John Connally

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John Connally
John Connally (1973) with Richard Nixon

John Bowden Connally, Jr. (born February 27, 1917 in Floresville , Wilson County , Texas , † June 15, 1993 in Houston , Texas) was an American politician , Secretary of the Navy , Governor of Texas and Treasury Secretary . The so-called Nixon shock (August 1971) fell during his term of office .


family

Connally was the first son of John Bowden Connally and his wife Lela Wright. He had a younger brother, Merrill Connally (* 1921), who died of lung cancer in 2001. On December 21, 1940, Connally married Idanell Brill (1919-2006), known as 'Nellie' for short. With her he had four children: Kathleen Connally (1942-1958), John B. Connally III. (* 1946), Sharon Connally (* 1949) and Mark M. Connally (* 1952).

Campaign manager

Connally graduated in Law at the School of Law of the University of Texas in Austin , where he also was temporarily president of the Student Parliament.

In the following decades, in addition to his work as a lawyer, he repeatedly worked as an election campaign manager. In 1937 he began his party-political friendship with Lyndon B. Johnson when he supported his campaign for a Democratic member of the House of Representatives as an assistant.

During World War II he served in the United States Navy . In 1948 he was campaign manager for Johnson in the successful, albeit controversial, election as Senator . In 1952 he left his party political neutrality to the Democratic Party when he was campaign assistant for the successful Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower .

In 1960 he worked again for his friend Johnson when he supported his unsuccessful nomination for Democratic presidential candidate. When Johnson was defeated by the much more popular John F. Kennedy , he stayed on the campaign team because Kennedy declared Johnson a runner-up candidate. Johnson was Kennedy Vice President, was after his assassination in 1963 President and remained so until the 1969th

Secretary of the Navy and Governor of Texas

Connally wounds in the Kennedy assassination attempt

After Kennedy won the election, Connally was appointed Secretary of State for the Navy on January 25, 1961 at Johnson's request . However, he resigned from this office on December 20, 1961 to run for the office of governor of Texas.

After a narrow nomination within the party - he only prevailed in the runoff election with four percentage points ahead of Don Yarborough - he was elected governor of Texas in 1962 against the Republican Jack Cox and served from 1963 to 1969. He was appointed as such on November 22nd Seriously injured in the 1963 assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy because he was in the same car. His wife sitting next to him was unharmed. During his tenure as governor, he faced only weak Republican opposition, so that his Democratic Party received over 70 percent of the vote in the state elections of 1964 and 1966.

Connally minutes before the 1963 assassination attempt (right in front of John F. Kennedy)

Finance minister, candidate for the presidency in 1980 and retirement from politics

Connally's signature on US $ banknotes

Under President Richard Nixon , he succeeded David M. Kennedy as Secretary of the Treasury from February 11, 1971 to June 12, 1972. When asked by foreign journalists about the dollar , he replied with the famous sentence: “It's our currency, but it's your problem. ”(The dollar is our currency, but your problem.) He was succeeded as Treasury Secretary by George P. Shultz .

When his old friend and mentor Lyndon B. Johnson died on January 22, 1973, he was one of the keynote speakers. In the late summer of 1973 he then converted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party under Nixon. When the then Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, he was one of the candidates for successor. However, Nixon chose the Republican opposition leader in the House of Representatives, Gerald Ford , because he hoped that he would deal more moderately but also more successfully with the democratic majority in the United States' Congress .

In 1975 Connally was involved in a bribery scandal in Texas in which he was accused of accepting the comparatively small sum of US $ 10,000 to influence a decision on the price of milk in Texas. In November 1979, he announced his candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination against Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the 1980 presidential election. During the internal party election campaign, he used it more than any other applicant. After spending $ 11 million on his primary campaign but only securing one delegate vote from Arkansas , he withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Then he also said goodbye completely to political life.

Web links

Commons : John Connally  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Connally, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Connally, John Bowden Junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician, Secretary of the Navy, Texas Governor, Secretary of the Treasury
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Floresville , Texas
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1993
Place of death Houston , Texas