Born in Floresville, Texas, Connally pursued a legal career after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. During World War II, he served on the staff of James Forrestal and Dwight D. Eisenhower before transferring to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. After the war, he became an aide to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. When Johnson assumed the vice presidency in 1961, he convinced President John F. Kennedy to appoint Connally to the position of United States Secretary of the Navy. Connally left the Kennedy Administration in December 1961 to run for Governor of Texas, and he held that position from 1963 to 1969. In 1963, Connally was riding in the presidential limousine when Kennedy was assassinated, and was seriously wounded. During his governorship, he was a conservative Democrat.
In 1971, Republican President Richard Nixon appointed Connally as his Treasury Secretary. In this position, Connally presided over the removal of the U.S. dollar from the gold standard, an event known as the Nixon shock. Connally stepped down from the Cabinet in 1972 to lead the Democrats for Nixon organization, which campaigned for Nixon's re-election. He was a candidate to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew after the latter resigned in 1973, but Nixon chose Gerald Ford instead. He sought the Republican nomination for president in the 1980 election, but withdrew from the race after the first set of primaries. Connally did not seek public office again after 1980 and died of pulmonary fibrosis in 1993.
Connally was born on February 27, 1917, into a large family in Floresville, the seat of Wilson County, southeast of San Antonio. He was one of seven children born to Lela (née Wright) and John Bowden Connally, a dairy and tenant farmer. His six siblings included four brothers: Golfrey, Merrill, Wayne and Stanford, and sisters Carmen and Blanche. According to Ronnie Dugger, Connally's family had "had no money, no home, and no furniture." Connally's parents grew even poorer because of the Great Depression, and when speaking about his poverty, Connally often recalled that he had to study by kerosene light.

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