PAGE   
18                                             

                             THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

                  June 16, 1993, Wednesday, HOME FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

LENGTH: 2479 words

HEADLINE: Ex-Gov. John Connally dies at 76; He was giant of Texas 
politics'

BYLINE: Kent Biffle, Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

KEYWORD: JOHN CONNALLY; DEATH; OBITUARY; TEXAS GOVERNOR

 BODY:    Three-time Texas Gov. John B. Connally, who narrowly survived 
bullet wounds in the 1963 ambush that killed President John F. Kennedy, 
died Tuesday.  He was 76.

   Mr. Connally in the 1970s bolted from the Democratic Party, served a 
Republican president and eventually unsuccessfully sought the GOP 
presidential nomination.  He was struggling back from bankruptcy at the 
time of his death.

   He had been a patient at Methodist Hospital in Houston since May 17, 
undergoing treatment for infection and pneumonia, which was complicated 
by a lung problem known as pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lung 
tissue.  He had been listed in critical condition since June 3.

   "We deeply thank all of those whose thoughts and prayers have been 
with us throughout this ordeal,' Mr. Connally's wife, Nellie, said in a 
statement.

   President Clinton said he was saddened to hear of Mr. Connally's 
death, calling him a man "whose life was one of service to his country 
and of dedication to the principles in which he so passionately 
believed.'

   Texas Gov. Ann Richards said: "I lost a real good friend.

   "When important people die, you mourn the loss of their influence and 
their ability to get things done.  All of that is true with John 
Connally, but it is harder for me to accept because of the fact that he 
was a personal friend. . . .

   "Texas lost one of its favorite sons today,' she said.

   U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, called Mr. Connally "a giant of Texas 
politics, a man whose vision was long and who strode across eras with 
grace, dignity and iron determination.'

   Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, a former U.S. senator from Texas, 
said Mr. Connally was "a man of courage, great leadership quality and a 
powerful person. He was persuasive in his point of view and was my 
friend.'

   "John Connally in my view was one of the great governors of Texas,' 
said former President George Bush in a statement released from his summer 
home in

                                                                       
PAGE   19                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


Kennebunkport, Maine.  "He represented his state and nation with 
distinction.'

   Former Texas Gov. Bill Clements, reached in New Mexico where he had a 
speaking engagement Tuesday, said his friendship with Mr. Connally also 
spanned decades.  "He was a great, great Texan, and I'll miss him,' Mr. 
Clements said.

    Lyndon's boy'

   A political figure once as familiar to Texans as Austin's Capitol 
dome, Mr. Connally was a key player in the tumultuous career of former 
President Lyndon B. Johnson.

   After the death of LBJ, his Democratic mentor, 20 years ago, Mr. 
Connally, who had governed Texas from 1963 to 1969 as a conservative 
Democrat, declared himself a Republican.  He pursued the GOP presidential 
nomination, but that prize eluded him.

   He was called "Lyndon's boy' during his years as an aide and confidant 
to LBJ, the hard-driving New Deal Democratic congressman and senator who 
was elevated from vice president to president by the assassin's bullets 
that killed JFK.

   Four of seven members of the Warren Commission accepted a theory that 
Mr. Connally, a passenger in the limo with JFK, was wounded in the chest, 
wrist and leg by a bullet after it had already passed through the 
president.

   Mr. Connally always resisted the so called single-bullet theory.  He 
insisted: "One bullet caused the president's first wound, and then an 
entirely separate shot struck me.'

   His account spurred speculation that it was the governor of Texas who 
was the primary target of a revenge-driven assassin.  Months before the 
shooting in Dallas, Mr. Connally, as secretary of the Navy, had refused 
to grant an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps to Cold War 
turncoat Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin.  The theory never won wide 
acceptance.

   Tall, handsome and articulate, Mr. Connally was an imposing public 
presence. But his politicking style, when compared with LBJ's warm-handed 
campaigning, sometimes seemed cool and aloof.  Making speeches or leading 
parades on horseback, he was a conservative crowd pleaser.

   Until he switched parties, his accomplishments were measured against 
those of LBJ, who was nine years his senior.  Inevitably, Mr. Connally 
had difficulty emerging from the older politician's long shadow.

   He waited three months, respectfully, after delivering the eulogy at 
LBJ's funeral in 1973 before announcing his official departure from the 
Democratic Party.  Informally, he had much earlier broken ranks.

   For example, against the Democrats' 1972 presidential nominee, George 
McGovern, Mr. Connally headed a group called Democrats for Nixon in 
support of Republican President Richard M. Nixon.  Earlier, he had served 
the Republican administration as secretary of the treasury, in 1971-72.  
He became a special adviser to Mr. Nixon.


                                                                       
PAGE   20                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


   During the Watergate scandals, Mr. Connally was acquitted of a charge 
that he accepted $ 10,000 from a grateful dairy industry official for his 
1971 recommendation that the Nixon administration raise federal milk 
price supports.

   "John Connally was one of the most courageous people I ever met,' said 
Michael E. Tigar, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, on 
Tuesday.  Mr. Tigar, with Edward Bennett Williams, successfully defended 
Mr. Connally.  " . . .  The whole of his public life is, I think, a 
testament to his innocence.' Political damage

   Despite his acquittal, Mr. Connally was politically damaged.  But he 
told The Dallas Morning News, "The very idea that I would take a $ 10,000 
payoff or bribe is so reprehensive and inconceivable to me that I can't 
even comprehend that.'

   After becoming a Republican, Mr. Connally still couldn't entirely 
erase the LBJ brand.  After spending $ 11 million to garner a solitaryGOP 
delegate from Arkansas in 1980, Mr. Connally was quoted as saying, "I 
reminded everyone of Lyndon.'

   Had Mr. Connally remained an avowed Democrat, observers say, the 
chances were good that sooner or later he would have won that party's 
nomination for the presidency.  But within the Democratic club, the 
conservative Mr. Connally was often at odds with the policies of 
liberals.

   "I wanted John to stay a Democrat,' said Robert Strauss, former 
Democratic national chairman and one of Mr. Connally's oldest friends.

   "I thought he'd be president, and I thought he'd make a great 
president.  We never fell out really.  We just went down different paths.


   . . .  I've lost a good friend.'

   To be sure, Mr. Connally's conservatism hadn't come into bloom in 1939 
when he was first hired by freshman U.S. Rep.  Lyndon Johnson.  He'd been 
recommended to LBJ by a longtime champion of liberal Democrats in Texas, 
the late oilman J.R. Parten.  As he built a political career of his own, 
Mr. Connally's persona became more and more conservative.

   Bankruptcy

   More surprising to Texans than his party-switching was his filing for 
bankruptcy in 1987.  An authority on international monetary matters, a 
trustee of the Andrew Mellon Foundation and director of several banks, 
Mr. Connally disclosed debts of $ 93.3 million and assets of $ 13 
million.

   His debts were for the most part oil and real estate deals that 
collapsed in the economic decline of the 1980s.

   He and Mrs. Connally auctioned most of their personal possessions to 
help pay secured creditors.  Close friends reportedly bought some of the 
treasured items with the aim of returning them one day to the Connally 
family.

   An aftershock to the bankruptcy came when Mr. Connally showed up on TV 
in a 1988 Super Bowl commercial, endorsing a bank.  He told viewers:


                                                                       
PAGE   21                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


   "Nellie and I worked hard all of our lives to make sure our future 
would be financially secure.  Well, the future is here, and things 
haven't quite worked out like we'd planned.  But that's all right, 
because there's no better place than Texas to start over -- and save a 
little.'

   The commercial symbolized Mr. Connally's drive to regain his financial 
standing.  Many of his losses were blamed on deals made in partnership 
with developer Ben Barnes, a former Texas House speaker and lieutenant 
governor.

   "I've lost a very good friend, and Texas has lost a universal man, a 
man for all seasons.  He was one of the greatest leaders this state has 
produced,' Mr. Barnes said Tuesday.  "It's going to be hard to imagine 
Texas without John Connally.'

   A major step in Mr. Connally's comeback was revealed less than a week 
before he was hospitalized, when he announced May 11 that he and Houston 
financier Charles  Hurwitz  were steering a $ 75 million venture to build 
a Class 1 pari-mutuel horse-racing track in Harris County.

   The private investment team planned to build and operate the troubled 
Sam Houston Race Park, Mr. Connally said.  Mr. Connally was a director of 
the Houston-based conglomerate Maxxam Inc., of which Mr.  Hurwitz  is 
chairman.

   As trustee and director of a long list of firms and foundations during 
his career, Mr. Connally never lacked business offers.  He reportedly 
received more than 50 business propositions in the immediate wake of his 
bankruptcy.

   Mr. Connally married the former Idanell Brill in 1940 while they were 
students at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a law 
degree in 1941.

   They have two sons and a daughter: John B. Connally III of Houston, 
and Mark Connally and Sharon Ammann, both of Austin.

   Another daughter, Kathleen, died in 1958 at age 16.  Then a student at 
Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, she eloped with an 
18-year-old classmate to Tallahassee, Fla.  The young couple's marriage 
was turbulent. During a spate in a struggle over a shotgun, Kathleen was 
fatally wounded.  Her death was ruled an accident.

   Mr. Connally and Mrs. Ammann became embroiled in this year's U.S. 
Senate race in Texas.  Mrs. Ammann accused Texas treasurer and Republican 
candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison of angrily hitting her in the midst of 
campaign work in 1991. Ms. Hutchison, who won the election, said the 
allegations were strictly political motivated, but Mr. and Mrs. Connally 
publicly defended their daughter.

   John Bowden Connally was born in Floresville on Feb. 27, 1917, a son 
of rancher and county politician John B. and Lela Wright Connally.

   At the University of Texas, he was elected president of the student 
body in 1938, the same year that his wife to be was elected "Sweetheart 
of Texas.'

   A Navy officer in World War II, Lt.  Cmdr.  Connally was a flight 
director aboard aircraft carriers, the USS Essex and later the USS 
Bennington, during some the Pacific's heaviest fighting and kamikaze 
attacks.

                                                                       
PAGE   22                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


   After months of combat, he won a first bronze star, outranked by the 
controversial silver star awarded Lyndon Johnson for accompanying a 
single bombing mission over New Guinea during his short stint with the 
Navy.  Mr. Connally later was awarded the Legion of Merit.

   LBJ returned to Congress.  In Washington, he lobbied without much 
effect for the return of his former aide.

   In 1945, with Lt.  Cmdr.  Connally scheduled to arrive in San 
Francisco and head home to Texas, Rep.  Johnson wired the Adolphus Hotel 
in Dallas: "My boy, Lieutenant Commander John Connally, arrives tomorrow 
and will lay over in Dallas.  Please arrange room, etc. -- LBJ.' Postwar 
years

   After the war, Mr. Connally managed radio station KVET in Austin, from 
1946 to 1949, when he again served a few months as administrative aide to 
then-Sen. Johnson.  He was a member of an Austin law firm until 1952, 
when he made a move that bespoke a bright future.

   He became a lawyer for Fort Worth independent oil operators Sid W. 
Richardson and Perry R. Bass, an association that promised years of 
wealth and influence.

   In 1961, his naval wartime experience, underscored by Mr. Johnson, 
helped qualify Mr. Connally for a tour as President Kennedy's secretary 
of the Navy. He resigned the post after a few months to return to Texas, 
where he began his successful campaign for governor.

   He served three two-year terms as governor.

   Improvements in education and state services, development of water 
resources and a strong focus on tourism were the highlights of his 
administration.

   In his first term, Mr. Connally stressed educational excellence, 
economic development and tourism, and was successful in having many of 
his proposals adopted by the Texas Legislature.

   He focused on securing more state funding for education in his second 
term, and again he was fairly successful as Texas' economy boomed.

   His final term as governor saw teacher salaries increase and a 
revision in the state's criminal code.

   He stepped down in 1969 to become a partner in the powerful Houston 
law firm of Vinson & Elkins.

   Stunning appointment

   In late 1970, President Nixon stunned the political world by naming 
Mr. Connally his secretary of the treasury, a post he held for 15 months 
until his resignation in May 1972.

   Mr. Connally played a major role in the development of a dramatic 
series of economic proposals that Mr. Nixon unveiled in August 1971.

   They included a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents; measures to 
cut federal spending and taxes; and the establishment of a "floating' 
dollar in

                                                                       
PAGE   23                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


world markets that ended its historic dependence on the price of gold.

   After he returned to private life in 1972, he helped to mobilize 
Democratic support for Mr. Nixon in the 1972 campaign.  And after his 
conversion to the Republican Party, Mr. Nixon considered him as a 
possible choice for vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in a scandal 
in October 1973.

   But the prospect of strong Democratic opposition in Congress forced 
Mr. Nixon to turn instead to a more generally acceptable figure, House 
Republican Leader Gerald Ford, who became president when Mr. Nixon was 
forced to resign in the Watergate scandal.

   In recent years, Mr. Connally remained involved in politics, both on 
the national and local levels.

   He endorsed Bob Dole over George Bush in 1988, and commentators at the 
time cited the long rivalry between Mr. Connally and Mr. Bush.

   He also served as campaign chairman for former Houston Mayor Fred 
Hofheinz in his unsuccessful bid to unseat Mayor Kathy Whitmire in 1989.  
He was a fund-raiser for Mayor Bob  Lanier  in his successful bid to 
unseat Mrs. Whitmire in 1991.

   Mr. Connally was part of a coalition against zoning in Houston.

   Analysts say that, although it may be a tough fight, voters are likely 
to approve zoning this fall.

   Mr. Connally also served as chairman of the campaign to raise money 
for the Wortham Theater Center in the mid-1980s.

   Just before the Persian Gulf war began in 1990, Mr. Connally helped 
negotiate the release of 21 hostages held by Iraq.

   Besides his wife and three children, Mr. Connally is survived by four 
brothers, two sisters, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

   Staff writers Bruce Tomaso and Bruce Nichols in Houston, George 
Kuempel and Sam Attlesey in Austin, Carl P. Leubsdorf and Kathy Lewis in 
Washington, and Diane Jennings, Jacquielynn Floyd and Cheryl Hall in 
Dallas contributed to this report.

CORRECTION-DATE: June 17, 1993, Thursday, HOME FINAL EDITION

 CORRECTION: On Page 18A Wednesday, the caption with a photo of former 
Gov. John Connally and President Lyndon B. Johnson may have implied 
incorrectly that they were talking shortly after the assassination of Mr. 
Johnson's predecessor, John F. Kennedy. The photo was taken Jan. 5, 1964, 
more than a month after the assassination.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO(S): 1. John Connally . . . had been hospitalized since May 
17. 2. John Connally is sworn in as governor of Texas in 1963.  He serves 
three two-year terms, stepping down in 1969.  (DMN: file photo).  3. 
Newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson says goodbye to recuperating 
Gov. Connally before returning to Washington after the assassinaton of 
President John F. Kennedy.

                                                                       
PAGE   24                      THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, June 16, 1993                     


(Associated Press).  3. Mr. Connally and his wife, Nellie, in 1984.  
(DMN: file photo).  4. Gov. Connally in 1963 at the Southwest Exposition 
adn Fat Stock Show in Fort Worth.  (DMN: file photo).  5. Mr. Connally 
stands with his horse, Nellie's Kneesox, before a 1986 auction in his 
hometown of Floresville in which his horses were sold.  (DMN: file 
photo).  6. Gov. Connally rides with President John F. Kennedy and first 
lady Jacqueline Kennedy on the day of the president's assassination.  Mr. 
Connally was seriously wounded in the shooting. (Associated Press). 7. 
Already commissioned in the Naval Reserve when World War II begins, he 
distinguishes himself as a fighter direction officer aboard aircraft 
carriers in the Pacific in 1944-45. (DMN: file photo).  8. Mr. Connally 
talks with President John F. Kennedy in 1961 during his tenure as 
secretary of the Navy. (DMN: file photo).  9. Mr. Connally confers with 
President Richard Nixon before leaving on an around-the-world mission in 
June 1972. (Associated Press).  10. Mr. Connally wipes a tear at an 
auction on Jan. 22, 1988, in which he sold his assets to pay creditors 
after declaring bankruptcy.  (Associated Press). CHART(S): 1. Remembering 
John Connally.  2. Connally through the years