General

Secret Service nearly shot LBJ in 1963

Co-author of new book says he accidentally pointed loaded gun at U.S. president hours after JFK assassination

A former Secret Service agent says he nearly accidentally shot Lyndon Johnson in the hours that followed the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In The Kennedy Detail, Gerald Blaine says he’d been assigned to protect LBJ’s home the night after the Kennedy assassination when he heard someone approaching him, prompting Blaine to activate the bolt on the top of his submachine gun. “The next instant there was a face to go with the footsteps,” according to the third-person account in The Kennedy Detail. “The new president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had just rounded the corner, and Blaine had the gun pointed directly at the man’s chest … A split second later, Blaine would have pulled the trigger.”

USA Today

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