In 1961 , Wright finished in third place in the special election called to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by then Vice President Lyndon Johnson . Two finalists for the Senate emerged from a field of seventy-one candidates . College professor John G. Tower , then of Wichita Falls , narrowly defeated the interim appointee William Blakley , a Dallas industrialist , in a runoff election . Tower hence became the first Republican senator from Texas since Reconstruction . Wright was riding in the motorcade in Dallas on November 22 , 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated
assassinated
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Jim Wright