ABSTRACT
The defeat of Breathitt’s chosen successor, Henry Ward, in the 1967 Governor’s election casts a shadow upon the validity of the analysis presented in the preceding chapters. The election of a Republican governor for the first time in twenty-four years leads one to suspect that the Combs-Breathitt faction’s claim to political autonomy was a sham. One could well surmise that the coal industry had merely been caught napping during the 1966 legislative session and that, by 1967, they had re-grouped their forces and were able to deal the Breathitt Administration a fatal blow. The Governor’s claim to independence could have been little more than a short-lived prank for which he and his allies were severely punished by their economic overlords.
