DIED. JOHN CONNALLY, 76, former Texas Governor and U.S. Treasury Secretary; in Houston. Connally's career was intertwined with that of three American Presidents, but his greatest influence and patron was Lyndon Baines Johnson. By 1939 Connally was working on early Johnson campaigns and running the fellow Texan's congressional office. As tough as his boss, Connally played a key role in Johnson's brutal 1948 Senate race. He was named John Kennedy's Secretary of the Navy before running for Governor of Texas in 1962. In November of the following year, Connally was riding through Dallas with Kennedy when the President was shot; Connally was seriously wounded. He served as a popular Governor until 1969, and in 1971 Richard Nixon appointed him Secretary of the Treasury, where his tenure was notable for the un-Republican decisions to take America off the gold standard and impose wage-and-price controls. After he became a Republican, in 1973, Connally's political career ended with the 1980 G.O.P. presidential primaries, during which he spent more than $11 million but managed to win only a single delegate. After some remarkable initial success in Texas real estate, oil and other businesses in the early '80s, Connally found himself overleveraged and declared personal bankruptcy in 1988. Homes, horses and possessions were sold off to settle a $93 million debt. (See story page 44.)