Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.

McClellan's overwrought conspiracy theory claims that Lyndon Johnson--motivated by power lust, fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket, and the need to cover up various scandals--masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his evil""superlawyer"" Ed Clark. But his evidence is meager and murky, even by the standards of Kennedy conspiracy scholarship. The main exhibit is a smudged partial fingerprint from Oswald's sniper's nest that may or may not belong to a Johnson associate, depending on which fingerprint expert you ask. Otherwise McClellan relies on what he heard during his years at Clark's law firm--e.g., a partner told him that Clark arranged the assassination--and the description of scenes in which a""a fixed stare,"" vague, unspoken understandings, and""code words"" proved that Johnson and Clark were conspiring. Sample accusations include:""I knew Clark was admitting to the payoff for the assassination even though he never said he received a payoff for assassinating Kennedy...."" The book offers many detailed accounts of conspiratorial meetings that turn out to be not fact but""faction"" or""journalistic novelization""--that is, conjecture designed to distract readers from the lack of evidence. McClellan styles the assassination as the defeat of Camelot by Texas's sleazy nexus of dirty politicians, slick lawyers and oil money; the unmasking of Johnson, the personification of such back-room power politics, therefore promises a public""emotional purging"" leading to the renewal of democracy. His confusingly structured, evasively argued, often nonsensical theories attest to the crime's continuing potency as a symbol of America's mythic heart of darkness. Photos.