The Assassination of JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, between January 1961 and his death in November 1964. Born 29th May 1917 into a wealthy family in Brookline, Massuchessets, JFK was the second child of nine born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr and Rose Kennedy.
JFK was president during the cold war and had connections to both Cuba and the USSR. He was heavily involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion and tried to take down Fidel Castro. However, JFK is more widely known for his assassination.
On Friday 22nd November 1963, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. JFK was in Dallas for political reasons as Texas was a swing state. In a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys (John Connally was governor of Texas at the time) started a motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. The motorcade route had an unusually high number of turns, which slowed it down. The route was chosen by Secret Service agents Winston G. Lawrence and Forrest V. Sorrells. Over twenty thousand windows overlooked the route, however, as the Secret Service didn’t have enough resources to check them all, they decided to check none of them.
At 12:30 pm, after passing the Texas School Book Depository Building, three shots were fired hitting JFK in the neck and the shoulder, fatally wounding him and seriously injuring Governor Connally. JFK died thirty minutes later at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, aged forty-six.
The shots were said to be fired from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald was found at the window and he was arrested, despite protestation that he did not shoot anyone. The next morning, whilst being transferred to the County Jail, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot live on TV by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later.
There are many conspiracies surrounding the assassination of JFK and on 29th November 1963, the Warren Commission was started to investigate the event. It took ten months for them to come to a conclusion.
The Official Ruling
The official ruling declared that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin and had acted alone and was not involved in any conspiracies.
Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939. He had a history of violence from a young age. He joined the US Marines in 1956 and spent three years as a sharpshooter with an M-1 rifle. Oswald had ties to Russia, and whilst visiting the country in 1959, he tried to renounce his American citizenship. On 10th April 1963, Oswald had attempted to kill Major General Edwin A. Walker.
As a Dallas resident, Oswald was under active surveillance by the FBI. He was newly employed at the Texas School Book Depository. The FBI, however, did not inform the Secret Service of Oswald’s employment in a building on the route. The FBI did not know the motorcade route.
Approximately forty-five minutes after the assassination, Oswald killed Dallas policeman, J.B.Tibbit with a revolver. Cartridges were found and there were eyewitnesses. Three bullet cartridges were also found at the sixth-floor window belonging to a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm Italian rifle. Almost an entire bullet, belonging to the aforementioned gun, was found on Connally’s stretcher.
According to the Warren Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole shooter, which meant that the second bullet fired, hit both JFK and Connally. This became known as the Magic Bullet Theory.
The Magic Bullet Theory claims that the second bullet went through JFK’s neck, into Connally’s back, out under his arm and then into his knee. This is the bullet that was found intact on Connally’s stretcher. Connally was sat on a lower seat than JFK which meant the trajectory was possible. However, many think that a single bullet would not be able to stay in one piece and would’ve lost too much momentum. There was also, apparently, not enough time to fire two shots. If the magic bullet theory is not true it had to be two shooters. Connally believes that there were two different bullets. There was also a mark on the sidewalk which the Warren Commission claimed was the first shot, but witnesses say it was the second bullet.
In the 70s audio evidence showed six echo patterns that could be similar to gunfire. There was also footage from a different angle that apparently had evidence for a second shooter, but it was lost. The Committee of Assassinations declared that it was probably a conspiracy, however, they couldn’t identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.
Conspiracies
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson was JFK’s Vice President and subsequently, the thirty-sixth President of the United States.
Johnson had motive for wanting JFK dead; he would gain political power. In 1960, he attempted to take the Democratic nomination from JFK. Whilst Vice President, he asked to keep his job as Texas Senator, prompting many to think he was dissatisfied with his position as Vice President. There were also rumours that he was going to be dropped in the re-election campaign the following year. After the assassination, Johnson took the Oath of Office at 2:38 pm, an hour and a half after JFK had been pronounced dead.
Johnson was the reason JFK was in Dallas. He no longer had political control over Texas and it was an important swing state. JFK did not want to go to Dallas. Before the event, Johnson was informed by a high-profile lawyer that the political climate in Dallas was not safe; he did not inform the President. However, JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, was also informed of this.
Madeleine Brown reported that she had an affair with Lyndon B. Johnson and claimed that the night before the assassination, she was at a party with Johnson, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. Johnson apparently whispered “after tomorrow, those Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That’s no threat. That’s a promise”. Evidence proves that the exchange with Madeleine could not have taken place.
Johnson helped form the Warren Commission to investigate JFK’s assassination. There is no evidence that he was involved with the murder.
The Russians
JFK’s assassination took place during the Cold War, a time that tensions between Russia and the United States was high. This theory states that Lee Harvey Oswald was working for the Russians.
Oswald had tried to defect to the Soviet Union and could have been acting as a KGB gunman. Inexplicably, he was at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, a few weeks before the assassination.
It is unlikely that Russia was behind the assassination as if any evidence was found to prove it, nuclear war would’ve broken out. Oswald was not a smart choice for Russia as it was known that he had ties to the USSR.
The Mob
After the assassination, three different mob groups claimed responsibility; the New Orleans Mob, the Miami Mob and the Chicago Mob. JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy had made moves against organised crime and it was rumoured that the mobs were not happy. It was also rumoured that Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, being a nightclub owner, had mafia connections. It was also rumoured that the mob might have been in collusion with the CIA. In 2015, an imprisoned mafia hitman claimed that he was the second shooter in a conspiracy between the mafia and the CIA. There was no evidence to support his claims.
JFK supposedly had links with the head of the Chicago mob, Sam Giancana. JFK’s father apparently worked with Giancana during the prohibition. It was also rumoured that the mob helped JFK win the 1960 election. Giancana and JFK reportedly shared a mistress, Judith Campbell Exner.
Coincidentally, Giancana was due to appear in court to testify on a CIA assassination plot, but he himself was assassinated beforehand.
The CIA
The CIA conspiracy is a favourite amongst many as there are several different threads to this theory.
The then-head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, was apart of the Warren Commission, and yet the CIA withheld information from the commission. Many thought the CIA were upset with JFK due to either him finding out that there was a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro and disbanding them or JFK changing the personnel after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. It was rumoured that they chose Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate JFK.
A forensic historian posits the idea that four high level agents committed the assassination with three of them shooting four bullets.
After the Bay of Pigs Invasion, JFK refused to offer additional military support despite the CIA offering an ‘umbrella’ of air protection. This is linked to a lone man spotted during the motorcade holding an umbrella in lovely weather. This Umbrella Man is supposedly a CIA operative.
JFK was shot by the first bullet as his car passed the man with the umbrella, who lifted his umbrella a foot or so higher. Some theorise that this was a signal to the gunman, others think that the umbrella was able to fire some sort of dart, something that matched the wound in JFK’s neck. A weapons expert claimed that it was possible for an umbrella gun to exist as he had designed one.
Adding further credence to this theory, the Umbrella Man, after the shooting, very calmly sat on the grassy knoll whilst others had panicked and run away.
Louis Steven Witt appeared in court claiming that he was the Umbrella Man and brought with him an umbrella. Witt claimed that the umbrella was a symbol of protest against JFK’s father over appeasement and only opened the umbrella when he thought that JFK would be able to see it. Many throughout history, in both Britain and America, have used umbrellas as a sign of protest, to the point where, when Nixon was Vice President, he refused to allow any of his aides to carry an umbrella. Witt claimed that the reason he was so calm afterwards was because the umbrella blocked his view . However, rumours circulated that Witt was a CIA puppet.
In 2003, a survey revealed that seventy per cent of Americans believed that there was some sort of plot behind the assassination and fifty-one per cent believed there was a second gunman. No matter what you believe, JFK was assassinated on 22nd November 1963 and many have debated the reasoning behind it. John F. Kennedy was just another victim to the Kennedy Curse that has, to date, killed sixteen members of the Kennedy family.
