John Connally John Bowden Connally , Jr . ( February 27 , 1917June 15 , 1993 ) , was an American politician , serving as the 39th Governor of Texas , as Secretary of the Navy under President John F . Kennedy , and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M . Nixon . While he was Governor in 1963 , Connally was a passenger in the car in which President Kennedy was assassinated , and was seriously wounded during the shooting . Early life and education . Connally was born on February 27 , 1917 , into a large family in Floresville , the seat of Wilson County southeast of San Antonio . He was one of seven children born to Lela ( née Wright ) and John Bowden Connally , Sr . , a dairy and tenant farmer . At the time , Connally was among the few Floresville High School graduates who attended college . He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin , where he was the student body president and a member of the Friar Society . He subsequently graduated from the University of Texas School of Law and was admitted to the bar by examination . Military service . Connally served in the United States Navy during World War II , first as an aide to James V . Forrestal , then as part of the planning staff for the invasion of North Africa by General Dwight D . Eisenhower . He transferred to the South Pacific Theater , where he served with distinction . He was a fighter - plane director aboard the aircraft carrier USS " Essex " and won a Bronze Star for bravery . He was shifted to another " Essex " - class aircraft carrier , the USS " Bennington " and won a Legion of Merit . He was also involved in the campaigns in the Gilbert , Marshall , Ryukyu , and Philippine islands . He was discharged in 1946 at the rank of lieutenant commander . On his release from the Navy , Connally practiced law in the Alvin Wirtz law firm , until Lyndon Baines Johnson , then a newly elected senator , persuaded him to return to Washington , D . C . to serve as a key aide . He had close ties with Johnson before his navy days and maintained them till the president ' s death in 1973 . Lawyer for Sid Richardson . Two of Connally ' s principal legal clients were the Texas oil tycoon Sid W . Richardson and Perry Bass , Richardson ' s nephew and partner , both of Fort Worth . Richardson ' s empire at the time was estimated at $ 200 million to $ 1 billion . Under Richardson ' s tutelage , Connally gained experience in a variety of enterprises and received tips on real estate purchases . The work required the Connallys to relocate to Fort Worth . When Richardson died in 1959 , Connally was named to the lucrative position as co - executor of the estate . Connally was also involved in a reported clandestine deal to place the Texas Democrat Robert Anderson on the 1956 Republican ticket as vice president . Though the idea fell through when Dwight Eisenhower retained Richard Nixon in the second slot , Anderson received a million dollars for his efforts and a subsequent appointment as treasury secretary , the same position that Connally would fill for Nixon fourteen years later in 1971 . Moreover , in another irony , Anderson had been Eisenhower ' s first Navy secretary , the post that Connally filled for John F . Kennedy in 1961 . From Navy Secretary to Governor . At the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles , Connally led supporters of Senator Lyndon Johnson . He claimed that John F . Kennedy , if nominated and elected , would be unable to serve as president for a full term because of Addison ' s disease and dependence on cortisone . Kennedy , however , had wrapped up the needed delegates for nomination before the convention even opened . Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of traditional Southern Democrats , most of whom had backed Johnson . Therefore , Johnson was offered the vice - presidential nomination . Secretary of the Navy . At Johnson ' s request , in 1961 President Kennedy named Connally Secretary of the Navy . Connally resigned eleven months later to run for the Texas governorship . He had managed one of the largest employers in the world , as the Navy had more than 600 , 000 in uniform and 650 , 000 civilian workers , stationed at 222 bases in the United States and 53 abroad . It had a budget of $ 14 billion . Connally directed the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea on a new kind of " gunboat diplomacy . " The landed in Naples , Italy , and brought gifts to children in an orphanage . Connally ordered gifts also to a hospital in Cannes , France , which treated children with bone diseases ; to poor Greek children on the island of Rhodes ; and for spastic children in Palermo , Italy . Presents were also sent to Turkish children in Cyprus and to a camp in Beirut for homeless Palestinian refugee s . The Bay of Pigs incident occurred under his watch . Connally fought hard to protect the Navy ' s role in the national space program , having vigorously opposed assigning most space research to the United States Air Force . " Time magazine " magazine termed Connally ' s year as Navy secretary " a first - rate appointment . " Critics noted , however , that the brevity of Connally ' s tenure precluded any sustained or comprehensive achievements . Running for governor . Connally announced two weeks before Christmas of 1961 that he was leaving the position of Navy secretary to return to Texas to seek the 1962 Democratic gubernatorial nomination . He would have to compete against the incumbent Marion Price Daniel , Sr . , who was running for a fourth consecutive two - year term . Daniel was in political trouble following the enactment of a two - cent state sales tax in 1961 , which had soured many voters on his administration . Daniel had let the tax become law without his signature but could have vetoed the measure . Former state Attorney General Will Wilson , who had run for the U . S . Senate seat vacated by Lyndon B . Johnson in 1961 , also entered the gubernatorial campaign and was particularly critical of Johnson , whom he claimed engineered Connally ' s candidacy . Other primary candidates were highway commissioner Marshall Formby of Plainview , another party conservative , and General Edwin A . Walker , who made anti - communism the centerpiece of his campaign . Connally waged the most active campaign of any of the Democrats , having traveled more than 22 , 000 miles across the state . He made forty - three major speeches and appeared on multiple statewide and local telecasts . Connally ran as a conservative Democrat . He was placed in a primary runoff election against the liberal attorney from Houston favored by organized labor , Don Yarborough , no relation to Connally ' s long - term party nemesis U . S . Senator Ralph W . Yarborough . After winning the runoff against Yarborough by a close vote , Connally faced a determined bid by the conservative Republican and oilfield equipment executive Jack Cox , also of Houston . Cox , a former state representative from his native Stephens County , had run unsuccessfully two years earlier in the Democratic primary against Daniel . Connally received 847 , 036 ballots ( 54 percent ) to Cox ' s 715 , 025 ( 45 . 6 percent ) . In the campaign , Connally made an issue of Cox ' s switching to the Republican Party ( GOP ) the previous year . Eleven years later , Connally made the same switch . Cox , as it turned out , was the strongest Republican gubernatorial candidate in Texas since 1924 . Not until 1972 , when Henry Grover carried the GOP banner , did the Republicans make a better showing for governor . Connally was a master campaign professional , having worked on several campaigns of Lyndon Johnson . He believed in the entourage and advance men , the practice of having staff aides checking out events and having press interviews on the run to demonstrate Connally ' s heavy schedule of commitments . Biographer Charles Ashman claims that Connally would have aides telephone airports which he would shortly visit and ask to page him for an urgent message . Such manipulation , he believed , impressed airport patrons , many of whom would also be Texas voters . Governor of Texas . Connally served as governor from 1963 – 1969 . In the campaigns of 1962 and 1966 , Connally defeated weak Republican challenges offered by Jack Crichton , a Dallas oil industrialist , and Thomas Everton Kennerly , Sr . ( 1903 – 2000 ) , of Houston , respectively . He prevailed with margins of 73 . 8 percent and 72 . 8 percent , respectively , giving him greater influence with the nearly all - Democratic legislature . Connally was governor during a time of great expansion of higher education in Texas . He signed into law the creation of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board . He appointed regents who backed the entry of women into previously all - male Texas A & M University in College Station , having been prompted to take such action by State Senator William T . " Bill " Moore of Bryan , who in 1953 had first proposed the admission of women to the institution . In 1965 , Connally appointed Speaker Byron M . Tunnell to the Texas Railroad Commission , upon the retirement of 32 - year veteran Ernest O . Thompson , a former mayor of Amarillo . This appointment enabled the future Connally business associate Ben Barnes of De Leon in Comanche County to succeed Tunnell and become the youngest Speaker in Texas history . On August 1 , 1966 , Charles Joseph Whitman , perched from the University of Texas Tower in Austin , fired at people on the grounds and the surrounding community for more than ninety minutes . Governor Connally assembled a commission which determined that Whitman had been suffering from a glioblastoma brain tumor , amphetamine abuse , and family troubles . All of the preceding issues contributed to the killing of sixteen on the campus and the wounding of many others . Whitman also killed his wife and mother in the early morning hours of August 1 . He was killed by Houston McCoy , a former officer of the Austin Police Department . As governor , Connally promoted HemisFair ' 68 , the world ' s fair held in San Antonio , he believed would net the state an additional $ 12 million in direct taxes . A permanent Institute of Texan Cultures museum was an outgrowth of the fair . It was designed to be " a dramatic showcase , not only to Texans , but to all the world , of the host of diverse peoples from many lands whose blood and dreams built our state . " During the Vietnam War , Connally hawkishly urged Lyndon B . Johnson to " finish " the engagement by any military means necessary . Johnson , however , was more moderate in his conduct of the war than the hawkish Connally advised . There was some talk of Connally being selected as Hubert Humphrey ' s running mate in 1968 , but the liberal Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine was instead chosen . Connally endorsed Humphrey and greeted the nominee at the Fort Worth airport and even reconciled for a month with intraparty rival Ralph Yarborough . Ashman , however , claims that Connally was " privately helping Nixon , recruiting a number of influential Texans , members of both parties , to work for the Republican candidate . " Ben Barnes recounts a story that Connally shouted at Hubert Humphrey in a private meeting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and accused the vice president of being disloyal to President Johnson by trying to soft - pedal Johnson ' s position regarding Vietnam . Barnes said that the " tongue - lashing " Connally gave Humphrey was " an epic . . . He orally spanked that man as hard as I ' ve ever seen anyone chastised . He either strengthened Hubert ' s backbone , or gave him some , or scared him half to death . " Connally was succeeded as governor by Lieutenant Governor Preston Smith , a theater owner from Lubbock , who twice defeated the Republican attorney Paul Eggers in 1968 and 1970 . Eggers , a friend and later associate of Republican Senator John G . Tower , served as general counsel in the Treasury Department from 1969 – 1970 , before Connally joined the Nixon Cabinet . Kennedy assassination . On November 22 , 1963 , Connally was seriously wounded while riding in President Kennedy ' s car at Dealey Plaza in Dallas when the president was assassinated . He recovered from wounds in his chest , wrist and thigh . The ten - month investigation by the Warren Commission of 1963 – 1964 concluded that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman . Connally did not dispute this conclusion but did for the rest of his life question the single bullet theory . Warren Commission exhibit CE 1891 states that Mrs . Virginia Hale of Fortune Road , employed in the Fort Worth office of the Texas Employment Commission , sent Lee Harvey Oswald to a job location at the Leslie Welding Company in July 1962 . Robert Allen Hale ( son of Virginia and FBI agent Insall Bailey " I . B . " Hale ) had previously been cleared by a coroner ' s jury in Florida of responsibility related to the April 1959 shooting death of Connally ' s teenaged daughter ( Kathleen Connally Hale ) . Robert Hale and Kathleen Connally Hale had been married 44 days at the time of her death . Secretary of the Treasury . In 1971 , Republican President Nixon appointed the then Democrat Connally as Treasury Secretary . Before agreeing to take the appointment , however , Connally told Nixon that the president must find a position in the administration for George H . W . Bush , the Republican who had been defeated in November 1970 in a hard - fought U . S . Senate race against Democrat Lloyd M . Bentsen . Connally told Nixon that his taking the Treasury post would embarrass Bush , who had " labored in the vineyards " for Nixon ' s election as president , while Connally had supported Humphrey . Ben Barnes , then the lieutenant governor and originally a Connally ally , claims in his autobiography that Connally ' s insistence saved Bush ' s political career because the then former U . S . representative and twice - defeated Senate candidate relied on appointed offices to build a resume by which to seek the presidency in 1980 and again in 1988 . Nixon hence named Bush as ambassador to the United Nations in order to secure Connally ' s services at Treasury . Barnes also said that he doubted George W . Bush could have become president in 2001 had Bush ' s father not first been given the string of federal appointments during the 1970s to strengthen the family ' s political viability . Shortly after taking the Treasury post , Connally famously told a group of European finance ministers worried about the export of American inflation that the dollar " is our currency , but your problem . " Secretary Connally defended a $ 50 billion increase in the debt ceiling and a $ 35 to $ 40 billion budget deficit as an essential " fiscal stimulus " at a time when five million Americans were unemployed . He unveiled Nixon ' s program of raising the price of gold and formally devaluing the dollar — finally leaving the old gold standard entirely , a process begun in 1934 by Franklin D . Roosevelt . Prices continued to increase during 1971 , and Nixon allowed wage and price guidelines , which Congress had authorized on a stand - by basis , to be implemented . Connally later shied away from his role in recommending the failed wage and price controls , and announced guaranteed loans for the ailing Lockheed aircraft company . He also fought a lonely battle against growing balance - of - payment problems with the nation ' s trading partners , and undertook important foreign diplomatic trips for Nixon through his role as Treasury Secretary . Historian Bruce Schulman wrote that Nixon was " awed " by the handsome , urbane Texan who was also a tough political fighter . Schulman added that Henry Kissinger , Nixon ' s National Security Advisor , noted that Connally was the only cabinet member that Nixon did not disparage behind his back , and that this was high praise indeed . Democrats for Nixon . Connally stepped down as treasury secretary in 1972 to head " Democrats for Nixon " , a group funded by Republicans . Connally ' s old mentor , Lyndon Johnson , stood behind Democratic presidential nominee George S . McGovern of South Dakota , although McGovern had long opposed Johnson ' s foreign and defense policies . It was the first time that Connally and Johnson were on opposite sides of a general election campaign . Connally ' s brother , Golfrey Connally , an economics professor at a junior college in San Antonio , also endorsed McGovern . Some evidence even suggests that Connally was " privately " for Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 , instead of the Democratic candidate Adlai E . Stevenson of Illinois , for whom Johnson campaigned with considerable loyalty . During the war , Connally had served on Eisenhower ' s planning staff for the invasion of North Africa . In the 1972 U . S . Senate election in Texas , Connally endorsed the Democratic Harold Barefoot Sanders , later a federal judge from Dallas , rather than the Republican incumbent John G . Tower , also of Dallas . Connally had considered running against Tower in 1966 , but chose to run for a third term as governor . Tower then defeated a Connally ally , state Attorney General Waggoner Carr of Lubbock . Tower , Nixon ' s choice in the Senate race , won handily over Sanders , but the Republican candidate for governor , Henry Grover of Houston , a victim of intraparty maneuvering , fell short and lost to Democrat Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde , a city in South Texas . In January 1973 , Lyndon Johnson died of heart disease . He and Connally had been friends since 1938 . Connally took part in eulogizing Johnson during interment services at the LBJ Ranch in Gillespie County , along with the Rev . Billy Graham , who officiated at the service . Millions around the world viewed Connally ' s eulogy as the most famous moment of the LBJ funeral , as it was a reminder that Connally was wounded in the assassination that made his mentor and fellow Texan president . Switching parties . In May 1973 , Connally joined the Republican Party . When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned five months later because of scandal , Connally was one of Nixon ' s potential choices to fill the vacancy . Nixon tapped Gerald Rudolph Ford , Jr . , the House Minority Leader from Grand Rapids , Michigan , because he believed that the moderate Ford could be easily confirmed by both houses of Congress , as required by the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution . A Connally nomination presumably could have been blocked by liberal Democratic opposition . The weakened Nixon did not want a fight for the vice - presidential selection . Connally ' s party bolt left a sour taste in the mouth of at least one prominent Texas Democrat who stood with George McGovern in 1972 : Bob Bullock , the Hillsboro native who served as Texas secretary of state , comptroller and lieutenant governor : " . . . I got some ideas on Mr . Connally . He ain ' t never done nothin ' but get shot in Dallas . He got the silver bullet . He needs to come back here and get hisself shot once every six months . I attack Connally on his vanity . He ' s terribly bad vain , y ' know . . . " In 1975 , Connally was accused of pocketing $ 10 , 000 for influencing a milk price decision by Texas lawyer Jake Jacobsen . At his trial , he called as character witnesses Jackie Kennedy , Lady Bird Johnson , Barbara Jordan ( the first African American woman state senator in Texas history ) , Dean Rusk , Robert McNamara , and Billy Graham . Connally was acquitted . Running for President . Connally announced in January 1979 that he would seek the Republican nomination for President in 1980 . He was considered a great orator and strong leader and was featured on the cover of " Time " with the heading " Hot on the Trail " . His wheeler - dealer image remained a liability . Connally raised more money than any other candidate , but he was never able to overtake the popular conservative front runner Ronald Reagan of California . Connally spent his money nationally , while George H . W . Bush , who was from Houston like Connally , targeted his time and money in early states and won the Iowa caucus . The Houston political activist Clymer Wright rejected both Connally and Bush and served as Reagan ' s finance chairman in Texas . Bush ' s status as a challenger to Reagan was at first heightened by his victory in Iowa . Connally drew the backing of Republican State Representative Fred Agnich of Dallas , former president of Texas Instruments . Connally focused on South Carolina , an early primary state in which he had the support of popular U . S . Senator Strom Thurmond , but he lost there to Reagan 55 to 30 percent and withdrew from the contest . After spending $ 11 million during the campaign , Connally secured the support of only a single delegate , Ada Mills of Clarksville , Arkansas , who became nationally known for a brief time as the " $ 11 million delegate " . Connally quickly endorsed Reagan , appeared with the former governor at the Dallas - Fort Worth Airport , and helped Reagan to win a narrow primary victory over Bush in Texas . Connally said that he and Bush despised each other . The statement seemed to contradict Connally ' s earlier insistence that President Nixon name Bush to a post in the administration as a pre - condition for Connally ' s agreeing to become treasury secretary . Rumors also abounded in 1964 that Connally personally voted for Bush for senator because of his greater dislike for Bush ' s then opponent , Senator Ralph Yarborough . Bad feeling between Yarborough and both Connally and Vice - President Johnson was evident in the early stages of President Kennedy ' s tour of Texas in November 1963 . Among other things , it was widely reported at the time that Yarborough had refused to travel in Johnson ' s car , although , after Kennedy ' s intervention and Connally ' s agreement to give Yarborough a more prominent role in functions planned for Austin , he did so during the fatal motorcade in Dallas . Charles Keating once contributed to Connally ' s campaign for President . Later years . In 1986 , Connally filed for bankruptcy as a result of a string of business losses in Houston . In December 1990 , Connally and Oscar Wyatt , chairman of the Coastal Oil Corporation , met with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq . Hussein had been holding foreigners as hostages ( or " guests " as Hussein called them ) at strategic military sites in Iraq . After the meeting , Hussein agreed to release the hostages . Connally was known as an immaculate dresser who wore expensive and stylish suits wherever he went . Biographer Charles Ashman related a story about Connally ' s carrying a cigarette lighter in his pocket and lighting cigarettes as a courtesy only for very wealthy men who might be inclined to contribute to his political causes or retain him as a consultant on business arrangements . In one of his last political acts , Connally endorsed then Republican U . S . Representative Jack Fields of Houston in the special election called in May 1993 to fill the vacancy left by U . S . Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Houston . Bentsen was appointed Treasury Secretary in the new administration of Bill Clinton . Fields finished fourth in the special election and left Congress thereafter . Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison , for whom Connally ' s daughter had been employed in the state treasurer ' s office , won the seat by a wide margin in the special election runoff against the appointed Democratic Senator Robert Krueger . Death . Connally died on June 15 , 1993 of pulmonary fibrosis , a progressive scarring of the lungs . His funeral was held at the First United Methodist Church of Austin where he and his wife , Nellie Connally , had been members since their days living one block to the south in the Texas Governors Mansion , 1963 – 1969 . Former President Nixon left the bedside of his wife , Pat Nixon , who died a week later , and flew to Austin to attend Connally ' s funeral . His wife Nellie died in 2006 . The Connallys are interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin . I - Interstate 410 in San Antonio is named the Connally Loop in his honor . The Connally Memorial Medical Center in Floresville is named for John , Wayne , and Merrill Connally . The John Connally Unit of the Texas Corrections Department south of Kenedy in Karnes County is named in his honor . There is also a Connally Plaza , with a life - sized statue of Connally , in downtown Houston . The Texas A & M University System Offices , located in College Station , are housed in a building named in his honor . John B . Connally High School , part of Pflugerville ISD in Austin , is also named in his honor .