John Connally

John Bowden Connally, Jr. ( born February 27, 1917 in Floresville, Wilson County, Texas, † 15 June 1993 in Houston, Texas ) was an American politician, Secretary of the Navy, Governor of Texas and U.S. Treasury. During his tenure, the so-called Nixon shock ( August 1971 ) fell.

Family

Connally was the first son of John Bowden Connally and his wife Lela Wright. He had a younger brother, Merrill Connally ( b. 1921 ), who died of lung cancer in 2001. Connally married on December 21, 1940 Idanell Brill ( 1919-2006 ), briefly called ' Nellie '. With her he had four children: Kathleen Connally (1942-1958), John B. Connally III. (* 1946), Sharon Connally ( b. 1949 ) and Mark M. Connally ( b. 1952 ).

Campaign manager

Connally graduated in law at the School of Law of the University of Texas at Austin, where he was at times also president of the Student Parliament.

In the following decades he was again working alongside his work as a lawyer as campaign manager. In 1937, he began his political party friendship with Lyndon B. Johnson, as he supported his campaign for the Democratic member of the House of Representatives as a helper.

During the Second World War he served in the United States Navy. In 1948, he was then campaign manager of Johnson in the successful, but also controversial election as senator. In 1952, he left his party-political neutrality to the Democratic Party when he was campaign workers of the successful Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1960 he was again working for his friend Johnson, as he supported the unsuccessful nomination for the Democratic presidential candidate. When Johnson the much more popular John F. Kennedy defeated, he remained in the campaign team because Kennedy Johnson explained the vice presidential candidate. Johnson was Kennedy Vice President, was after his assassination in 1963 President and remained so until 1969.

Secretary of the Navy and Governor of Texas

After the election of Kennedy, Connally was then appointed at the request of Johnson on January 25, 1961 Navy Secretary. However, from this office he resigned on 20 December 1961 to run for the governorship of Texas.

After a brief intra-party nomination - he sat down until the runoff election with four percentage points ahead of Don Yarborough by - he was in 1962 elected to Republican Jack Cox for Governor of Texas and served from 1963 to 1969 As such, he was on 22 November. 1963 seriously injured in an assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, as he sat in the same car. His wife sitting next to him was uninjured. During his tenure as governor, he was confronted with only a weak Republican opposition, so that his Democratic Party was in government elections of 1964 and 1966 each have 70 percent of the vote.

Finance Minister, presidential candidate in 1980 and withdrawal from politics

. Under President Richard Nixon, he was a Democrat successor of David M. Kennedy as Minister of Finance of 11 February 1971 to 12 June 1972 At a question of foreign journalists to the dollar, he replied with the famous phrase: "It's our currency, but it's your problem. " ( The dollar is our currency but your problem. ) successor as finance minister, George P. Shultz.

When his old friend and mentor, Lyndon B. Johnson died on 22 January 1973 he was one of the main orator. In late summer 1973, he then resigned from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party under Nixon. When the then Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, he was one of the candidates for the succession. However, Nixon chose the Republican Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives, Gerald Ford, as he eats this a more moderate, but also successful handling of the Democratic majority in the Congress of the United States promised.

1975 Connally was involved in a bribery scandal in Texas, where his acceptance of the comparatively small sum of U.S. $ 10,000 has been accused of influencing a decision on the price of milk in Texas. In November 1979, he announced his candidacy as a presidential candidate of the Republican Party against Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the 1980 presidential election. During the intra-party election campaign he continued, making over all other applicants. After he had already spent $ 11 million for his primary campaign, but only one voice delegates from Arkansas was sure he withdrew his candidacy as a Republican presidential candidate. Then he said goodbye also completely from political life.