Ralph
Webster Yarborough, the seventh of nine children, was born in Chandler,
Henderson County, Texas, on 8th June, 1903. After attending local
schools he entered the West Point Military
Academy in 1919 but dropped out the following year.
Yarborough
was a school teacher in Henderson County for three years before moving
to Germany where he was assistant
secretary for the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin. On his return
he attended University of Texas Law School. After graduated in 1927
became a lawyer in El Paso. Over the next four years he won several
cases against the Magnolia Petroleum Company and other major oil companies
and successfully establishing the right of public schools and universities
to oil-fund revenues. He also served as district judge in Austin (1936-41).
During the Second
World War Yarborough, a member of the 97th Division, served in
Europe and Japan. When he left the army in 1946 he had reached the
rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war Yarborough became a lawyer
in Austin, Texas.
A member of the Democratic
Party Yarborough
unsuccessfully challenged Governor Allan Shivers for the nomination
in 1952 and 1954. Yarborough was one of the leaders of the progressive
wing of the party. Shivers, on the right of the party, accused Yarborough
of being in favour of racial integration and having support from the
American Communist Party.
Yarborough, with the support
of the trade unions, was elected to the United States Senate in April
1957. A left-wing member of the party, Yarborough was the only member
of the Senate representing a former Confederate state to vote for
every significant piece of civil rights
legislation. This included the Civil
Rights Act (1957) and
Civil
Rights Act (1960).
On
22nd November, 1963, President John F. Kennedy
arrived in Dallas. It was decided that Kennedy and his party, including
his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, Vice President
Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John
Connally
and Ralph
Yarborough, would travel in a procession of cars through the business
district of Dallas. A pilot car and several motorcycles rode ahead
of the presidential limousine. As well as Kennedy the limousine included
his wife, John Connally, his wife Nellie, Roy Kellerman, head of the
Secret Service at the White House and the driver, William Greer. The
next car carried eight Secret Service Agents. This was followed by
a car containing Lyndon Johnson and Ralph Yarborough.
At
about 12.30 p.m. the presidential limousine entered Elm Street. Soon
afterwards shots rang out. John Kennedy was hit by bullets that hit
him in the head and the left shoulder. Another bullet hit John Connally
in the back. Ten seconds after the first shots had been fired the
president's car accelerated off at high speed towards Parkland Memorial
Hospital. Both men were carried into separate emergency rooms. Connally
had wounds to his back, chest, wrist and thigh. Kennedy's injuries
were far more serious. He had a massive wound to the head and at 1
p.m. he was declared dead.
Within
two hours of the killing, a suspect, Lee
Harvey Oswald, was arrested. Throughout the the time Oswald was
in custody, he stuck to his story that he had not been involved in
the assassination. On 24th November, while being transported by the
Dallas police from the city to the county jail, Oswald was shot dead
by Jack Ruby.
After
the death of John F. Kennedy, his deputy,
Lyndon
B. Johnson,
was appointed president. Yarborough
was a great supporter of Johnson's Great Society programs in education,
environmental preservation, and health care.
He also voted from the Civil
Rights Act (1964)and
the Voting
Rights Act (1965).
Yarborough was more critical of Johnson's foreign policy and was a
strong opponent of the Vietnam War.
An advocate of preserving
the environment, Yarborough
sponsored the Endangered
Species Act of 1969 and the legislation that established three national
wildlife sanctuaries in Texas-Padre Island National Seashore (1962),
Guadalupe Mountains National Park (1966), and Big Thicket National
Preserve (1971).
Yarborough was a member
of the Senate until he was defeated by Lloyd Bentsen in 1970. He now
returned to work as a lawyer in Austin. He also served as a member
of the State Library and Archives Commission of Texas 1983-1987.
Ralph
Webster Yarborough
died in Austin, Texas, on 27th January, 1996.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
Forum Debate on Ralph Yarborough
Namebase: Ralph Yarborough
Forum Debate on Watergate
(1)
Hugh
Aynesworth,
JFK:
Breaking the News (2003)
Liberal
Ralph Yarborough, for example, detested centrists such as Connally
and Johnson-and with some reason. The governor and the vice president
were never seen doing the senator any favors. Just the opposite.
On this trip they seemed determined to put Yarborough in his place.
Connally
was scheduled to host a private reception for JFK at the governor's
mansion in Austin that Friday night: Yarborough was absent from
the guest list.
Yarborough's
response to that snub: "I want everybody to join hands in harmony
for the greatest welcome to the President and Mrs. Kennedy in the
history of Texas." Then: "Governor Connally is so terribly
uneducated governmentally, how could you expect anything else?"
On Thursday
afternoon in Houston, Yarborough had defied Kennedy by refusing
to ride in the same car with LBJ. He chose instead to be seen with
Congressman Albert Thomas. In San Antonio that morning, Secret Service
Agent Rufus Youngblood was gently nudging the senator toward Johnson's
limo when Yarborough saw Congressman Henry Gonzalez, a political
blood brother, and bolted toward him. "Can I ride with you,
Henry?" he asked.
That evening,
employees at Houston's Rice Hotel heard JFK and LBJ arguing over
Yarborough in the presidential suite. Kennedy reportedly informed
Johnson in strong terms that he felt Yarborough-who had much better
poll numbers in Texas than Kennedy-was being mistreated, and the
president was unhappy about that.
Senator Ralph Yarborough, The Men Who Killed Kennedy – The Coup d'état, N. Turner, 1988
The Secret Service in the car in front of us [the car behind Kennedy’s car] kind of casually looked around, looked up at the back of them and were rather slow to react. We went under the overpass and as we came up on the other side, I could see then the President’s car. And there was [Clint] Hill whom I knew as a Secret Service man assigned to protect Mrs. Kennedy. He was lying across the back [of the car] to hang on with his arm over in there so he could hang on at that high speed. His face turned back towards us, just … agony; and beating with his hand [against the car] like a terrible thing had happened. I knew then that Kennedy’d been shot.
And within several minutes, we came to Parkland Hospital and the Secret Service immediately jumped out the minute Johnson – they practically pulled him out and formed a cordate around him, four or five, and one of them said "Mr. President." I knew then Kennedy was dead.
And I walked up to the car where Mrs. Kennedy was still there on the back seat, lying there with her head bowed over covering her husband’s head, his blood running down her leg and on her clothes, and twice saying, "They’ve murdered my husband. They’ve murdered my husband." It’s the most tragic sight of my life.
(2)
The
Texas Handbook Online (2002)
Yarborough
defeated George H. W. Bush, future president of the United States,
in the senatorial race of 1964. In his years in the senate Yarborough
supported many of the key bills of LBJ's Great Society and pressed
for legislative action in the fields of civil rights, education,
public health, and environmental protection. He voted for the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and was one of only three southerners to support
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yarborough served for years on the
Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, of which he became chairman
in 1969. He sponsored or cosponsored the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (1965), the Higher Education Act (1965) the Bilingual
Education Act (1967), and the updated GI Bill of 1966. He was also
an advocate for such public-health measures as the Occupational
Health and Safety Act, the Community Mental Health Center Act, and
the National Cancer Act of 1970. A strong supporter of preserving
the environment, he co-wrote the Endangered Species Act of 1969
and sponsored the legislation establishing three national wildlife
sanctuaries in Texas-Padre Island National Seashore (1962), Guadalupe
Mountains National Park (1966), and Big Thicketqv National Preserve
(1971). His interest in the preservation of Texas historical sites
led him to sponsor bills to make Fort Davis, Jeff Davis County and
the Alibates Flint Quarries national monuments.
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