Secret Service Almost Shot LBJ

How’s this one going to play out with the conspiracy theorists? A new book by retired Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine claims he almost shot President Lyndon Johnson, just hours after President John Kennedy was assassinated. Assigned to protect Johnson the night after Kennedy’s death, Blaine wrote that he heard footsteps approaching the vice-president’s mansion so he “firmly pushed the stock into his shoulder, ready to fire.” The intruder was Johnson himself—and Blaine had the gun pointed directly at his chest. “In the blackness of the night, Johnson’s face went completely white,” Blaine writes. The book also gives a first-person account of Kennedy’s assassination. One more juicy revelation in Blaine’s book: He dismisses the rumors that Kennedy had an affair with Marilyn Monroe, saying he was on Secret Service detail the night of Kennedy’s infamous birthday and she left with the other guests.