ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F KENNEDY.
John Kennedy was an American politician who served as the 35th president in the United States from 1961 to his assassination, which took place in 1963. He was born on 29th May 1917 in Massachusetts, United States, and assassinated on 22nd November 1963 in Parkland Memorial Hospital in Texas, United States. More than fifty years have passed after Kennedy was assassinated. A significant number of people believed in various conspiracies revolving around his death. According to the reports of FiveThirtyEight, more than 61% of the American citizens believe that the assassination of John Kennedy involved more than one gunman. There are a lot of conspiracies that tends to explain his murder. For example, the Grassy Knoll conspiracy theory explains that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only assassin who killed President Kennedy, although most of the Americans believe that Oswald did not work alone. Most of them feel a second assassin was probably a sharp sniper who could hit the target on a moving presidential motorcade. Others believe in the theory of the umbrella man who was spotted carrying the umbrella during a sunny day. The believers of this theory believe that the man could have shot a poison dart from the umbrella. Others believe that a mob assassinated President Kennedy. However, this paper will explore the proven and well-documented conspiracy with the highest reach of the United States government.
“The government did it” Conspiracy theory.
This was the scariest conspiracy that revolved around the assassination of JKF. Believers of this theory emphasized that the whole process was arranged and sponsored by the state government as an inside job. Philip Shenon, a biographer of the time, gave his argument with respect to what he claimed to be Bobby’s first thought. Philip told NBC News that “apparently Bobby Kennedy’s first suspicion was that it was some rogue element in the CIA.” However, when Bobby was presented to the CIA Director, he felt insecure and decided to give a different story from that provided by Philip. This theory created much tension and was harder for the public to sway. Most of the Central Intelligence Agency leaders were uncomfortable with the leadership of Kennedy concerning the invasion of the Bay of Pigs. Bobby was aware of this motive of the CIA organization. That’s why he emphasized that they were the first suspects, although the organization declined Bobby’s sentiments and maintained that it had nothing to do with President Kennedy’s death. Edward Price, the CIA spokesman, told NBC that “while the CIA conspiracy theories make good fodder for motives, they are pure fiction.” The other insider assassination theory, according to the Zapruder film, included a story of the president’s motorcade driver, William Greer, being hired by a particular government organization to turn around and shoot the president. However, this theory seemed less convincing to most Americans.
The majority of the Americans claimed that both the FBI and CIA had all the chances of preventing President Kennedy’s assassination if they could have acted on the intelligence in their files. According to the criminal records, Oswald was listed as a delusional misfit and violent. Records show that both the FBI and CIA had Lee Oswald under aggressive surveillance in few months prior to the assassination of the president, and were aware that he was consulting with people who could have wanted the president dead at the height of the cold war. The agencies were aware that a self-proclaimed Marxist (Lee Oswald) had exceptional skills in riffling and could shoot the president on a moving motorcade from a distance. Oswald got his several months’ riffle experience from the Marine Corps, and the agencies were aware of his riffle skills. Coincidentally, Oswald had secured his new job as a laborer at the Texas School Book Depository that overlooked Delay Plaza, the exact place where the president was shot while passing in his motorcade.
The evidence collected by the U. S agencies about Oswald before the assassination was enough to put his name in “red lights” concerning President Kennedy’s life. Clarence Kelley, the former FBI Director, admitted publically after retirement that they had all the chance to prevent the assassination of Kennedy, but no one bothered to protect him. In 1987, Kelley wrote that “without doubt, JFK would not have died in Dallas, and history would have taken a different turn.” (Philip 2017). Immediately after President Kennedy was assassinated, the panicked officials of FBI and CIA agencies attempted to cover-up the filed information they had gathered concerning Oswald, fearing that whenever the information goes viral, everyone could blame the agencies for the murder of the president. After the assassination, both agencies acknowledged that they got information on Oswald’s recent visit to Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico, but they are not aware of any information to prove that the assassination plan of President Kennedy was hatched in Mexico or elsewhere. However, the leaked files from both the CIA and FBI agencies show that during Oswald’s visit to Mexico, he interacted with the Soviet and Cuban spies, including the assassination experts from KGB.
Another declassified document with an FBI memo written by the warren commission director of the agency, Edgar Hoover, revealed that in 1963, Kennedy’s assassin Lee Oswald had spoken about the plot to kill President Kennedy openly while at Mexico City. The surviving members of the Warren Commission claimed that such a memo did not reach the commission at any time, although it was found in the National archive. They contendedcontended that memo could have been a “bombshell” document that could have prompted an emergence investigation of Oswald’s sentiments in Mexico. However, these claims appeared to be another brazen part of the cover-up because memo appeared in the digital records of the panel at the National Archives.
The cover-up from both the CIA and FBI agencies began few days after the death of the president on 22nd November 1963. On 24th November the same year, Oswald was gunned down by Ruby at Dallas police headquarters. Oswald’s death came after the FBI agents across the town ordered the destruction of the threatening note that Oswald had delivered to the FBI office prior to the Kennedy’s assassination. The FBI started an aggressive surveillance to the entire family of Oswald afterwards. The question of concern that still remains to the mind of many is the content of the Oswald’s note. Even among the FBI agents, only a few can tell the content of the note because it was kept confidential in the men’s room, later tore into pieces and flashed down the toilet. Later under consistent interview of FBI agent by the congressional investigators, the agent admitted that the note contained information that could prove that the FBI was aware about the plot to assassinate the president and had an opportunity to save him.
However, the controversies exist on why the press was reluctant to release the documents relating to the death of President Kennedy as requested by John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The Act had requested the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to release all the documents that have been stored in the archives for the last 25 years. More than 3,100 files that had never been seen before are believed to contain details that the FBI and CIA had collected about Lee Oswald many months and years before the assassination of President Kennedy. The earlier declassified CIA documents indicated the agencies have been monitoring the life of Oswald since 1959, the year which he attempted to defect Moscow. President Donald Trump had assured the public that he will not block the massive government dump, unless if he receives the confirmation from responsible agencies that the documents will interfere with national security. The FBI and CIA on 26th October, 2017 requested the White House to redact a lot of Kennedy’s assassination documents in the interest of national security. Many thought that some U.S. intelligence agencies feared that some of the documents might contain the identities of United States intelligence sources that might be put at risk of retaliation.
Works Cited
“John Kennedy and the CIA.” Murder, Inc, 2019, pp. 237-244.
“John Kennedy and the Rogue Elephant.” Murder, Inc, 2019, pp. 152-158.
Philip S. (2017). Files will shed light on a JFK shooting conspiracy. BST.