Do
you know what happened on November 22, 1963(“Conspiracy Theories”)? When some people hear,
November 22, 1963, their hearts and minds go back to where they were or what
they were doing when they heard the heart wrenching news. Many people would
argue that John F. Kennedy was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald. Do we really know
that, considering that Oswald was killed before he could be questioned? There
are several conspiracy theories about John F Kennedy’s assassination and who
was responsible. Let’s take a deeper look into these conspiracy theories. Many
believe the government/CIA is responsible, some believe Oswald was involved but
think there was possibly another shooter, or that a KGB secret agent is
responsible.
John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (J.F.K), was the 35th president of The United
States of America, and to this day is one of the most loved and talked about
presidents. JFK was the youngest to be elected and first Roman Catholic president,
and gave off a radiance. His personality captured so many Americans hearts.
Along with having a courageous military background including earning a medal
for heroism during the time he served. Kennedy had eight siblings, and lost his
older brother Joe Jr. Kennedy, during the war when his airplane was blown up by
Germany (“John F. Kennedy”, 1). His brothers last words to him were that it was
his duty to become the first Catholic President. When Kennedy left the navy he
originally was going to be a journalist, but due to his brother’s impact, he
abandoned that and ran for Congress in 1946 (1). JFK had made his way up the
ladder and had a position in Senate by 1952 (1). He married Jacqueline Lee
Bouvier in 1953, and started his beautiful family with the births of Caroline
and John Jr. between 1957 and 1960 (1).
Kennedy
was not only loved for his idyllic reputation, but also for the things he
accomplished while being president. He promoted the pursuit of progress also
eliminating poverty, no matter what class you belonged to Kennedy had your
heart. A famous quote from JFK is “Ask not what your country can do for you,
but what you can do for your country” (Cold
Case: JFK). In the early 1960’s, in an effort to overthrow the Communist
leader, Fidel Castro, Kennedy backed 1,400 CIA trained Cubans (“John F.
Kennedy,1). This was known as the “Bay of Pigs”. The plan backfired and
resulted in the Soviet Union, run by Khrushchev the communist leader, to
install nuclear weapons on the Island of Cuba (1). This in turn worried Kennedy
causing him to announce a Naval Blockade of Cuba. Even though, their stand-off
lasted about two weeks, it led to Kennedy’s first foreign affairs victory when
Khrushchev and Britain’s Prime Minister signed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1).
During this time, the American people continued to praise in Kennedy just as
much as they still do today. Two of Kennedy’s goals while being president were
income tax cuts, and a Civil Rights Bill, even though he couldn’t achieve both
of those, he did oversee the start of Peace Corps, which is still huge decades
later (1). Later down the road, JFK’s numerous infidelities and personal
associations with members of Organized Crime would change the way some of
America would look at John F. Kennedy.
JFK
was a very idolized man in America among men and women, but when rumors of his
“womanizing” becomes public people start to wonder who JFK was? Robert Dallek
describes Kennedy as a “compulsive womanizer”, and he believed it rooted from
several personal/childhood issues (Kiger 1). Many believed it was a
generational trait, or maybe was caused by his difficult relationship with his
mother. JFK suffered from a rare endocrine disorder called Addison’s Disease,
he once admitted that his “issues involving sex with multiple women was his way
of easing his tensions” (Kiger 1). Many supposed affairs came out after his
assassination, but we are going to look at just three. Marilyn Monroe is by far
the most famous affair of the Kennedy affairs; she was the sex icon of this
time. The assumptions of an affair started when Miss Monroe did a Sexy Happy
Birthday Tribute at Madison Square Garden for JFK. Marilyn allegedly would not
take no for an answer when Robert Kennedy told her that the affair needed to
end, she had some insecurity issues of her own which could be the reason she
clung to the affair (Kiger 1). Next, was a college intern for the White House,
Mimi Alford. She released her affair on NBC, stating that JFK “deflowered” her
in Jackie Kennedy’s bed. She claimed that after the first encounter, the lovers
continued their affair both at the White House and when the president
travelled. Even after returning to college, she would frequently visit Kennedy
and was even there on the night before the Cuban missile crisis was resolved.
(“He actually cared about me”). In 1975, Judith Exner’s affair came to light
during an investigation of the “Bay of Pigs”, Exner claimed during her final
encounter with JFK resulted in her becoming pregnant and later aborting the
child. All of Kennedy’s alleged affairs still couldn’t change the minds of the
American people as a whole, they still till this day believe he is the best
president we have had (Pace,1).
The
assassination of JFK has been a very conversional topic since 1963, and has
rose several conspiracy theories. When
people say that they believe that the CIA was involved or made a cover up story,
they are most of the time referring to John McCone, the director of the CIA at
the time. He hid information from the Warren Commission when he was questioned
in 1964. McCone once said, “he intended
to keep the commission focused on what the agency believed at the time was the
best truth, that Lee Harvey Oswald for as yet determined motives, had acted
alone in the killing of John Kennedy” (Shenon 1). There is a lot of information that was withheld from the
Commission during the investigation, including that when JFK was meeting with
the officials during the “Bay of Pigs”, that he was so “high on vitamin shots”
given by Doctor Feel Good, Max Jacobson, that the CIA agents that were with him
could not control him. Also, there was a trip to Mexico that Oswald made
relatively close to when the assassination happened, which the CIA also knew
about. David Robarge, CIA Historian, believes that the most important
information withheld from the Commission was that, “in the plan to assassinate
Castro it led to the CIA and Kennedy being in cahoots with the Mafia” (1).
Since McCone didn’t tell anyone in the commission, they never even knew to ask
the question of whether Oswald had accomplices in Cuba or elsewhere, or who wanted
Kennedy dead in retaliation for the “Bay of Pigs”, in Cuba. Did McCone hide
information regarding Cuba, and possibly a relationship with the alleged
assassin? Many believe he did, whether
it’s because the CIA was trying to cover up an inside job or because they
didn’t want secrets about Kennedy being involved with Organized Crime getting
out. Either way, the CIA broke the law by withholding information. When we sit down and think of all these
reasons why the CIA may have been involved or created a cover up story about
the assassination, you have to stop and think, but why would the CIA want to
kill or cover up the killing of our most loved president?
Only a few hours
after the president was killed in front of thousands of people, the police had
Lee Harvey Oswald in custody for the assassination of JFK. So many people
immediately felt he was the one that had to of done it. The Warren Commission
had a lot of essential evidence against Oswald, first off all the shooting came
from the South East side of the Texas School Depository where Oswald was
employed and on the clock that day. Oswald was seen carrying a unique rifle to
work and was found on the Sixth floor of the depository right after the
shooting. After the president’s body was analyzed, doctors stated that it was
possible that a lone gunman could have caused the injuries that JFK had at the
time of his death. Now, with all that being said, of course the public believed
that Oswald was the killer, but when transporting Oswald to another location he
was assassinated by a club owner named Jack Ruby (“Did Oswald Kill
President Kennedy” 1). After Oswald was killed questions began to arise;
if he was a lone gunman in the assassination why would someone want to keep him
quiet? When the information about Kennedy’s head injuries surfaced, many people
started to question how the kill shot would of came from the depository. The
nature of his head wound would point towards it being caused by a soft- nose
bullet, which was different from the metal jacketed bullets that they believed
caused all the other injuries Kennedy and Connolly had (1). As all this new
evidence began to unravel, the evidence against Oswald began to crumble. Some
say there was no one on the sixth floor of the Depository; others say they saw
Oswald empty handed while walking to work that morning (1). All the commission
had to go on was the evidence that was found at the scene of the crime and the
testimony of the distraught witnesses that were there during this jaw dropping
tragedy. Many people still believe it was Oswald, but how do we prove that
Oswald was the gunmen when the police never even got to question him fully
before he was killed. You cannot convict someone of a murder before they go
before a judge or jury.
The Oswald theory
would not hold up in court because of no actual statement from him, due to his
death. There is some evidence that Oswald was possibly working with the KGB
agents, and possibly was helping them build a plot to assassinate JFK. As stated, Oswald was in Mexico relatively
close to the assassination of JFK, and spent a significant amount of time in
Russia. During the wake of Cuba, Khrushchev and JFK were able to come to a
compromise that led to the world “calming down”. There was a group of KGB
agents that did not want compromise, they wanted revenge. They believed that
Khrushchev should have fired atomic weapons and were devastated when he caved
to JFK’s proposal. This would of gave the KGB perfect motive to assassinate
JFK. Robert Holmes, a former British diplomat, believes that a rogue element in
the KGB is more plausible than the Mafia- CIA- Military theory (Tweedie 1). He
states that it is possible that Oswald may have shot JFK, but he believes his
motives were influenced by the KGB. On Oswald’s get away to Mexico, he was
involved in a meeting with three senior diplomats; Holmes states there is no
reason they would be meeting with him if he was a person of no importance (1).
Oswald applied for his visa to come back to the U.S for the next four months,
and after doing so the three stayed behind to talk to Oswald for up to two
hours. Once again for this to happen he would have had to have some kind of
importance (1). Holmes told a reporter, “Immediately after Oswald received his
Visa, a classified telegram was sent to Moscow”, and later said that “you don’t
do that for someone who walks in for a visa there was something special going
on there” (1). Many other people believe the KGB theory or that Oswald could
have even been replaced with a Russian KFB agent who looked just like him to
assassinate Kennedy. When you sit down and think about all of this information
about the KGB, you have to wonder how they would have known everything going on
during an American Presidential speech. How would someone from another country have
so much information about when and where and how the president would be on that
fateful day?
The assassination of JFK has always caught people’s
attention because of everything that happened, and how he was killed in front
of thousands of people, even with all the security that surrounded him on a
consistent basis. It makes Americans wonder how one person could have
constructed a plan to kill the President of the United States, especially with
no inside knowledge. When we sit down
and think about Lee Oswald being a lone gunman, you have to argue that he
couldn’t do it alone. In order for anyone to accomplish an assassination in
front of thousands of people, they would have had to have some kind of timeline
of when and where the president would be at any given moment. The conspiracy
theory that seems most plausible after doing the research would be that Lee
Harvey Oswald may have been the gunman, but he did not act alone. Seventy- Four
years later, 52% of people surveyed at College of the Mainland believe that the
CIA was involved in some way in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
It has almost eighty
years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and his murder still
continues to baffle people. Since we were never able to close the case of who
killed him, people continue to believe one of the several conspiracy theories
created throughout the years.
1.
That the CIA was involved in the
shooting/created a cover up story to protect themselves.
2.
That Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman,
and assonated Kennedy for unknown reasons.
3.
A KGB agent was sent to kill Kennedy in
retaliation for “Bay of Pigs”.
Since this is still a
cold case, it’s extremely possible that the new information will help
investigators connect the pieces and finally give us an answer to who killed
John F. Kennedy on November 22,1963.
Works
Cited
“Conspiracy Theories” Time, Time
Inc.20 Nov.2008,content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860871_1860876_1861003,00.html.
Accessed 17 July 2017
Pace, Eric. “Judith Exner Is Dead at 65;
Claimed Affair With Kennedy.” The New York Times, The New York
Times, 26 Sept. 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/09/27/us/judith-exner-is-dead-at-65-claimed-affair-with-kennedy.html.
Accessed 24 July 2017.
“Cold Case JFK.” PBS, Public
Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cold-case-jfk.html. Accessed
24 July 2017.
“John F. Kennedy.” History.com,
A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/john-f-kennedy.
Accessed 24 July 2017.
Kieger. National Geographic Channel, 23
Oct. 2013,
channel.nationalgeographic.com/killing-kennedy/articles/the-sex-life-of-jfk/.
Accessed 24 July 2017.
Shenon, Philip. “Yes, the CIA Director Was Part
of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up.”POLITICO Magazine, 6 Oct. 2015, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197.
Accessed 25 July 2017.
“Did Oswald Kill President Kennedy?” JFK
Assassination: Basic Facts,
22november1963.org.uk/did-lee-harvey-oswald-kill-president-kennedy.
Tweedie, Neil. “The Assassination of President
John F Kennedy: the Finger Points to the KGB.” The Telegraph,
Telegraph Media Group, 24 Oct. 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9628028/The-assassination-of-President-John-F-Kennedy-the-finger-points-to-the-KGB.html.
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