JFK - The Great American Conspiracy

The Official Story -

Put simply - the president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone gunman acting on his own initiative.
This version of events was first put forward by the Warren Commission in 1964.

Hastily convened five days after Oswald was murdered, the enquiry was led by Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Its findings were based on the FBI and Dallas PD investigation into the assassination, which was incomplete at the time of Oswald's death.

In his interviews with police Oswald denied shooting the President and claimed to be a "patsy" taking the rap for a crime he didn't commit. Though cops were unable to coax a confession from the 24 year-old they did have a wealth of evidence linking him to the assassination.

They discovered his palm print on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was found earlier that day on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository where he worked. His hand prints were found on nearby book cartons and a brown paper bag. Co-workers testified that they saw Oswald on the sixth floor at 11.55am and others say they saw him holding a rifle at the window.

By November 24, Dallas Police had decided to move their suspect from the station to the local jail. As he was escorted through the basement he was shot in the stomach by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner and small time crook who said he wanted to spare Jackie Kennedy the torture of watching Oswald stand trial for her husband's murder.

Ruby, who had been arrested more than half a dozen times and was said to have links to the mafia, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. This sentence was later overturned, but Ruby died in prison in 1967 from cancer. He never gave evidence to the official Warren Commission as he refused to testify unless a prison transfer was arranged taking him from Dallas to Washington. Earl Warren turned this request down.

Reports from the time say that within hours of Oswald's death the influential head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, told agents that he needed "something issued to convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin".

In late September 1964, his wish was granted as the Warren Commission returned a report supporting the Bureau's investigation and its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin who was killed by another lone gunman, Jack Ruby.

It found that, of the three shots fired at JFK's car that afternoon, one shot missed the motorcade entirely, one bullet struck Kennedy in the upper back, exited near the front of his neck and went on to cause all of Texas Governor John Connally's injuries (who was sitting in front of JFK in the limousine) and that a third shot struck the President in the head.

The commission insisted that no bullets had been fired from anywhere other than the Texas Book Depository, and that, despite security failings, the sole responsibility for the murder lay with Oswald.

In 1975 the Rockefeller Commission, headed by then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and tasked with looking into CIA activities within the US, found that there were no links between the secret intelligence services and the assassination of JFK.

More recently computer models and modern video techniques have been used to debunk conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. Using the Zapruder film, footage shot by an amateur cameraman which has become the most recognised videotape of the events in Dealey Plaza, researchers have created a reconstruction of the murder and used it to attack "myths" surrounding the official account.

The Warren Commission's finding that a single bullet struck Kennedy and Governor Connally has attracted widespread scepticism, but modern video techniques suggest this "magic bullet" theory is both physically possible and consistent with Oswald firing from the Texas Book Depository.

The Conspiracy Theory -

Most Americans still believe that the official version of the murder of President Kennedy is not true. Not only can every American of his generation remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, they all have their own thoughts about who pulled the trigger and why.

The most popular alternative explanation is that a second gunman shot JFK from the grassy knoll.
No conspiracy theory has ever received more widespread support than this one. It was the subject of Oliver Stone's hugely influential 1991 movie JFK, which turned a whole generation of young Americans into conspiracy theorists and pointed the finger of blame at a military-industrial complex headed by senior government officials including Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

And, unlike almost every other conspiracy theory, in the case of the JFK assassination an official government committee found that the murder of the president was the result of a conspiracy.

In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations found that the Warren Commission and the FBI had not properly investigated the possibility of a conspiracy. They also considered the infamous Dictabelt evidence, a sound recording from a Dallas Police motorcyclist's microphone which appeared to prove a fourth shot was fired in Dealey Plaza, and supported the principle that a second gunman was involved.

There are a wide range of conspiracy theories involved with the JFK assassination. Most revolve around a second shooter hired as part of an inside job or the idea that Oswald was being controlled by someone else.

The most long-standing theories are:

(i) President Kennedy was murdered on the orders of his own CIA for his anti-Vietnam war policy

(ii) JFK was assassinated by a communist "patsy" in the form of Oswald

(iii) The shot from the grassy knoll was fired by a mobster, in response to Kennedy's crackdown on
organised crime

(iv) The driver of the limousine shot the president in the head after Oswald's bullet struck him in the back

(v) Lee Harvey Oswald's identity had been assumed by an agent of a foreign government, who then murdered the president

Pros:

- Eyewitnesses claim to have seen anywhere between two and four men on the grassy knoll at the exact moment of the shooting. The disputed Dictabelt evidence would seem to show four bullets were fired, whereas officers only found three shell casings in the Texas Book Depository room which Oswald fired from. At least 20 people in Dealey Plaza at the time testified that they heard gunshots coming from the grassy knoll.

- The "magic bullet" theory has been questioned by experts who claim there is no way the same slug could have travelled through Kennedy's body and into the governor in the way described by the official investigation.

- The FBI bungled the investigation on purpose to hide the links between government agencies and the assassination. FBI agent James Hosty's name appeared in Oswald's address book, but was deleted before the document was handed to the Warren Commission. Oswald had called in to headquarters to see Hosty two days before the murder of JFK, and left him a letter, which Hosty destroyed before it could be handed to the commission.

- Video footage of the motorcade pulling into Dealey Plaza shows the two secret service agents who normally ride on the back of the President's limousine being ordered to stand down by their commander. The agents respond with consternation and can be seen shrugging in annoyance at their superior officer. Had they been in their normal position Oswald would not have had a clean shot.

- The shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby was incredibly convenient for anyone who sought to cover-up what Oswald knew about the conspiracy. Ruby's money troubles and mob links made him the ideal fall guy and the perfect candidate to kill the assassin and keep his mouth shut about his motivations for doing so.

- Oswald was a poor shot and his marine corps training was mainly in the area of radio communications. It is argued that he could not have picked off the President with the accurate shots attributed to his marksmanship.

- Oswald declared himself a Marxist at the age of 15 after reading about communism. The communist governments of both Cuba and the USSR wanted Kennedy dead following the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1959 Oswald emigrated to the USSR, where he lived for three years. Conspiracy theorists argue that this is the time when he was recruited by communists to kill the President.

- The theory that the military-industrial complex was behind the killing is sometimes linked to the trial of Clay Shaw, as dramatised in Oliver Stone's movie, that saw the New Orleans businessman charged with conspiracy by New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. Though Shaw was found not guilty, witnesses claim he met with Oswald on several occasions to discuss the plot and handed him cash to carry it out.

Cons:

- The Dictabelt tapes, which are often pointed to as the central piece of evidence in the grassy knoll theory, provided only a 50/50 chance that a fourth gunshot was fired from there. In 1982 the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the evidence and found it to be unreliable.

- Eyewitness statements from the time are contradictory. For every person in Dealey Plaza who heard a gunshot from the grassy knoll there is another who categorically states there was no gunshot from anywhere other than the book depository.

- Computer models appear to conclusively prove the single bullet theory and show that Kennedy and Governor Connally must have been hit with the same shot from the book depository.

- An exhumation in the 1980s proved that Oswald was not replaced by a soviet agent.

- No videotape evidence has been produced to suggest the driver of the limousine had a weapon.

- No bullets were found on the grassy knoll, no pictures exist showing an armed man there, and when Dallas Police officers ran towards Dealey Plaza across the grassy knoll in the aftermath of the shooting they found nobody there.

- Any plot from the New Orleans mobsters was ruled out in a court of law by a jury following Jim Garrison's unsuccessful prosecution of Clay Shaw in 1969.

Conclusion:

With so many theories it is difficult to choose which one to believe. For my part I would have to say that there is something just a little too convenient about a killer who was supposedly a lone gunman being murdered by a known small-time gangster just two days after he shot the most iconic and influential politician of his generation. We will never know exactly who pushed Oswald's buttons, but it seems clear that they were pushed. As for those shots from the grassy knoll, I am yet to be convinced that anyone fired from anywhere other than the depository.

That's all from me, let's hear your thoughts.

Links:

Computer animation on the "magic bullet" theory - http://

Criticism of the single bullet theory - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzWy00JC6s&feature=related

The Zapruder film - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G_Zxup7esU&feature=related

A profile of Lee Harvey Oswald - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

The Dictabelt tapes discussed - http://pages.prodigy.net/whiskey99/hearnoevil.htm

The final report of the Warren Commission - http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/

Assassinations Records Review of medical testimony - http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/contents.htm

A site aimed at the debunking of JFK myths - http://www.jfkfiles.com