Connally, John Bowden, Jr.

▪ 1994

      U.S. politician (b. Feb. 27, 1917, Floresville, Texas—d. June 15, 1993, Houston, Texas), was an ambitious political figure who, besides helping elect Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, served as secretary of the navy in the Kennedy administration (1961), as a three-term governor of Texas (1963-69), and as secretary of the treasury (1971) under Pres. Richard M. Nixon; he was indelibly identified as the seriously wounded front-seat passenger who was riding in the presidential limousine in Dallas, Texas, when Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. Connally, a tall, handsome man with an engaging yet forceful personality, was determined to transcend his impoverished childhood. After attending the University of Texas and earning a law degree, he became an aide to Johnson, who at the time was a freshman Democratic representative. Connally served in the navy during World War II but returned to the political arena to manage Johnson's brutal but successful Senate campaign in 1948. He put aside party loyalty to help Eisenhower, the Republican candidate, win the presidency in 1952 but returned to the Democratic fold to manage Johnson's ill-fated attempt to wrest the presidential nomination from Kennedy; he stayed with the ticket, however, when Kennedy named Johnson as his running mate. Though appointed secretary of the navy, he soon resigned to run for governor of Texas. It was during his first term in office that Connally (who was first sitting in the back seat with Kennedy but later in the motorcade moved to the front seat) was shot. The bullet passed through his body and resulted in scarring on his back, chest, wrist, and thigh and in a lifelong lung condition, pulmonary fibrosis, manifested by a shortness of breath during exertion. He was returned to office for two more terms. As secretary of the treasury, Connally took the U.S. off the gold standard and imposed wage-and-price controls. In 1973, shortly after Johnson died, Connally officially became a Republican. Though indicted by a Watergate grand jury in 1974 for accepting a $10,000 bribe from milk producers, he was acquitted. In 1980 Connally made an unsuccessful bid in the Republican presidential primaries. After spending more than $11 million, he had secured only one delegate. He then embarked on ventures in Texas real estate, oil, and other businesses before that state's economy collapsed in the 1980s. Connally declared personal bankruptcy in 1988 to satisfy debts of $93 million, but within a year he had emerged from that status. Shortly before his death of complications from pulmonary fibrosis, Connally completed his autobiography, In History's Shadow.

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