Another name from the past ..... is gone

GRANBURY, Texas (AP) -- Billie Sol Estes, a flamboyant Texas huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program, has died. He was 88.

Estes, whose name became synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption, was found dead by a caretaker early Tuesday in his home in DeCordova Bend, a city about 60 miles southwest of Dallas, said Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds. A local funeral home confirmed it would be handling the services.
Estes reigned in the state as the king of con men for nearly 50 years. He was best known for the scandal that broke out during the Kennedy administration involving phony financial statements and non-existent fertilizer tanks.

Several lower-level agriculture officials resigned, and he wound up spending several years in prison. His name was often linked with that of fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson, but the late president's associates said their relationship was never as close or as sinister as the wheeler-dealer implied.

Johnson, then the vice president, and Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman came under fire during the scandal, though the scheme had its roots in the waning years of the Eisenhower administration, when Estes had edged into national politics from his West Texas power base in Pecos.

At the height of his infamy, Estes was immortalized in songs by Allan Sherman (in "Schticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other") and the Chad Mitchell Trio (in "The Ides of Texas"). Time magazine put him on its cover, calling him "a welfare-state Ponzi ... a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes who makes Dr. Jekyll seem almost wholesome."

A name from the past, notorious man, he was a headline maker in his day ...............