John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

There has long been suspicion of a government cover-up

Cover-up

A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...

of information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

on November 22, 1963. There are also numerous conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

regarding the assassination that arose soon after his death and continue to be promoted today. Most put forth a criminal conspiracy

Conspiracy (crime)

In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...

involving parties as varied as the CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

, the KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

, the American Mafia

American Mafia

The American Mafia , is an Italian-American criminal society. Much like the Sicilian Mafia, the American Mafia has no formal name and is a secret criminal society. Its members usually refer to it as Cosa Nostra or by its English translation "our thing"...

, the Israeli government

Politics of Israel

The Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive...

, FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

director J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

, sitting Vice President

Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

, Cuban president

President of Cuba

--209.174.31.28 18:43, 22 November 2011 The President of Cuba is the Head of state of Cuba. According to the Cuban Constitution of 1976, the President is the chief executive of the Council of State of Cuba...

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

, anti-Castro Cuban exile

Cuban exile

The term "Cuban exile" refers to the many Cubans who have sought alternative political or economic conditions outside the island, dating back to the Ten Years' War and the struggle for Cuban independence during the 19th century...

groups, the Federal Reserve, or some combination of those entities.

Background

President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

was assassinated as he traveled in an open-top car in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

at 12:30 PM, November 22, 1963; Texas Governor John Connally

John Connally

John Bowden Connally, Jr. , was an influential American politician, serving as the 39th governor of Texas, Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M. Nixon. While he was Governor in 1963, Connally was a passenger in the car in...

was also injured. Within two hours, Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

was arrested for the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit and arraigned that evening. At 1:35 AM Saturday, Oswald was arraigned for murdering the President. At 11:21 AM, Sunday, November 24, 1963, nightclub owner Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

shot and killed Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail.

In 1964, the Warren Commission

Warren Commission

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

concluded that there was no persuasive evidence that Oswald was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President, and stated their belief that he acted alone. Critics, even before the publication of the official government conclusions, suggested a conspiracy was behind the assassination. Though the public initially accepted the Warren Commission's conclusions, by 1966 the tide had turned as authors such as Mark Lane

Mark Lane (author)

Mark Lane is an American lawyer who has written many books, including Rush to Judgment, one of two major books published in the immediate wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination that questioned the conclusions of the Warren Commission. Another book, Plausible Denial, published in 1991, continued...

with his best-selling book Rush to Judgment, and prominent publications such as the New York Review of Books and Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

openly disputed the findings of the commission.

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald assassinated Kennedy but found its report and the original FBI investigation to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that at least four shots were fired, that with "high probability" two gunmen fired at the President, and a conspiracy was probable. The HSCA also stated that "the Warren Commission failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

The Ramsey Clark Panel and the Rockefeller Commission both supported the Warren Commission's conclusions, while New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison

Jim Garrison

Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy...

unsuccessfully prosecuted

Trial of Clay Shaw

On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. On January 29, 1969, Shaw was brought to trial in Orleans Parish...

Clay Shaw

Clay Laverne Shaw was a businessman in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the only person prosecuted in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and was found not guilty.-Biography:...

of conspiring to assassinate Kennedy.

Public opinion

Public opinion polls taken after the assassination have indicated that a large number of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That same year an ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.

Possible evidence of a cover-up

Numerous researchers, including Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, Gerald D. McKnight, Anthony Summers

Anthony Summers

Anthony Bruce Summers is the non-fiction author of seven best-selling investigative books. He is an Irish citizen, and has been working for some twenty years with Robbyn Swan, who is now his co-author and fifth wife...

, and others have pointed out what they characterize as inconsistencies, oversights, exclusions of evidence, errors, changing stories, or changes made to witness testimony in the official Warren Commission investigation, which could suggest a cover-up, without putting forward a theory as to who actually committed the murder.

The murder weapon

One example of a changing story involves the rifle which was identified as the murder weapon by the Warren Commission. Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman both initially identified the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository (see John F. Kennedy assassination rifle

John F. Kennedy assassination rifle

In March 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, using the alias "A. Hidell", purchased a 6.5 mm Carcano Model 91/38 rifle by mail order. He also purchased a revolver from a different company, by the same method...

) as a 7.65 Mauser. Weitzman signed an affidavit the following day describing the weapon as a "7.65 Mauser bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it". Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig claimed that he saw "7.65 Mauser" stamped on the barrel of the weapon.

Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade told the press that the weapon found in the School Book Depository was a 7.65 Mauser, and this was reported by the news media. But investigators later identified the rifle as a 6.5 Italian Mannlicher Carcano. According to Mark Lane:

"The strongest element in the case against Lee Harvey Oswald was the Warren Commission's conclusion that his rifle had been found on the 6th floor of the Book Depository building. Yet Oswald never owned a 7.65 Mauser. When the FBI later reported that Oswald had purchased only a 6.5 Italian Mannlicher-Carcano, the weapon at police headquarters in Dallas miraculously changed its size, its make and its nationality. The Warren Commission concluded that a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, not a 7.65 German Mauser, had been discovered by the Dallas deputies."

Witness intimidation allegations

Some witnesses to the assassination, or to events connected to the assassination, claimed to have been intimidated or threatened. These include Jean Hill, Richard Carr, Roy Truly, Sandy Speaker, and A. J. Millican. Acquilla Clemmons, who claimed she saw two men at the scene of Officer J.D. Tippit's murder, also claimed she was told to keep quiet about what she saw by a man with a gun who came to her home.

Witness deaths

Penn Jones, Jr.

William Penn Jones, Jr. was a man with a varied background: as a hobo during the depression, a University of Texas at Austin student, an officer in the United States Army during World War II, a newspaper owner and recipient of the Elijah P. Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism...

, Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs is an American former newspaper journalist and New York Times best-selling author of books and articles on a wide range of alleged cover ups and conspiracies. Marrs is a prominent figure in the JFK conspiracy press and his book Crossfire was a source for Oliver Stone's film JFK...

and Ralph Schuster have pointed out what they have characterized as a suspiciously large number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination. They also point out that there seems to be a pattern of deaths around the times of various government investigations, such as during and just after the Warren Commission investigation, as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison was launching his own investigation, while the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking into assassinations by U.S. intelligence agencies in the 1970s, and when the House Select Committee on Assassinations was gearing up its investigations. Marrs points out that "these deaths certainly would have been convenient for anyone not wishing the truth of the JFK assassination to become public."

Withheld documents

Many government records relating to the assassination, including some from the Warren Commission investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation and the Church Committee investigation, were kept secret from the public. These secret documents included the president's autopsy records. Some were not scheduled to be released until 2029; however, many of these documents were released during the mid to late 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board

Assassination Records Review Board

The Assassination Records Review Board was created as a result of an act passed by the US Congress in 1992, entitled the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act." The Act mandated the gathering and release of all US Government records related to the Assassination of John F....

under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992

President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, or the JFK Records Act, is a public law passed by the United States Congress, effective October 26, 1992. It directed the National Archives and Records Administration to establish a collection of records to be known as the...

. Some of the material released contains redacted sections. Tax return information, which would identify employers and sources of income, has not been released. The existence of large numbers of secret documents related to the assassination, and the long period of secrecy, suggests to some the possibility of a cover-up. One historian noted, "There exists widespread suspicion about the government's disposition of the Kennedy assassination records stemming from the beliefs that Federal officials (1) have not made available all Government assassination records (even to the Warren Commission, Church Committee, House Assassination Committee) and (2) have heavily redacted the records released under FOIA in order to cover up sinister conspiracies." According to the Assassination Records Review Board, "All Warren Commission records, except those records that contain tax return information, are (now) available to the public with only minor redactions."

Autopsy

There is conflicting testimony about the autopsy performed on Kennedy's body, particularly as to when the examination of his brain took place, who was present, and whether or not the photos submitted as evidence are the same as those taken during the examination. Douglas Horne, the Assassination Record Review Board's chief analyst for military records, said he was "90 to 95% certain" that the photographs in the National Archives are not of President Kennedy's brain. Dr. Gary Aguilar, assisted by pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht

Cyril Wecht

Dr. Cyril Harrison Wecht is an American forensic pathologist. He has been a consultant in numerous high-profile cases, but is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's findings concerning the assassination of John F...

, wrote in a 1999 piece for The Consortium News, "According to Horne’s findings, the second brain—which showed an exit wound in the front—allegedly replaced Kennedy's real brain—which revealed much greater damage to the rear, consistent with an exit wound and thus evidence of a shot from the front."

James H. Fetzer

James H. Fetzer

James Henry Fetzer is an American philosopher, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and a well-known conspiracy theorist. He has written on the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science...

has noted 16 problems with the Warren Commission's version of events, which he claims prove decisively that its narrative is impossible, and therefore is likely a cover-up. He claims that evidence released by the Assassination Records Review Board substantiates these concerns. These include problems with bullet trajectories, the murder weapon, the ammunition used, inconsistencies between the Warren Commission's account and the autopsy findings, inconsistencies between the autopsy findings and what was reported by witnesses at the scene of the murder, eyewitness accounts that conflict with x-rays taken of the President's body, indications that the diagrams and photos of the President's brain in the National Archives are not the President's, testimony by those who took and processed the autopsy photos that the photos were altered, created or destroyed, indications that the Zapruder film

Zapruder film

The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, asU.S. President John F...

had been tampered with, allegations that the Warren Commission's version of events conflicts with news reports from the scene of the murder, an alleged change to the motorcade route which facilitated the assassination, what they characterize as suspiciously lax Secret Service and local law enforcement security, and statements by people who claim that they had knowledge of, or participated in, a conspiracy to kill the President.

More than one gunman

Oswald's rifle, through testing performed by the FBI, could be fired by an experienced shooter three times within five to eight seconds. The Warren Commission, through eyewitnesses, determined that three bullets were fired as well: one of the three bullets missed the vehicle entirely; one hit Kennedy and passed through Governor John Connally

John Connally

, and the third bullet was the fatal shot to the President. The weight of the bullet fragments taken from Connally and those remaining in his body, some claim, totaled more than could have been missing from the bullet found on Connally's stretcher, dubbed by critics of the Commission the "magic bullet

Single bullet theory

The single bullet theory was introduced by the Warren Commission in its investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to explain what happened to the bullet which struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat...

". However, witness testimony seems to indicate that only tiny fragments, of less total mass than was missing from the bullet, were left in Connally. In addition, the trajectory of the bullet, which hit Kennedy above the right shoulder blade and passed through his neck (according to the autopsy), would have had to change course to pass through Connally's rib cage and wrist, say some critics. In the Zapruder film, the president's head and upper torso appear to move backwards after the last, fatal shot, an indication to some that a bullet was fired from the front. However, close inspection of frames 312 and 313 clearly show Kennedy's head moving forward by as much as 2.3 inches.

Other evidence for the claim of more than three shots fired was the FBI photographs of the limousines, which some claim shows a bullet hole in the windshield of the vehicle above the rear-view mirror, evidence of a shot fired from the front. (The Warren Commission identified it as a crack caused by a fragment from a bullet fired by Oswald.)

Witnesses

By one count, 35 witnesses, some 39% of those who were eye-witnesses to the shooting, thought that the shots were fired from somewhere in front of the President — from the area of the Picket fence on the Grassy Knoll or Triple Underpass — while 56 eyewitnesses thought the shots came from the Depository, or at least in that direction, behind the President, and 5 witnesses thought that the shots came from two directions.

Nellie Connally

Nellie Connally

Idanell Brill "Nellie" Connally was the First Lady of Texas from 1963 to 1969.-First Lady of Texas:Born in Austin, Texas, she was wife of John Connally, who served as Governor of Texas and later as Secretary of the Treasury.-Death of President Kennedy:At the time of her death in 2006, she was the...

was sitting in the presidential car next to her husband, Governor John Connally. In her book From Love Field: Our Final Hours, Connally believed that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.

John Connally

John Connally

, Governor of Texas, was seated in front of John F. Kennedy in the presidential limousine and was wounded by gunfire. In testimony before the Warren Commission

Warren Commission

, Connally said: "There were either two or three people involved, or more, in this — or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle."

Roy Kellerman

Roy Kellerman

Roy Herman Kellerman was a U.S. Secret Service Agent assigned to protect President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963...

, a U.S. Secret Service Agent, was in the front seat of the presidential limousine, seated next to the driver. Kellerman testified, "Now, in the seconds that I talked just now, a flurry of shells come into the car." Kellerman said that he saw a 5 inches (127 mm) hole in the back right-hand side of the President's head.

Lee Bowers

Lee Bowers

Lee Edward Bowers, Jr. was a key witness to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in 1963. At the moment of the assassination he was operating the Union Terminal Company's two-story interlocking tower, overlooking the parking lot just north of the grassy knoll and west of the Texas...

was operating a railroad interlocking tower, overlooking the parking lot just north of the grassy knoll and west of the Texas School Book Depository. He reported that he saw two men behind the picket fence at the top of the grassy knoll before the shooting. When interviewed by Mark Lane, Bowers noted that he saw something that attracted his attention, either a flash of light, or maybe smoke, from the knoll, leading him to believe "something out of the ordinary" had occurred there. Bowers told Lane he heard three shots, the last two in quick succession. Bowers was of the opinion that they could not have come from the same rifle.

Clint Hill

Clint Hill

Clinton J. Hill is a former United States Secret Service agent who was in the presidential motorcade during the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After Kennedy was shot, Hill ran from the car immediately behind the presidential limousine and leapt onto the back of it, holding on while the car...

, 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." Later, to a National Geographic documentary film crew, he described the large defect in the skull as "gaping hole above his right ear, about the size of my palm."

McClelland testified that the back right part of the head was blown out with posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue 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, or the president had his head turned.

Rose Cherami was a 41-year-old drug addict and prostitute who was picked up on Highway 190 near Eunice, Louisiana, on November 20, 1963—two days before the Kennedy assassination—by Lt. Francis Frugé of the Louisiana State Police. Cherami told Frugé that John F. Kennedy would shortly be killed. Fruge did not believe her at first, but after some time of adamant speaking by Cherami, he came around. During her confinement, and prior to the time JFK was shot in Dallas, Cherami supposedly spoke of the impending assassination. After Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, Cherami reportedly claimed that she had worked for Ruby as a stripper, that she knew both Ruby and Oswald, and that the two men were "bed partners" who "had been shacking up for years." According to Lt. Frugé, Cherami declined to repeat her story to the FBI. She was killed when struck by a car on September 4, 1965, apparently while hitchhiking, near Gladewater, Texas. Among conspiracy theorists, the story has been considered quite credible since 1979, when an account by investigator Patricia Orr was published by the House Select Committee reviewing the JFK assassination (HSCA). This account was based primarily on the HSCA depositions of Francis Frugé and Victor Weiss, a doctor at the Jackson hospital.

Suspects in Dealey Plaza other than Oswald

Numerous witnesses reported hearing gunfire coming from the Dal-Tex Building

Dal-Tex Building

The Dal-Tex Building is a seven story office building located at 501 Elm Street in downtown Dallas, Texas . Its location, within Dealey Plaza and it being across the street, adjacent to the Texas School Book Depository, has made it famous and put it at the center of several conspiracy theories...

, which is located across the street from the Texas School Book Depository

Texas School Book Depository

The Texas School Book Depository is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas . Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street. The building is notable for its connection to...

and in alignment with Elm Street in Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza , in the historic West End district of downtown Dallas, Texas , is the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

. Several conspiracy theories posit that at least one shooter was located in the Dal-Tex Building due to witness accounts and other coincidences including the apprehension of suspicious individuals like the "man who was made of shadows" and ex-con Jim Braden inside the building, as well as the trajectory of the bullet which hit the curb on the south end of Dealey Plaza injuring bystander James Tague

James Tague

James "Jim" Thomas Tague was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. He received a minor wound on his right cheek during the assassination. He is the only person, in addition to Kennedy and Texas Governor John B...

. Also of note is the scientific acoustic evidence presented to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 which pinpointed the Dal-Tex building as a possible source of gunfire.

Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued its report, a congressional committee named the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) reviewed the Warren Commission report and the FBI investigation of the assassination. The Committee criticized the performance of both the Warren Commission and the FBI for failing to investigate whether other people conspired with Oswald to murder President Kennedy.

A key component of the committee's investigation was the examination of a recently discovered Dictabelt recording of Dallas Police dispatch radio transmissions that purported to be from a police motorcycle in the Kennedy motorcade. The acoustical analysis firm hired by the committee recommended that the committee conduct an acoustical reconstruction of the assassination in Dealey Plaza to determine if any of the six impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were fired from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll. The reconstruction would entail firing from two locations in Dealey Plaza - the depository and the knoll - at particular target locations and recording the sounds through numerous microphones. The purpose was to determine if the sequences of impulses recorded during the reconstruction would match any of those on the dispatch tape. If so, it would be possible to determine if the impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were caused by shots fired during the assassination from shooter locations in the depository and on the knoll.

On August 20, 1978, members of the Dallas Police Department Police Pistol Team, including Officer Jerry Compton, Officer Tom Knighten, and Officer Rick Stone participated in the acoustical reconstruction by firing both rifles and pistols from the locations selected by the researchers. During the acoustical reconstruction performed for the committee in August, the Dallas Police Department marksmen in fact used iron sights and had no difficulty hitting the targets.

Analysis

Former U.S. Marine

United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

sniper

Sniper

A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....

Craig Roberts and Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock

Carlos Hathcock

Carlos Hathcock was a United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant sniper with a service record of 93 confirmed kills. Hathcock's record and the extraordinary details of the missions he undertook made him a legend in the Marine Corps...

, who was the senior instructor for the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper Instructor School at Marine Corps Base Quantico

Marine Corps Base Quantico

Marine Corps Base Quantico, sometimes abbreviated MCB Quantico, is a major United States Marine Corps training base located near Triangle, Virginia, covering nearly in southern Prince William County, northern Stafford County, and southeastern Fauquier County...

in Quantico, Virginia

Quantico, Virginia

- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there are 561 people, 295 households, and 107 families living in the town. The population density is . There are 359 housing units at an average density of .-Racial composition:...

, 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?"

Kennedy's death certificate located the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra—which some claim 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.

New Orleans conspiracy

Immediately following the assassination, allegations began to surface of a conspiracy between Oswald and persons with whom he was or may have been acquainted while he lived in New Orleans, Louisiana.

On November 25, 1963 (the day after Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

) Dean Andrews, Jr., a New Orleans attorney who had occasionally provided legal advice to Oswald, informed the FBI that two days earlier he had, while in a local hospital under sedation, received a telephone call from a man named Clay Bertrand who inquired if he would be willing to defend Oswald in the murder and assassination case. Andrews later repeated these claims in testimony to the Warren Commission.

Also in late November 1963 an employee of New Orleans private investigator Guy Banister

Guy Banister

William Guy Banister was a career member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a private investigator. He gained notoriety from the allegations made by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, after Banister's death, that he had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy...

named Jack Martin began making accusations of possible involvement in the assassination by fellow Banister employee David Ferrie. According to witnesses, in 1963 Ferrie and Banister were working for lawyer G. Wray Gill

G. Wray Gill

George Wray Gill, Sr. was an American lawyer born in Crowley, Louisiana. He graduated Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans in June 1927. He became a prominent attorney in that city as part of the firm Gill, Bernstein, Schreiber and Gill in Room 1707 of the Pere* Marquette Building at 150...

, on behalf of Gill's client, New Orleans Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

boss Carlos Marcello

Carlos Marcello

Carlos "The Little Man" Marcello was a Sicilian-American mafioso who became the boss of the New Orleans crime family during the 1940s and held this position for the next 30 years.-Early life:...

. Ferrie had also attended Civil Air Patrol meetings in New Orleans in the 1950s that were also attended by a teenage Lee Harvey Oswald.

In 1966, New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison began an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. Garrison's investigation led him to conclude that Kennedy had been assassinated as the result of a conspiracy involving Oswald, David Ferrie and "Clay Bertrand." Garrison further came to believe "Clay Bertrand" was a pseudonym for New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw

Clay Shaw

. On March 1, 1967, Garrison arrested and charged Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, with the help of Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

, David Ferrie

David Ferrie

David William Ferrie was a pilot who was alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison later claimed to have proven Ferrie's involvement and that he knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Ferrie denied such involvement.-Early...

, and others. On January 29, 1969, Clay Shaw was brought to trial on these charges, and the jury found him not guilty.

In 2003, Judyth Vary Baker, a former employee of the Reily Coffee Company in New Orleans who had been employed there at the same time as Lee Harvey Oswald, appeared in an episode of Nigel Turner's ongoing documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a 9-part video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The series, which related various conspiracy theories, was extensively challenged on factual grounds....

. According to Baker, she and Oswald had been hired by Reily in the spring of 1963 as a "cover" for a clandestine CIA project designed to develop biological weapons that could be used to assassinate Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

. Baker further claimed that she and Oswald began an affair, and that they had planned to run away to Mexico together after the assassination. In the years since Baker first made her allegations public, she has failed to produce any evidence that she was acquainted with Oswald, and the research community has widely concluded that her claims are a hoax.

Federal Reserve conspiracy

Jim Marrs, in his book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, speculated that the assassination of Kennedy might have been partially motivated by the issuance of Executive Order 11110

Executive Order 11110

Executive Order 11110 was issued by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963.This executive order delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury the president's authority to issue silver certificates under the Thomas Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act.-Background:On November 28, 1961,...

. The executive order, which was not officially repealed until the Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

Administration, delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to authorize printing of additional silver certificates, up to a maximum limit previously set by Congress. Since the President himself already possessed the same authority, the order did not endanger the careers of anyone working at the Federal Reserve.

This theory was further explored by U.S. Marine sniper

Sniper

and veteran police officer Craig Roberts in the 1994 book, Kill Zone. Roberts theorized that the executive order was the beginning of a plan by Kennedy, whose ultimate goal was to permanently do away with the Federal Reserve, and that Kennedy was murdered by a cabal of international bankers determined to foil this plan.

Actor and author Richard Belzer

Richard Belzer

Richard Jay Belzer is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, which he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest...

has also discussed this theory. According to Belzer, the plot to kill Kennedy was a response to a postulated attempt by the President to shift power from the Federal Reserve to the U.S Treasury Department.

Three tramps

Nearly a dozen people were taken into custody in and around Dealey Plaza in the minutes following the assassination. In most of these instances, no records of the identities of those detained were kept. The most famous of those taken into custody have come to be known as the "tramps": three men discovered in a boxcar in the rail yard west of the grassy knoll. Speculation regarding the identities of the three and their possible involvement in the assassination became widespread in the ensuing years. Photographs of the three at their time of arrest fueled this speculation, as the three "tramps" appeared to be well-dressed and clean-shaven, seemingly unlikely for hobos riding the rails. Some researchers also thought it suspicious that the Dallas police had quickly released the tramps from custody apparently without investigating whether they might have witnessed anything significant related to the assassination, and that Dallas police claimed to have lost the records of their arrests as well as their mugshots and fingerprints.

In 1989, the Dallas police department released a large collection of files that contained the arrest records of the three men, whose names were Harold Doyle of Red Jacket, West Virginia

Red Jacket, West Virginia

Red Jacket is a census-designated place in Mingo County, West Virginia, in the United States. The population was 581 at the 2010 census. The community was named for Red Jacket, a Seneca orator.-Geography:...

; John F. Gedney, with no listed home address; and Gus W. Abrams, also with no listed home address. The brief report described the men as "all passing through [Dallas]. They have no jobs, etc." and were known to be rail-riders in the area. The previous evening they had slept in a homeless shelter where they showered and shaved, explaining their clean appearance on the day of the assassination. The three were released from custody four days after the assassination on the morning of November 26.

When asked in a 1992 interview, Doyle said that he had deliberately avoided revealing himself to the public limelight, saying, "I am a plain guy, a simple country boy, and that's the way I want to stay. I wouldn't be a celebrity for $10 million." Gedney independently affirmed Doyle's sentiment. Abrams had since died (in Ohio in 1987), but his sister also corroborated the events of that day and noted that Abrams "was always on the go, hopping trains and drinking wine." The three were evidently not involved in the assassination in any way.

Alleged tramps

A list of the better known "identifications" of the three tramps alleged by conspiracy theorists includes:

Charles Harrelson
Charles Harrelson
Charles Voyde Harrelson was an American organized crime figure who was convicted of assassinating federal judge John H. Wood, Jr., the first federal judge killed in the 20th century...

, the father of actor Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson
Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd...

, has been alleged to be the tallest of the three tramps in the photographs. Harrelson at various times before his death boasted about his role as one of the tramps, however, in a 1988 interview, he denied being in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

E. Howard Hunt
E. Howard Hunt
Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...

, the CIA station chief who was instrumental in the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

, and who later worked as one of President Richard Nixon's White House Plumbers
White House Plumbers
The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, were a covert White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24, 1971 during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information to the news media...

, was alleged by some to be the oldest of the tramps. At the time of his death, Hunt's son released tapes of Hunt implicating LBJ in Kennedy's assassination. In 1975, Hunt testified to the United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States
The U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States was set up under President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States...

that he was in Washington, D.C. on the day of the assassination. This testimony was confirmed by Hunt's family and a home employee of the Hunts. In 1985 however, in Hunt's libel suit against Liberty Lobby, defense attorney Mark Lane introduced doubt as to Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination through depositions from David Atlee Phillips
David Atlee Phillips
David Atlee Phillips was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose to become the CIA's chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere...

, Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...

, G. Gordon Liddy
G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...

, Stansfield Turner
Stansfield Turner
Stansfield M. Turner is a retired Admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence. He is currently a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy....

, and Marita Lorenz
Marita Lorenz
Marita Lorenz is a German woman who had an affair with Fidel Castro in 1959 and in January 1960 was involved in an assassination attempt by the CIA on Castro's life. She later had a child with the Venezuelan former dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez.In the 1970s she testified regarding the John F...

, plus a cross-examination of Hunt.

Frank Sturgis
Frank Sturgis
Frank Anthony Sturgis , born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the Watergate burglars.-Early Life and Military Service:...

is thought by some to be the tall tramp in the photographs. Like Hunt, Sturgis was involved both in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Watergate burglary. In 1959, Sturgis became involved with Marita Lorenz
Marita Lorenz
Marita Lorenz is a German woman who had an affair with Fidel Castro in 1959 and in January 1960 was involved in an assassination attempt by the CIA on Castro's life. She later had a child with the Venezuelan former dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez.In the 1970s she testified regarding the John F...

, who later identified Sturgis as a gunman in the assassination. Hunt's confessions before his death similarly implicates Sturgis.

Chauncey Holt, also alleged by some to be the oldest of the tramps, claims to have been a double agent for the CIA and the Mafia, and has claimed that his assignment in Dallas was to provide fake Secret Service credentials to people in the vicinity. Witness reports state that there were one or more unidentified men in the area claiming to be Secret Service agents.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations had forensic anthropologists study the photographic evidence. They were able to rule out E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Dan Carswell, Fred Lee Chapman, and other suspects in 1978. The Rockefeller Commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Frank Sturgis was in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

Despite these positive identifications of the tramps and the lack of any connection between them and the assassination, some have maintained their identifications of the three as persons other than Doyle, Gedney and Abrams and have continued to theorize that they may have been connected to the crime.

CIA conspiracy

Some researchers have claimed that CIA officer David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose to become the CIA's chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere...

used the alias "Maurice Bishop." He used the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

while working with Alpha 66

Alpha 66

Alpha 66 are an anti-communist terrorist organization, formed by Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico in 1961, in opposition to Fidel Castro. The founder and first leader, Nazario Sargen, was a former member of the 26th of July Movement organization led by Fidel Castro, suggesting that their politics may...

, an organization of anti-Castro

Fidel Castro

Cubans. Alpha 66's founder, Antonio Veciana, claimed that during one of his meetings with "Bishop", Lee Harvey Oswald was also in attendance. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi believed Phillips was Bishop.

In 1995, former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and National Security Agency executive assistance John M. Newman

John M. Newman

[[File:[ /Applications/CanoScan Toolbox 4.1/My Pictures/2011-10-10/Scan1.JPG]John M. Newman spent 21 years with the U.S. Army [[Military intelligence|Intelligence]].-Career:...

published evidence that both the CIA and FBI had deliberately tampered with their files on Lee Harvey Oswald both before and after the assassination. Furthermore, he found that both had withheld information that might have alerted authorities in Dallas that Oswald posed a potential threat to the President. Subsequently, Newman has expressed a belief that James Angleton was probably the key figure in the assassination. According to Newman, only Angleton, "had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot." However the control of the cover operation was not under James Angleton, but under Allen Dulles, and among senior government officials, only James Angleton continued expressing his belief that Kennedy assassination was not carried out by a lone gunman.

Military-Industrial Complex

According to author James Douglass, Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union. Douglass argues that this "was not the kind of leadership the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex

Military-industrial complex

Military–industrial complex , or Military–industrial-congressional complex is a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them...

wanted in the White House."

In his farewell speech, President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

had warned, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

's 1991 movie JFK
JFK (film)
JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...

explored the possibility that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy involving the military-industrial complex. L. Fletcher Prouty

L. Fletcher Prouty

Leroy Fletcher Prouty served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. A former colonel in the United States Air Force he retired from military service to become a banker, and subsequently became a critic of U.S...

, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy, and the person who inspired the character "Mr. X" in Stone's movie, has written that he believes Kennedy's assassination was actually a coup d'etat

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

Secret Service conspiracy

The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded (in its 1978 report) that although Oswald assassinated Kennedy, a conspiracy

Conspiracy (crime)

was probable. Among its findings, the HSCA noted that President Kennedy had not received adequate protection in Dallas, that 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, and finally that the Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper. Although widely disputed but possible, this lack of protection may have occurred because Kennedy himself had specifically asked that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit. Vince Palamara claims that Secret Service driver Sam Kinney told him these requests, such as removing the bubble top from the limousine in Dallas, removing agents from the limousine, or reducing the Secret Service motorcycles in the motorcade, were not made by Kennedy.

Cuban exiles

With the 1959 Cuban Revolution

Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...

that brought Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

to power, thousands of Cubans left their homeland to take up residence in the United States. Many exiles hoped to overthrow Castro and return to Cuba. Their hopes were dashed with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

in 1961, and many exiles blamed President Kennedy for the failure.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations 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.

Holding a copy of the September 26 edition of The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...

, 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 date 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."

Author Joan Didion

Joan Didion

Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...

explored the Miami anti-Castro Cuban theory in her 1987 non-fiction book "Miami." In "Miami," she emphasizes the questions that investigators raised to Marita Lorenz regarding Guillermo Novo, a Cuban exile who was involved in shooting a bazooka at the U.N. building from the East River during a speech by Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

. Allegedly, Novo was affiliated with Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

and Frank Sturgis

Frank Sturgis

Frank Anthony Sturgis , born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the Watergate burglars.-Early Life and Military Service:...

and carried weapons with them to a hotel in Dallas just prior to the assassination. These claims, though put forth to the House Assassinations Committee by Lorenz, were never substantiated by a conclusive investigation.

E. Howard Hunt

Former CIA agent and Watergate

Watergate scandal

The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

figure, E. Howard Hunt

E. Howard Hunt

Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...

has been named as a possible participant in several Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. Separately, he denied complicity in the murder of JFK while accusing others of being involved.

Some researchers have identified Hunt as a figure crossing Dealey Plaza in a raincoat and fedora immediately after the assassination. Others have suggested that Hunt was one of the men known as the three tramps who were arrested and then quickly released shortly after the assassination.

In 1976, a magazine called The Spotlight
The Spotlight
The Spotlight was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published in Washington, D.C. from September 1975 to July 2001 by the now-defunct Liberty Lobby...

ran an article accusing Hunt of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and of having a role in the assassination. Hunt won a libel judgment against the magazine in 1981, but this was thrown out on appeal, and the magazine was found not liable when the case was retried in 1985.

Shortly before his death in 2007, Hunt authored an autobiography which implicated Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

in the assassination. Hunt suggested that Johnson had orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions as President. A 2007 article published in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

magazine revealed deathbed confessions by Hunt to his son which suggested a conspiracy to kill JFK orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson, CIA agents David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips

, Cord Meyer

Cord Meyer

Cord Meyer, Jr. was an American Central Intelligence Agency official.-Early life:Meyer's father, Cord Meyer Sr., was a diplomat and former real estate developer. His grandfather, also called Cord Meyer, was a property developer and a chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. He was...

, Bill Harvey

William King Harvey

William King "Bill" Harvey was a Central Intelligence Agency officer, best known for his role in Operation Mongoose. He was known as "America's James Bond."...

and David Sánchez Morales

David Sánchez Morales

David Sánchez Morales was a Central Intelligence Agency operative who worked in Cuba.-Biographical highlights:...

, as well as a French gunman, Lucien Sarti

Lucien Sarti

Lucien Sarti was a drug trafficker and killer-for-hire involved in the infamous French Connection heroin network. He was named on the television series The Men Who Killed Kennedy, as well as in a deathbed confession by former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, as one of the men who shot at U.S. President...

, who purportedly shot at Kennedy from the grassy knoll.

Organized crime conspiracy

Mafia

American Mafia

criminals may have wished to retaliate for increasing pressure put upon them by Robert Kennedy (who had increased by 12 times the number of prosecutions under President Dwight Eisenhower). Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that some Mafiosi were working very closely with the CIA on several assassination attempts of Fidel Castro.

Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa

James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....

, and mobsters Carlos Marcello

Carlos Marcello

Carlos "The Little Man" Marcello was a Sicilian-American mafioso who became the boss of the New Orleans crime family during the 1940s and held this position for the next 30 years.-Early life:...

, Sam Giancana

Sam Giancana

Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...

, Johnny Roselli

John Roselli

John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli , sometimes spelled John Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped them control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was also involved with the Central Intelligence Agency plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s...

, Charles Nicoletti

Charles Nicoletti

Charles "Chuckie" Nicoletti, also known as "The Typewriter" "Chuckie Typewriter" , was a top Chicago Outfit hitman under Outfit boss Sam "Mooney" Giancana before and after Giancana's rise and fall.-Early years:...

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. Giancana, Marcello, and Trafficante were the leading figures of the organized crime families in Chicago

Chicago Outfit

The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Chicago Syndicate or Chicago Mob and sometimes shortened to simply the Outfit, is a crime syndicate based in Chicago, Illinois, USA...

, New Orleans

New Orleans crime family

The New Orleans crime family is one of the oldest American criminal organizations in activity. It is based in New Orleans and parts of southern Louisiana in the United States. Its status today is unknown, as it remained in the shadows since 1993...

, and Tampa

Trafficante crime family

The Trafficante crime family better known as the Tampa Mafia, is the only original Mafia crime family in the state of Florida.-Tampa's underworld:...

, respectively.

Carlos Marcello apparently threatened 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.

In his memoir, Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno

Joseph Bonanno

Joseph Charles Bonanno, Sr. was a Sicilian-born American mafioso who became the boss of the Bonanno crime family. He was nicknamed "Joe Bananas," a name he despised.-Early life:...

, explains that several Mafia families had long-standing ties with the anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia

Mafia

before the Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

. They also disliked his brother, the young and idealistic Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime. This was especially provocative because several of the Mafia "families" had worked with JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, to get JFK elected, and there was speculation about voting irregularities during the 1960 election. Both the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans were expert in assassination, the Cubans having been trained by the CIA. Bonanno reports that he realized the degree of the involvement of other Mafia families when he witnessed Jack Ruby killing Oswald on television: the Bonannos recognized Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

as an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana

Sam Giancana

Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...

.

Information released only around 2006 by the FBI indicates that Carlos Marcello confessed in detail to having organized Kennedy's assassination. The FBI then covered up this information which it had in its possession. This version of events is also supported by the findings of a 1979 Congressional Committee investigation that Marcello was likely part of a Mafia conspiracy behind the assassination, and had the means and the opportunity required. The assassination came less than two weeks prior to a coup against Castro in Cuba by the Kennedy brothers, related to the Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

and Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

.

James Files

James Files

James Earl Files is allegedly a former Central Intelligence Agency/Mafia hit man who claims to have been the grassy knoll shooter in Dealey Plaza on the morning of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.-Background:...

claims to be a former assassin working for both the Mafia and the CIA who participated in the assassination along with Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti

Charles Nicoletti

at the behest of Sam Giancana

Sam Giancana

Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...

. He is currently serving a 30-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a policeman.

Judith Campbell Exner, an alleged girlfriend of President Kennedy was also Sam Giancana's mistress; she was interviewed (apparently live) by Maria Shriver

Maria Shriver

Maria Owings Shriver is an American journalist and author of six best-selling books. She has received a Peabody Award, and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of...

(daughter of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver

Sargent Shriver

Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...

) on ABC's Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

. The woman was asked if she ever carried messages between JFK and Giancana because she knew them both. The woman confirmed that and said no to the question by saying, "Sam would never write anything down."

David Kaiser has also suggested mob involvement in his book, The Road to Dallas.

Famed investigative reporter Jack Anderson, who knew Kennedy well and had many sources within Organized Crime, concluded that Cuba and Fidel Castro worked with Organized Crime figures to arrange the assassination. In his book "Peace War and Politics," Anderson said Johnny Roselli gave him extensive details on the plot. Anderson said he was never able to independently confirm Roselli's entire story, but he wrote that many of Roselli's details checked out and he never found one detail that he could refute. Anderson said that whatever role Oswald played in the assassination, he was convinced that there was more than one gunman.

The History Channel program, The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a 9-part video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The series, which related various conspiracy theories, was extensively challenged on factual grounds....

presents additional information for organized crime involvement. Christian David was a Corsican mafia member interviewed in prison. He was offered the assassination contract on the president and did not accept it but knew the men who did accept the contract. According to David, there were three shooters. He provided the name of one—Lucien Sarti

Lucien Sarti

—but the other two shooters were still living and that would lead him to break their code of conduct. When asked what they were wearing David noted their modus operandi was to dress in costumes such as official uniforms. The majority of Christian David's testimony was confirmed by a former Corsican member named Michelle Nicole who was part of the DEA witness protection program.

Lyndon Johnson conspiracy

In 2003, researcher Barr McClellan

Barr McClellan

Oliver Barr McClellan, entrepreneur, counsel and author, born in 1939 in Cuero , Texas, became widely known by his 2003 book Blood, Money & Power on the Kennedy assassination. He has also written on globalization.-Life & Career:...

published the book, Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.. McClellan claims that Lyndon Johnson, motivated by the fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and the need to cover up various scandals, masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his friend attorney Edwardo Clark. The book suggests that a smudged partial fingerprint from the sniper's nest likely belonged to Johnson's associate Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, and that Mac Wallace was therefore the assassin. The book further claims that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil magnates including Clint Murchison

Clint Murchison, Sr.

Clinton Williams Murchison, Sr. , was a noted Texas-based oil magnate and political operative. He was also the father of Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison, Jr..-Personal:...

and H. L. Hunt

H. L. Hunt

Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, Jr. , known throughout his life as "H. L. Hunt," was a Texas oil tycoon and conservative activist. He built one of the world's largest fortunes by trading poker winnings for oil rights, ultimately securing title to much of the East Texas Oil Field, one of the world's very...

. McClellan's book subsequently became the subject of an episode of Nigel Turner's ongoing documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a 9-part video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The series, which related various conspiracy theories, was extensively challenged on factual grounds....

. The episode, entitled "The Guilty Men", drew widespread condemnation from both the Johnson family and President Johnson's former aides following its airing on The History Channel

The History Channel

History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...

, which subsequently agreed not to air the episode in the future.

Madeleine D. Brown, who was an alleged mistress of Johnson, has also implicated him in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. In 1997, Brown alleged that Johnson, along with H. L. Hunt, had begun planning Kennedy's demise as early as 1960. Brown claimed that by its fruition in 1963 the conspiracy involved dozens of persons including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia as well as well-known politicians and journalists. In the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a 9-part video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The series, which related various conspiracy theories, was extensively challenged on factual grounds....

, Brown and a former employee of Clint Murchison both placed J. Edgar Hoover and Johnson at a dinner at Murchison's mansion shortly before the assassination. Brown claimed in the documentary that Johnson told her after the party that the Kennedys "will never embarrass me again". Similar suspicions are voiced by a number of LBJ associates, including Brown, in their own words in the 2006 documentary Evidence of Revision.

Johnson was also accused of complicity in the assassination by former CIA agent and Watergate

Watergate scandal

figure E. Howard Hunt

E. Howard Hunt

Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...

American Fact-Finding Committee

Many researchers and conspiracy theorists talk about the full page, black-bordered advertisement published in the November 22, 1963, Dallas Morning News that accused Kennedy of ignoring the United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

and implying that he was a communist. The ad was signed by the "American Fact-Finding Committee", Bernard Weissman, chairman. The FBI later investigated the source of funds for the ad, and interviewed many people involved, as described in the Warren Commission Hearings Volume XXIII. These people are many of the same discussed in the Lyndon Johnson theories and the allegations of Madeleine Brown (see above). Weissman was a supporter of the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....

Soviet conspiracy

According to a 1966 FBI document, a source considered reliable by the Bureau related to the FBI in late 1963 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.

Much later, the highest-ranking Soviet Bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa

Ion Mihai Pacepa

Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc. He is now a United States citizen, a writer, and a columnist....

described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

killed or tried to kill": "László Rajk

László Rajk

László Rajk was a Hungarian Communist; politician, former Minister of Interior and former Minister of Foreign Affairs...

and Imre Nagy

Imre Nagy

Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...

of Hungary; Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu

Lucretiu Patrascanu

Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...

and Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...

in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

; Rudolf Slánský

Rudolf Slánský

Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia...

, the head of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

, and Jan Masaryk

Jan Masaryk

Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...

, that country's chief diplomat; the Shah of Iran

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...

; Palmiro Togliatti

Palmiro Togliatti

Palmiro Togliatti was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.-Early life:...

of Italy; American President John F. Kennedy; and Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

." Pacepa provided some additional details, such as a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao

Lin Biao

Lin Biao was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China...

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."

New information regarding the murder of John F. Kennedy confidante Mary Pinchot Meyer has led to a reinterpretation of a statement by retired senior CIA official Cord Meyer shortly before his death in 2001. Meyer's statement seems to suggest that CIA learned many years ago, possibly from a defector, that the KGB organized the assassination of Kennedy, most likely as revenge for the humiliation of the Cuban missile crisis. However, Cord Meyer himself has been mentioned as a possible conspirator in the LBJ assassination theory.

Cuban conspiracy

In the early 1960s Clare Booth Luce, wife of publisher Henry Luce

Henry Luce

Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...

was one of a number of prominent Americans who sponsored the anti-Castro movement in the United States. This support included the funding of a motorboat used by exile commandos in their raids against Cuba. In a 1975 interview, Clare Luce revealed that on the night of the assassination, she received a phone call from one of the boat's crew members. According to Luce, the caller's name was "something like" Julio Fernandez, and he said he was calling her from New Orleans.

Julio Fernandez told her that Lee Harvey Oswald had approached his group and offered his services as a potential Castro assassin. Fernandez further claimed that he and his associates had eventually found out that Oswald was actually a committed Communist and supporter of Castro, and that they kept a close watch on his activities until he suddenly came into money and went to Mexico City and then Dallas. Finally, Fernandez told Luce, "There is a Cuban Communist assassination team at large and Oswald was their hired gun."

Luce told the caller to give his information to the FBI. Subsequently, she would reveal the details of the incident to both the Church Committee

Church Committee

The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...

and the HSCA. Both committees attempted to investigate the incident, but were unsuccessful in uncovering any evidence to corroborate the allegations in question.

President Lyndon Johnson informed several journalistic sources of his personal belief that the assassination had been organized by Fidel Castro from Cuba. Johnson had received in 1967 information from both the FBI and CIA that in the early 1960s, the CIA had tried to have Castro assassinated, had employed members of the Mafia

Mafia

in this effort, and that Attorney General

Attorney General

In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...

Robert Kennedy had known about both the plots and the Mafia's involvement.

It was Johnson's belief that JFK's assassination had been organized by Castro as a retaliation for the CIA's efforts to kill Castro. In October, 1968, Johnson told veteran newsman Howard K. Smith, that "Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first." In September, 1969, in an interview with Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...

of CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, Johnson said that in regard to the assassination he could not, "honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections." Finally, in 1971, Johnson told Leo Janos of Time Magazine that he, "never believed that Oswald acted alone."

Israeli conspiracy

This theory alleges that the Israeli government was displeased with Kennedy for his pressure against their pursuit of a top-secret nuclear program at the Negev Nuclear Research Center

Negev Nuclear Research Center

The Negev Nuclear Research Center is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev desert, about thirteen kilometers to the south-east of the city of Dimona. The purpose of Dimona is widely assumed to be the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and the majority of defense experts have...

(commonly called "Dimona") and/or the Israelis were angry over Kennedy's sympathies with Arabs. Gangster Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky , known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Polish-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States...

and Lyndon B. Johnson often play pivotal roles in this conspiracy theory as organizing and preparing the hit, thus bleeding into and possibly catalyzing many of the other conspiracies as well.

In July 2004 Israel's nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...

claimed in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper
Al-Hayat newspaper
Al-Hayat is one of the leading daily pan-Arab newspapers, with a circulation estimated over 200,000. It is the newspaper of record for the Arab diaspora and the preferred venue for liberal intellectuals who wish to express themselves to a large public....

that the state of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

was complicit in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona plant who was jailed for 18 years for revealing its inner workings to Britain's Sunday Times in 1986, made the statement after his 2004 release. He claimed there were "near-certain indications" Kennedy was assassinated in response to "pressure he exerted on Israel's then head of government, David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion

' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...

, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor."

Decoy hearse and wound alteration

David S. Lifton

David S. Lifton is a researcher and author on the topic of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the writer/producer of the documentary, "BEST EVIDENCE: The Research Video." He is also the author of "Pig on a Leash," an essay about the Zapruder film.-Biography:David S...

and others have theorized that the coffin removed from Air Force One

Air Force One

Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...

and placed in a waiting ambulance at Andrews Air Force Base

Andrews Air Force Base

Joint Base Andrews is a United States military facility located in Prince George's County, Maryland. The facility is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force 11th Wing, Air Force District of Washington ....

on the evening of November 22, 1963 was empty. The president's body was taken off the jet out of the television camera's view. This portion of Lifton's theory comes from a House Select Committee on Assassinations report of an interview of Lt. Richard A. Lipsey on January 18, 1978 by committee staff members Donald Andrew Purdy Jr. and T. Mark Flanagan Jr. in which Lipsey said that in his capacity as aide to General Wehle, he had met President Kennedy's body at Andrews Air Force Base. The report stated that Lipsey "placed [the casket] in a hearse to be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Lipsey mentioned that he and Whele then flew by helicopter to Bethesda and took the President's body into the back of Bethesda. A decoy hearse had been driven to the front." A decoy hearse carrying an empty casket.

Laboratory Technologist Paul Kelly O'Connor was one of the major witnesses supporting David Lifton's theory that somewhere between Parkland and Bethesda the President's body was made to appear as if it had been shot only from the rear. O'Connor says that President Kennedy's body arrived at Bethesda in a body bag, which differed from the sheet it was wrapped in at Parkland Hospital. He stated the brain had already been removed by the time it got to Bethesda, and that there was only "half of a handful" of brain matter left inside the skull.

Nigel Turner's 1988 documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a 9-part video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The series, which related various conspiracy theories, was extensively challenged on factual grounds....

(televised in the USA for the first time in 1991) includes a video interview with O'Connor in which he says: "There were mysterious men in civilian clothes at the autopsy. They seemed to command a lot of respect and look over my shoulder or over Dr. J. Thornton Boswell's shoulder, then they'd go back and have a conference in the corner. Then one of them would say 'Stop what you're doing and go on to another procedure.' We jumped back and forth, back and forth. There was no smooth flow of procedure at all."

As was done with all cargo on airplanes for safety precautions, the coffin and lid were held by steel wrapping cables to prevent shifting during takeoff and landing and in case of air disturbances in flight. The casket was under armed guard and the plane was watched by numerous people that bathed the far side of the plane in lights and provided a public stage for any body snatchers.

Other published theories

Joseph P. Farrell
Joseph P. Farrell
Joseph Patrick Farrell, born and raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a theologian, scholar on the East–West Schism and the author of a number of books on alternative history, Pseudohistory, historical revisionism, Pseudoarchaeology, physics, and science....

's LBJ and the Conspiracy to Kill Kennedy (2011) attempts to show multiple interests had reasons to remove President Kennedy: The military, CIA, NASA, anti-Castro factions, Hoover's FBI and others. He concludes that the person that allowed all of these groups to form a "coalescence of interests" was Vice President Lyndon Johnson. ISBN 978-1-935487-18-0

Randolph J. Polasek's Powers Behind JFK Assassination (2010) covers history of United States currency, their three central banking systems including the creation and workings of today's Federal Reserve that President Kennedy tried to abolish and was assassinated for, four generations of the Kennedy and Bush families and the new direction those responsible for the assassination took America into the New World Order. ISBN 978-1-4357-4253-6.

James W. Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable (2008) presents evidence that JFK was assassinated by elements within the US Government opposed to his attempts to end the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

through back channel negotiations with Khrushchev and Castro. ISBN 1-57075-755-0.

The Gemstone File
Gemstone File
The Gemstone File is a series of documents by the American writer Bruce Porter Roberts . The best-known document is probably the 23-page "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File", written by Stephanie Caruana in 1975, which presents a brief, undocumented series of claims that conspiracies and...

: A Memoir (2006), by Stephanie Caruana, posits that Oswald was part of a 28-man assassination team which included three U.S. Mafia hitmen (Jimmy Fratianno
Jimmy Fratianno
Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno was a Cleveland, Ohio, mobster and later acting head of the Los Angeles crime family before becoming a government witness...

, John Roselli
John Roselli
John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli , sometimes spelled John Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped them control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was also involved with the Central Intelligence Agency plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s...

, and Eugene Brading). Oswald's role was to shoot John Connally
John Connally
John Bowden Connally, Jr. , was an influential American politician, serving as the 39th governor of Texas, Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M. Nixon. While he was Governor in 1963, Connally was a passenger in the car in...

. 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 Anton Cermak
Anton Cermak
Anton Joseph Cermak was the mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1931 until his assassination by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933.-Early life and career:...

of Chicago. Cermak was shot and killed by Giuseppe Zangara
Giuseppe Zangara
Giuseppe Zangara was the assassin of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, though United States President–elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have been his intended target. Roosevelt escaped injury, but five people were shot including Cermak.- Early life :Zangara was born in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy...

. 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.

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

JFK: The Second Plot (2002) by Matthew Smith explores the strange case of Roscoe White. In 1990, Roscoe's son Ricky made public a claim that his father, who had been a Dallas police officer in 1963, was involved in killing the president. Roscoe's widow Geneva also claimed that before her husband's death in 1971 he left a diary in which he revealed that he was one of the marksmen who shot the President, and that he also killed Officer J. D. Tippit
J. D. Tippit
Tippit attended a Veterans Administration vocational training school at Bogata, Texas, from January 1950 until June 1952. He was then hired by the Dallas Police Department as a patrolman on July 28, 1952...

. ISBN 1-84018-501-5.

The Kennedy Mutiny (2002) by Will Fritz (not the same as police captain J. Will Fritz), claims that the assassination plot was orchestrated by General Edwin Walker
Edwin Walker
Major General Edwin Anderson Walker was a United States Army officer known for his conservative political views and for being an attempted assassination target of Lee Harvey Oswald.-Early life and military career:...

, and that he framed Oswald for the crime. ISBN 0-9721635-0-6.

Norman Mailer's
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter 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 at 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." ISBN 0-679-42535-7.

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.

Who Shot JFK? : A Guide 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 mental impairment stemming from an addiction to refined sugar, as evidenced by his need for his favorite beverage immediately after the assassination. ISBN 0-671-79494-9.

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
AR-15
The AR-15 is a lightweight, 5.56 mm, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed semi-automatic rifle, with a rotating-lock bolt, actuated by direct impingement gas operation. It is manufactured with the extensive use of aluminum alloys and synthetic materials....

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 sued Menninger in April 1995 for what he had written in Mortal Error. The case was dismissed as its statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...

had run out.

Mark North's Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the assassination of President Kennedy, (1991) implicates the FBI Director. North documents that Hoover was aware of threats against Kennedy by organized crime before 1963, and suggests that he failed to take proper action to prevent the assassination. North also charges Hoover with failure to work adequately to uncover the truth behind Kennedy's murder. ISBN 0-88184-877-8.

Behold a Pale Horse (1991) by William Cooper alleges that Kennedy was shot by the Presidential limousine's driver, Secret Service agent William Greer. In the Zapruder film, Greer can be seen turning to his right and looking backwards just before speeding away from Dealey Plaza. This theory has come under severe criticism from others in the research community. ISBN 0-929385-22-5.

Reasonable Doubt (1985) by Henry Hurt, who writes about his Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

doubts. Mr. Hurt pins the plot on professional crook Robert Easterling, along with Texas oilmen and the supposed Ferrie/Shaw alliance. ISBN 0-03-004059-0.

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 to alert the government of the necessity for beefed-up Secret Service security. Oswald’s role was to shoot at the motorcade but deliberately miss the target. The plotters then killed JFK themselves and framed Oswald for the crime. McDonald claims that, after being told the "truth" about JFK's death by CIA agent Herman Kimsey in 1964, he spent years trying to locate a man known as “Saul.” Saul was supposedly the unidentified man who was photographed exiting the Russian embassy in Mexico City in September 1963, whose photos were subsequently sent to the FBI in Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963 (before the assassination), and mislabelled "Lee Harvey Oswald". McDonald claims to have finally tracked Saul down in London in 1972 at which time Saul revealed the details of the plot to him. ISBN 0-8217-3893-3.

External links

The Kennedy Assassination Home Page by John McAdams
Frontline: Who was L.H. Oswald – PBS documentary on the man and his life
PBS News 2003 — Public's belief that a conspiracy existed
"Oswald's Ghost", an episode of PBS series American Experience, which aired January 14, 2008
Tech Puts JFK Conspiracy Theories to Rest — Discovery article on a simulation that partially discredits some conspiracy theories

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

Public opinion

Possible evidence of a cover-up

The murder weapon

Witness intimidation allegations

Witness deaths

Withheld documents

Autopsy

More than one gunman

Witnesses

Suspects in Dealey Plaza other than Oswald

Analysis

New Orleans conspiracy

Federal Reserve conspiracy

Three tramps

Alleged tramps

CIA conspiracy

Military-Industrial Complex

Secret Service conspiracy

Cuban exiles

E. Howard Hunt

Organized crime conspiracy

Lyndon Johnson conspiracy

American Fact-Finding Committee

Soviet conspiracy

Cuban conspiracy

Israeli conspiracy

Decoy hearse and wound alteration

Other published theories

See also

External links