Phil Nelson’s CV, with testimonials from fellow researchers, authors and colleagues:
“Phillip Nelson’s research [in the book on Martin Luther King’s assassination] about Johnson’s collaboration and his support of the profoundly illegal and evil, public actions of J. Edgar Hoover fills in many blanks and is a highly valuable historical contribution. [Nelson] has also provided us with some missing valuable historical information about the complicated actions of Lyndon Johnson in the context of events in the 1960’s.”
~ Dr. William F. Pepper, long-time researcher of the JFK, RFK and MLK murders, and author of three books – the latest: The Plot to Kill King (2016)
“Your book re Dr. King’s assassination [Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King Jr. — The Case Against Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover] presents a powerful argument. Very well done. I have always stated that the James Earl Ray scenario too was a well-orchestrated set-up”.
~ Dr. Cyril Wecht, formerly the Allegheny County (PA) Medical Examiner and forensic pathologist who has examined the evidence and testified in many cases of celebrity deaths, including most notably of John F. Kennedy’s.
“Phil Nelson is one of the few JFK assassination researchers who understands that the epicenter of the conspiracy (and cover up) to murder JFK resides in ‘a cozy little town called Dallas.’ It is amazing what he has compiled about Lyndon Johnson and his cronies and underlings without the benefit of decades of personal connections to the witnesses and Texas insiders. While we possess some differences on some issues, I have often referred to us as bookends regarding the Texas axis of the Kennedy conspiracy.”
~ Edgar F. Tatro, veteran JFK researcher, featured on The Guilty Men
“[Phil Nelson has written] a stunning indictment of the dark forces that subverted the republic through an unspeakable act of treachery by Lyndon B. Johnson.”
~ Gerald D. McKnight, PhD, author of Breach of Trust and The Last Crusade
“Nelson reviews a massive amount of secondary sources to support his own hypothesis that the mastermind behind the assassination was then-VP Lyndon Johnson. LBJ’s position as Kennedy’s successor and “narcissistic/sociopathic personality,” combined with his fear of a Kennedy plan to remove him from the upcoming 1964 ticket, form the basis of Nelson’s conjecture. He dismisses the Warren Commission review of the evidence as a cover-up, stating that “it has become more and more apparent that much of the evidence originally put forward … was invented or modified.”
~ Publisher’s Weekly (12/05/2011)
“Keen-eyed readers will notice that the author’s argument ultimately rests on a simple assertion: LBJ was the only person who could possibly arrange JFK’s assassination, so therefore. axiomatically. he did it. If you buy that, the rest of the author’s arguments flow (mostly) logically; if you don’t, well, the book is still a fascinating read, full of some very clever creative thinking. Nelson definitely hasn’t proven LBJ’s guilt, but he’s built an intriguing and thought-provoking case.”
~ Booklist Review – David Pitt
“[Remember the Liberty!] by Mr. Nelson provides the most plausible explanation for why the attack occurred and why our government to this day refuses to conduct an official investigation into the attack. I commend Mr. Nelson for his excellent work and hope that every person reading this book will recognize that the Government still hasn’t told you the whole story behind the attack on the USS LIBERTY. There is but one most plausible reason for our government to continue to conduct this massive cover-up that has gone on for now over five decades, as this book demonstrates: That has to be because President Johnson was directly involved – not just in withholding military support from the Sixth Fleet during the attack, and conducting the brutal cover-up afterwards – but in the planning and execution of the attack well before the actual attack occurred. That fact was proven by what Captain McGonagle told Lt George Golden shortly before he died, that ‘(it was) the President and (Robert) McNamara – that he had straight information, through Fort Meade (NSA), that when they sent us up from over in Africa, we were there to have this happen’.”
~ Larry L. Bowen, survivor of the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.
“This book [LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination] is very comprehensive about Lyndon Johnson as related to the JFK assassination. It is a well written book, easy to read, and exhaustive in its summations of the scores of other writers on this profoundly disturbing time in history. I strongly recommend this book. Nelson explains why so many of us held back and gave LBJ the benefit of the doubt when we knew in our hearts how bad he was.”
~ Noel Twyman, author “Bloody Treason“
“LBJ-The Mastermind is a Masterpiece. . . beautifully written. . . Brilliant and pivotal, bringing coherence to our understanding . . . From first chapter to last, this is a beautifully written, intellectually captivating, and ultimately persuasive account of the role of LBJ in the assassination of JFK.”
~ James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., author/editor of three major works on the JFK assassination: Assassination Science (1997), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003).
“The American people have a right to know the facts of our own history. We have the right to know who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. We have a right to know if our government was involved. If it was, we have Phil Nelson to thank for shining some light on that awful crime [edited copy].”
~ John Kiriakou, former CIA officer and former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
“As far as I’m concerned [Phil Nelson’s] exposure of “Operation Cyanide” is the smoking gun in the case against LBJ for his role in the execution of JFK. If Johnson was criminally insane enough to conspire to send to “the bottom” a US Navy ship with all hands as well as nuke millions of residents of Cairo, why would he not conspire to kill the man in the way of his ambition to be president. And you have certainly proved Johnson was indeed criminally insane by the strictest definition of the term.
[ . . . ]
And you deserve a Presidential Medal of Honor for your work in closing a fifty plus year cold case. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your hard work.”
~ Tom Cahill, Oswald Innocent Campaign — Cluny, France
“Whether it’s the JFK assassination or the 1967 attack by Israeli Defence Forces on the USS Liberty, by building on the important work of other authors, Phil Nelson has earned himself a well-deserved reputation as a discerning seeker and curator of the real truth behind these seminal events in U.S. history. His new book on the 1968 assassination of Dr Martin Luther King is sure to enhance that reputation. A timely update on the circumstances surrounding his death, and a welcome corrective to the official narrative, Nelson’s book is an indispensable read in this the 50th anniversary of his murder.”
~ Greg Maybury, Editor, poxamerikana.com — Perth, Australia
“Phillip Nelson establishes that James Earl Ray was railroaded as a patsy to divert attention away from men in the highest councils of government who ordered the murder of Dr. King. No honest assassination investigator can fail to come to terms with Nelson’s work. Nelson’s analysis of Operation MK-ULTRA, as it may explain elements of Ray’s behavior, is fascinating. He has also significantly contributed to our understanding of Raoul, the shadowy figure who was Ray’s handler for nine months prior to the assassination of Dr. King.”
~ John Avery Emison, author The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-up: The Railroading of James Earl Ray.
“I represented two disparate clients who never knew one another but who both claimed LBJ killed JFK. They were E. Howard Hunt, Watergate and JFK assassination conspirator, and Billie Sol Estes, LBJ’s bagman and silent business partner. Phillip F. Nelson in his first book convincingly marshaled the evidence that LBJ did in fact kill JFK. The [“Colossus”] sequel book proves once LBJ achieved his goal of being president, his administration became rife with hypocrisy, criminality, and corruption.”
~ Douglas Caddy, attorney, member of the Texas and District of Columbia Bars, author of Watergate Exposed and Being There: Eyewitness to History.
“After absorbing Phillip Nelson’s damning evidence against Lyndon B. Johnson, principled citizens may demand his name be stricken from all public works.”
~ Jim Marrs, New York Times bestselling author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy and numerous other books.
“Phil Nelson has led the way for a more accurate reappraisal of our thirty-sixth president, and the results are shocking. Nelson nails it.”
~ Roger Stone, New York Times bestselling author
“Phil Nelson has applied brilliantly the intelligence he has developed over the years, from researching the JFK assassination, to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Finally, we have a detailed and convincing analysis of the role Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover played orchestrating Martin Luther King’s murder — a murder that, like JFK’s assassination, opened a dark Deep State chapter in American history that we are only now beginning to appreciate, hopefully to move beyond. For decades, the mainstream media and conventional historians have covered up LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover’s role in killing two of the greatest political heroes in American history. After Phil Nelson’s book, this will no longer be possible.”
~ Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. Washington D.C. bureau chief of InfoWars and author of New York Times bestsellers The Obama Nation and Unfit for Command
“Outstanding! Nelson has written a book for the ages that apologist LBJ historians cannot possibly ignore unless they purposely choose to . . . for the truth hurts: LBJ wrecked the 1960s. In short, Nelson succeeds where others fail through sheer tenacity and a will to expose LBJ for what he is: the most corrupt president we have ever had. Bravo!”
~ Vince Palamara, author of Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy
“Thanks to this book [Remember the Liberty!], those who care about such things can learn what actually happened 50 years ago: (1) On June 8, 1967 Israel attempted to sink the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty and leave no survivors . . . (2) The US cover-up taught the Israelis that they could literally get away with murder . . . (3) As part of an unconscionable government cover-up, the Navy threatened to court martial and imprison any survivor who so much as told his wife what had actually happened. (This, incidentally, put steroids to the PTSD suffered by many of the survivors.) . . . This book makes a huge contribution toward those worthy ends.”
~ Ray McGovern, ex-CIA analyst, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. He co-created “VIPS” (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) to expose how intelligence was falsified to “justify” the war on Iraq. In due course (2008) the Senate Intelligence Committee acknowledged and affirmed Ray McGovern’s charges, stating: “In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even non-existent.” As Mr. McGovern wrote on his website: “In sum, the ‘intelligence’ was not mistaken, it was out-an-out fraud.” (My emphasis)
David Martin, blogging as “DCDave” in 2014 wrote Lyndon Johnson, Sinister ‘Colossus’, as a review of my second book, LBJ: From ‘Mastermind’ to The Colossus. A short excerpt from that complete essay follows:
“With his unblinking second look at the purely evil deeds of which Lyndon Johnson was capable with his reign of terror in Texas, Nelson stands out from the more mainstream biographers such as Robert Caro and Robert Dallek, no matter how comprehensive, unvarnished, and even negative their portraits of the man might seem. This groundwork is essential for understanding the further evils that LBJ perpetrated with respect to the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, and the Six Day War.
Peter J. Reilly, a recognized foremost expert on “all things TAXes” whose website includes miscellaneous other things that he has found to be notably “interesting,” published, as a series of six essays, a review of my LBJ: From Mastermind to the Colossus, in 2015 (one of which can be read at the embedded link by clicking that title; the others can be navigated from there within his website). Mr. Reilly also has a very large following from his regular column on Forbes.com.
Until someone pointed this out to me, on October 1, 2021, I was not aware of it, but since it is an interesting review by a very influential observer, I decided to include it here.
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF PHILLIP F. NELSON, SKIPPING OVER HIS FIRST HALF-CENTURY, THE LAST THREE DECADES OF WHICH WERE SPENT IN A CORPORATE CAREER REQUIRING HIM TO PUT HIS INTEREST IN RESEARCHING THE JFK ASSASSINATION “ON THE SHELF.”
Or, how and why Phil Nelson morphed, from Econ Major / Insurance Corp. Officer background, into a revisionist historian / researcher, writing about LBJ, his least-favorite president (and person, for that matter).
Phil Nelson’s interest in the darker character traits of Lyndon B. Johnson began well before John F. Kennedy’s assassination. At age 16, while still in high school, he was intrigued by articles about Johnson that had appeared sporadically in newspapers and magazines beginning in 1961-62, related to a number of Johnson’s connections to scandals in Texas and Washington, DC. The first of those stories, just one month after the inauguration of the Kennedy-Johnson administration, became the first of many instances that revealed the darker side of LBJ’s persona.
In February, 1961 there was a mysterious crash of an airplane on LBJ’s ranch that killed the two pilots; the first enigma was that the story had been suppressed for four days before it was reported in the news. It took three more years for all the facts of the crashed airplane to finally dribble out: In 1964, author J. Evetts Haley wrote a best selling book titled A Texan Looks at Lyndon which revealed (among his many other treacheries noted) that Johnson had ordered the pilots to pick him up at his ranch when heavy fog had settled in — to the point that they repeatedly tried to refuse to land on his runway since it wasn’t equipped for instrument-guided landings. According to author Haley – based upon testimony of the Austin flight controllers who heard it from the pilots – “Johnson is said to have exploded, venting his profanity upon the pilot, demanding to know ‘what do you think I’m paying you for?’ and again ordering him to ‘get that plane’ to the ranch.” Finally, afraid to risk their jobs if they persisted, they overflew the area at very low altitude, attempting to locate the runway and crashed into a cedar grove on the top of a nearby hill, killing both of them instantly.
As noted in the Mastermind book, ” . . . [LBJ’s] reckless disregard for the safety of the pilots, when their caution impinged on his need to pursue his own criminal conduct [he wanted to fly to Midland, Texas, to meet with his partner in crime, Billie Sol Estes, to personally warn him to keep his lips sealed], illustrates his abject arrogance better than any words could possibly convey.”
The following year, 1962, for a six month period beginning in late March and continuing until a internationally-reported trial in September, the air was filled — with radio and television coverage, newspaper and magazine reportage, lively conversations in practically every barbershop, bar and restaurant in the nation — with talk about the Billie Sol Estes scandal that cast dark shadows on the Kennedy administration, all due to the Vice President’s involvement (despite the fact that was not generally mentioned in those broadcasts, newspapers or magazine articles because of unstated fears of reprisal; yet it was intrinsically the key reason the story became national and international news, rather than merely an item for West Texas news outlets).
And, in the year after that, 1963, another equally-sensationalized news story involving Johnson’s even more criminally-insidious financial and influence-peddling, mob-related crimes, collectively known as the “Bobby Baker Scandal,” took over where Billie Sol’s left off.
Even at age 16, it seemed to Nelson that there was a dark cloud over the Vice President that eventually became an intrinsic part of Johnson’s persona and countenance. That was largely due to the fact that in each and every new scandal case, the reports seemed to leave more questions than answers.
Nelson was eighteen years old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Through the initial shock and immediate aftermath, he wanted to believe the government’s case against Lee Harvey Oswald, the “malcontent/lone nut,” because the alternatives were too frightening to ponder. Yet he knew that there were many questions about the new President Lyndon Johnson’s enigmatic past which had been previously reported, with more coming during the 1964 election cycle, including stories of corruption in national magazines like Look, LIFE, Newsweek, TIME and Colliers during 1963 and the aforementioned 1964 book A Texan Looks at Lyndon.
It wasn’t until Nelson retired from his corporate officer insurance (and subsequent business ownership) career in 2003 – after seeing the three new episodes in November of that year of the History Channel series, “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” – that he became actively involved in conducting his own research into that “cold case.” The last of this trio, The Guilty Men, was the most stunning video he had ever seen, and it made him realize that researchers appearing in that video – led by the iconoclastic Edgar F. Tatro, having tracked the case since the mid-1960s – were finally revealing truths about Lyndon B. Johnson as none had ever done before. That video led Nelson to begin conducting more research into Johnson’s rise in politics and the increasingly bold and brazen criminal actions that defined his career.
Following a few more years of research, the idea for a book grew during the 2006-2007 period and for the next three years, as a new avocation permitted by his retirement, he began compiling the notes he had made while reading the dozens of books and research papers already written on Johnson. That culminated in the publication of LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination in 2010, originally self-published but, shortly afterwards, an official from Skyhorse Publishing offered to publish it; an agreement was reached and after a re-editing process, a revised edition was published in 2011. A “sequel” was published in 2014, LBJ: From Mastermind to The Colossus — The Lies, Treachery and Treasons Continue, including much new material never previously published, tracing Johnson’s ruinous presidency and his serial criminal acts throughout that tumultuous period.
The third book, Remember the Liberty! – Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, was published in 2017, the fiftieth anniversary of the June 8, 1967 attack, by TrineDay Publishing. Nelson was assisted by three survivors of that attack – Ernie Gallo, Ron Kukal and Phil Tourney – who co-authored much of the book with their personal stories of the treachery they experienced, and how, for fifty years, they have been fighting the government to get the real story presented. It is a story of treason on the high seas, the direct result of disgraceful presidential treasons of the highest order: Lyndon Johnson plotted to have his own ship sunk, and all 294 men on board to go down with it, all for what he perceived would be his ticket to another landslide election the following year.
The Liberty book has earned the interest of a number of international news organizations, including this latest example:
The fourth book, Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King? The Case Against Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, (2018 — softcover 2020 with new Foreword by Edgar F. Tatro and new Afterword by author) reexamine the original governmental case against James Earl Ray. The government’s case (specifically, the FBI, D.O.J. and HSCA “investigations” and reports) was, incredibly, based mostly upon the early magazine articles and book written by the famed “checkbook journalist” and novelist William Bradford Huie (as demonstrated by how the 1977-78 HSCA report, and the D.O.J. reviews, cited Huie’s largely fabricated works). Nelson’s book conclusively establishes that Huie was commissioned by the FBI, – evidently, as detailed within the book – in advance of Dr. King’s assassination to write those articles and book, based upon made-up “facts” cunningly shaped to “frame” James Earl Ray, the “stalker” who never was.
Numerous lies made by Huie in 1969-70 – which he incorrectly assumed would never be discovered because he presumed they would become more well hidden with each passing year from the truths that existed in old newspaper articles – have been completely exposed within the pages of this book for the first time: Huie had no reason to expect that something called the “internet” would eventually lay them bare. This discovery, detailed within the book – and many other newly-found true facts and old lies, collectively exposed for the first time – can be called the “Rosetta Stone” that solves the 50-year-old case, and is the “Centerpiece” of the book.
This article, titled “LBJ vs. MLK: The truth about Johnson’s twisted approach to civil rights,” was published in Salon magazine on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, in April 2018, based upon excerpts from the book.
The article, “LBJ vs. MLK: The Truth about Johnson’s Twisted Approach to Civil Rights,” explains how Lyndon Johnson’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s short “collaboration” in 1965 was merely the result of the temporary alignment of their completely separate objectives: their few conversations were of the “walking on eggshells” type, each afraid to discuss their real goals because they knew that there was nothing else they had in common with each other.
The book examines the behind-the-scenes hidden story of how the plot was created: It was the result of a long-term plan crafted by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, with President Lyndon Johnson’s active blessing, begun over three years before the murder of King. The plan had been botched when Ray suddenly left the scene just before the murder; had he remained in place, as instructed, he would have been killed by a policeman assigned to that task. When he escaped to Atlanta, Toronto and Europe, the plan had to be improvised to put him through a faux legal process. To this day, most people presume that James Earl Ray – who was “tricked” into a guilty plea – was the assassin, but he was always oblivious to Dr. King’s travels and, as the plotters knew, he would have never been convicted of the murder if he had been given a fair trial. Ergo, that was the last thing that the plotters could allow to happen and, in one of the most delicate, secretive and enigmatic maneuvers of a lengthy series, LBJ’s long-time friend, Houston attorney Percy Foreman was enlisted and insinuated into action as Ray’s attorney to ensure that he would remain locked up for the rest of his life.
LBJ: Master of Deceit 