LBJ’s Lucky Day: From Political Dead End to Oval Office Jackpot in a Single Afternoon
For six decades, America has avoided the question that refuses to die: Did Lyndon Johnson have more to gain from JFK’s murder than any man alive? On the very day his career was collapsing under corruption scandals, the bullets in Dallas didn’t just kill a president — they saved LBJ’s political life and catapulted him into the Oval Office. If that doesn’t demand scrutiny, nothing does.
Bob Nelson, nephew of Don B. “Buck” Reynolds, is prepared to illuminate one of the most explosive yet suppressed chapters of the Kennedy assassination era: the testimony that threatened to end Lyndon B. Johnson’s political career on the very morning John F. Kennedy was shot.
Few Americans realize that on November 22, 1963, while the nation focused on Dallas, the Senate Rules Committee was conducting hearings into the Bobby Baker corruption scandal. At the center of those hearings sat Nelson’s uncle, Don Reynolds: an Air Force veteran, Foreign Service officer, and Maryland insurance executive. Reynolds was laying out a troubling array of kickbacks, illegal gifts, payoff schemes, and financial improprieties directly involving then–Vice President Johnson.
His testimony included clandestine advertising purchases for LBJ’s television station, a Magnavox stereo delivered to Johnson’s home as an undeclared gift, a suitcase containing $100,000 linked to the TFX defense contract, and the vice president’s questionable use of Hong Kong “counterpart dollars.” Senate investigators, and even Attorney General Robert Kennedy, believed Reynolds’ testimony posed an imminent threat to Johnson’s future on the 1964 ticket.
At approximately 2:30 p.m., still under questioning and advancing deeper into LBJ’s vulnerabilities, Reynolds’ testimony was abruptly interrupted when a secretary rushed into the hearing room with news from Dallas. The hearings were immediately suspended. Records vanished, volumes of testimony were sealed or never released, and the trajectory of the day—and the country—shifted instantly. The man whose career Reynolds’ testimony could have ended was suddenly elevated to the presidency.
Bob Nelson is uniquely positioned to tell this story. His family preserved details that never reached the public record, including his uncle’s private reaction in the hours after the assassination, when he realized that his testimony—aimed at exposing a vice president—was now implicating a president. Nelson offers the rare blend of personal insight and documentary understanding necessary to explain what Don Reynolds revealed before the hearing room went silent, why Senate counsel believed Johnson was in real danger of being removed from the Democratic ticket, what evidence disappeared after the assassination, and how Johnson’s overnight rise to power shielded him from further scrutiny.
Bob Nelson brings forward a powerful, long-overlooked account of testimony that was shut down the very day the nation changed forever—and may hold the key to understanding one of the era’s most consequential political mysteries.
LBJ’S MORTAL WOUND: THE DON REYNOLDS STORY: THE PRESIDENT, THE BOBBY B – TrineDay
Relevant Article(s):
https://jfklancer.maryferrell.org/pdf/LBJ-Reynolds.pdf
OPTIONAL Q&A
- Did LBJ’s collapsing political fortunes give him the strongest motive of anyone in JFK’s inner circle?
- What did Don Reynolds reveal about Johnson’s corruption that made November 22, 1963 so dangerous for LBJ?
- Why were the Senate Rules Committee hearings abruptly halted the moment news came from Dallas?
- How did Johnson go from political dead man walking to untouchable president in a single afternoon?
- What key testimony vanished or was sealed after LBJ assumed the presidency?
- Did the assassination conveniently erase every threat to Johnson’s career, or was something more deliberate at play?
- Why did so many investigators privately express suspicion about LBJ’s sudden rise to power?
- If the truth was harmless, why were so many records buried for decades?
ABOUT BOB NELSON…
Nephew of Don B. (Buck) Reynolds, who gave testimony on Lyndon Johnson on November 22, 1963. Nelson’s book, LBJ’S Mortal Wound, the Don Reynolds Story, is available from Trine Day Publications; website: LBJ’S Mortal Wound.
Reynolds was delivering testimony to Congress that would be very damaging to LBJ. Then, the assassination. Though it was likely very difficult for Reynolds to testify against the Vice President, he suddenly found himself in the position of testifying against the President.
Nelson has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign; and received a master’s degree from the American Graduate School of International Management, Glendale, Arizona.
He has a marketing background with Unisys Corporation; and research experience with the University of Wisconsin Survey Center.
LBJ’S MORTAL WOUND: THE DON REYNOLDS STORY: THE PRESIDENT, THE BOBBY B – TrineDay
