover
It has been well documented that Hoover and Johnson had been friends since 1945 when a young Senator Johnson and his family moved onto the same block of Washington’s Thirtieth Place where Hoover lived.71 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 71)
John Edgar Hoover (1895 - 1972) was born in Washington, DC—the youngest of four children—and rarely left the city his entire life. He lived with his mother at 413 Seward Square until her death in 1938. Afterward he continued living there with his companion and associate director at the FBI, Clyde Tolson.72 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 72) It is common knowledge that the two were homosexual lovers (http://www.thebird.org/host/dcdave/article4/011118.html).
In 1917, Hoover entered the Department of Justice as a file reviewer. Within two years he became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in the Woodrow Wilson administration. In that position, he oversaw the mass roundups and deportations of suspected Bolsheviks (Communists) after World War I. In May of 1924, he was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (as it was then called) and confirmed as director seven months later. Finding the Bureau in disarray because of the scandals of the Harding administration, he reorganized and rebuilt it, establishing a fingerprint file, which became the world's largest; a scientific crime-detection laboratory; and the FBI National Academy, to which selected law enforcement officers from all parts of the country were sent for special training.73 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 73)
By the early 1930s, the Bureau was involved in the pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde and the Ma Barker Gang, the shooting and killing of notorious bank robber John Dillinger, investigating the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s infant son, and countless other sensational stories.74 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 74)
In the summer of 1936, Hoover began to have secret meetings with President Roosevelt where the FBI was granted executive authority to expand into intelligence gathering—particularly in areas of subversive activities in America, including Communism and fascism. With Roosevelt’s support, the FBI grew from 391 agents in 1933 to nearly 5,000 by the end of World War II.75 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 75)
After war, the Hoover exploited anticommunist hysteria of the Cold War to intensify the FBI’s intelligence activities. It is widely known that Hoover leaked derogatory material on Martin Luther King in the 1960s as part of his secret counterintelligence (COINTELPRO) program. Former assistant FBI Director William Sullivan commented on Hoover’s surveillance of Kennedy and King in a book, The Bureau, published posthumously in 1979.(Footnote 22 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/footnotes.htm#Footnote 22)) The following is an excerpt from that book:
Hoover was always gathering damaging material on Jack Kennedy, which the President, with his active social life, seemed more than willing to provide. We never put any technical surveillance on JFK, but whatever came up was automatically funneled directly to Hoover. I was sure he was saving everything he had on Kennedy, and on Martin Luther King, Jr., too, until he could unload it all and destroy them both. He kept this kind of explosive material in his personal files, which filled four rooms on the fifth floor of headquarters.
(William Sullivan, The Bureau, p. 5076 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 76))
Hoover’s view of organized crime was astonishing, to say the least. As late as January 1962, Hoover denied its existence in the United States. He stated that "No single individual or coalition of racketeers dominates organized crime across the nation." It was not until gangster Joe Valachi was brought to Washington by Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department to testify before the Senate that Hoover was forced to admit that his opinion about organized crime in American needed some serious re-thinking.77 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 77)
In January 1964, shortly after Hoover’s 69th birthday (Jan. 1st) and less than two months after Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson signed an Executive Order exempting Hoover from retiring on his 70th birthday, which was mandatory at that time. It should be noted that Johnson was also gearing up the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s death in that timeframe. Consequently, it is not implausible to think that Johnson’s Executive Order may have been an incentive to Hoover not to conduct a serious investigation of the assassination. It might have been a reward as well, since many of the FBI’s cover-up activities had already been accomplished by January.78 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 78)
Sullivan also observed that the relationship between Johnson and Hoover changed after Johnson assumed the presidency. The following is an excerpt from Sullivan’s posthumous book, The Bureau:
They remained close when Johnson served as Vice President, but there was a change in their relationship when Johnson became President. The Director was over 65 by that time, past retirement age for federal employees, and he stayed in office only because of a special waiver which required the President’s signature each year. That waiver put Hoover right in Johnson’s pocket. With that leverage, Johnson began to take advantage of Hoover, using the Bureau as his personal investigative arm. His never-ending requests were usually political, and sometimes illegal… And Hoover hot-footed it to Johnson’s demands… he found himself very much in the back seat, almost a captive of the President …
(William Sullivan, The Bureau, pp. 60 - 6179 (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm#endnote 79))
Source (http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm)
(http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm)