ustxtxb_obs_1964_05_15_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Miller was quoted, Keeton told the FBI he made the charge against Yarborough because Estes had asked him to do it but that there had not been any money involved in his doing it. Marge Crumbaker reported in the Houston Post election morning: “McLendon first heard the news as his airplane landed at Beaumont at 4:15 p.m. As soon as the plane steps were rolled into place, a McLendon aide rushed into the plane and told McLendon he had something most important to say. The aide, Mitch Lewis of Dallas, briefed McLendon in a car as they rushed to keep a telecast date over KPAC-TV in Beaumont. “McLendon faltered several times during the hour-long program in which movie star Robert Cummings placed an arm about McLendon. No mention was made of the Yarborough demand that McLendon withdraw from the Senate race.” Fonville stood by his statement and contended Keeton had been scared into backing out. The Post said that McLendon said he had warned that Yarborough would try to do this and had brought it up Friday afternoon when it would be too late for anyone to check Washington offices. This final night on TV, Don Yarborough sent his Houston headquarters crowd into a frenzy when he shouted out the Houston Chronicle’s headline: “Witness Against Yarborough Tells FBI He Lied.” \(The Post also bannered the story the next morning, and it was front-page generally across the the day’s developments on his closing show. McLendon came on last Friday night. He accused the FBI of interfering in a Texas election, said Keeton had been afraid for his life, and thrust anew at old data in Yarborough’s campaign contributions from Estes. May 2. For two hours on statewide TV from 7 to 9 a.m., McLendon hammered away on the Estes matter. He played back Fonville’s appearance from April 25, but when he played back Keeton, some \(not Keeton’s voice could not be heard. About midnight it was clear that Yarborough had won, and he was asked by a reporter, did he think McLendon’s type campaign had worked? “It worked too well,” he said. “The man on his qualifications shouldn’t have got 20% of the votes. He’s going to get 40%. . .. I think it’s a great proof of the strength of democracy that they couldn’t move 1984 up to 1964. It’s a victory not just against a man. It’s a victory against a technique . . . a big lie . . . the big millions.” May 3. Sunday, his winning trend established at 57%, Yarborough called the returns “a great triumph” and said he has three law firms studying his rights in the matter of “the $50,000 lie.” The New York Times vs. Sullivan decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 9th is being considered by these attorneys, he said. In this decision, which grew out of a $500,000 libel judgment against the Times 4 The Texas Observer in Alabama, the high court held that one does not necessarily libel a public official by spreading defamatory falsehoods against him. The test of “actual malice” must be metthat the person accused must have known the information was false or must have proceeded with “reckless disregard” whether it was true or false. “The New York Times case has dismayed lawyers,” Yarborough said. “We had lawyers tell us this will reduce politics to the unbearable and the disgraceful. It reverts to the law of the jungleand dueling is illegal.” May 4. Events of the month in the episode in Texas came to a grotesque conclusion with a final story in the Dallas News about McLendon’s reactions the night of May 2 as the returns had come in. At about 8:15 p.m. that night, the story said, McLendon and his family strode into radio station KLIF, his headquarters. Then the Dallas News published an ironic misprint. “At that time,” said the News, “he [McLendon] was ahead in the very early counting about 9,000 votes to Yarborough’s $7,600.” IV. Reverberations May 5. McLendon, in Washington, told the Dallas Times-Herald that the FBI had contacted him seeking an interview with him, but that “I told them I would gladly talk to them as soon as I have been provided what information they have already turned over to Sen. Yarborough. . . . I have very little information that would be of use to them.” From Washington, the TimesHerald quoted McLendon: “I’m trying to be a graceful loser and I would hope that Sen. Yarborough would be a graceful winner. The campaign is over.” Sen. Yarborough held a press conference in his office the afternoon of May 5. He set forth his conviction that his renomination was a victory over the combination of “the big lie” and an electroniz blitz that is new in American politics. He labored to make it clear to nonplussed Washington reporters that he was insisting, not that “the $50,000 lie” was a partial mistake or a misunderstanding, but “an infamous lie out of the whole cloth.” Had there been some “question of amount,” he was asked. “It just didn’t happen,” he explained. “There was no contribution other than those that I told the press when I had that general press conference” after Estes was arrested. “They didn’t see any such incident. There was no such incident. It was an infamous lie,” he had to say again to make his meaning very clear. He said he wished some newsmen would go to Pecos and look into the matter. “All you want to do is pick my brain and go cover up. I want ’em. to go get the facts. I’m tellin’ you, this story hasn’t been scratched!” he exclaimed. “I think had I not gotten the FBI in .. . had I not proven it was a big lie, it would have defeated me,” he said. “If they’d done this Thursday night, it mighta been a rougher story.” Some people told him the FBI report meant an additional 100,000 votes for his margin of victory, he said. “It could’ve been the margin of victory. Who knows?” Sen. Gale McGee, D.-Wyo., second-ranking majority member on the Senate commerce subcommittee on communications of which Yarborough is chairman, told the AP in Washington that from what he had read on “the McLendon incident, it sounds like a very serious case.” He said he wants to see the FBI and FCC reports before deciding “whether the committee should investigate.” May 12.” The Dallas News reported that Sen. John Tower haS asked the Justice Dept. for a full report. Keeton was nowhere to be found. R.D. Connally’s Triumph Austin Gov. John Connally’s mandate includes the majority vote of 249 out of the 254 counties of Texas. Only Hardin and Trinity counties went for Don Yarborough this spring. Connally became the first Texan in a hotly contested governor’s primary to receive more than a million votes. His triumph was unqualified. In running, Don Yarborough apparently miscalculated one major factor, sympathetic identification with Connally because he was shot in the car with President Kennedy. The last week, Connally told reporters he did not want a sympathy vote, but the fact was, his TV documentary, “Profile of Leadership,” replayed films of the Kennedys and Connallys getting off the plane in Dallas and riding off in the fatal motorcade, and then of Connally’s hospitalbed interview with Martin Agronsky. The sympathy factor, coupled with the secondterm tradition, must have constituted the basis of Connally’s dramatically large vote. Don Yarborough sensed the debacle in the making the last ten days. He maintained the contention candidates apparently think mandatory, that he was sure to win, but reports were being heard of private polls that showed him far behind. One leading liberal said both sidesthe Establishment and the liberalsswapped private polls each had bought. The governor was aware of them, of course. He declined to predict a margin of victory, but when he was asked about the Houston Chronicle’s published poll showing him winning two-to-one, he said, “That’s accurate.” DON’S HOPE, therefore, turned on his seven statewide TV programs the last nine nights of the campaign. His dilemma was difficult. He felt strong with minorities and Kennedy Democrats, but weak with the broad middle class. If he pitched to those he figured were with him,