The Clint Murchison Meeting

Interview with Madeleine Duncan Brown. She talks about her long-time relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson and her knowledge of a meeting that took place on the evening of Nov. 21, 1963 at the home of Clint Murchison during a social event honoring Murchison's friend, J. Edgar Hoover and his companion, Clyde Tolson. Brown maintains that this meeting was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy the following day. Vice President Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, H.L. Hunt, and others were present at this meeting.
The purpose of the "Murchison Party" was to allow the principals of the enterprise the key sponsors and facilitators or their representatives as being a "congruency of interests" - one last chance to gauge the operational readiness of its disparate facets. It was essential that its success be practically guaranteed; otherwise, they, would all be put in legal jeopardy. Conducting it as a "party" honoring fellow plotter J. Edgar Hoover required the presence of a number of other randomly selected individuals, all of whom had vague personal or political connections to the principals; but it was merely a veil that hid the real intent of the meeting if word had leaked out that such a meeting occurred. But only when the most important of these principals - the one most critical to a successful execution - was present would they separate themselves from the others and meet in executive session "behind closed doors."

Lyndon Johnson arrived very late at Clint Murchison's mansion, but he felt he owed it to some of his best friends to attend since it was a party honoring their mutual friend, J. Edgar Hoover. The only thing liberal at the Murchison home in Dallas that evening was as a measure of how the drinks flowed. Also attending were John J. McCloy, Richard Nixon, H. L. Hunt, John Curington, George Brown, former Texas Congressman Bruce Alger, and Hoover's lover, Clyde Tolson.