The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally

Former navy secretary, governor of Texas and treasury secretary John Connally is roughly handled in this well-researched and absorbing biography. Reston ( Our Father Who Art in Hell ) probes Connally's campaign management of Lyndon Johnson's 1948 senatorial election, his insensitivity to blacks and Hispanics as governor, his participation in Watergate planning and stonewalling, his 1975 bribery and conspiracy trial (he was acquitted) and his 1986 declaration of bankruptcy followed by the auction of nearly $3 million in personal possessions. Reston explores in depth the symbiotic relationship between Connally and LBJ and his usefulness to President Richard Nixon, who praised, ``Never has one cabinet member done more for his country in a year and a half.'' Connally emerges as a man of overweening vanity, ashamed of his humble background and not overly concerned with ethics. The most dramatic section of the book maintains that Lee Harvey Oswald's target was not President Kennedy but John Connally. Photos. (Nov.)