Ex-agent Gerald Blaine says in book: "I almost shot LBJ hours after JFK murder"

By Jack Brummet
Social Mores Editor

Thanks to Dean Ericksen for pointing out this story.

Gerald Blaine, a former Secret Service agent, says in his new book—The Kennedy Detail — that he nearly shot President Lyndon B. Johnson hours after John F. Kennedy's assassination.

In his new book, Blaine remembers standing guard outside the Washington home of the just sworn-in President Johnson in the wee hours of Nov. 23, 1963.  He heard footsteps approaching.

Agent Blaine picked up his submachine gun in the darkness and aimed it at the chest of a man who turned out to be the new President. 

Blaine's nearly fatal mistake left him, naturally, chilled. Only 14 hours after losing one president, the nation had almost lost another one.  Gerald Blaine says his book is the first account of the assassination by a member of Kennedy's security detail. I think that's true.  I have read a lot about LBJ and never heard this one before.  Wow.

Fortunately, Blaine didn't fire, and Speaker of the House, John W. McCormack, did not become President.  As great as LBJ was, who knows...maybe McCormack could have somehow avoided escalating the Vietnam War...but I doubt it.  The tragic juggernaut was already inexorably gathering steam.
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