Clint Murchison, Sr.
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Clinton Murchison, Sr. (b. April 11, 1895; d. November, 1969), was a noted Texas-based oil magnate and political operative. He was also the father of Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison, Jr..
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[edit] Personal
Murchison was married twice--first to Anne Morris (b. 1898, d. 1926). They had three children: John Dabney (b. 9-21-1921, d. 6-14-1979 ),Clint Williams, Jr. (b. 9-12-1923, d. 3-30-1987), and Burk Yarbrough (b. 1-25-1925, d.1936). Murchison married again in 1943 to Virginia Long--they had no children.
[edit] Business profile
Murchison had had numerous business concerns that included not only oil but construction and real estate, a pirate radio station (Radio Nord) off the coast of Sweden and other ventures.
Murchison was also closely linked to organized crime. In 1955 a Senate committee discovered that 20 per cent of the Murchison Oil Lease Company was owned by Vito Genovese and his family. The committee also discovered Murchison had close financial ties with New Orleans-based mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello. According to Bobby Baker,
- "Murchison owned a piece of Hoover. Rich people always try to put their money with the sheriff, because they're looking for protection. Hoover was the personification of law and order and officially against gangsters and everything, so it was a plus for a rich man to be identified with him. That's why men like Murchison made it their business to let everyone know Hoover was their friend. You can do a lot of illegal things if the head lawman is your buddy."[citation needed]
[edit] Political involvement
In the late 1940s, Murchison and another Texas oil mogul, Sid Richardson, met FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. It was the start of a long friendship. In 1952 the two worked together to mount a smear campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. Hoover and his close friend and companion, Clyde Tolson, also invested heavily in Murchison's oil business.
Murchison was a fervent supporter of states' rights, and according to Anthony Summers, funded anti-semitic newspapers and was a primary source of money for the American Nazi Party and its leader, Lincoln Rockwell, who considered Hoover to be "our kind of people."[1]
[edit] November 21, 1963
Murchsion was friends with Madeleine Duncan Brown, an advertising agent who would later claim to have had an extended love affair (and to have fathered a son) with Lyndon B. Johnson.
In an appearance on the television program A Current Affair, Brown asserted that on November 21, 1963, she was a gathering at Murchison's home in Dallas that she described as "one of the most significant gatherings in American history." Others at the meeting included guest of honor J. Edgar Hoover, Tolson, oil magnate H. L. Hunt, John J. McCloy, Richard Nixon, George R. Brown, Robert L. Thornton, and others from the Suite 8F Group, a network of right-wing businessmen; at the end the evening Johnson also arrived. According to Brown:
- Tension filled the room upon his arrival. The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared. I knew how secretly Lyndon operated. Therefore I said nothing... not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I'll always remember: "After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again - that's no threat - that's a promise."[2]
