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appoint as many blacks and Hispanics to high positions.";

But even his friends admit that he was often an indifferent administrator, bored by the daily routine of office. His political popularity was only assured after he was struck by the gunfire that killed John Kennedy.

Connally's first advice when Johnson became President was that he should set about ridding his Administration of Kennedy loyalists. Said he: "They think you're a hillbilly, a hillbilly from the hill country, and they'll never accept you." When he pressed the advice, Johnson only stared at him coldly. Connally never followed Johnson's tactic of trying to win the love of his enemies. In retrospect he says: "They made his life miserable. He wasted four years trying to win them over."

Connally first publicly broke with his political godfather when he openly opposed Johnson's Public Accommodations Law, which outlawed racial discrimination in hotels, restaurants and other public places. He also refused to spend some of Johnson's pet poverty program funds allocated to Texas. The wires between the White House and the Austin statehouse hummed. Johnson at one point badly needed Connally's support for a project but the Governor would not talk to him; the President phoned a startled Congressman Gonzalez at midnight and asked him to persuade the prodigal protegéfor him.

But their feuds were family quarrels; they remained cronies through it all. In October 1967 George Christian called upon Connally in Texas and told him that Johnson had secretly decided not to run for another term. Lady Bird Johnson was the only other person to know. They prepared a draft of a withdrawal announcement for the January 1968 State of the Union message, but Connally thought the timing was inappropriate and Johnson held back. When the announcement came in March, Johnson confided immediately to Connally that he regretted the move, and continued to look for ways to retain his office. On the Tuesday of the week of the Democratic convention, Johnson sent Connally to see Hubert Humphrey. Connally warned the Vice President not to break with Johnson over the Viet Nam War, or he would begin a draft-Johnson movement at the following day's roll call.

Humphrey's eyes rilled with tears. "I never imagined a candidate for President could be talked to like that," says one man who heard Connally on that occasion.

Connally campaigned in Texas for Humphrey in that 1968 campaign, but he first played the other side, helping Nixon raise money from some of his state's oil and gas millionaires. Nixon reciprocated by asking him to be Secretary of Defense and later Secretary of the Treasury. Both offers Connally refused, preferring his lucrative Texas law practice (his income averages nearly $500,000 per year). But in December 1970, when the Treasury post was offered again, Connally accepted. Nixon cared relatively little for economics, and he was in awe of Connally's self-assurance, so he gave the Treasury Secretary a lot of leeway in which to operate. Connally's actions were gruff and abrasive, as if he were playing in a high-stakes poker game, and he often offended foreign finance ministers. But he was able to negotiate a much needed realignment of currencies, devaluing the dollar by 7.9% the year he took office. He also formulated and enforced