DALLAS (AP) — The communicative was a blockbuster: A erstwhile Texas voting authoritative was connected the grounds detailing however astir 3 decades earlier, votes were falsified to springiness then-congressman Lyndon B. Johnson a triumph that propelled the aboriginal president into the U.S. Senate.
The audio recordings from Associated Press newsman James W. Mangan’s interviews for the 1977 communicative were posted this week connected the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum’s archival website, Discover LBJ. After Mangan’s decease successful 2015 astatine the property of 87, his household recovered the labeled cassette tapes astatine his San Antonio location and donated them past summertime to the room connected the field of the University astatine Texas astatine Austin.
Luis Salas, the erstwhile South Texas predetermination judge, told Mangan for the story: “Johnson did not triumph that election; It was stolen for him. And I cognize precisely however it was done.”
The story, which made beforehand pages crossed the country, pulled backmost the curtain connected the razor-thin triumph that had drawn suspicions ever since predetermination officials successful agrarian Jim Wells County announced the find of uncounted votes successful a ballot container known arsenic Box 13 successful the days aft the 1948 Democratic superior Senate runoff. And now, astatine a clip erstwhile predetermination fraud is uncommon but erstwhile President Donald Trump and his allies amplify baseless allegations blaming it for his 2020 loss, the tapes and communicative amusement what compelling grounds of existent fraud looks like.
via Associated Press
Mangan’s son, Peter, said listening the tapes was similar getting “a small model into history.”
On 1 cassette, helium said, it sounds similar his begetter is successful his car, reciting what he’d conscionable been told.
“You tin perceive cars going by and he’s benignant of, you tin archer he’s a small excited, due to the fact that I deliberation helium yet got the goods,” Peter Mangan said.
Mark Lawrence, the library’s director, said the recordings are “deeply connected to 1 of the large mysteries and controversies that’s hung astir LBJ for decades.” In a 1984 oral past that Salas gave to the library, helium said 1 of the reasons helium yet decided to speech was due to the fact that helium had been rather ill.
Mangan said successful a 2008 AP communicative that arsenic helium worked to person Salas to spell connected the record, helium told him: “If you die, past volition ne'er cognize what happened.”
Lawrence said overmuch is present known astir Box 13, acknowledgment to some Mangan’s 1977 communicative and probe done aboriginal by LBJ biographer Robert Caro, who “essentially reaffirmed” Mangan’s communicative and built connected it.
via Associated Press
“The kinds of irregularities we tin spot were astatine enactment successful the 1948 Senate contention successful Texas were, I deliberation it’s just to say, beauteous wide crossed American past and each regions of the state to 1 grade oregon different but surely successful the South and on the Mexican borderlands, arsenic precocious arsenic the 1940s,” Lawrence said.
Salas told Mangan that the almighty South Texas governmental brag George B. Parr — who wielded power with favors and coercion — ordered that immoderate 200 votes beryllium added to Box 13. Salas said helium past watched arsenic the fraudulent votes were added successful alphabetical order, with the names coming from radical who hadn’t voted successful the election.
The caller votes gave Johnson the superior triumph implicit then-Gov. Coke Stevenson by an 87-vote margin. Johnson — subsequently bestowed with the nickname “Landslide Lyndon” — went connected to easy decision the Republican successful the wide election, agelong earlier the GOP became the ascendant unit successful Texas politics.
Johnson, elected to the U.S. House successful 1937, had tally for U.S. Senate successful 1941 and mislaid to then-Gov. Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel successful an predetermination wide accepted by historians to person been corrupt, Lawrence said.
“The modular communicative that gets told, and I deliberation there’s an atrocious batch to it, is that erstwhile LBJ’s 2nd accidental comes on successful 1948, he’s determined not to person the predetermination stolen from him again,” Lawrence said.
via Associated Press
Lawrence said the 1948 Senate triumph “catapults” Johnson to nationalist attention. Johnson became then-President John F. Kennedy’s vice president and was sworn successful arsenic president Nov. 22, 1963, aft Kennedy was assassinated successful Dallas. Johnson was elected president successful 1964. He decided not to tally again successful 1968 and died of a bosom onslaught successful 1973 astatine the property of 64.
Lawrence said that portion the Box 13 incidental shows that “LBJ was consenting to bash what helium had to bash to support governmental power,” helium was besides a antheral who, “when helium had the opportunity, helium was much inclined to enactment connected principle.” Lawrence noted Johnson’s efforts to “ensure that radical were capable to ballot successful just and equitable elections.”
In 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed practices designed to disenfranchise Black voters by banning literate tests and canvass taxes. The enactment besides gave the national authorities the authorization to instrumentality implicit elector registration successful counties with a signifier of persistent radical discrimination, though that is nary longer the lawsuit aft the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the request successful 2013.
James Mangan retired from AP connected Jan. 1, 1989, aft a 36-year vocation with the institution that took him to cities crossed the U.S. and to Europe. With each move, Peter Mangan said, his begetter held connected to the Box 13 tapes.
“He ever kept these,” helium said, “so I cognize they indispensable person been important to him.”
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