Kennedy assassination theories

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A number of theories exist with regard to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death, and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the CIA, the KGB, the Mafia, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government, and the military and/or government interests of the United States.

Contents 1 Background 2 One shooter 3 More than one shooter 4 Conspiracy theories 4.1 CIA and Anti-Castro Cuban Exile conspiracy 4.2 LBJ conspiracy 4.3 Mafia and Hoover conspiracy 4.4 Organized Crime and the CIA conspiracy 4.5 Soviet Bloc conspiracy 4.6 Roscoe White 4.7 Cuban conspiracy 4.8 Israeli conspiracy 4.9 Death threats on Irish visit 4.10 George H. W. Bush connections 5 Untimely deaths associated with the Kennedy assassination and investigations 6 Theories in books 7 Fiction 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Background

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no "persuasive" evidence Lee Harvey Oswald was in a conspiracy to assassinate the President. Almost immediately, critics began to question the official government conclusions and wrote books attacking the Commission and its findings. Among them was Mark Lane — a lawyer who briefly represented Oswald's mother, and who authored the critical book Rush to Judgment.

In the decades that followed, a dedicated group of independent researchers published literally dozens of different, and sometimes contradictory theories.

In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested local businessman Clay Shaw and charged him with being part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted in less than an hour after a lengthy and controversial trial. Garrison's investigations attracted researchers from around the country who provided Garrison with information and theories. In turn these researchers were aided by the access afforded to a District Attorney. The most notable example of the latter was Garrison's subpoenae of the Zapruder film which allowed jury members to see it first-hand. Bootleg copies were quickly circulated and it was shown on television for the first time in 1975.

In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed by Congress to investigate the killings of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The HSCA investigated many theories put forward by assassination researchers and criticised some of them.

The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Oswald was the assassin and were about to conclude that he acted alone when a Dictabelt recording – purportedly recorded during the assassination – then surfaced. Based on over 20 witnesses who heard shots from in front of Kennedy and scientific analysis of the recording by a group of scientists, the committee concluded that there was a fourth shot and hence a second gunman, and that Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. Researchers – who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunmen was responsible for the assassination, and had posited a conspiracy theory – felt vindicated by the House report.

The accuracy of the Dictabelt analysis was questioned and an opinion by others argue that all the impulses believed to have been shots "happened about a minute after the assassination" based on verified crosstalk.^[1] The Congressional Committee's panel of scientists then received further support that a conspiracy existed by D. B. Thomas – in 2001 – who concluded, based on further crosstalk on channel II, it was 96% likely there was a fourth shot. However, Thomas, like the HSCA, assumed the tape on channel II ran continuously; analysis by Michael O'Dell indicates this was not the case.^[1]

Director Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, which was based on the HSCA findings and books by Garrison and Jim Marrs – was what Stone called a "counter-fiction to the Warren Commission's fiction". This controversial film portrayed an extensive plot to kill the President and presented many of Garrison's allegations as fact. The revived interest in the assassination due to the film led to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, to gather and declassify all unreleased US Government records regarding the assassination. In the wake of Stone's film, efforts were made to refute many conspiracy theories, such as Gerald Posner's Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Case Closed and the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, hosted by Peter Jennings.

Many doubts still remain in the minds of the public regarding the official government conclusions. An ABC News poll (in 2003) found that 70% of American respondents "suspect a plot" in the assassination of President Kennedy.^[2]

[edit] One shooter

• Howard L. Brennan, a 45-year-old steamfitter, while waiting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository for the presidential motorcade, noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository. Just after the President's car passed, he heard what he thought was a firecracker or an explosion. He looked up at the window again and saw the man with a gun, aiming and taking a final shot. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shot.^[3]
• Bonnie Ray Williams and two co-workers watching the motorcade from a fifth floor window of the Depository heard three shots come from the floor above, and reverberations shook plaster from the ceiling onto his head.^[4]
• Governor and Mrs. Connally and the two Secret Service agents in the presidential limousine all testified that the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.^[5]
• Charles Hester, Emmett Hudson, and Marilyn Sitzman, the only witnesses on the Grassy Knoll who gave testimony about the direction of the shots, all said the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.^[6]
• Marilyn Sitzman was standing on a 4-foot (1.2 m) high retaining wall 15 yards (14 m) east of the 5-foot (1.5 m) high picket fence on the Grassy Knoll.^[7] (View from Sitzman's position.) She stated that she saw no gunman firing from behind the picket fence: "The blast of a high-powered rifle would have blown me off that wall."^[8]
• Of the earwitnesses, 99 believed that all the shots came from one direction, and only 5 believed they came from two directions.^[9]
• The Warren Commission, and the HSCA both concluded that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from above and behind the Presidential limousine.^[10]
• Shortly after the assassination, a rifle was found partially-hidden between some boxes on the sixth floor of the Depository, and the improvised paper wrapper/bag that covered the rifle was found close to the window from which the shots were fired.^[11]
• Fiber analysis of President Kennedy's clothing showed that he was hit by a bullet from the rear, which passed out the front of his clothing.^[12]
• The Zapruder film shows a blood spray from the front right-hand side of Kennedy's temple, but no blood spray from the back of his head. The motion of his head, first forwards and then backwards, has been mimicked in skull models hit by 6.5 mm 160 gr. military bullets.^[13]
• The bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the two bullet fragments found in the front seat of the Presidential limousine were matched to the same lot of ammunition. The bullet found on the stretcher was a ballistic match to the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was found in the 6th floor of the Depository. No other bullet fragments from any other rifle were found.^[14]
• The windshield in the Presidential limousine was struck by a bullet fragment on the inside surface of the glass, meaning that these fragments came from behind, and not in front, of the President.^[15]
• The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle — from which the shots were fired — was ordered in the name of A. Hidell and sent to Oswald's P.O. Box in Dallas. Alek was the name Oswald used in the Soviet Union and Alek James Hidell was the name on the false I.D. Oswald was carrying when arrested on the day of the assassination. The FBI found Oswald's palm print on the rifle barrel between the barrel and the stock, which could have been put there only when the rifle was disassembled.^[16]
• Oswald was seen with a paper bag/wrapper in a car on the way to the Depository. He said, when he was asked, that it was full of "curtain-rods". He said they were for the rooming-house he was living in (while he was living away from his wife) although his rooming house already had curtains and rods, and Oswald had never discussed the matter with his landlady. The paper bag was found on the sixth floor, near the rifle, but the "curtain-rods" were never found at the Depository.^[17]
• Three separate photographs of Oswald holding a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and wearing a pistol are known.^[18] His wife Marina Oswald testified in 1964 and 1978 that she took the photographs at his request.^[19] Two were found at Oswald's residence when he was in custody, and a third later turned up from Dallas police officer Roscoe White's collection after he died.^[20] Two photos may be viewed as a stereo pair as they were taken from slightly different angles. The original negative of one is available for study. These photos were closely studied by the HSCA, which found them to be authentic.^[21] The HSCA did not believe that the technology existed in 1963 to fake an original film emulsion or a stereo pair. Any fake would have needed access to the literature which Oswald was known to be reading in March 1963, as well as copies of the weapons he is known to have been shipped in that month.
• In 1967, all three physicians who performed the autopsy of President Kennedy examined the photographic and X-ray materials from the autopsy at the National Archives, and certified their authenticity. "It was then and is now our opinion that the two missiles which struck the President causing the neck wound and the head wound were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased."^[22]
• In 1988, four of the Parkland Hospital physicians — including Robert McClelland — examined the Kennedy autopsy photographs at the National Archives, and each confirmed the photos represented what they remembered seeing that day, including a picture of the rear of the president's head, which shows no defect.^[23]
• Two separate computer analyses have asserted that the bullet trajectory is not only consistent with the single bullet theory but also could only have been fired from a high position behind Kennedy.^[24]
• In the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, using a close-up frame-by-frame analysis, computer analyst Dale K. Myers points out a previously-unnoticed incident on the Zapruder film. As the limo carrying Kennedy and Connally emerges from behind a road sign in Dealey Plaza, the lapel of Connally's suit coat appears to "pop out" as if pushed from within by an unseen force. Myers theorizes that this is the moment when the bullet from Oswald's rifle strikes Connally in the back and exits through his chest. A moment later, as Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign, his hands move up to his throat, indicating that he has been hit. Myers points out that both Kennedy and Connally react simultaneously to being wounded on the film.

[edit] More than one shooter

• Nellie Connally was sitting in the presidential car next to her husband, Governor John Connally. In her book Love Field: Our Final Hours, Mrs. Connally was adamant that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.^[25]
• Roy Kellerman, a U.S. Secret Service Agent, testified that, "Now, in the seconds that I talked just now, a flurry of shells come into the car." Kellerman said that he saw a 5-inch diameter hole in the back right-hand side of the President’s head.^[26]
• Witnesses: 35 Warren Commission witnesses who were present at the shooting thought that shots were fired from in front of the President — from the area of the Grassy Knoll or Triple Underpass — while 56 Commission witnesses thought the shots came from the Depository, or at least in that direction, behind the President, and 5 earwitnesses thought that the shots came from two directions.^[27]
• Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who was sheltering the President with his body on the way to the hospital, described "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car."^[28]
• Dr. McClelland, a physician in the emergency room who observed the head wound, testified that the back right hand part of the head was blown out with posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue was missing. The size of the back head wound, according to his description, indicated it was an exit wound, and that a second shooter from the front delivered the fatal head shot.^[29]
• Windshield and Ashtray: Apart from shots hitting Kennedy and Connally, the limousine was struck in the windshield — in the chrome above the windshield and the chrome around the ashtray on the back of the front seat. Some witnesses say the windshield had a definite hole through it and not just a crack, as was claimed by the Warren Commission. Frank Cormier, Dr. Evalea Glanges, Dallas Police Officer Stavis Ellis, and Dallas Police Officer H.R. Freeman all saw a 'hole'.^[30] The windshield was claimed to be replaced and "redamaged", according to the testimony of William Hess of the Ford Motor Co..^[31] This was supposedly done to eliminate the possibility of a shot coming from the front.
• Snipers: Former US Marine snipers, Craig Roberts, and Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, (who was the senior instructor for the US Marine Corps Sniper Instructor School at Quantico, Virginia) both said it could not be done as described by the FBI investigators.

  “Let me tell you what we did at Quantico,” Hathcock said. “We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did. Now if I can’t do it, how in the world could a guy who was a non-qual on the rifle range and later only qualified 'marksman' do it?”^[32]

• Kennedy's death certificate located the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra — which is too low to have exited his throat. Moreover, the bullet was traveling downward, since the shooter was by a sixth floor window. The autopsy cover sheet had a diagram of a body showing this same low placement at the third thoracic vertebra. The hole in back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket are also claimed to support a wound too low to be consistent with the Single Bullet Theory.^[33][34]
• The Rifle: It is improbable for Oswald's rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano,^[35] to be fired more than once in less than 2.3 seconds.^[36][37] According to some interpretations of the Zapruder film, Governor Connally appears to react to being shot 1.7 seconds after Kennedy. Some believe this means they were hit by two separate shots fired in more rapid succession than would have been possible for Oswald's Cacarno. Top rifle experts of the FBI were incapable of making the rifle fire two shots in the 2.3-second timeframe.^[38]

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Note that some of the following people and groups have been claimed by some to have been working together and as such these different theories are not always viewed as mutually exclusive. This article makes no assertions about the validity of any of the following theories, this is comprised merely as a history of some of the more well-known theories regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The articles are listed alphabetically.

[edit] CIA and Anti-Castro Cuban Exile conspiracy

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was frequently mentioned in theories during the 1960s and 1970s, and it was rumoured then that the CIA was involved in plots to assassinate foreign leaders. The CIA was banned from assassinating anyone abroad 25 years ago, but that ban is now under pressure to be lifted.^[39] Kennedy said to his collaborator Clark Clifford (shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion) that, "Something very bad is going on within the CIA and I want to know what it is. I want to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds."^[40][41]

• Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA during the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by a small army of Cuban nationals in April of 1961. Kennedy accepted his resignation in September of 1961.^[42] He was later appointed by Lyndon Johnson as one of the seven members of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination.

  Congress began investigating the intelligence agencies by way of the Church Committee.

• In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed.

  Among the matters the Church Committee investigated were: The involvement by U.S. intelligence agencies to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Congo,^[43] and Fidel Castro.

• Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA provided $42,000 in immediate support money to the plotters on the morning of the assassination of President Diem of Vietnam, which was carried out by Lucien Conein,^[44] although Robert S. McNamara and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., (who was a participant as a White House historian) both stated that President Kennedy went pale when he heard the news about the coup, and was shocked that Diem had been murdered.^[45]
• Rafael Trujillo, of the Dominican Republic, was killed by his own armed forces on May 30, 1961 while traveling in an automobile. The CIA had provided the weapons, which where kept by Simon Thomas Stocker, an American citizen, code-named "Hector" by the CIA, and a resident of the Dominican Republic since 1942, who willingly declined CIA monetary compensation for his efforts.
• The House Select Committee on Assassinations later reviewed these issues and, in 1979, concluded that although Oswald assassinated Kennedy a conspiracy was probable but that the conspiracy did not implicate any U.S Intelligence agencies.

  The HSCA also said that President Kennedy did not receive adequate protection in Dallas, and the Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated or used by the Secret Service in connection with the President's trip to Dallas; in addition, Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper.^[46]

Richard Helms, director of the CIA's Office of Special Operations, had reason to be hostile to Kennedy since when first elected, Kennedy supported invading Cuba and then only later changed his mind about how to approach the matter. Thus, Helms was immediately put under pressure from President Kennedy and his brother Robert (the attorney general) to increase American efforts to get rid of the Castro regime. Operation Mongoose had nearly 4,000 operators involved in attacks on Cuban economic targets.

After the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba sponsored by the CIA, Kennedy changed his mind about an invasion earning the hatred of the Cuban exile community. The House Select Committee on Assassinations Committee believed evidence existed implicating certain violent Cuban exiles may have participated in Kennedy's murder. These exiles worked closely with CIA operatives in violent activities against Castro's Cuba. In 1979, the committee reported this:

President Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by 1963. Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch on October 1, 1963. (37)

Holding a copy of the September 26 edition of the Dallas Morning News, featuring a front-page account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November, the Cuban exile vented his hostility:

"CASTELLANOS. ...we're waiting for Kennedy the 22d, [the day Kennedy was murdered] buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas. Mr. good ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even call him President Kennedy. He stinks."^[47]

Interestingly, the repeated "Bay of Pigs thing" quote heard from Richard Nixon on the Oval Office tapes was later revealed by H. R. Haldeman to be referenced to the Kennedy assassination.

[edit] LBJ conspiracy

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was promoted to the presidency as a result of the assassination. Like many vice-presidents of the United States, Johnson's appointment was largely an attempt to provide a ´regional balance´ to the Democratic ticket.

Richard Nixon, who was also in Dallas from November 20, 1963 until just an hour before Kennedy arrived, was quoted in a November 22, 1963 Dallas newspaper saying he believed Kennedy would drop Johnson from the 1964 Democratic ticket because Johnson was embroiled in several high-profile political scandals (see Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes).^[48]

However, Jackie Kennedy denied that her husband ever considered removing LBJ from the 1964 ticket.^[49]

At the time of Kennedy's death, Johnson was the subject of four major criminal investigations involving government contract violations, misappropriation of funds, money laundering and bribery.^[50] All these investigations were terminated upon LBJ's accession to the Presidency.

Johnson was linked professionally and personally to a convicted murderer, who in turn was linked to the JFK assassination by testimony and forensic evidence, both of forms of evidence which are still disputed.^[51]

The murderer in question was one Malcolm 'Mac' Wallace, who was studying at Columbia University in the 1940s, while teaching at Long Island University, the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina. He met Johnson through a mutual acquaintance, Edward Clark, and took on a job at the US Department of Agriculture in October 1950.

Wallace began an affair with LBJ's sister, Josefa, who was also having a relationship with Texan golf course owner John Kinser. Kinser is believed to have attempted to blackmail Johnson through his connection with Josefa. This is in dispute.

What is not in dispute is that on October 22, 1951, Wallace shot Kinser dead in his golf shop and made off by vehicle. An earwitness to the shooting made a note of Wallace's license plate and Wallace was arrested and charged with murder.

Wallace was released on bail after Edward Clark arranged for two financial supporters of LBJ (M. E. Ruby and Bill Carroll) to stand bail for him. LBJ's personal attorney John Cofer agreed to represent Wallace at his trial, which began in February 1952.

The jury found Wallace guilty of "murder with malice aforethought", eleven of the jurors urging the death penalty. Judge Charles O. Betts overruled the jury and announced a suspended sentence of five years imprisonment. Wallace immediately walked free and other deaths were linked to him, especially some relating to the Billie Sol Estes fraud.

On August 9, 1984, Estes' lawyer, Douglas Caddy, wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming that Wallace, Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson and Cliff Carter had been involved in eight murders, including that of John F. Kennedy. Caddy stated: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

Fourteen years later, in May 1998, Texan assassination researcher Walt Brown called a press conference to discuss a previously unidentified fingerprint at the "sniper's nest" in the Depository. According to Brown this fingerprint had now been identified as belonging to Wallace.^[52] Initially, the match was a 14-point match made by a certified expert in latent prints.^[53] 12 points is the threshold for court admissible evidence in Texas. Faced with hostile comment, the fingerprint expert in question went away and subjected the print to greater scrutiny, returning with a 32-point match.

In 2003 Barr McClellan published Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK. In the book McClellan argues that Lyndon B. Johnson and Edward Clark were involved in the planning and cover-up of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. McClellan also named Wallace as one of the assassins. The killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil millionaires such as Clint Murchison and Haroldson L. Hunt. McClellan claims that Clark got $2 million for this work.

Former CIA and Watergate figure Howard Hunt wrote a book just before his death^[54] implicating Johnson in the assassination. The book speculates that Johnson may have orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions in the past.^[55] An article published in Rolling Stone magazine about the death of E. Howard Hunt reveals his deathbed confessions to his son which implicate Johnson, CIA agents Cord Meyer, Bill Harvey and David Sánchez Morales, as well as a "French" gunman named Lucien Sarti, who shot at Kennedy from the grassy knoll.^[56]

[edit] Mafia and Hoover conspiracy

J. Edgar Hoover was the long-time director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1925-1972), and close friend of Lyndon Johnson.

It is well-documented that before President Kennedy was elected, Hoover rarely acknowledged the existence of the Mafia. Jack Anderson reported on J. Edgar Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia, and also the reluctance of the FBI to prosecute it. The Mafia´s financial genius Meyer Lansky had allegedly blackmailed Hoover over his homosexuality as early as 1935.^[57] Another probable reason for Hoover's failure to prosecute the Mob was his preference of easy targets to boost the FBI's image as "top cops".

After Kennedy became president the prosecutions of the Mafia by the Justice Department (of which the FBI is a part) increased eleven-fold. The Mafia war that started in the late 1950s encouraged Attorney General Robert Kennedy to prosecute the Mafia heavily after 1960. His attacks focused on people Teamsters Union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and the mafia bosses of Chicago, Tampa and New Orleans.^[58] On May 8, 1964, just days before Hoover was due to give testimony to the Warren Commission, Lyndon Johnson announced he had exempted Hoover from compulsory retirement and was appointed Director of the FBI "for life" at seventy years of age. In the White House Rose Garden, Johnson said, “The nation cannot afford to lose you.”^[59] Since Hoover's death in May 1972, the tenure of the FBI director is, by law, limited to a single 10-year term.

[edit] Organized Crime and the CIA conspiracy

Another possible culprit was the Mafia, in retaliation for the increasing pressure put upon them by Robert Kennedy (who had increased by 12 times the number of prosecutions under President Eisenhower). Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that the Mafia was working very closely with the CIA on several assassination attempts of Fidel Castro.^[60] Frank Sinatra has been accused of being a 'go-between' for the mafia and the Kennedys.^[61] In addition, allegedly the Mafia had funneled thousands of dollars to the Kennedy presidential campaign through back channels, supposedly in exchange for influence in the White House; in one instance, the money was used to pay off county sheriffs in the state of West Virginia so that the published slate of local candidates included Kennedy for the West Virginia primary.^[62][63]

Judith Campbell Exner, as described in her book My Story in 1977, was having an affair with Jack Kennedy and Sam Giancana and was used to send money back and forth between the mob and the campaign.^[64]

Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, and mobsters Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti, and Santo Trafficante Jr., (all of whom say Hoffa worked with the CIA on the Castro assassination plots) top the list of House Select Committee on Assassinations Mafia suspects.^[65]

Carlos Marcello believed it was necessary to assassinate the President to short-circuit his younger brother Bobby, who was serving as attorney general and leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.^{[citation needed]}

In a documentary titled, "The Murder of JFK: Confession of an Assassin" (1996) (ASIN 6304138458) James Files claims that he assassinated Kennedy and that Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti were also present at the assassination on the orders of Sam Giancana.^[66] He is currently serving a 30-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a policeman.

[edit] Soviet Bloc conspiracy

The perception of a conspiracy was widespread, even in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. A source considered reliable by the FBI related that Colonel Boris Ivanov, Chief of the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), who resided in New York City at the time of the assassination, stated that it was his personal feeling that the assassination of President Kennedy had been planned by an organized group rather than being the act of one individual assassin.^[67]

Much later, the highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill": "Laszlo Rajk and Imre Nagy of Hungary; Lucretiu Patrascanu and Gheorghiu-Dej in Romania; Rudolf Slansky, the head of Czechoslovakia, and Jan Masaryk, that country’s chief diplomat; the shah of Iran; Palmiro Togliatti of Italy; American President John F. Kennedy; and Mao Zedong." Pacepa provided some aditional details, such as a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB and noted that "among the leaders of Moscow’s satellite intelligence services there was unanimous agreement that the KGB had been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."^[68]

[edit] Roscoe White

Ricky White (the son of Roscoe White, who was a Dallas policeman) claims that his father’s diary clearly showed that he was part of a three-man assassination team in Kennedy’s murder.^[69] The diary stated that there were six shots fired — two by his father. Roscoe White was behind the wooden fence on top of the grassy knoll and had the code-name Mandarin. His first shot hit the President in the throat. His second shot hit the President in the head. Of the other two assassins, one was located in the Records Building and used the code name Saul. The third assassin was located in the Texas School Book Depository Building and used the code-name Lebanon. The diary also said that Mauser rifles were used in the assassination. Ricky White remembers his father giving him two rifles after the assassination in Dallas. One was an Argentinian rifle and the other was a 7.65 Mauser.

Ricky White claims that the diary showed that Oswald knew of the assassination plot but didn't fire any shots. Oswald was told to bring his rifle to work on November 22nd and to build a sniper's nest with boxes by the sixth floor window. All three of the assassins had an assistant whose job was to disassemble the rifles and take them away.^[70]

The Diary also stated that Roscoe White and Oswald had plans to escape together after the assassination and go to Red Bird Airport in South Dallas. Their driver was J.D. Tippit who didn't know anything concerning the plot. Whilst driving the two in south Dallas, Tippit heard radio reports of the assassination and suspected that his two passengers were involved. Oswald became agitated and jumped out of the car. White got out of the car and shot Tippit with a pistol when Tippit told him he would have to take White downtown for questioning. Ricky White says that the diary (which is no longer in his possession) stated: "I killed an officer at Tenth and Patton."^[71]

After two photos of Oswald had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third photograph of Oswald with a backyard pose that was different (CE 133-C, with newspapers held in his right hand away from his body). This photo was found by the widow of Dallas police officer Roscoe White, amongst his belongings.^[72]

The claims of Ricky White were dealt a severe blow, however, when forensic testing showed that "cables" White produced — supposedly to his father ordering the assassination — had been forged.^[73]

[edit] Cuban conspiracy

This theory is succinctly expressed in the following reported remark of Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's successor: "Kennedy was trying to kill Castro. Castro got him first",^[74][75] and in purported incidents such as the following:

On Sept. 7, 1963 ... Castro entered the Brazilian embassy in Havana and granted an unusual interview to an American reporter. Castro stated that the leaders of the U.S. government would not be safe if they continued their efforts to kill Cuban leaders. Castro's remarks were widely reported in the American press.^[76]

In some variations this theory is compounded with the Organized Crime theory; they both had reasons to hate JFK, and Castro is supposed to have paid the Mafia off by allowing them to use Cuban ports to smuggle drugs into the United States.

On a more credible basis, the theory of the involvement of a Cuban secret service was recently supported by an investigation of German journalists Wilfried Huismann and Heribert Blondiau. In their documentary "Rendezvous mit dem Tod" ("Rendez-vous with death") for public German television station ARD, they present various sources formerly within the FBI, KGB and Cuban service G-2, which state the following:

Oswald contacted the Cuban embassy in Mexico City in September 1963, maybe already planning to assassinate the president out of personal motives (frustration with both political systems in the US and the Soviet Bloc). However it is not quite clear whether this was really Oswalds initiative or a Cuban idea. Following this, the Cuban intelligence Service G2 keeps contact. Fidel Castro, enraged about the multiple assassination plots against him supported by the American CIA and the president's brother Robert F. Kennedy, had already sent out multiple warnings to the US government to stop these plots. Frustrated by their futility, the Cuban leadership decides to support Oswald by sending him money through a high-ranking G-2 official acting as courier. Oswald then returns to the US and carries out the assassination successfully. He is allegedly left to believe there is an escape plan for him prepared by Cuba, although there is not.

The FBI investigation following the assassination then traces back Oswald's contact to the Cuban embassy in Mexico and, supported by Mexican authorities, finds out about Oswalds contacts to G-2, and reports this back. The presidential bureau of Lyndon Johnson however, does not want this information to become public out of the following political considerations:

• A feared right-wing and anti-Castro uprising in the US which would mean probable defeat to the democrats in the next election, and

• Fear of a possible and probable nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Bloc following a retaliatory invasion of Cuba by US forces

Thus, the US government orders the stop of the Mexican investigation and keeps the findings to themselves. Following this theory, tragically, unknowingly and unwillingly, Robert Kennedy is in a way responsible for his brother's death, through his efforts to support an assassination of Fidel Castro. He was said to have found out about this and be devastated.

Doubts as to the credibility of this theory were expressed by the german edition of the magazine "Focus". However, they were rejected by ARD and shown to be false and lacking basis by the authors of the documentary.

[edit] Israeli conspiracy

The Israeli government was displeased with Kennedy for his pressure against their pursuit of a top-secret nuclear program^[77][78] and/or, the Israelis were angry over Kennedy's sympathies with Arabs, and his use of men formerly under the employment of the Nazis in their rocket program, such as Wernher von Braun. Gangster Meyer Lansky and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson often play pivotal roles in this conspiracy as organizing and preparing the hit, thus bleeding into and possibly catalyzing many of the other conspiracies as well. (See: Michael Collins Piper's book Final Judgement ISBN 0974548405.)

Further information: Negev Nuclear Research Center  and Mordechai Vanunu

[edit] Death threats on Irish visit

Recent declassified Irish government papers reveal that death threats^[79] were received by the Irish police force, An Garda Siochana on the official state visit of Kennedy to Ireland in June 1963. At least three death threats were receive which included a sniper armed with a rifle who would fire on the motorcade on its way from Dublin Airport to the Irish president's residence, Aras an Uachtarain. The Garda followed up on this threat and increased police presence, 42% of the Irish police force were deployed on the route in question.^[80] The Garda Commissioner at that time Daniel Costigan warned that "While any attempt on the life of the president is most unlikely, we cannot overlook the possibility of some lunatic, fanatical, communist, Puerto Rican, or some other suchlike person, coming here to try to assassinate the president."

[edit] George H. W. Bush connections

Former president George Herbert Walker Bush is sometimes mentioned in one or more of these assassination theories, due to his background in the CIA, as well as connections with various high-profile anti-Castro Cuban exiles such as Felix Rodriguez and various Texas oil businessmen.

Bush was CIA Director during the 1970s, and it is widely believed he was involved with the agency before then. While he denies any prior involvement, an FBI document released the day after Kennedy's assassination mentions a "Mr. George Bush of the CIA".

An FBI memo from J. Edgar Hoover states "Mr. George Bush of the CIA had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy."^[81]

It is known that Bush was then president of Zapata Offshore Drilling Company, and at 1:45 pm on the day of the assassination made a telephone call from Tyler, Texas. He claimed a student at the University of Houston named James Parrott had said he wished to kill Kennedy when Kennedy made his visit to Houston, although that had taken place the day before without incident.

Further connections are made between George de Mohrenschildt, a personal friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, and Bush himself.

The Assassination Records Review Board looked into the claim that George Bush was a CIA agent, and found the following:

At the request of the Review Board, the CIA made a thorough search of its records in an attempt to determine if the "George Bush" referred to in the memorandum might be identical to President and former Director of Central Intelligence George Herbert Walker Bush. That search determined that the CIA had no association with George Herbert Walker Bush during the time frame referenced in the document.^[82]

Mr. Bush chose to briefly mention the Kennedy assassination during the funeral of former president Gerald Ford. In his eulogy, delivered January 2, 2007, he said "After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good."

[edit] Untimely deaths associated with the Kennedy assassination and investigations

• Eddie Benavides, exact date unknown, 1964, killed by shotgun in Dallas tavern according to vague health department report; brother of Domingo Benavides, eyewitness to the murder of Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippitt. Domingo Benavides claimed that Tippitt's killer did not fit the description of Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Benavides strongly resembled his brother. [11]

• Hank Killam, March 17, 1964, in Pensacola, Florida; throat cut by glass from a fall through a plate glass window. Killam’s wife was a dancer who had worked for Jack Ruby and his co-worker, John Carter, had lived in the same boarding house as Oswald. Told his brother prior to his death that “I am a dead man, but I have run as far as I am going to run.“ Left his mother’s home after a phone call at 4 am. Pensacola police reported the death a suicide, the county coroner ruled an accidental death. [12]

• Gary Underhill, May 8, 1964; possible suicide in New York City. He had been shot in the head, and it was officially ruled that he had committed suicide. However, the bullet entered the right-handed Underhill's head behind the left ear. Underhill, a former member of the CIA and journalist for Life Magazine claimed he knew who shot the President. He told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that JFK had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!". [13]

• Mary Pinchot Meyer, October 12, 1964; the President's alleged former mistress, was shot dead on the streets of Washington in what still is an unsolved murder. Immediately her house was searched for her diary, and it was obtained by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, who supposedly then destroyed it, or handed it over for destruction. [14]

• Jim Koethe, between September 19 and 21, 1964; strangulation. Koethe, a journalist for the Dallas Times-Herald, reported that a suspicious meeting took place on November 24, 1963 in Jack Ruby’s apartment between Jack Ruby’s roommate and an attorney. Koethe’s apartment was ransacked, guns stolen and wallet emptied, an ex-convict was later arrested and charged with murder. [15]

• Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead on November 8, 1965 in her New York City home at the age of 52 -- just 12 hours after she had appeared on the televised game show What's My Line?, on which she was a celebrity panelist. Kilgallen, also a journalist, conducted an interview with Jack Ruby shortly before her death, during a recess of his trial for the shooting death of Lee Harvey Oswald. Her New York Journal-American column was critical of the Warren Commission. On September 3, 1965, Kilgallen wrote, regarding the assassination, "This story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive...." She had a history of government criticism, once suggesting that the CIA recruited members of the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro (which many years later was proved to be the case). FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover kept a file on her activities. Owing to her open criticism of the Warren Commission and other US government entities, and her association with Ruby and recent interview with him, some speculate that she was murdered by members of the same alleged conspiracy against JFK. Kilgallen apparently had succumbed to a fatal combination of alcohol and seconal, perhaps concurrent with a heart attack. It is not known whether it was suicide or an accidental death, although the amount of barbiturate in her system was small enough to suggest an accident. There was no evidence of a break-in or a struggle in Kilgallen's bedroom.

• Harold Russell, July 23, 1965; cause unknown or death by police officer striking him at a party in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Was witness to man running from scene of Tippitt murder, but man did not fit description. Was at a party and was crying and telling his friends that he was going to be killed and that he had to be hidden. People at the party called the police. [16]

• Albert Guy Bogard, February 14, 1966; by apparent suicide by car exhaust in a Louisiana cemetery; automobile salesman who had shown a vehicle to someone who stated he was Oswald, November 9, 1963, but did not fit the description. Bogard testified before Warren Commission. He left Dallas after having been severely beaten. [17]

• Lee Bowers, Jr., August 9, 1966; following a one-car accident. Attending physician stated victim was severely sweating and in a “strange shock” as if suffering coronary failure. Was an eyewitness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. At the time of the murder he was employed by the Union Terminal Company of Dallas as a tower man in the rail yards close to the route taken by the presidential motorcade. When summoned to testify before the Warren Commission, Mr. Bowers stated that some sort of commotion in the vicinity of the "grassy knoll", near the Texas School Book Depository, had attracted his eye. He further stated that two men were standing on the knoll at the time of the assassination. [18]

• William "Bill" Waters, May 20, 1967. Police said he died of a drug overdose (demerol). No autopsy was performed. His mother said Oswald and Killam came to her home before the assassination and her son tried to talk Oswald and Killam out of being involved. Waters called FBI agents after the assassination. The FBI told him he knew too much and to keep his mouth shut. He was arrested and kept in Memphis in a county jail for eight months on a misdemeanor charge.

• Hale Boggs, October 16, 1972; plane missing in Alaska. US representative from Louisiana (father to journalist Cokie Roberts.) Member of Warren Commission and publicly voiced skepticism about commission’s findings, and called for a new investigation. [19]

[edit] Theories in books

• The Gemstone File: A Memoir (2006),^[83] by Stephanie Caruana, posits that Oswald was part of a 28-man assassination team which included three U.S. Mafia hitmen (Jimmy Fratianno, John Roselli, and Eugene Brading). Oswald's role was to shoot John Connally. Bruce Roberts, author of the Gemstone file papers, claimed that the JFK assassination scenario was modeled after a supposed attempted assassination of President F.D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was riding in an open car with Mayor Cermak of Chicago. Cermak was shot and killed by Louis Zangara. But Cermak was actually the REAL target, and Zangara was hired to kill him by the Chicago Mafia. In Dallas, JFK was the real target, and Connally was a secondary target. The JFK assassination is only a small part of the Gemstone File's account. ISBN 1-4120-6137-7.

• The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman Versus Conspiracy (2006), by Michael Kurtz and published by The University Press of Kansas. The author, a professor of history at Southeastern Louisiana University and dean of the graduate school there, evaluates the evidence of conspiracy and concludes that there was one but makes the wizened claim that a full reconstruction of the facts of the assassination is not possible. ISBN 0-7006-1474-5.

• First Hand Knowledge (1992) by Robert D. Morrow. The author was a contract employee of the CIA. He describes his assignments--like obtaining a Mannlicher rifle and developing an undetectable communication system--and links them to his fellow CIA associates in the fight against Castro. Some of these associates,like David Ferrie and Eladio del Valle, would be implicated in the Kennedy Assassination.

• Mark Fuhrman's A Simple Act of Murder (2006) says Oswald did it alone, and that Tague was wounded by the same bullet as JFK's head shot. ISBN 0-06-072154-5.

• David Wrone's The Zapruder Film (2003) puts the head shot from the front, and JFK's throat and back wounds were also caused by an in-and-through from the grassy knoll. Three shots were fired from three different angles, none of them from Lee Harvey Oswald's window at the Texas Book Depository. Wrone is a professor of history (emeritus) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. ISBN 0-7006-1291-2.

• The Kennedy Mutiny (2002) by Will Fritz (not the same as police captain J. Will Fritz), claims that the whole plot was carried out by General Edwin Walker, and that he framed Oswald. ISBN 0-9721635-0-6.

• Norman Mailer's Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (1995) concludes that Oswald was guilty, but holds that the evidence may point to a second gunman on the grassy knoll, who, purely by coincidence, was attempting to kill JFK as the same time as Oswald. "If there was indeed another shot, it was not necessarily fired by a conspirator of Oswald's. Such a gun could have belonged to another lone killer or to a conspirator working for some other group altogether."^[84] ISBN 0-679-42535-7.

• Who Shot JFK? : A Gude to the Major Conspiracy Theories (1993) by Bob Callahan and Mark Zingarelli explores some of the more obscure theories regarding JFK's murder, such as "The Coca-Cola Theory." According this theory, suggested by the editor of an organic gardening magazine, Oswald killed JFK due to an addiction to refined sugar, as evidenced by his need for his favorite beverage immediately after the assassination. ISBN 0-671-79494-9.

• Passport to Assassination (1993) by Oleg M. Nechiporenko, the Soviet consular official (and highly placed KGB officer) who met with Oswald in Mexico City in 1963. He was afforded the unique opportunity to interview Oswald about his goals including his genuine desire for a Cuban visa. His conclusions were (1) that Oswald killed Kennedy due to extreme feelings of inadequacy versus his wife’s professed admiration for JFK, and (2) that the KGB never sought intelligence information from Oswald during his time in the USSR as they did not trust his motivations. ISBN 1-55972-210-X.

• Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK (1992) by Bonar Menninger (ISBN 0-312-08074-3) alleges that while Oswald did attempt to assassinate JFK and did succeed in wounding him, the fatal shot was accidentally fired by Secret Service agent George Hickey, who was riding in the Secret Service follow-up car directly behind the Presidential Limousine. The theory alleges that after the first two shots were fired the motorcade sped up while Hickey was attempting to respond to Oswald's shots and he lost his balance and accidentally pulled the trigger of his AR-15 and shot JFK.

  Hickey's testimony says otherwise: "At the end of the last report (shot) I reached to the bottom of the car and picked up the AR 15 rifle, cocked and loaded it, and turned to the rear." (italics added) George Hickey´s Warren Commission testimony. George Hickey sued Menninger in April 1995 for what he had written in his book Mortal Error. The judge in Baltimore said that the suit by Hickey was filed too long after publication of the book.

• Reasonable Doubt (1985) by Henry Hurt, who writes about his Warren Commission doubts. Mr. Hurt pins the plot on professional crook Robert Easterling,^[85] along with Texas oilmen and the supposed Ferrie/Shaw alliance. ISBN 0030040590

• Appointment in Dallas (1975) by Hugh McDonald suggests that Oswald was lured into a plot that he was told was a staged fake attempt to kill JFK to embarrass the Secret Service, and Oswald was supposed to shoot, but miss on purpose. The plotters killed JFK for real and framed Oswald. ISBN 0-8217-3893-3.

[edit] Fiction

Many works of fiction have attempted to parody some of the more far-fetched explanations that have been put forth to explain the Kennedy assassination.

In the episode "Tikka to Ride" (season 7, episode 1) of the comedy television series Red Dwarf, a bizarre sequence of events involving time travel lead the Red Dwarf crew to convince JFK (from an alternate timeline in which he was never assassinated and the USA suffered badly for it) to go back in time and assassinate himself from behind the grassy knoll, rescuing the country from an awful future and ensuring his place in history as a liberal icon. Since the timeline was repaired, the alternate JFK disappeared moments afterwards, leaving no evidence to be found. "It'll drive the conspiracy nuts crazy, but they'll never work it out."

The special two-hour season premiere from the the fifth (and final) season of Quantum Leap saw Sam leap into Oswald at various points in his life. As the episode unfolded, it turned out Oswald was the one and only shooter, but in a twist ending, Sam and his "swiss-cheese" (amnesiac) memory learned that his true mission was accomplished when he succeeded in saving Jackie Kennedy, whom Oswald also killed in the "original" history.

In the 1992 film Sneakers, a character with an obsession for outlandish conspiracy theories denies that the assassination was successful. When asked "So you're saying the NSA killed Kennedy?", the character replies,"No. They shot him, but they didn't kill him. He's still alive."

In the 1997 film The Wrong Guy, the single bullet theory and the hysteria surrounding it a parodied when a character proposes that the wounds to Kennedy's head were not actually the result of gunshots, stating, "There were no gunmen at all. His head just did that. I call it the 'No Bullet theory.'"

In the 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep, Elvis Presley (played by Bruce Campbell) fakes his own death to escape fame, but then loses all proof that he was once Elvis in a housefire. At the nursing home in which he resides, he befriends a black man called Jack (played by Ossie Davis), who claims to be JFK. The theory put forward is that he was patched up by medics after the failed assassination attempt in Dallas, dyed black by Lyndon B. Johnson and abandoned at the nursing home.

In Woody Allen's film Annie Hall, Alvy is obsessed with speculative doubts about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy and the Warren Commission Report's "second-gun" theory as a way to avoid having sex: "You're using this conspiracy theory as an excuse to avoid sex with me."

In a season 4 episode of The X-Files, "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", it is shown that the Cigarette Smoking Man assassinated Kennedy from a sewage drain opening. Oswald, while later killing an officer out of fear and frustration, is framed for the murder of the president.

An episode of Family Guy depicts Lee Harvey Oswald as a huge Kennedy supporter, who sees the shooter on the grassy knoll, and decides to shoot him [the shooter] to become "an American Hero".

In a 1992 two-part episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Boyfriend", there is a spoof of the incident, really a spoof of a scene from Oliver Stone's JFK, in which the characters are recalling a situation where Keith Hernandez is accused of hitting Kramer with a loogie. They argue about the positioning of the spitter and the possibility of there being a second spitter... over there by the gravely road. One of the characters in this scene is Newman, played by Wayne Knight, who was also in Stone's movie.

In the 2001 film Zoolander, Derek Zoolander (played by Ben Stiller) learns that he is the next scapegoat in a chain of political assassinations to benefit the fashion industry. One of these assassinations was the Kennedy assassination. Matilda (played by Christine Taylor) points out "Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't a male model," and the informant hand model, J.P. Prewitt, replies, "You're goddamn right he wasn't, but the two lookers who capped Kennedy from the grassy knoll sure as shit were!"

In an episode from the Twilight Zone (second series), a historian from the future is sent back in time to film the assassination. He is a relative of Kennedy. The researcher intervenes and changes history. Ultimately, he teleports Kennedy to the future and takes his place in the car, and in doing so, the researcher takes the hit while Kennedy lives on in the future.

In the comic Wolverine: Origins #6 hints that it was Logan himself who shot JFK while he was a member of Team X, a CIA covert ops unit.

In issue #27 of DC Vertigo's "100 Bullets", it's hinted the shooter on the grassy knoll was Joe DiMaggio, seeking revenge for Kennedy ordering the murder of DiMaggio's ex-wife, Marilyn Monroe, when she wanted to go public over their affair. An aged DiMaggio is surprised to learn he was not part of any conspiracy, but it was sheer coincidence he picked that day to kill Kennedy.

In the original Doctor Who novel "Who Killed Kennedy", published in 1996, the Doctor and a reporter called James Stevens uncover a plot by the Master to disrupt history through the use of brainwashed time-traveling assassins. The first target was to be Kennedy, with the Master planning to have a gunman found wearing a Soviet uniform so as to inflame the delicate international political situation. Stevens traveled back in time to Dallas 1963 and wound up in the Book Depository, trying to shoot the Master but missing, only wounding the President. Further shots came from the grassy knoll, and Stevens saw from a distance that the second gunman was himself, twenty five years older.

The electronic indie pop band The Postal Service wrote a song on their album Give Up called "Sleeping In", referring to the assassination of JFK: "It was just a man with something to prove, slightly bored and severely confused, he steadied his rifle with his target in the center and became famous on that day in November."

The musical group Godley and Creme (ex-10CC) produced a song called “Lonnie Garamond was a Loser.” In it, the main character is presented in great detail as preparing to shoot Kennedy in Dallas…with a camera. In the end, it is impossible to say if when he “squeezed off three shots” he was just photographing JFK, or whether the camera is some kind of spy gadget that actually killed.

The 1979 French film I comme Icare (I as in Icarus) tells the story of a sort of Attorney General in an imaginary nation, set to investigate the assassination of their President. Both the assassination circumstances and the investigation itself are practically the same as those of Kennedy's murder and the ensuing Warren Commission. The Attorney General, played by famous French actor Yves Montand, goes on, unlike his real counterpart Earl Warren, to uncover a vast conspiracy planned by the Nation's Secret Services. In doing so, he gets very close to the truth, much as the Greek mythological hero Icarus got very close to the sun before his wax wings melted, resulting in his death.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Connally, Nellie (October 28, 2003). From Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy. Rugged Land. ISBN 0-316-86032-8. 
• Hurt, Henry. Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: Holt, Rinhart, and Winston, 1985. (ISBN 0805003606)
• Lane, Mark. Rush to Judgement: A critique of the Warren Commission's inquiry in the murders of John F. Kennedy, Officer J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald. Holt Rhinehart. 1966 (ISBN needed)
• Thompson, Josiah. Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination. New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1967. (ISBN needed)
• Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An A-to-Z Encyclopedia by Michael Benson Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-1444-2

[edit] External links

• ABC News Presents The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy – Peter Jennings' 2003 TV special reconstructing and analyzing the shooting
• spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk – Spartacus' collection of excerpts from Fetzer's books on conspiracy and the CIA
• BBC News – German documentary about the assassination
• The World’s Greatest Conspiracy: The religious cover-up (Indcoup) September 11, 2006
• Frontline: Who was L.H. Oswald – PBS documentary focuses on the man and his life
• PBS News 2003 – Public's Belief that a Conspiracy Existed
• The Men Who Killed Kennedy – An examination of the evidence surrounding the assassination
• Interview with LBJ's mistress – Interview with LBJ's mistress
• Mind Control: The Rosetta Stone of the JFK Assassination, MKULTRA-victim Oswald used for COINTELPRO activities, culminating in assassination of JFK as Operation Northwoods fulfillment

John F. Kennedy assassination
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