John Connally

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John Connally : biography

February 27, 1917 – June 15, 1993

John Bowden Connally, Jr. (February 27, 1917June 15, 1993), was an American politician, serving as the 39th Governor of Texas, as Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M. Nixon. While he was Governor in 1963, Connally was a passenger in the car in which President Kennedy was assassinated, and was seriously wounded during the shooting.

Death

Connally tombstone at [[Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas]]

Connally died on June 15, 1993 of pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive scarring of the lungs. His funeral was held at the First United Methodist Church of Austin where he and his wife, Nellie Connally, had been members since their days living one block to the south in the Texas Governors Mansion, 1963–1969. The Connallys are interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. His wife Nellie joined him thirteen years later.

Former President Nixon left the bedside of his wife, Pat Nixon, who died a week later, and flew to Austin to attend Connally’s funeral. The Connally Loop (Interstate Inner Loop 410) in San Antonio is named in his honor. The Connally Memorial Medical Center in Floresville is named for John, Wayne, and Merrill Connally. The John Connally Unit of the Texas Corrections Department south of Kenedy in Karnes County is named in his honor. There is also a Connally Plaza, with a life-sized statue of Connally, in downtown Houston. Texas A&M University System Offices, located in College Station, TX, are housed in a building named in his honor.

John B. Connally High School in Austin, Texas (Pflugerville ISD) was also named in his honor.

Lawyer for Sid Richardson

Two of Connally’s principal legal clients were the Texas oil tycoon Sid W. Richardson and Perry Bass, Richardson’s nephew and partner, both of Fort Worth. Richardson’s empire at the time was estimated at $200 million to $1 billion. Under Richardson’s tutelage, Connally gained experience in a variety of enterprises and received tips on real estate purchases. The work required the Connallys to relocate to Fort Worth. When Richardson died in 1959, Connally was named to the lucrative position as co-executor of the estate.Ashman, Connally, pp, 70–71

Connally was also involved in a reported clandestine deal to place the Texas Democrat Robert Anderson on the 1956 Republican ticket as vice president. Though the idea fell through when Dwight Eisenhower retained Richard Nixon in the second slot, Anderson received a million dollars for his efforts and a subsequent appointment as treasury secretary, the same position that Connally would fill for Nixon fourteen years later in 1971. Moreover, in another irony, Anderson had been Eisenhower’s first Navy secretary, the post that Connally filled for John F. Kennedy in 1961.Ashman, Connally, pp. 70–71

Secretary of the Treasury

In 1971, Republican President Nixon appointed the then Democrat Connally as Treasury Secretary. Before agreeing to take the appointment, however, Connally told Nixon that the president must find a position in the administration for George H.W. Bush, the Republican who had been defeated in November 1970 in a hard-fought U.S. Senate race against Democrat Lloyd M. Bentsen. Connally told Nixon that his taking the Treasury post would embarrass Bush, who had "labored in the vineyards" for Nixon’s election as president, while Connally had supported Humphrey. Ben Barnes, then the lieutenant governor and originally a Connally ally, claims in his autobiography that Connally’s insistence saved Bush’s political career because the then former U.S. representative and twice-defeated Senate candidate relied on appointed offices to build a resume by which to seek the presidency in 1980 and again in 1988. Nixon hence named Bush as ambassador to the United Nations in order to secure Connally’s services at Treasury. Barnes also said that he doubted George W. Bush could have become president in 2001 had Bush’s father not first been given the string of federal appointments during the 1970s to strengthen the family’s political viability.