Presidential Biographies: The Kennedy Assassination
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas, when he was shot in the head, while riding in the back seat of an open-topped convertible limousine. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with Kennedy's murder, but he never went to trial for the crime. Oswald himself was shot and killed two days later in the parking garage of the Dallas Police Department by Jack Ruby. President Lyndon Johnson convened a special commission, led by United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and that commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in Kennedy's murder.
It is this event that many believe marked a turning point in terms of public mistrust of what their government was telling them. The Warren Commission's findings seemed to be contradicted by some key pieces of evidence that was made available to the public. Many believed that the commission fudged the evidence, especially in regard to what was called "the magic bullet," a projectile that seemingly changed directions and passed through Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly before coming to rest in pristine condition. There were also the reports of those present who claimed that shots were fired from a grassy knoll located in a different direction than where Oswald was said to have fired from, suggesting the presence of multiple possible shooters. This conclusion was bolstered when a film taken by a bystander named Abraham Zapruder seemed to corroborate that at least one of the shots that killed Kennedy came from the direction that his vehicle was travelling in and not behind it.
These, and multiple other contradictions in the Warren Commission's conclusions have fueled what is probably the most popular conspiracy theory in history. It has also spawned a virtual cottage industry of books postulating who actually killed Kennedy and who may have been a part of the conspiracy to plan and carry out his assassination. There appears to be too much to ignore and conclude that Oswald acted alone, despite the fact that many are adamant that this was the case. Those who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy implicate a number of parties, including the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and even Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.
The Warren Commission Report, released in 1964, left many skeptical about its conclusions, especially when it came to the "magic bullet," a theory proposed by then lawyer (and later Senator) Arlen Spector. Author Jim Bishop was one of the first to write about the day Kennedy was killed in his 1963 book The Day Kennedy Was Shot. Bishop does not delve into any conspiracy theories and assumes Oswald to be the killer.
Perhaps the most prominent doubter of the Warren Commission's finding was New Orleans District Attorney (and later Judge) Jim Garrison, who unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw as a party to the crime. Garrison wrote On the Trail of the Assassins, published in 1988, in which he set out the process behind his conclusion that the CIA authorized Kennedy's murder. A New Orleans jury was not convinced.
Texas journalist Jim Marrs, in his 1989 book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy is a thorough examination of a number of conspiracy possibilities, with detail on every aspect of the shooting, the investigations, and casting suspicion on the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA, and anti-Castro Cubans. Another leading skeptic is Dallas criminal lawyer Mark Lane, who wrote a 1966 booc called Rush to Judgement in which he picks apart many of the findings of the Warren Commission. Another leading conspiracy theorist is L. Fletcher Prouty, who served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, and who believed that elements of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had conspired to assassinate the president. He expounded on these beliefs in his 1992 book JFK: The Cia, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. David Lifton's 1988 book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F, Kennedy also takes issues with many of the conclusions of the Warren Commission, and is especially critical of the autopsy of Kennedy.
Philip Shenon, in his 2013 book A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination claims to have discovered information that was withheld from the Warren Commission by the CIA, FBI and others. He too is critical of the commission, and claims that it withheld evidence that disproved the lone gunman theory. In Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK, a 2013 book, journalist Bonar Menninger reviews the studies, findings and interviews he conducted with a man named Howard Donahue, a firearms/ballistic expert/gun engineer, one out of eleven rifle shooters that CBS hired to test and fire the the same model of rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have used. Donahue concluded that although Oswald did shoot at Kennedy, two of the shots hit, and one missed. He asserts that the third shot was the fatal shot, and it came from an accidental shooting from a secret service agent who was riding in the follow up car to the President's.
In JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, published in 2010, author James Douglas theorizes that Kennedy was moving from "cold warrior" to a rapprochement with Khrushchev and the Soviet Union, while the military and intelligence community had other ideas. He argues that the members of the Joint Chiefs, and the entire upper echelon of the CIA, various military intelligence organizations, and hundreds of anti-communist individuals in all walks of government all came together in 1963 to formulate an assassination plan that would remove Kennedy as head of the government.
David Scheim, in his 1992 book Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy, is convinced that the Mafia was behind Kennedy's murder, likely with the approval or at least the acquiescence of those in high government positions, and that they also orchestrated Oswald's killing as well.
Long after the Warren Commission, a congressional committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church took a more honest look at the Kennedy assassination as well as some of the off-the-books activities of the CIA. It was called the House Select Committee on Assassinations, better known as the Church Committee, and its findings feed much of the conclusions reached by author Gaeton Fonzi in his 2013 book The Last Investigation: What Insiders Know About the Assassination of JFK.
One of the most famous conspiracy theorists is a former Governor (as well as a former professional wrestler), Jesse Ventura, and in his 2013 book They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK, he challenges readers to contradict the many reasons (63 in all) that support his theory that Kennedy was killed as the result of a government conspiracy at the highest levels.
A couple of authors have gone so far as to make the case that Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, was part of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. One of these authors, Philip Nelson, has gone so far as to call Johnson the "mastermind" of the assassination. He says so in the title of his 2011 book LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination. This is also the conclusion reached by Roger Stone, notorious as a supporter of Richard Nixon (he has a large tattoo of Nixon's face on his back) and Donald Trump. He sets out his case for this argument in his 2011 book The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.
Finally, I'll mention one interesting take from a conspiracy theorist, that of the late comedian and actor Richard Belzer, who in his 2016 book Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination, ponders why so many of the witnesses to the Kennedy assassination died suddenly, some from natural causes, others more mysteriously, and examines the near impossible odds of this occurring.
For the reader who refuses to entertain any suggestion of a conspiracy or of multiple shooters, there are authors who support this conclusion, though much fewer than those who have written of a conspiracy. The most popular is probably famed trial lawyer Gerald Posner, in his 2003 book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. He is adamant that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that there was no second gunman on the grassy knoll.
In the 60 years that have passed since the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination, it has become more difficult to solve this mystery. Witnesses die and memories fade, and the fact is that we will almost certainly never know whether Kennedy was killed at the result of a conspiracy or because of one deluded gunman. It is another example of the adage that truth (even when it is unknown) is stranger than fiction and that's why it has produced so much product that continues to take up a large amount of real estate on our bookshelves.
It is this event that many believe marked a turning point in terms of public mistrust of what their government was telling them. The Warren Commission's findings seemed to be contradicted by some key pieces of evidence that was made available to the public. Many believed that the commission fudged the evidence, especially in regard to what was called "the magic bullet," a projectile that seemingly changed directions and passed through Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly before coming to rest in pristine condition. There were also the reports of those present who claimed that shots were fired from a grassy knoll located in a different direction than where Oswald was said to have fired from, suggesting the presence of multiple possible shooters. This conclusion was bolstered when a film taken by a bystander named Abraham Zapruder seemed to corroborate that at least one of the shots that killed Kennedy came from the direction that his vehicle was travelling in and not behind it.
These, and multiple other contradictions in the Warren Commission's conclusions have fueled what is probably the most popular conspiracy theory in history. It has also spawned a virtual cottage industry of books postulating who actually killed Kennedy and who may have been a part of the conspiracy to plan and carry out his assassination. There appears to be too much to ignore and conclude that Oswald acted alone, despite the fact that many are adamant that this was the case. Those who believe that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy implicate a number of parties, including the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and even Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.
The Warren Commission Report, released in 1964, left many skeptical about its conclusions, especially when it came to the "magic bullet," a theory proposed by then lawyer (and later Senator) Arlen Spector. Author Jim Bishop was one of the first to write about the day Kennedy was killed in his 1963 book The Day Kennedy Was Shot. Bishop does not delve into any conspiracy theories and assumes Oswald to be the killer.
Perhaps the most prominent doubter of the Warren Commission's finding was New Orleans District Attorney (and later Judge) Jim Garrison, who unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw as a party to the crime. Garrison wrote On the Trail of the Assassins, published in 1988, in which he set out the process behind his conclusion that the CIA authorized Kennedy's murder. A New Orleans jury was not convinced.
Texas journalist Jim Marrs, in his 1989 book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy is a thorough examination of a number of conspiracy possibilities, with detail on every aspect of the shooting, the investigations, and casting suspicion on the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA, and anti-Castro Cubans. Another leading skeptic is Dallas criminal lawyer Mark Lane, who wrote a 1966 booc called Rush to Judgement in which he picks apart many of the findings of the Warren Commission. Another leading conspiracy theorist is L. Fletcher Prouty, who served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, and who believed that elements of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had conspired to assassinate the president. He expounded on these beliefs in his 1992 book JFK: The Cia, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. David Lifton's 1988 book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F, Kennedy also takes issues with many of the conclusions of the Warren Commission, and is especially critical of the autopsy of Kennedy.
Philip Shenon, in his 2013 book A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination claims to have discovered information that was withheld from the Warren Commission by the CIA, FBI and others. He too is critical of the commission, and claims that it withheld evidence that disproved the lone gunman theory. In Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK, a 2013 book, journalist Bonar Menninger reviews the studies, findings and interviews he conducted with a man named Howard Donahue, a firearms/ballistic expert/gun engineer, one out of eleven rifle shooters that CBS hired to test and fire the the same model of rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have used. Donahue concluded that although Oswald did shoot at Kennedy, two of the shots hit, and one missed. He asserts that the third shot was the fatal shot, and it came from an accidental shooting from a secret service agent who was riding in the follow up car to the President's.
In JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, published in 2010, author James Douglas theorizes that Kennedy was moving from "cold warrior" to a rapprochement with Khrushchev and the Soviet Union, while the military and intelligence community had other ideas. He argues that the members of the Joint Chiefs, and the entire upper echelon of the CIA, various military intelligence organizations, and hundreds of anti-communist individuals in all walks of government all came together in 1963 to formulate an assassination plan that would remove Kennedy as head of the government.
David Scheim, in his 1992 book Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy, is convinced that the Mafia was behind Kennedy's murder, likely with the approval or at least the acquiescence of those in high government positions, and that they also orchestrated Oswald's killing as well.
Long after the Warren Commission, a congressional committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church took a more honest look at the Kennedy assassination as well as some of the off-the-books activities of the CIA. It was called the House Select Committee on Assassinations, better known as the Church Committee, and its findings feed much of the conclusions reached by author Gaeton Fonzi in his 2013 book The Last Investigation: What Insiders Know About the Assassination of JFK.
One of the most famous conspiracy theorists is a former Governor (as well as a former professional wrestler), Jesse Ventura, and in his 2013 book They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK, he challenges readers to contradict the many reasons (63 in all) that support his theory that Kennedy was killed as the result of a government conspiracy at the highest levels.
A couple of authors have gone so far as to make the case that Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, was part of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. One of these authors, Philip Nelson, has gone so far as to call Johnson the "mastermind" of the assassination. He says so in the title of his 2011 book LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination. This is also the conclusion reached by Roger Stone, notorious as a supporter of Richard Nixon (he has a large tattoo of Nixon's face on his back) and Donald Trump. He sets out his case for this argument in his 2011 book The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.
Finally, I'll mention one interesting take from a conspiracy theorist, that of the late comedian and actor Richard Belzer, who in his 2016 book Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination, ponders why so many of the witnesses to the Kennedy assassination died suddenly, some from natural causes, others more mysteriously, and examines the near impossible odds of this occurring.
For the reader who refuses to entertain any suggestion of a conspiracy or of multiple shooters, there are authors who support this conclusion, though much fewer than those who have written of a conspiracy. The most popular is probably famed trial lawyer Gerald Posner, in his 2003 book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. He is adamant that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that there was no second gunman on the grassy knoll.
In the 60 years that have passed since the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination, it has become more difficult to solve this mystery. Witnesses die and memories fade, and the fact is that we will almost certainly never know whether Kennedy was killed at the result of a conspiracy or because of one deluded gunman. It is another example of the adage that truth (even when it is unknown) is stranger than fiction and that's why it has produced so much product that continues to take up a large amount of real estate on our bookshelves.