Subject: Connally Clippings 2 Date: 18-Jun-93 at 10:33 From: M. Duke Lane, 76004,2356 To: Anthony Marsh,72127,2301 As they say in Indiana, "Lawyers, start your actions!" APn 06/18 0033 Connally Funeral Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All right reserved. By MICHAEL HOLMES Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Hundreds of mourners, including Lady Bird Johnson and the Rev. Billy Graham, paid their last respects Thursday to former Gov. John Connally. His family refused to comment about whether bullet fragments lodged in Connally's wrist and thigh during the assassination of President Kennedy were removed before burial, as requested by private researchers. Connally died Tuesday of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 76. "John Connally was a giant in every way," Graham told 850 mourners at Austin's First United Methodist Church. "He not only had lived a full life, but he left his footprints on the history of our generation." The 6-foot-2 Texan served three terms as governor, from 1963 to 1969. He was secretary of the Navy under Kennedy and Treasury secretary for President Nixon. Nixon, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and all five living Texas governors attended the funeral. Before the funeral, hundreds filed past Connally's coffin in the Texas House chamber, where his body lay in state for two hours. The Texas flag covering it had flown over the Capitol the day he died. Connally's wife, Nellie, stood behind the coffin, their two sons and daughter by her side. Texas Rangers flanked the casket. Pianist Van Cliburn was among the first to file past. One young boy handed the family a small Texas flag. Three eulogies were delivered at the funeral service, by Mrs. Johnson, U.S. Rep. J.J. "Jake" Pickle, D-Texas, and Connally's son John B. Connally III. "It's been a wonderful life, all the more so because our families shared it with John and Nellie," the former first lady said. "We shared our youth, dreams, and ambitions. We shared campaigns and unending work. We shared births, deaths. We shared a war." Connally earned a Bronze Star for bravery and the Legion of Merit for his World War II service in the Navy. After Johnson's death in 1973, Connally switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. He ran for president in 1980, but dropped out in March after Ronald Reagan trounced him in the South Carolina Republican primary. Pickle, Connally's college chum and his best man, said the presidency was "a position he could have had, should have had for the good of the country. He just looked like a president." Connally was in the presidental motorcade when an assailant fired at Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Private researchers asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to have bullet fragments removed from Connally's body to help determine whether there was more than one gunman. Asked about the request, family spokesman Julian Read said, "We are in the middle of a funeral. We decline to comment." State and federal officials also refused to comment Thursday. In his eulogy, Connally said his father "was huge in our sight and strode across our lives like a colossus. "He approached yard work and homework with the same intensity that he brought to the international monetary structure." APn 06/18 0855 Connally-Bullet Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By JOHN McFARLAND Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) -- Former Gov. John Connally went to his grave with the bullet fragments conspiracy theorists say could prove whether a second gunman took part in the assassination of President Kennedy. Friends and relatives of Connally were cool to researchers' requests that the fragments be removed from the body, and the government made no move to halt the burial Thursday or have him exhumed. "It's an appalling attempt to capitalize on Governor Connally's death to gain publicity for worn-out theories," said Julian Read, a family spokesman. Connally, governor from 1963 to 1969, died Tuesday of pulmonary fibrosis at 76. He was buried Thursday in Austin. He was sitting in the open limousine with Kennedy and the first lady when the president was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. According to the Warren Commission report, one of the bullets -- fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone -- passed through the president and pierced Connally's back. It exited through his chest, passed through his right wrist, went into his left thigh and was found on a hospital stretcher, the report said. Critics of the Warren Commission report have said a single bullet could not have taken such a path and come out in such good condition. Bullet fragments taken from Connally were examined in the late 1970s by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The panel concluded that the fragments came from the same bullet that struck Kennedy. Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Pittsburgh pathologist, said the fragments still in Connally's body would show otherwise. He was among researchers who signed a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno asking that the pieces be removed. Under state and federal law, the fragments could not be removed without the permission of his family or a court order. The JFK researchers contend that state or federal officials have the authority to compel an examination of the body because the fragments are critical evidence in a murder investigation. Justice Department spokesman Carl Sern said the department agreed with the recommendation of Oliver "Buck" Revell, agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas office, who said the fragments should be removed if the family gave approval. "I think it would be best for the family, best for the government, best for the country to take care of the issue now," Revell said. Revell said that he does not believe the bullet fragments would prove a conspiracy but that an analysis might silence some critics of the single-bullet theory. He said that he had hoped the removal could be done before Connally's burial but that burial woul not necessarily end the matter. At Connelly's funeral, relatives, friends and dignitaries remembered him as a giant of a man and a Texas legend. About 850 people gathered at First United Methodist Church. "He was huge in our sight and strode across our lives like a colossus," John B. Connally III said of his 6-foot-2 father. "He not only had lived a full life, but he left his footprints on the history of our generation. ... John Connally will stand tall in the history books of Texas and the nation," the Rev. Billy Graham said. The service drew all five living Texas governors, former President Nixon, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and former House Speaker Jim Wright. Hundreds waited in the hot sun outside the Capitol to file past his Texas flag-draped coffin before the funeral and burial at the State Cemetery. WP 06/18 Connally Takes Bullet Pieces to Grave By George Lardner Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Former Texas governor John B. Connally was buried in an east Austin cemetery yesterday after a frantic and unsuccessful effort to get family permission to extract bullet fragments left in his body almost 30 years ago. FBI officials in Dallas had recommended that an attempt be made to recover the evidence and settle a long-standing controversy about whether Connally was hit by the same bullet that wounded President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, just before Kennedy was killed by another bullet that tore into his skull. Dallas FBI agent Oliver B. Revell said he feared that a barrage of lawsuits would be discomfiting to the Connally family in the years ahead unless the fragments were recovered. "We hate to intrude into the family's grief," Revell said a few hours before the final graveside ceremonies, "but it's going to happen sooner or later. I'm afraid the family is going to be harassed on this until it's resolved." The "single bullet" or "magic bullet" theory was crucial to the Warren Commission's findings that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed the president and wounded Connally as the two men rode together in a motorcade through downtown Dallas. Connally's family and friends were upset and angry about the last-minute hubbub over the bullet fragments, which began Wednesday with requests from Kennedy assassination researchers urging the Justice Department to step in. A spokesman at Justice said officials attempted to contact the family yesterday morning after receiving the FBI recommendation but were unsuccessful. "It's really offensive," said George Christian, a longtime Connally friend and once his press secretary. "Nobody in the Connally family that I know of ever heard of these fragments." Revell said there was a fragment in one of Connally's thighs and perhaps some traces in a wrist. The nonprofit Assassination Archives and Research Center urged Attorney General Janet Reno on Wednesday to secure the fragments and compare them, using neutron activation analysis and other sophisticated tests, with the nearly intact bullet the Warren Commission said the pieces came from. The bullet was found on a hospital stretcher and was believed to have dropped out of Connally's thigh. "If the family would agree and we can examine those under current technology," Revell said, "we could do one of two things. We could say, 'Yes, indeed, this was the bullet (that hit both men) and there is no basis for saying there were additional shots. But if the mass and metallurgy don't match, we've got a different ballgame." Some bullet fragments were extracted from Connally's wrist at Parkland Hospital in 1963. Tests in 1977 for the House assassinations committee matched several bits with the "pristine bullet," but questions about the authenticity of the pieces arose because they did not have the same weight as fragments tested years earlier - and inconclusively - by the FBI. The FBI's fragments disappeared. Connally's body lay in state in the state capitol for two hours yesterday morning and then was carried across the street to First United Methodist Church, where he and his wife, Nellie, were married 52 years ago. Among those at the funeral service were former president Richard M. Nixon, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, and Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Lady Bird Johnson delivered a eulogy, remembering that "John was always the `can do' man, as Lyndon would say." Twenty years ago, Connally delivered a eulogy for her husband, former president Lyndon B. Johnson. Special correspondent Elizabeth Hudson in Austin contributed to this report.