JOHN B. CONNALLY:

A man who should have been President!

I got to know him through the intervention of one Wilbur Mills who was at that time Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. The occasion was the outlook for the economy in 1972 when President Nixon would be up for reelection. This was around mid-April 1971 and the economy was flat on its back and going nowhere! I won't bore you with the details but it appeared that when the elections came up in 1972 in November the unemployment rate in august would be abut 9/10 percent (it was then about 6 percent). Of course that meant that Nixon could not and would not win.

The Presidents economic advisors had not done any calculations about the unemployment rate in late 1972 and NO ONE BUT NO ONE had told Nixon the bad news. In fact at a meeting of the White House around February, 1971 Milton Friedman, right wing extremist theorist who had glib answers for everything and anything, told President Nixon that the unemployment rate did not matter! How do I know? I was there!

John B. Connally had come to the conclusion that if Nixon was going to be reelected the economy would have to go into high gear. I had been talking to Wilbur Mills about our economic stagnation and had recommended some government stimuli with which Mills agreed. He wanted it, however, to come from Nixon. Mills told Connally to contact me and he did. I then became an advisor to Connally who knew very well that I was also in contact with Nixon. We devised a plan which the President announced in late 1971 , the economy got going and the President was reelected on the basis of a strong and robust economy!

Connally never once played games with me, unlike George Shultz. He was straight as an arrow. He never lied nor did he ever run away from controversy. He was a helluva fine man! When I ran for governor and the New York Times wrote that I had faked and exaggerated my relation with Nixon Connally called me and said he wanted to issue a paper on my behalf! He wanted me to write it, anything I wanted, and he would sign it sight unseen! That is how decent he was! He, most obviously, trusted me.

Connally never really had a chance at the Presidency. He had an incompetent and immoral campaign manager ( I think he sold out to the Republican party who did not want Connally) that sold him down the river and bankrupted him by excessive and unauthorized spending on the campaign. I stupidly did not know that at the time and had the same campaign manager. Connally called me and warned me that this person would bankrupt me as he did him and that advice saved me from a similar fate! He didn't need to warn me but he did!

Connally did everything in politics except win the Presidency. He had brains, looks, courage, a record of achievement, a wonderful image and he was as handsome as they come. But above all else he was a decent human being who believed in getting somewhere on his own rather than on the cadavers of others on whom he had trampled! He was tough but straight and scrupulously honest in his relations. He never once reneged on his word to me and never once promised anything he did not fulfill. And above all else he had guts; witness his and Nellie's behavior and comportment when his possessions went up for bankruptcy auction!

If you get the impression I liked and respected him enormously you got it!