The Kennedy Assassination

"He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . . It's it had to be some silly little Communist." Jackie Kennedy, on hearing that a leftist had been arrested for her husband's murder.

It's the most controversial case in modern American history. Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill
John Kennedy by himself, or did a conspiracy do it? And if a conspiracy did it, did the conspiracy include Oswald? If you are like most Americans, you believe that a conspiracy killed Kennedy. And if you are like most Americans, you have heard a vast number of bogus factoids about the case. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and the latter's wife, Nellie, in a Presidential motorcade. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 19631964 concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald before he could stand trial. These conclusions were initially supported by the American public; however, polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 found that as many as 80 percent of Americans have suspected that there was a plot or cover-up. Contrary to the Warren Commission, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979 concluded that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The HSCA found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. While agreeing with the Commission that Oswald fired all the shots which caused the wounds to Kennedy and Governor Connally, it stated that there were at least four shots fired and that there was a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President. No gunmen or groups involved in the conspiracy were identified by the committee, but the CIA, Soviet Union, organized crime and several other groups were said to be not involved, based on available evidence. The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios.

Route to Dealey Plaza

President Kennedy's motorcade route through Dallas was planned to give him maximal exposure to Dallas crowds before his arrival, along with the vice president and the governor, at a luncheon with civic and business leaders in that city. The White House staff informed the secret service that the president would arrive in Dallas via a short (13 minutes in the air) flight, from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, to Dallas Love Field airport. The Dallas Trade Mart had been preliminarily selected for the luncheon, and the final decision of the Trade Mart as the end of the motorcade journey was selected by Kennedy's friend and appointments secretary Kenneth O'Donnell, who would accompany him on the trip.

Leaving from Dallas' Love Field, 45 minutes had been allotted for the motorcade to reach the Dallas Trade Mart at a planned arrival time of 12:15 PM. The actual route was chosen to be a meandering 10-mile route from Love Field to the Trade Mart which could be driven slowly in the allotted time. Special Agent Winston G. Lawson, a member of the White House detail who acted as the advance secret service agent, and secret service agent Forrest V. Sorrels, special agent in charge of the Dallas office, were most active in planning the actual route. On November 14, Lawson and Sorrels attended a meeting at Love Field and drove over the route which Sorrels believed best suited for the motorcade. From Love Field, the route passed through a portion of suburban Dallas, through the downtown area along Main Street, and finally to the Trade Mart via a short segment of the Stemmons Freeway. For the President's return to Love Field, from which he planned to depart for a fund-raising dinner in Austin later in the day, the agents selected a more direct route, which was approximately 4 miles (some of this route would be used after the assassination). The planned route to the Trade Mart was widely reported in Dallas newspapers several days before the event, for the benefit of people who wished to view the motorcade. To pass through downtown Dallas, a route west along Dallas' Main Street, rather than Elm Street (one block to the north) was chosen, because this was the traditional parade route, and provided the maximal building and crowd views. However, the Main Street route precluded a direct turn onto the Fort Worth Turnpike exit (which served also as the Stemmons Freeway exit), which was the route to the Trade Mart, because this exit was accessible only from Elm Street. The planned motorcade route thus included a short one-block turn at the end of the downtown segment of Main Street, onto Houston Street for one block northward, before turning again west onto Elm, in order to proceed through Dealey Plaza before exiting Elm onto the Stemmons Freeway. The Texas School Book Depository was situated at this corner of Houston and Elm. On November 22, after a breakfast speech in Fort Worth, where Kennedy had stayed overnight after arriving from San Antonio, Houston and Washington, D.C. the day previously, the president boarded Air Force One which departed at 11:10 and arrived at Love Field 15 minutes later. At about 11:40, the presidential motorcade left Love Field for the trip through Dallas, which was running on a schedule about 10 minutes longer than the planned 45 minutes, due to enthusiastic crowds and an unplanned stop directed by the president. By the time the motorcade reached Dealy Plaza, however, they were only 5 minutes away from their planned destination.

Shooting in Dealey Plaza

At 12:30 p.m. CST, as Kennedy's uncovered limousine entered Dealey Plaza, Nellie Connally, then the First Lady of Texas, turned around to Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," which President Kennedy acknowledged. From Houston Street, the presidential limousine made the planned left turn to put it on Elm street to allow it to pass to the Stemmons Freeway exit. As it turned on Elm, the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository. As it continued down Elm Street, shots were fired at Kennedy; a clear majority of witnesses recalled hearing three shots. A minority of the witnesses did recognize the first gunshot blast they heard as a weapon blast, but there was hardly any reaction from a majority in the crowd or riding in the motorcade itself to the first shot, with many later saying they heard what they first thought to be a firecracker or the exhaust backfire of a vehicle just after the president started waving. Within one second of each other, President Kennedy, Governor Connally, and Mrs. Kennedy, all turned abruptly

from looking to their left to looking to their right, between Zapruder film frames 155 and 169. Connally, like the president a WWII military veteran (and unlike the president, a longtime hunter), testified he immediately recognized the sound of a high-powered rifle, then he turned his head and torso rightward attempting to see President Kennedy behind him. Connally testified he could not see the president, so he then started to turn forward again (turning from his right, to his left). Connally testified that when his head was facing about twenty-degrees left of center he was hit in his upper right back by a bullet, fired in a gunshot that Connally testified he did not hear the muzzle blast from. When Connally testified to this, the doctor who operated on him measured his head facing direction at twenty-seven degrees left of center. After Connally was hit he then shouted, "Oh, no, no, no. My God. They're going to kill us all!" Mrs. Connally testified that right after hearing a first loud, frightening noise that came from somewhere behind her and to her right, she immediately turned towards President Kennedy and saw him with his arms and elbows already raised high with his hands already close to his throat. She then heard another gunshot and John Connally started yelling. Mrs. Connally then turned away from President Kennedy towards her husband, then another gunshot sounded and she and the limousine's rear interior were now covered with fragments of skull, blood, and brain matter.According to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as President Kennedy waved to the crowds on his right with his right arm upraised on the side of the limo, a shot entered his upper back, penetrated his neck, slightly damaged a spinal vertebra and the top of his right lung, exited his throat nearly centerline just beneath his larynx, then nicked the left side of his suit tie knot. He then raised his elbows and clenched his fists in front of his face and neck, then leaned forward and towards his left. Mrs. Kennedy (already facing him) then put her arms around him in concern.Governor Connally also reacted after the same bullet penetrated his back just below his right armpit, creating an oval entry wound, impacted and destroyed four inches of his right, fifth rib bone, exited his chest just below his right nipple creating a two-and-a-half inch oval sucking-air chest wound, then entered just above his right wrist, impacted and cleanly shattered his right radius bone, exited just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm, and entered his left inner thigh. The Warren Commission theorized that the "single bullet" struck between Zapruder frames 210 and 225, while the House Select Committee theorized it occurred exactly at Zapruder frame 190. According to the Warren Commission, a second shot struck at Zapruder film frame 313 (the Commission made no conclusion as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired) when the Presidential limousine was passing in front of the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure (the House Select Committee concluded that the final shot was the fourth shot). They each concluded that this shot entered the rear of President Kennedy's head (the House Select Committee determined the entry wound to be four inches higher than the Warren Commission), then exploded out a roughly oval-shaped hole from his head's rear and right side. Head matter, brain, blood, and skull fragments, originating from Kennedy, covered the interior of the car, the inner and outer surfaces of the front glass windshield and raised sun visors, the front engine hood, the rear trunk lid, the followup Secret Service car and its driver's left arm, and motorcycle officers riding on both sides of the president behind him. Mrs. Kennedy then reached out onto the rear trunk lid. After she crawled back into her limousine seat, both Governor Connally and Mrs. Connally heard her say more than once, "They have killed my husband," and "I have his brains in my hand." United States Secret Service agent Clint Hill was riding on the left front running board of the followup car, immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Hill testified he heard one shot, then, as documented in other films and concurrent with Zapruder frame 308, he jumped off into Elm Street and ran forward to try and get on the limousine and protect the president. (Hill testified

to the Warren Commission that after he jumped into Elm Street, he heard two more shots) After the president had been shot in the head, Mrs. Kennedy began to climb out onto the back of the limousine, though she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she was reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the president's skull. He jumped onto the back of the limousine while at the same time Mrs. Kennedy returned to her seat, and he clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and accelerated, speeding to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Others wounded
Governor Connally, riding in the same limousine in a seat in front of the President and three inches more to the left than the president, was also critically injured but survived. Doctors later stated that after the governor was shot, his wife pulled him onto her lap, and the resulting posture helped close his front chest wound (which was causing air to be sucked directly into his chest around his collapsed right lung). James Tague, a spectator and witness to the assassination, also received a minor wound to his right cheek while standing 531 feet (162 m) away from the Depository's sixth floor, fareastern window, 270 feet (82 m) in front of and slightly to the right of President Kennedy's head facing direction, and more than 16 feet (4.9 m) below the president's head top. Tague's injury occurred when a bullet or bullet fragment with no copper casing struck the nearby Main Street south curb. When Tague testified to the Warren Commission and was asked which of the three shots he remembered hearing struck him, he stated it was the second or third shot; when the Warren Commission attorney pressed him further, Tague stated he was struck concurrent with the second shot.

Aftermath in Dealey Plaza

The Presidential limousine was passing a grassy knoll on the north side of Elm Street at the moment of the fatal head shot. As the motorcade left the plaza, police officers and spectators ran up the knoll and from a railroad bridge over Elm Street (the Triple Underpass), to the area behind a five-foot (1.5 m) high stockade fence atop the knoll, separating it from a parking lot. No sniper was found. S. M. Holland, who had been watching the motorcade on the Triple Underpass, testified that "immediately" after the shots were fired, he went around the corner where the overpass joined the fence but did not see anyone running from the area. Lee Bowers, a railroad switchman sitting in a two-story tower, had an unobstructed view of the rear of the stockade fence atop the grassy knoll during the shooting. He saw a total of four men in the area between his tower and Elm Street: a middle-aged man and a younger man, standing 10 to 15 feet (3.0 to 4.6 m) apart near the Triple Underpass, who did not seem to know each other, and one or two uniformed parking lot attendants. At the time of the shooting, he saw "something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around," which he could not identify. Bowers testified that one or both of the men were still there when motorcycle officer Clyde Haygood ran up the grassy knoll to the back of the fence. In a 1966 interview, Bowers clarified that the two men he saw were standing in the opening between the pergola and the fence, and that "no one" was behind the fence at the time the shots were fired. Meanwhile, Howard Brennan, a steamfitter who was sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, notified police that as he watched the motorcade go by, he heard a shot come from above, and looked up to see a man with a rifle make another shot from a corner window on the sixth floor. He had seen the same man minutes earlier looking out the

window. Brennan gave a description of the shooter, which was broadcast to all Dallas police at 12:45 p.m., 12:48 p.m., and 12:55 p.m. As Brennan spoke to the police in front of the building, they were joined by Harold Norman and James Jarman, Jr., two employees of the Texas School Book Depository who had watched the motorcade from windows at the southeast corner of the fifth floor. Norman reported that he heard three gunshots come from directly over their heads. Norman also heard the sounds of a bolt action rifle and cartridges dropping on the floor above them. Estimates of when Dallas police sealed off the entrances to the Texas School Book Depository range from 12:33 to after 12:50 p.m. Of the 104 earwitnesses in Dealey Plaza who are on record with an opinion as to the direction from which the shots came, 54 (51.9%) thought that all shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository, 33 (31.7%) thought that all shots came from the area of the grassy knoll or the Triple Underpass, 9 (8.7%) thought all shots came from a location entirely distinct from the knoll or the Depository, 5 (4.8%) thought they heard shots from two locations, and 3 (2.9%) thought the shots came from a direction consistent with both the knoll and the Depository. Additionally, the Warren Commission said of the three shots they concluded were fired that "a substantial majority of the witnesses stated that the shots were not evenly spaced. Most witnesses recalled that the second and third shots were bunched together."

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald, reported missing to the Dallas police by Roy Truly, his supervisor at the Depository, was arrested approximately 70 minutes after the assassination for killing a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, who had spotted Oswald walking along a sidewalk in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff, three miles from Dealey Plaza. Officer Tippit had earlier received a radio message which gave a description of the suspect being sought in the assassination and called Oswald over to the patrol car. After an exchange of words, Tippit got out of the car and Oswald shot him four times. Oswald was captured in a nearby movie theater after he was seen sneaking into the theater without buying a ticket. Oswald resisted, attempting to shoot the arresting officer, M.N. McDonald, with a pistol, and was struck and forcibly restrained by the police. He was charged with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit later that night. Oswald denied shooting anyone and claimed he was a patsy who was arrested because he had lived in the Soviet Union. Oswald's case never came to trial because two days later, while being escorted to a car for transfer from Dallas Police Headquarters to the Dallas County Jail, he was shot and killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, live on American television. Arrested immediately after the shooting, Ruby later said that he had been distraught over the Kennedy assassination.

Carcano rifle
A 6.5 x 52 mm Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle was found on the 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository by Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman and Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone soon after the assassination of President Kennedy.The recovery was filmed by Tom Alyea of WFAA-TV.This footage shows the rifle to be a Carcano, and it was later verified by

photographic analysis commissioned by the HSCA that the rifle filmed was the same one later identified as the assassination weapon.Compared to photographs taken of Oswald holding the rifle in his backyard, "one notch in the stock at [a] point that appears very faintly in the photograph" matched,as well as the rifle's dimensions. The previous March, the Carcano rifle had been bought by Oswald under the name "A. Hidell" and delivered to a post office box Oswald rented in Dallas. According to the Warren Commission Report, a partial palm print of Oswald was also found on the barrel of the gun, and a tuft of fibers found in a crevice of the rifle was consistent with the fibers and colors of the shirt Oswald was wearing at the time of his arrest. A bullet found on Connally's hospital gurney, and two bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine, were ballistically matched to this rifle.

Kennedy declared dead in the emergency room

The staff at Parkland Hospital's Trauma Room 1 who treated Kennedy observed that his condition was "moribund", meaning that he had no chance of survival upon arriving at the hospital. Dr. George Burkley, the President's personal physician, determined the head wound was the cause of death. Dr. Burkley signed President Kennedy's death certificate. At 1:00 p.m., CST (19:00 UTC), after all heart activity had ceased and after a priest administered the last rites, the President was pronounced dead. "We never had any hope of saving his life," one doctor said.The Rev. Oscar L. Huber, the priest who administered the last rites to Kennedy told The New York Times that the President was already dead by the time Huber had arrived at the hospital, and he had to draw back a sheet covering the President's face to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Kennedy's death was officially announced by White House Acting Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff at 1:33 p.m. CST (19:33 UTC). Governor Connally, meanwhile, was taken to emergency surgery, where he underwent two operations that day. A few minutes after 2:00 p.m. CST (20:00 UTC), and after a confrontation between Dallas police and Secret Service agents, Kennedy's body was placed in a casket and taken from Parkland Hospital and driven to Air Force One. The casket was then loaded aboard the airplane through the rear door, where it remained at the rear of the passenger compartment, in place of a removed row of seats. The body was removed before a forensic examination could be conducted by the Dallas County coroner (Earl Rose), which violated Texas state law (the murder was a state crime and occurred under Texas legal jurisdiction). At that time, it was not a federal offense to kill the President of the United States, although it was a federal crime to conspire to injure a federal officer while he was acting in the line of duty. Vice-President Johnson (who had been riding two cars behind Kennedy in the motorcade through Dallas and was not injured) became President of the United States upon Kennedy's death. At 2:38 p.m. Johnson took the oath of office on board Air Force One just before it departed from Love Field.

Autopsy

After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C., Kennedy's body was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an immediate autopsy. The autopsy (about 8 p.m. to 12 midnight EST on November 22)was followed by embalming and cosmetic funeral preparation (about 12 midnight to 4 a.m.) in the morgue at Bethesda, in a room adjacent to the autopsy theater. This was done by a team of private mortuary personnel, who made an unusual trip to the hospital for this procedure. The autopsy of President Kennedy performed the night of November 22 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three examining pathologists to conclude that the bullet wound to the head was fatal, and the bullet had entered slightly above and 2.5 cm to the right of the external occipital protuberance, exiting through the right side of the skull above the ear and "carrying with it portions of cerebrum, skull and scalp." The report addressed a second missile which "entered Kennedy's upper back above the shoulder blade, passed through the strap muscles at the base of his neck, bruising the upper tip of the right lung without puncturing it, then exiting the front (anterior) neck," in a wound that was destroyed by the tracheotomy incision. This autopsy finding was not corroborated by the President's personal physician, Dr. Burkley, who recorded, on the death certificate, a bullet to have hit Kennedy at "about" the level of the third thoracic vertebra. Supporting this location along with the bullet hole in the shirt worn by Kennedy (Image) and the bullet hole in the suit jacket worn by Kennedy (Image) which show bullet holes between 5 and 6 inches (13 and 15 cm) below Kennedy's collar (Image). However, photographic analysis of the motorcade, including a new pre-assassination film released in February 2007 (color film), shows that the President's jacket was bunched below his neckline, and was not lying smoothly along his skin, so the clothing measurements have been subject to historical criticism as being untrustworthy on the matter of the exact location of the back wound. Dr. J. Thornton Boswell's face sheet diagram from the autopsy sheet is sometimes used to support a lower back wound. However, in 1966 Boswell noted that this drawing was never intended to be scale-exact, and he re-drew it for the benefit of The Baltimore Sun on November 25, 1966, placing an X at the higher spot (Image). Boswell stated that his measurements of 5.5 inches (14 cm) from the ear and shoulder properly locate the wound, and these are inconsistent with a wound at the third thoracic vertebra. Moreover, all three Bethesda doctors authenticated for the HSCA autopsy photographs showing an entry wound at the level of C6 (the sixth cervical vertebra, at the base of the neck), which is the entry level as determined by the HSCA investigation on the basis of photographic and X-ray evidence from the autopsy. Later federal agencies such as the Assassination Records Review Board criticized the autopsy on several grounds including destruction from burning of the original draft of the autopsy report and notes taken by Cmdr. James Humes at the time of the autopsy, and failure to maintain a proper chain of custody of all of the autopsy materials.

Funeral
Main article: State funeral of John F. Kennedy The President's body was brought back to the White House and placed in the East Room in a closed casket for 24 hours but was opened privately and briefly viewed during this time by the Kennedy family and some close friends. The Sunday following the assassination, his flagdraped closed casket was moved to the Capitol for public viewing. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands lined up to view the guarded casket. Representatives from over 90 countries, including the Soviet Union, attended the funeral on November 25. The day was John Kennedy Jr.'s third birthday and he was photographed

saluting the coffin, without real understanding of the event. After the service, the casket was taken by caisson to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

Recordings of the assassination

No radio or television stations broadcast the assassination live because the area through which the motorcade was traveling was not considered important enough for a live broadcast. Most media crews were not even with the motorcade but were waiting instead at the Dallas Trade Mart in anticipation of Kennedy's arrival. Those members of the media who were with the motorcade were riding at the rear of the procession. The Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency designated as Channel One was used for routine police communications. A second channel, designated Channel Two, was an auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the president's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of Police Chief Jesse Curry's announcements of the location of the motorcade as it wound through the streets of Dallas. President Kennedy's last seconds traveling through Dealey Plaza were recorded on silent 8 mm film for the 26.6 seconds before, during, and immediately following the assassination. This famous film footage was taken by garment manufacturer and amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder, in what became known as the Zapruder film. Frame enlargements from the Zapruder film were published by Life magazine shortly after the assassination. The footage was first shown publicly as a film at the trial of Clay Shaw in 1969, and on television in 1975. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, an arbitration panel ordered the US government to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs for giving the film to the National Archives. The complete film, which lasts for 26 seconds, was valued at $16m. Zapruder was not the only person who photographed at least part of the assassination; a total of 32 photographers were in Dealey Plaza. Amateur movies taken by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore (shown on television in New York on November 26, 1963), and Charles Bronson (not the actor) captured the fatal shot, although at a greater distance than Zapruder. Other motion picture films were taken in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting by Robert Hughes, F. Mark Bell, Elsie Dorman, John Martin Jr., Patsy Paschall, Tina Towner, James Underwood, Dave Wiegman, Mal Couch, Thomas Atkins, and an unknown woman in a blue dress on the south side of Elm Street. Still photos were taken by Phillip Willis, Mary Moorman, Hugh W. Betzner Jr., Wilma Bond, Robert Croft, and many others. The lone professional photographer in Dealey Plaza who was not in the press cars was Ike Altgens, photo editor for the Associated Press in Dallas. An unidentified woman, nicknamed the Babushka Lady by researchers, might have been filming the presidential motorcade during the assassination. She was seen apparently doing so on film and in photographs taken by the others. Previously unknown color footage filmed on the assassination day by George Jefferies was released on February 20, 2007 by the Sixth Floor Museum, Dallas, Texas. The film does not include depiction of the actual shooting, having been taken roughly 90 seconds beforehand and a couple of blocks away. The only detail relevant to the investigation of the assassination is a clear view of Kennedy's bunched suit jacket, just below the collar, which has led to different calculations about how low in the back Kennedy was first shot (see discussion above).

Official investigations
Dallas Police
After arresting Oswald and collecting physical evidence at the crime scenes, the Dallas Police held Oswald at the police headquarters for interrogation. Oswald was questioned all afternoon about both the Tippit shooting and the assassination of the President. He was questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m., on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24. Throughout this interrogation Oswald denied any involvement with either the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit. Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the questioning, keeping only rudimentary notes. Days later he wrote a report of the interrogation from notes he made afterwards. There were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the Secret Service, and occasionally participated in the questioning. Several of the FBI agents present wrote contemporaneous reports of the interrogation. During the evening of November 22, the Dallas Police Department performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek in an apparent effort to determine, by means of a scientific test, whether Oswald had recently fired a weapon. The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek. However, because of the unreliability of these tests, the Warren Commission did not rely on the results of the test in making their findings. Oswald provided little information during his questioning. Frequently, however, he was confronted with evidence which he could not explain, and he resorted to statements which were found to be false. Dallas authorities were not able to complete their investigation into the assassination of Kennedy because of interruptions from the FBI and the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby.

FBI investigation
The FBI was the first authority to complete an investigation. On November 24, 1963, just hours after Oswald was fatally shot, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, said that he wanted "something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." On December 9, 1963, only 17 days after the assassination, the FBI report was issued and given to the Warren Commission. Then, the FBI stayed on as the primary investigating authority for the commission. The FBI stated that only three bullets were fired during the Kennedy assassination; the Warren Commission agreed with the FBI investigation that only three shots were fired but disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit Kennedy and which hit Governor Connally. The FBI report claimed that the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. In contrast, the Warren Commission concluded that one of the three shots missed, one of the shots hit Kennedy and then struck Connally, and a third shot struck Kennedy in the head, killing him. Criticism of FBI The FBI's murder investigation was reviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979. The congressional Committee concluded:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation adequately investigated Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination and properly evaluated the evidence it possessed to assess his potential to endanger the public safety in a national emergency. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a thorough and professional investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination. The Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was deficient in its sharing of information with other agencies and departments. Criticism of Secret Service

Sgt. Davis, of the Dallas Police Department, believed he had prepared stringent security precautions, in an attempt to prevent demonstrations like those marking the Adlai Stevenson visit from happening again. The previous month, Stevenson, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, was assaulted by an anti-UN demonstrator. But Winston Lawson of the Secret Service, who was in charge of the planning, told the Dallas Police not to assign its usual squad of experienced homicide detectives to follow immediately behind the President's car. This police protection was routine for both visiting presidents and for motorcades of other visiting dignitaries. Police Chief Jesse Curry later testified that had his men been in place, they might have been able to stop Oswald before he fired a second shot, because they carried submachine guns and rifles.

Warren Commission
The first official investigation of the assassinations was established by President Johnson on November 29, 1963, a week after the Kennedy assassination. The commission was headed by Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States and became universally (but unofficially) known as the Warren Commission. In late September 1964, after a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission Report was published. The Commission concluded that it could not find any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies). The Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the murder of Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby acted alone in the assassination of Oswald. The theory that Oswald acted alone is informally called the Lone gunman theory. The commission also concluded that only three bullets were fired during the Kennedy assassination and that Oswald fired all three bullets from the Texas School Book Depository behind the motorcade. The Commission also laid out several scenarios concerning the timing of the shots, but that the three shots were fired in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds. The commission also concluded that:

one shot likely missed the motorcade (it could not determine which of the three), the first shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the upper back, exited the front of his neck and likely continued on to cause all of Governor Connally's injuries, and the last shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the head, killing him.

It noted that three empty shells were found in the sixth floor in the book depository, and a rifle identified as the one used in the shootingOswald's Italian military surplus 6.5x52 mm Model 91/38 Carcano Colirentewas found hidden nearby. The Commission offered as a likely explanation that the same bullet that wounded Kennedy also caused all of Governor

Connally's wounds. This theory has become known as the "single bullet theory" or the "magic" bullet theory (as it is commonly referred to by its critics and detractors). The Commission also looked into other matters beside who killed the President and criticized weaknesses in security, which has resulted in greatly increased security whenever the President travels. The commission also concluded that had President Kennedy not ordered the Secret Service not to have agents occupy the rear running board positions of the presidential limousine, agents would have jumped on top of the President after the first gunshot wound and would have spared him from receiving the fatal head wound. Public response to the Warren Report Almost immediately after the Warren Commission Report was issued, several researchers began seriously questioning its conclusions. A multitude of books and articles criticizing the Warren Commission's findings have been written. The Commission's conclusions have also gradually lost widespread acceptance from the American public and various prominent government officials. In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations came to a different conclusion based in part on an audio recording that became available.

Ramsey Clark Panel

In 1968, a panel of four medical experts appointed by Attorney General Ramsey Clark met in Washington, D.C. to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. The Clark Panel determined that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its upper right side.

Rockefeller Commission
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 CIA within the United States. The commission was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and is sometimes referred to as the Rockefeller Commission. Part of the commission's work dealt with the Kennedy assassination, specifically the head snap as seen in the Zapruder film (first shown to the general public in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas. The commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Sturgis were in Dallas at the time of the assassination.

Church Committee
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, to investigate the illegal intelligence gathering by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after the Watergate incident. It also investigated the CIA and FBI conduct relating to the JFK assassination.

Their report concluded that the investigation on the assassination by FBI and CIA were fundamentally deficient and the facts which have greatly affected the investigation had not been forwarded to the Warren Commission by the agencies. It also found that the FBI, the agency with primary responsibility on the matter was ordered by Director Edgar Hoover and pressured unnamed higher government officials to conclude its investigation quickly. The report hinted that there was a possibility that senior officials in both agencies made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially important information.

United States House Select Committee on Assassinations

Main article: United States House Select Committee on Assassinations 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 underlying FBI report on which the Commission heavily relied. 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. The Committee Report concluded that: "[T]he FBI's investigation of whether there had been a conspiracy in President Kennedy's assassination was seriously flawed. The conspiracy aspects of the investigation were characterized by a limited approach and an inadequate application and use of available resources." (footnote 12) The Committee found the Warren Commission's investigation equally flawed: "[T]he subject that should have received the Commission's most probing analysiswhether Oswald acted in concert with or on behalf of unidentified co-conspirators the Commission's performance, in the view of the committee, was in fact flawed." (footnote 13) The Committee believed another primary cause of the Warren Commission's failure to adequately probe and analyze whether or not Oswald acted alone arose out of the lack of cooperation by the CIA. Finally, the Committee found that the Warren Commission inadequately investigated for a conspiracy because of: "[T]ime pressures and the desire of national leaders to allay public fears of a conspiracy." The committee concluded that Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy. The second and third shots he fired struck the President. The third shot he fired killed him. The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory but concluded that it occurred at a time during the assassination that differed from what the Warren Commission had theorized. Their theory, based primarily on Dictabelt evidence, was that President Kennedy was assassinated probably as a result of a conspiracy. They proposed that four shots had been fired during the assassination; Oswald fired the first, second, and fourth bullets, and that (based on the acoustic evidence) there was a high probability that an unnamed second assassin fired the third bullet, but missed, from President Kennedy's right front, from a location concealed behind the grassy knoll picket fence. On the question of who may have been behind a conspiracy, the committee "was unable to to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy." However, it concluded, based on evidence available to it, that the Soviet government, the Cuban government, anti-Castro groups (as opposed to individuals), the national syndicate of organized crime as a group (as

opposed to individuals), the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of the president. Response to the Dictabelt evidence The sole acoustic evidence relied on by the committee to support its conclusion of a fourth gunshot (and a gunman on the grassy knoll) in the JFK assassination, was a Dictabelt recording alleged to be from a stuck transmitter on a police motorcycle in Dealey Plaza during the assassination. The evidence was presented by Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, acoustical experts from Queens College, who were part of the 1974 panel that concluded that the 18 minute gap in the Watergate tapes was because that section was erased. After the committee finished its work, however, an amateur researcher listened to the recording and discovered faint crosstalk of transmissions from another police radio channel known to have been made a minute after the assassination. Further, the Dallas motorcycle policeman thought to be the source of the sounds followed the motorcade to the hospital at high speed, his siren blaring, immediately after the shots were fired. Yet the recording is of a mostly idling motorcycle, eventually determined to have been at JFK's destination, the Dallas Trade Mart, miles from Dealey Plaza. Several years later, in 1981, a special panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) disputed the evidence of a fourth shot, contained on the police Dictabelt. The panel concluded it was simply random noise, perhaps static, recorded about a minute after the shooting while Kennedy's motorcade was en route to Parkland Hospital. The NAS experts, headed by physicist Norman F. Ramsey of Harvard, reached that conclusion after studying the sounds on the two radio channels Dallas police were using that day. Routine transmissions were made on Channel One and recorded on a Dictaphone machine at police headquarters. An auxiliary frequency, Channel Two, was dedicated to the president's motorcade and used primarily by Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry; its transmissions were recorded on a separate Gray Audograph disc machine. The conclusion by the NAS was then rebutted in 2001 in a Science & Justice article by D.B. Thomas, a government scientist and JFK assassination researcher. Thomas concluded the HSCA finding of a second shooter was correct and that the NAS panel's study was flawed. Thomas surmises that the Dictaphone needle jumped and created an overdub on Channel One. In response to Thomas's findings, Michael O'Dell concluded in his report that the prior reports relied on incorrect timelines and made unfounded assumptions that, when corrected, do not support the identification of gunshots on the recording. In 2003, ABC News aired the results of its investigation of the assassination in a news-documentary program called Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination Beyond Conspiracy. Based on computer diagrams and recreations by Dale K. Myers, ABC News concluded that the sound recordings on the Dictabelt could not have come from Dealey Plaza and that Police Officer H.B. McLain was correct in his assertions that he had not yet entered Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. In 2005, an article in Science & Justice by Ralph Linsker, Richard Garwin, Herman Chernoff, Paul Horowitz, and Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. re-analyzed the acoustic synchronization evidence, rebutting Thomas' 2001 argument as well as correcting errors in the 1982 NAS report, while supporting the NAS report's finding that the sounds alleged to be gunshots occurred about a minute after the assassination. Followup articles in Science & Justice have been published.

Sealing of assassination records

All of the Warren Commission's records were submitted to the National Archives in 1964. The unpublished portion of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) under a general National Archives policy that applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government, a period "intended to serve as protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case. The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992. By 1992, 98% of the Warren Commission records had been released to the public. Six years later, at the conclusion of the Assassination Records Review Board's work, all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, were available to the public with only minor redactions. The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents are scheduled to be released to the public by 2017, twentyfive years after the passage of the JFK Records Act. The Kennedy autopsy photographs and X-rays were never part of the Warren Commission records and were deeded separately to the National Archives by the Kennedy family in 1966 under restricted conditions. Several pieces of evidence and documentation are described to have been lost, cleaned, or missing from the original chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out on November 24, Connally's clothing cleaned and pressed, Oswald's military intelligence file destroyed in 1973, Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing). Jackie Kennedy's blood-splattered pink and navy Chanel suit that she wore on the day of the assassination is in climate controlled storage in the National Archives. Jackie wore the suit for the remainder of the day, stating "I want them to see what they have done to Jack" when asked aboard Air Force One to change into another outfit. Not included in the National Archives are the white gloves and pink pillbox hat she was wearing. Assassination Records Review Board The Assassination Records Review Board was not commissioned to make any findings or conclusions. Its purpose was to release documents to the public in order to allow the public to draw its own conclusions. From 1992 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed about 60,000 documents, consisting of over 4 million pages. All remaining documents are to be released by 2017.

Assassination conspiracy theories

An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that Oswald shot President Kennedy as a result of a probable conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman. In the ensuing five decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Eastern Blocor perhaps some combination of these.

Others claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy". Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody. Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, David S. Lifton, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, and David Kaiser. Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large. Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner have published books criticizing the HSCA and defending the conclusions of the Warren Commission.

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 there was an assassination plot involving 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.

Reaction to the assassination

In America and around the world, there was a stunned reaction to the assassination. Schools across the U.S. dismissed their students early, and 54% of Americans stopped their normal activities on the day. In the days following the assassination, people wept, lost their appetites, had difficulty sleeping, and suffered nausea, nervousness, and sometimes anger. The event left a lasting impression on many people. It is said that everyone remembers where they were when they heard about the Kennedy assassination. Not all recreational and sporting events scheduled for the day of the assassination and during the weekend after were cancelled. Those that went on shared the sentiment NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle expressed in deciding to play NFL games that weekend: "It has been traditional...to perform in times of great personal tragedy."

Artifacts, museums and locations today

The plane serving as Air Force One is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio where tours of the aircraft are offered including the rear of the aircraft where Kennedy's casket was placed and the location where Mrs. Kennedy stood in her blood stained pink dress while Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. The 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine is at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Equipment from the trauma room at Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead, including a gurney, was purchased by the federal government from the hospital in 1973 and stored by the National Archives at an underground facility in Lenexa, Kansas. The First Lady's pink suit, the autopsy report and X-rays are stored in the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland and access is controlled by a representative of the Kennedy family. The rifle used by Oswald, his diary, bullet fragments, and the windshield of

Kennedy's limousine are also stored by the Archives. The Lincoln Catafalque, which Kennedy's coffin rested on while he lay in state in the Capitol, is on display at the United States Capitol Visitor Center. The three acre park within Dealey Plaza, the buildings facing it, the overpass, and a portion of the adjacent railyard including the railroad switching tower were designated part of the Dealey Plaza Historic District by the National Park Service on October 12, 1993. Much of the area is accessible to visitors including the park and grassy knoll. Though still an active city street, the spot where the presidential limousine was located at the time of the shooting is approximately marked with an X on the street. The Texas School Book Depository now draws over 325,000 visitors each year to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza operated by the Dallas County Historical Foundation. There is a re-creation of the snipers nest on the sixth floor of the building. Some items were intentionally destroyed by the U.S. government at the direction of Robert F. Kennedy such as the casket used to transport Kennedy's body aboard Air Force One from Dallas to Washington which was dropped by the Air Force into the sea in an area which would be dangerous for looters to attempt to retrieve it. Other items such as the hat worn by Jack Ruby the day he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and the toe tag on Oswald's corpse are in the hands of private collectors and have sold for tens of thousands of dollars at auctions.

An Introduction to JFK Conspiracy Theories

by Pat Anders Since November 22 will mark the 30th anniversary of the slaying of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the nation is only weeks away from a media-sponsored wave of nostalgia that could eclipse even 1987's rerun of the summer of love. The cottage industry that endlessly theorizes about the "truth" behind Kennedy's death will battle the stodgy "Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone" establishment on a scale not seen since the 1991 release of the controversial film JFK. So what's the big deal? Kennedy's murder is important because it branded the consciousness of the Bill Clinton/Oliver Stone generation so deeply that we can expect it to disappear into the realm of historical trivia only when that generation is itself trundled off to the nursing homes. Everyone loves a mystery. Despite volumes of evidence and reams of writing speculating on who really killed the President, only two things are certain. Kennedy was definitely killed in Dallas by a high-powered rifle. His probable assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was definitely killed by Jack Ruby in the Dallas jail two days later. Lee Harvey Oswald was a riddle wrapped in an enigma shrouded in mystery if ever there was one. Evidence of varying reliability has linked Oswald to virtually every group that had a reason to want Kennedy dead. In the years before Kennedy's death, Oswald worked as a radar operator at U-2 spy plane bases, defected to the Soviet Union and married the niece of a KGB colonel. On returning to the US, Oswald propagandized for Castro's Cuba out of a New Orleans building he shared with an ex--FBI agent trying to overthrow Castro. In the fall of 1963, Oswald moved to Dallas where he had FBI contacts, got a job in a Texas Book Depository and was accused of killing the president.

Questions abound. How did such a singular man just happen to get a job working at one of the best sniping points in Dallas, through which the President's open car motorcade just happened to pass? Why did this lone nut just happen to have ties to violent, subversive groups like the Cuban revolutionaries, the K.G.B. and F.B.I.? Wasn't it convenient that the future Mrs. Onassis was spared the anguish of a trial when Oswald was silenced the next day by Jack Ruby, a dachshund-toting strip-club owner with long-standing ties to the Mafia? And what was Richard Nixon doing in Dallas the morning of November 22? Official answers to these questions can be found in the report of the Warren Commission set up by President Johnson. The Warren Report, completed in September, 1964, is quite ordered and readable for a government document summarizing such a convoluted event. The report makes it clear that the unstable Oswald did indeed commit the murder alone, out of misguided communist ideals and perverse desire to achieve fame in the only way he could imagine. It's only when one looks into the 26 volumes of evidence taken to research the one-volume report, as well as evidence and leads that were ignored, that problems with the commission's view arise. Examining the evidence the Warren Report is based upon leads to the conclusion that, at best, the Commission took great liberties in smoothingover contradictions in the information and failed to follow up on evidence suggesting that Oswald had confederates. As evidence came in, the Commission went with what it belie Famous defects in the Warren report include the Commission's gloss-over of the shots most witnesses reported hearing from in front of the motorcade as "echoes", and that according to the Report, one of Oswald's bullets must have caused seven wounds to Kennedy and Gov. John Connally before being found as good as new on Connally's hospital stretcher. A few more obscure examples follow:

One Phillip Willis took a series of 12 photos of Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, in the minutes before and after the assassination. Mr. Willis' photos and testimony before the Commission appear in the report. He was not questioned about the eighth photo, a shot of the Book Depository entrance shortly after the shooting. As Willis later pointed out, one of the men in the photo "looks so much like (Jack Ruby), it's pitiful". F.B.I. agents questioning Willis agreed with him that the man bore a powerful resemblance to Ruby. When Willis mentioned this to the Commission, no interest was shown. When the photo was published in the Warren Report, a considerable part of the Ruby lookalike's face had been cropped away. While the President's autopsy was underway at Bethesda Naval Hospital, federal agents removed the X-rays of the body from custody of the examining doctors. Though the X-rays undoubtedly would have been valuable in determining trajectories of the bullets hitting the President, and thus the shooter's location, they are neither published nor alluded to in the Warren Report. Thoughtfully, the Commission did provide in its report a dental chart made for Jack Ruby's mother 25 years before the assassination, as well as a detailed physical analysis of three of Oswald's pubic hairs. According to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, the Dallas Morning News for November 22 contained a map of the route President Kennedy's motorcade would take through the city that day. According to the map, the President was supposed to stay on Main Street while passing through Dealey Plaza, and would not have passed the Book Depository. In fact, the motorcade turned from Main onto Houston and then to Elm Street. This unplanned sharp turn not only brought the President into his

assassin's sights, it also forced his car to slow down to ten miles per hour. Garrison says that a change in a parade route through such a large city would have required the acquiescence of the city police and government. The Mayor of Dallas, Earle Cabell, presumably signed off the change. There are literally hundreds more oversights like those above contained in the Warren Report. The job of catching them has been done well by authors Mark Lane, Jim Garrison and others. The sheer volume of strange coincidences and connections has led some parties to suggest their own answers to questions posed by the Kennedy case. For every powerful group or figure with something to gain from Kennedy's death, there is a theorist ready to explain how that group arranged the murder. Of course, some of the explanations hold water better than others. The following are theories that have stood the test of time to become the staples of Kennedy assassination lore.

THE CUBANS
This explanation has been offered by columnist Jack Anderson, among others. It has two variants. The fashionable revisionist version tells us that Kennedy was killed by right-wing Cuban exiles in America who felt that the President had sold them out. Kennedy's refusal to allow U.S. forces to participate in the exile army's Bay of Pigs invasion, which was instigated and financed by the CIA, left the exiles easy meat for Castro's air force. Thousands of the emigres were killed or imprisoned by the Castro regime, and those escaping or left in America were quite upset. Also, in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis it was widely believed Kennedy guaranteed the Russians that Cuba would be left unmolested in return for a withdrawal of Soviet missiles from the island. Again, the Cuban exiles were not consulted. Realistic Cuban exiles could see the writing on the wall in 1963 and may have wanted revenge. So these desperate men, no strangers to violence, had Kennedy assassinated, and left Oswald, who was somehow duped into following them, as the patsy. This is probably the weakest theory. While the exiles had the means and reason to kill Kennedy, and little to lose, it seems impossible that they could have escaped the police, covered up their role, and arranged for Ruby to silence Oswald. The Cuban exile community was so riddled with CIA infiltrators in the '60s that any plot would likely have been noticed by U.S. intelligence. The idea of Cuban exiles acting under CIA guidance is rather more interesting, but that's another story. The more common theory is that Fidel Castro had Kennedy murdered in reprisal for numerous attempts on his own life by the Mafia and Cuban counterrevolutionaries, both of whom were acting at the behest of Kennedy's CIA The Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crisis only strengthened Castro's belief that he was in a kill-or-be-killed si Realistic Cuban exiles could see the writing on the wall in 1963 and may have wanted revenge. So these desperate men, no strangers to violence, had Kennedy assassinated, and left Oswald, who was somehow duped into following them, as the patsy. This is probably the weakest theory. While the exiles had the means and reason to kill Kennedy, and little to lose, it seems impossible that they could have escaped the police, covered up their role, and arranged for Ruby to silence Oswald. The Cuban exile community was so riddled with CIA infiltrators in the '60s that any plot would likely have been noticed by U.S. intelligence. The

idea of Cuban exiles acting under CIA guidance is rather more interesting, but that's another story. The more common theory is that Fidel Castro had Kennedy murdered in reprisal for numerous attempts on his own life by the Mafia and Cuban counterrevolutionaries, both of whom were acting at the behest of Kennedy's CIA The Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crisis only strengthened Castro's belief that he was in a kill-or-be-killed si

THE K.G.B.
Also known as the Reader's Digest Theory, this theory is most favored by right-wing conspiracy theorists. Leon Trotsky Oswald spent two years in Russia, married a K.G.B. colonel's niece, and came back to put an end to the President at a time when the cold war was at its most frigid. How could Soviet intelligence not have had a hand in the killing? Obviously Oswald was a K.G.B. fifth columnist, sent to do what he could for the cause, and when it became necessary for Kennedy to die, Oswald served his purpose. The question mark for this theory is motive. Kennedy had embarrassed the Soviets in the big Cuban showdown the year before, but their geopolitical situation was, if anything, stronger in 1963 than in the previous year. Kennedy had removed missiles aimed at Russia from the Turkish border as a concession, and also had taken a hands-off posture toward Cuba. By all accounts Soviet premier Kruschev liked Kennedy and could expect no softer treatment from Johnson or possible Republican successors like Barry Goldwater. This version of events offers the most interesting explanation for the Warren Commission coverup. Presumably President Johnson, on learning of Russian involvement, ordered the Commission not to overturn that stone. If it were learned that the K.G.B. controlled Oswald, the American public would demand war. The Democrats, afraid to appear soft on communism during an election year, would be forced to start World War III. A variation of the K.G.B. explanation was offered by Professor Revilo Oliver, whose account merited 123 pages of space in the Warren Report. Oliver explained that the international communist conspiracy killed Kennedy because he was not serving it as efficiently as he had promised. Kennedy was behind schedule in delivering America to communism and was eliminated when the conspiracy learned that he planned to "turn American". Oliver concluded by noting sorrowfully that while Kennedy, a communist tool, was the object of national grief, not a tear was shed in this country over the sad end of Adolf Hitler.

THE MAFIA
This theory requires a deeper look into the policies of Kennedy and his Attorney General and brother, Robert. The Kennedys took a much more aggressive stance against organized crime than previous presidents. Robert Kennedy had earned the enmity of Teamster's Union boss Jimmy Hoffa, as well as other mafia members, during his probes and racketeering prosecutions. The mob also had a Cuban connection. Before the Castro revolution, U.S. mobsters had a lucrative stake in the Hanava casinos and were doing whatever they could to get it back. Mafia families funnelled money to the Cuban exiles, knowing their payback would come with

Castro deposed. It's rumored that the CIA employed mob hitmen to do away with Castro. La Cosa Nostra was understandably irritated at the shabby treatment they received in return from the Kennedys. If rumors that JFK shared a mistress with mobster Sam Giancana are true, perhaps jealousy had something to do with Kennedy's death. Whatever the facts, it's clear that the mafia had the desire and the resources to fell Kennedy, and with him, his troublesome Attorney General. And in Jack Ruby, the Dallas strip-joint owner with ties to the mob in Chicago, New Orleans and Dallas, they even had means to cover up their involvement. Partially. It's doubtful the mob could have influenced the Warren Commission and its F.B.I. investigators. And how did they get Lee Harvey Oswald to participate in the first place? Even if they duped Oswald and silenced him thereafter, it's hard to imagine that a group as corrupt as the organized crime syndicate could have kept this secret for 30 years without a rapid wholesale slaughter of everyone connected to the killing, including Ruby. The consequences of discovery would surely give the lowest mob thug pause to think, much less the top men, who still had things easy in those days and, like the Russians, much more to lose than to gain.

U.S. GOVERNMENT
This sleek, elegant theory is the choice of all discriminating conspiracy hepcats, both because of the hoopla surrounding Oliver Stone's film JFK and because it's such a grand theory, explaining away all contradiction while accommodating maximum paranoia. It also has the advantage of being so shocking and implausible that it just might be true. The most probable story is that a CIA faction decided to do away with Kennedy for one of three reasons: a) that he gave away Cuba, a country on which the Agency had worked so hard and in whose struggle the renegades had become personally involved; b) to prevent him from doing the same with Vietnam; or c) as a response to a wave of firings Kennedy had ordered in the Bay of Pigs aftermath, starting with CIA director Allen Dulles (who, by the way, served on the Warren Commission), and out of fear that Kennedy was going to eviscerate the intelligence establishment for misleading him about Cuba. In response to the charge that it would be incredible that a government branch could pull off anything as efficiently as the Kennedy assassination and coverup, it should be remembered that the CIA of 1963 was an entirely different animal from what it is today. The men carrying this out were veterans of the World War II O.S.S. These same men smuggled Nazis out of Europe against incredible odds, a far cry from the modern CIA's college boy recruiters who can't deal with student protest on the Carolina campus. This faction, operating with ease in their home waters, rounded up a team of shooters from the Cubans, Mafia or some other disgruntled group. Oswald is added as a fall guy for the public. As the day approached, sympathizers in the Secret Service or Dallas police were given their instructions and the operation went off without a hitch. Ruby was tricked into shooting Oswald, and the actual assassins are chopped up and buried by the roadside in Mexico. The CIA theory, unlike the others, has a satisfying explanation for the Warren Commission's bungling. First, the interconnected government intelligence agencies which supplied the Commission with most of its information were in good position to mislead their bosses and to destroy evidence and witnesses. Second, even if the government higher-ups learned of the Agency's involvement, they would hide it from the public for fear that the reaction might cast

down the political-business elite from which they came. Finally, for the truly apocalypticminded, maybe L.B.J., Earl Warren and the whole military industrial complex were in on the secret from the beginning. Yes, Virginia, there really is a global organization that runs everything and keeps people like you from leading a decent life. Of course, this superconspiracy would be powerful enough to arrange car accidents for Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone and this writer, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

THE ZERO GAME

It's a curious fact of American history that, since 1840, every President elected in a year ending in zero has died in office. The sole exception is Ronald Reagan, and John Hinckley certainly made a credible effort in his case. Suppose these deaths aren't coincidence. That's the view of Lyndon Larouche and some writers of the right-wing fringe, people who write letters to the editor of the Spotlight and believe the John Birch Society is moderate. The usual argument is that the deaths are arranged, for mystic numerological reasons, or simply to toy with the people of the last free country on earth. The culprits might be the forces of Freemasonry, Zionist bankers, the Vatican, the British crown, whoever the individual writer fears most. The eccentricities of the far right are a subject for further research. Those who would like to know more can pick up a copy of Spotlight, available at a machine outside the Franklin St. post office in Chapel Hill. And take out an insurance policy on the President in eight years.

THE ANTI-GREENS
My favorite theory, suggested by California oxygen-therapy advocate Waves Forest, ties together all the political assassinations of the '60s with arranged deaths like Jimi Hendrix. It's hard to do it justice in a paragraph, but here goes. The Kennedys, King et al. were murdered by a conspiracy whose object is to lower world oxygen levels. Since the industrial revolution, atmospheric oxygen levels have been steadily dropping. The decrease has meant a resurgence of anaerobic (non-oxygen breathing) microorganisms, like the tetanus virus, which had been going extinct in prehistory as world oxygen levels rose. The advent of humanity, whose deforestation and fossil-fuel burning have reduced atmospheric oxygen, was a boon to the bacteria as oxygen levels dropped. Microbes flourish best in the oxygen-poor urban centers where most of the world's political power is concentrated. The microbes have parasitically influenced the brains of the business-political establishment. Now every time a progressive politician or culture figure arises who might change the status quo, i.e. slow down the race to denude the earth, the establishment perceives that figure as a threat. An assassination is arranged. The point of Forest's parable is that the de-greening of the earth can only benefit anaerobic organisms in the long run, so they must be in on it.