" And if there was nothing at the end of the Dallas canyon but empty sky , what , the observer might have asked , would there be for him at the end of that five - year - long canyon ; what would there be at the end if he stayed on as Vice President ? And in five years , Bobby Kennedy would have had five more years to build up a record . He would have had five years to hold other positions besides attorney general : secretary of Defense , perhaps -- whatever positions he wanted , in the last analysis . And could Lyndon Johnson realistically believe , after watching the rapport between John Kennedy and his brother , that if President Kennedy had to chose between him and his brother to be his successor , he would choose Lyndon Johnson ? Observing Lyndon's Johnson's life one might have wondered if what was waiting for him at the end of the Vice Presidency , in that empty space at the end of it , was only that slight , hunched figure he had long hated and now had learned to fear ? "
"And what if his Vice Presidency was not five years longer , but only one ? What if he was dropped from the ticket in 1964 ? "
" He had been saying for some time -- had apparently convinced himself -- that that was indeed the probability . That belief -- that fear -- may , or may not , have been justified before the call to Copenhagen , before Bobby Baker had been on magazine cover after magazine cover , before the name of Don Reynolds had entered the picture ; and before this trip to Texas . Given that the president was seeing for himself in Texas , given what was happening at that very moment in the Senate Office Building , the President's assurances that he would be on the ticket might start to have a hollow ring indeed . Whether he had another term as Vice President or not , Lyndon Johnson's prospects may indeed have justified the adjective he had been applying to them : ' FINISHED . ' "
*********************************************************
" There was a sharp , cracking sound . "