The assassination of former president John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the most historic tragedies in American history. John F. Kennedy’s death has been a topic of controversy for over five decades. Was there actually a conspiracy? On Friday, November 22nd, 1963, president John F Kennedy was publicly assassinated while sitting in a car in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. He was struck by two bullets and the second was a fatal headshot. John B. Connally Jr. (Former Governor of Dallas) was in the car with Kennedy and was also hit in the shooting, but survived. Officially, there were three bullets fired by the gunman; this horrific act was caught on camera by Abraham Zapruder with his eight millimeter film camera, which is now referred to as the Zapruder Film. This film would go on to be extremely significant in the investigation, as it allowed for frame by frame analysis. The official ruling was that the gunman was a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. Only two days after the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was assassinated by a man named Jack Ruby, while live on national television. The further analysis reveals that there are definitely a few missing pieces to the puzzle of John F. Kennedy’s death.
There are many skeptics who criticize the motorcade route, believing it to have an unusual amount of turns which would have caused the motorcade to have to slow down. One week after the assassination, newly sworn in president and vice president to Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson created a commission to investigate the circumstances of the John F Kennedy assassination and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. The commission was headed by Supreme court justice Earl Warren and staffed by other esteemed officials. The official ruling by the Warren commission was that Lee Harvey oswald assassinated JFK and acted alone with no conspiracy involved. But there are many theories and skeptics that say differently. One reason why many conspiracy theorists think more than one shooter was involved is because of the “Single Bullet Theory”. Oswald fired only three bullets in Dallas. But he killed Kennedy and severely wounded the Dallas Governor John B. Connally Jr. who was sitting in the passenger seat in front of the president. The Warren Commission came up with the “single-bullet theory” to explain how the alleged shooter did such great damage with only three rounds. It states that both men were hit by a single bullet which “entered JFK’s upper back, exited his throat, and then struck Connally, breaking a rib and shattering his wrist, and finally coming to rest in his thigh,” says the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Skeptics say the trajectory was very unrealistic and re-named it the “magic bullet theory”.
Lee Harvey Oswald had quite an interesting background prior to the assassination. Oswald had been in Russia in 1959 and had tried to renounce his American Citizenship. Oswald also had a history of violence from a young age, he reportedly once chased his brother with a knife at the age of 7 and he also joined the Marine Corps, where he spent three years and became qualified as a sharpshooter with the M-1 Rifle. While Oswald was living in Dallas he was actually under active surveillance by the FBI in that city. However, the local FBI did not inform the Secret Service about Oswald. This is especially shocking, considering the fact that Oswald was employed at a location right along the motorcade route from where Oswald would fire the fatal shots on the president. On the other hand, the Secret Service did not inform the local FBI of the motorcade route either. Therefore, both the Secret Service and the local FBI are somewhat at fault.
One of the most supported theories is that the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA had something to do with the death of John F Kennedy. It sounds absurd but conspiracy theorists suggest the president’s alleged comment that he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds” made him a target of the agency. For JFK expert, Dave Perry, this is the most interesting theory. “The problem is, of all of them, this is one I can't debunk,” he told CNN in an interview. He also points out that the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency was a member of the Warren Commission. The commission determined that Oswald acted alone. A CIA memo from 1975 says a thorough and adept search of agency records in and outside the US was conducted to determine whether Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot Kennedy in Dallas on the 22nd of November in 1963, had been used by the agency or connected with it in “any conceivable way”. The memo said the search came up empty. The CIA memo also said there was also no indication that any other United States agency used Oswald as a source or for recruitment.
In regards to evidence proving Lee Harvey Oswald was the shooter, The Warren Commission stated that “the Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-Millimeter Italian rifle from which the shots were fired was owned by and in the possession of Oswald,” (ch. 6). This is due to the fact that there was a nearly whole bullet recovered from John Connally and two bullet fragments recovered from the car that matched that rifle, “to the exclusion of all other weapons,” (ch.6). The rifle was found hidden near the sixth floor window along with 3 bullet cartridges matching the three shots heard. Continuing with the Warren Commission’s evidence, “Oswald had attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. walker on April 10th, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition to take human life,” (ch. 7). One would only have to imagine that after his first failed assassination attempt, he would train like the madman he is, so that he would not miss again. Furthermore, Lee Harvey Oswald unquestionably also killed Dallas police officer JD Tippett with a revolver approximately 45 minutes after the assassination of President Kennedy. With that in mind, it seems pretty clear that Oswald was the shooter, however many skeptics wonder if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Unfortunately, because Oswald was assassinated by Jack Ruby, we may never know for sure. Although the Warren Commission was not able to find evidence linking Oswald and Ruby together, yet it is natural to wonder if Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. The Warren Commission also found: “No evidence that Oswald was involved with any person or group in a conspiracy to assassinate the president,” (ch. 6). The warren commission was firm in their belief that Oswald was the sole shooter. The Warren Commission believes that there were only three bullets fired. The second bullet in particular is the most controversial, The Warren Commision claims that it hit both John F. Kennedy and John Connally. The Commission goes on to say that the bullet found in Connally’s stretcher was this bullet, even though it was almost completely intact, otherwise known as “the Magic Bullet”.
Based on the notorious Zapruder film, many skeptics believe that there was not enough time for three shots to be fired within the timespan that Kennedy drove by the building Oswald assassinated him from. Here is a quote from John Connally in a 1966 interview with Life Magazine, “There is my absolute knowledge, and Nellie’s [his wife] too, that one bullet caused The President’s first wound, and that an entirely separate shot struck me,”. If this is true, then it had to be two shooters who assassinated the president. There is even supposedly footage of the assassination from an angle different from the Zapruder Film. People who have seen the footage claim to see anything from puffs of gunsmoke located on the grassy knoll to the right side of the car. However, this footage has supposedly gone missing. Cynthia Nix Jackson, the granddaughter of the person who took the film, sued the United States Government for ten million dollars in 2015 for the return of the film. Apparently, this film has not been seen since the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This committee was formed in 1976 to conduct an investigation into the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. Why it was formed is of particular interest; The House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed after a senate committee confirmed that the CIA had purposefully withheld information from The Warren Commission investigation. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 that scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunman shot at John F. Kennedy. Also, here is a direct quote from the committee’s findings, “The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that president John f. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy,”. With considering the conclusions of this committee, the acoustic evidence, the interview of Connally, and the shaky premise of the magic bullet theory, there is evidence to suggest there were multiple shooters. It seems quite likely that there is more to the story than Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed the President with no clear motive.
One theory is that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had John F. Kennedy assassinated to gain more power politically. Before kennedy was elected, Lyndon B. Johnson had attempted to take the democratic nomination from John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic Convention of Los Angeles. According to the book The Death of a President by William Manchester, Lyndon B. Johnson asked the president to continue doing part of his old job as Texas Senator, which can be interpreted that Lyndon B. johnson was bored and emasculated by the showy office of vice president as opposed to his old job while being the Majority Leader of the Senate. Also, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson apparently had words the day before the assassination. Lyndon B. Johnson also played a large role in Kennedy going to dallas in the first place. Lyndon B Johnson no longer had political control over Texas and Texas was an important swing state necessary for John F. Kennedy’s reelection. Lyndon B. Johnson’s right-hand man had actually been warned by a high profile Texas Lawyer named Byron Skelton that the political climate in Dallas at the time was not safe and that he feared for the President’s safety but the President was not informed. Other than that, there is no hard evidence tying Lyndon B. Johnson to the assassination and he also helped form the Warren Commission.
Another theory is that the Russians were behind president Kennedy’s assassination. Obviously, there was heavy tension between the two nations with the Cold War. Lee Harvey Oswald tried to retreat to the Soviet Union before and some theorize that he could have been acting as a KGB agent. Oswald was also inexplicably at the russian Embassy in Mexico City a few weeks prior to the kennedy assassination. On the other hand, Oswald would not be a smart option for the Russians to use, since he would immediately cast suspicions on Russia due to his well-known Russian ties