Madeleine Duncan Brown

Madeleine Duncan Brown (July 5, 1925 – June 22, 2002) was born Madeleine Frances Duncan in Dallas, Texas. She was a businesswoman who worked for Glenn Advertising in Dallas. She is noted for her claim to have been the mistress of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and for implicating Johnson in a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy. Brown said that she met Johnson in 1948, following the death of her husband James Glynn Brown. She went public with the claim of a relationship with Johnson in 1997 — a relationship that was considered "an open secret" in Texas. She also said that her son, Steven Mark Brown, was fathered by Johnson. Steven Brown was born December 27, 1950, and died September 28, 1990. On June 1, 1987 Steven Brown filed a $10.5 million lawsuit against the former president's widow, Lady Bird claiming, "My legal birthrights have been violated and a conspiracy was formed to deprive me of my legal heir-ship." Steven Brown died before the case could be settled.

In the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Madeleine Brown and May Newman (an employee of Texas oilman Clint Murchison) both placed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover at a social gathering at Murchison's mansion on November 21, 1963 — the night before the assassination of President Kennedy. Also in attendance, according to Brown, were John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, and H. L. Hunt. At the end of the evening, the sitting Vice President of the United States Lyndon Johnson arrived at the gathering. Brown gave this account:

"Tension filled the room upon [Johnson's] arrival. The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared. I knew how secretly Lyndon operated. Therefore I said nothing ... not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I'll always remember: 'After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again — that's no threat — that's a promise.'"

Brown also claimed to have seen Lee Harvey Oswald with Jack Ruby in the latter's Carousel Club prior to the assassination. In addition, Brown said that on New Year's Eve 1963, Johnson confirmed the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, insisting that "Texas oil and those fucking renegade intelligence bastards in Washington" had been responsible. Brown said that the plan to kill the President had its origins in the 1960 Democratic Convention, at which John F. Kennedy was nominated presidential candidate with Johnson as his running mate, where H.L. Hunt, an American oil tycoon, and Lyndon Johnson began to hatch the assassination plot:

"When they met in California Joe Kennedy, John Kennedy's father, and H.L. Hunt met three days prior to the election — they finally cut a deal according to John Currington (an aide to H.L. Hunt) and H.L. finally agreed that Lyndon would go as the vice president ... this came from the horse's mouth way back in 1960 — when H.L. came back to Dallas I was walking ... with him ... and he made the remark, 'We may have lost a battle but we're going to win a war,' and then the day of the assassination he said, 'Well, we won the war.'"

Madeleine Brown died on June 22, 2002. Social Security records show the spelling of her name as Madeline F. Brown, and that she died in Dallas, Dallas County, Texas.