John Connally Between the Acts
He wears homburgs in Texas and stetsons in Zurich; likes coq au vin and cheeseburgers; may be the most skilled politician of the decade; and he wants to be president. Maybe.
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Connally, says his longtime political advisor, George Christian, "doesn't want to be a drudge…he hunts, plays cards, cuts tree limbs—just other things. We used to pack up boxes of appointments when he was governor and go to the ranch for the weekend. Then we'd lug 'em back, never doing anything, I don't know how many times. Last fall we had a thousand things to do on the Nixon campaign, but we just sat around watching the Olympics on television."
When John Connally arrived at the University of Texas in 1933 his burning ambitions were to become a lawyer and to make a name for himself. He immediately entered into the active campus life, and joined the Wesley Players, the University Methodist Church's dramatic group, eventually becoming its president. Later, his association with the campus drama organization, the Curtain Club, provided a creative outlet for Connally and brought him in contact with a brunette coed, Idanell Brill, who ended her aspirations to be an actress when she married John Connally.
The Curtain Club during the 1930s claimed many members who were later to make their marks on the world—Eli Wallach, Zachary Scott, and television personalities Allan Ludden and Walter Cronkite. A program picture of Connally from the Curtain Club's production of Biography shows the set mouth and the arched eyebrow that later became his trademarks. The program noted that Connally's favorite food was green grape pie and his pet hate was turnip greens. "John lives on a ranch and says he loves to ride horses. His ambition is to be critic-at-large of things-as-they-are."
The university years were pivotal years for Connally. He climbed to the top of the ladder, being elected president of the Student Assembly and serving as Idanell's escort when she was chosen Sweetheart of the University. He also developed an interesting habit which he still practices: Quit while you are ahead and resign when the job begins to bore you. He resigned as president of the Curtain Club when he filed to run for president of the Assembly. Then when he had successfully won the office and put several of his programs into effect, he resigned claiming that his grades were such that he needed to put more time into his studies. He also quit law school to go to work for a new Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, who in 1939 was going to Washington to serve his first term.
Connally first made the bigtime as a lawyer and lobbyist for the late Sid Richardson. Richardson, a self-made Texas multimillionaire, had his eye on Connally when the former governor was working as an organizer for Lyndon Johnson during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1940. Richardson invited Connally to confer with him about a possible position and Connally went to Fort Worth and talked with Richardson at the Fort Worth Club, where the "Bachelor Billionaire" kept a suite of rooms. Connally later recalled that, "We talked most of the night. He invited me to join his organization, and he said: 'I can hire good lawyers and good engineers and good geologists, but it is hard to hire good common sense.' At the end of our talk he told me: "I'll pay you enough so Nellie and the kids won't go hungry, and I'll put you in the way to make some money.'"
Connally said, "When I went to work for Mr. Richardson, we agreed that we would just try it and see how it worked. If he didn't like it, he could let me go in the morning. If I didn't like it, I could leave in the afternoon."
The association was mutually profitable to both men. Richardson got an able man to represent his interests in Washington, and Connally got his chance to make some money, through business deals and later as an executor for the Richardson estate. While in Richardson's employ Connally failed to register as a Washington lobbyist, claiming that he had gained natural gas holdings in Texas through his association with Richardson and that he was in Washington representing his own interests and therefore was not required to register. However, in the wake of a 1956 bribery scandal, newspaper columnist Drew Pearson linked Connally to one of the lobbyists implicated in the scandal and branded Connally, "one of the most brazen lobbyists in Washington for the natural-gas bill."
When the scandal broke, Connally, who was never himself implicated, left Washington and came back to the good life in Fort Worth with Richardson, Richardson's nephew Perry Bass, the Eugene Lockes, and other members of the Dallas-Fort Worth society set. Connally joined two country clubs in Fort Worth, the Ridgelea and the Shady Oaks, and he enjoyed playing golf. His longtime Fort Worth friend, Joe Terry, another Richardson employee, remembers that John played golf for the Richardson bookkeepers when they challenged the firm's engineering staff. Terry recalls that Connally played to win and was constantly challenging the other players on his team to compete. "John is a real competitor," Terry states, "He doesn't like to lose. When he plays golf, he plays to win."
The transition from Richardson aide to Secretary of the Navy in the Kennedy Administration gave Connally a larger stage for his talents. But, true to his established pattern, he became bored with the job and after holding it less than a year began to cast his eye on something new, something which would really challenge him: the governorship of his home state.
The men who raised their eyebrows when Connally got off that plane in a Homburg hat not only elected him, they helped him form (or formed on his behalf) one of the most powerful political machines Texas has ever seen. Connally himself became increasingly bored with both machine and office as he went through his three terms, and much of his time was spent on other things. On day-to-day basis, the office of governor of Texas is one with much ceremony and little real power, although Connally got as much power out of it as there was. The machine slowly broke down without him, and is now scattered throughout Texas. The loyalty, however, is probably still there.
Many state legislators never even got the chance to know their governor. His aides and office staff formed an impenetrable wall that few dared to broach unless summoned. Texas' first black congresswoman, Barbara Jordan, served with distinction in the state senate while Connally was governor. Jordan, who respects Connally politically, never had direct contact with him when he was governor or any "acknowledgement that I was here." However, many legislators accepted Connally's word as law, and freshman senator Jim Wade of Dallas commented in reaction to one of Connally's policy speeches in 1965 that, "John Connally will be to Texas what Winston Churchill has been to England."
Connally's press notices across the nation picked up after the Kennedy assassination, and crowds turned out in huge numbers to greet the wounded governor wherever he appeared. In November, 1964, when Connally visited Cleveland, he was written up extensively in the Cleveland newspapers, and The Dallas Morning News noted that he was one of the most popular governors at the governors' meeting. "Crowds congregate whenever he appears in the lobby of the headquarters hotel, the Sheraton-Cleveland. Autograph seekers are continually after him, and when he goes out on the street people come up to Connally just to shake his hand."
Much of Connally's appeal as Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon administration, in addition to his politcal ability, was his tremendous charm, his good looks, and his sense of presence. National columnist James J. Kilpatrick praised "…the explosive emergence of John Connally as secretary of the Treasury:
…John B. Connally seems to have something special.
Part of his appeal doubtless arises from the contrast he brings to his drab surroundings. The Nixon administration has its merits, but pizzazz it has not…
Now comes Connally, six-feet-two, silver man, with a handsome phiz and a he-man tan. He stands straight as the shaft of a six-iron. In private conversation—even in a press conference—he looks you straight in the eye, but it is not like it was with Lyndon. Mr. Johnson had the flinty eye of a faro dealer. Connally has the friendly gaze of a good coach or a parish priest. Want to buy a used car?
This guy could sell an old Toyota to Henry Ford.
…here in Credibility Gulch, he possesses one attribute more precious than nuggest of gold—the appearance of absolute candor…
Connally, at 54, has the look of eagles; and he is flying high to somewhere.
Connally's sense of importance, his aristocratic manner, his upperclass values are not put-ons. In his speeches he projects the image of a down-home, next-door neighbor type with a sophisticated version of the "aw-shucks" speech. Connally talks as much about humility and about being humble as Nixon does about being "first".
Since leaving his post as Secretary of the Treasury in yet one more riding-off-into-the-sunset performance, Connally has returned to semi-private life, switched to the Republican Party, and returned to the White House for an unsatisfactory stint as special consultant to a president beseiged by Watergate and economic problems. Connally's own presidential star continues to twinkle, and the Gallup Poll confirms his popularity around the country as second only to Teddy Kennedy's. It is not out of the question that this Texan with a strong personality and an almost 19th century view of formality and style could be the next president.
Perhaps the best insight into how much importance Connally places in appearance comes from a statement he made almost ten years ago to a judicial conference in Brownsville. "I, for one, am a great believer in robes," Connally said. "You may disagree, but I think a robe sets a judge apart from the crowd, and gives him that extra prestige his office should demand. I think the wearing of robes on the bench should be a standard procedure, as should the rules of decorum in the courtroom."
Appearances are important; formalities should be observed; there is a proper way to do things: A man of responsibility can not be too much apart of the crowd, but must be set apart. Those are the foundations for the style of John Connally. Combined with his political skills, his ability to do hard work, and his quick, retentive mind, his style has made him one of the most remarkable men in American politics. In 1974 he will be stumping for Republican Congressional candidates. In 1976, who knows? We may even see our judges wearing not only robes, but wigs as well.
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