On Nov. 22 , 1963 , PresidentJohn F. Kennedywas gunned down as he rode in a motorcade through Dallas . That cleanup , and the subsequent murder of his allege assassinLee Harvey Oswaldwhile in constabulary custody , traumatized a nation so intensely that the feeling has never quite blow over .
The Warren Commission , a control board of inquest name by JFK ’s successor Lyndon B. Johnson , produced a voluminous report to substantiate the prescribed conclusion that Oswald had indeed killed Kennedy and roleplay alone .
Yet many hoi polloi found that chronicle hard to accept .
How could someone who displayed abysmal marksmanship skills in his brief Marine Corps vocation , bring off to strike a upstage , moving target with two of the three shots that he fired from a 6th - floor windowpane ? What if Oswald was say the truth when , after his arrest , he said , " I ’m just a soft touch " ? And was n’t it a bite too convenient that Jack Ruby , a nightclub owner with conspicuous organized offense connections , receive close enough to Oswald to kill him , before he could talk further ?
It did n’t help when , in 1979 , a Congressional committee that reopened the case concluded that the original investigation had been less than complete , and raised the opening that JFK had been kill by a conspiracy [ source : National Archives ] .
Yet , to this 24-hour interval , there is no voiceless evidence of one , despite all the theories and names toss out over the old age . " The ground is , there is [ no conspiracy ] to leak out , " Vincent Bugliosi , attorney and writer of " Reclaiming History : The Assassination of John F. Kennedy " assure theDallas Morning Newsin 2013 .
Still , skeptic continue to peruse grainy household movies of the event and study arcane documentation from the investigation , look for the proverbial smoke torpedo that will crack the font . Here are 10 theory that offer conspiratorial explanation for what fall out , some more believable than others .
10: Jimmy Hoffa Got the Mafia to Do It
There have been persistent rumors over the years of connection between JFK and theMafia . A purported presidential kept woman , Judith Campbell Exner , once claimed she had arrange a meeting at JFK ’s behest with Chicago crime gaffer Sam Gianciana , so thatJFKcould seek Gianciana ’s assist during the 1960 presidential race [ source : Associated Press ] . It ’s also well - document that the CIA sought mobster ' help in its game to assassinate Cuban potentate Fidel Castro [ source : Kessler ] .
But the Mafia finally come to view JFK and his buddy , Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy , as acerb antagonist because of the latter ’s efforts to eradicate mob influence over the Teamsters marriage [ source : Krauss ] . Frank Ragano , an lawyer who represented Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa , wrote a 1994 al-Qur’an in which he alleged that Hoffa ask crime syndicate hirer Santos Trafficante and Carlos Marcello to arrange JFK ’s assassination . ( Of naturally , Hoffamysteriously disappeared in 1975 and was declared legally dead in 1982 . ) Ragano also arrogate that , in 1987 , a dying Trafficante fink to give birth a role in the president ’s killing and expressed his sorrow , say , " We should have killed Bobby " rather [ reference : baronial ] .
The pack hit is in all probability the cabal possibility that comes the secretive to being plausible — even House Select Committee on Assassinations ( HSCA ) counsel G. Robert Blakey tell in 1979,“I think the gang did it " [ source : Bugliosi].But with the potential suspect and their associate long dead , the chances of turn up solid cogent evidence seem increasingly outback .
9: Fidel Castro Retaliated
As a congressional inquiry discovered in 1975 , the CIA brood numerousplots to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castroduring Kennedy ’s presidency , including an endeavour to poison his food [ source : Kessler ] . Did Castro decide to return the favour ? Lyndon B. Johnson harbored such suspicions . In a 1967 headphone call to act Attorney General Ramsey Clark that was secretly immortalize , LBJ even describe a rumour he ’d heard about how Castro had captured plotter against him and tortured them into revealing that they were work for theCIA .
" So he [ Castro ] said , ' Okay . We ’ll just take care of that , ' " LBJ say . " So then he called Oswald and a group in , and tell apart them to … go prepare it up and get the job done " [ author : Holland ] .
Oswald was involved with pro - Castro activism and even attempt to obtain a visa to visit Cuba in the summertime before JFK ’s expiry . But clear - slue proof of a Cuban function in the character assassination has yet to emerge , and in a 1977 interview , Castro himself said that vote down Kennedy would have been " absolute insanity , " because the U.S. might have set on Cuba in retaliation [ source : Volkman ] .
8: Anti-Castro Cubans Were Angry at Failed Coup
During the CIA - orchestrated invasion of Cuba by anti - Castro exiles in April 1961 , the president made a last - minute conclusion to keep U.S. wedge aircraft on the basis . patently , JFK was concerned that U.S. fingerprints on the mathematical operation might be too obvious [ source : Lawrence ] .
With the lack of airpower , the coup failed , and many in the expatriate community blamed Kennedy . Even though he continued a clandestine CIA feat to rid of Castro , it was n’t enough to fulfil the dozens of armed militants who were eager to hear another invasion . They grew even wild after federal authorities exclude down many of their training camps and sequester weaponry in the fountain of 1963 .
In October , just seven weeks before JFK ’s cleanup , one anti - Castro activist admonish , " We ’re going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas , " concord to a tape of the meeting in Dallas . In the wake of the character assassination , an source told the FBI that on the day before JFK was shoot , another anti - Castro activist who was seeking to buy arms lawlessly blow that his wealthy backers would put up the money " as soon as we take concern of Kennedy " [ author : HSCA ] .
Nevertheless , the Congressional probers who reopen the investigating of JFK ’s assassination concluded that the anti - Castro militants were more vociferous than menacing , and probably had n’t been involved [ source : HSCA ] .
7: Right-wing Extremists
If you reckon that American order is politically polarized to a shivery extreme today , here ’s a news flash : Things were bitterly partizan back in 1963 , too . Dallas , in particular , was a seething hotbed of correct - wing extremist , who tended to view JFK as a communistic sympathizer or worse .
To muddle thing even further , in 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison accused local businessman Clay Shaw of being take in a conspiracy with a shadowy chemical group of right - wingers to assassinate JFK ( a premiss that aid to barrack the1991 movieof the same name ) . Shaw ’s acquittal after just one hr of jury deliberation did n’t kill this meme [ source : Times Picayune ] .
6: Oswald Was a Soviet Agent
After obtaining a discharge from the Marine Corps in 1959 , Oswald promptly defected to the Soviet Union , where he go for 32 months before he grow disillusion and return to the U.S. with his Russian wife Marina . But even back home , Oswald continued to dabble in pro - communist activism , and in September 1963 took a bus to Mexico City , where he jaw the Soviet and Cuban embassies , in an attempt to obtain travel visas [ root : Associated Press ] .
Or was it for other reasons ? Oswald ’s curious history has led some to speculate that he was an operative levy by the Soviets to kill Kennedy . According to investigative journalist Edward J. Epstein , Oswald ’s final phone call in Mexico City was to an functionary who was a secret agent in the espionage and assassination branch of the KGB , the Soviet equivalent of the CIA [ reservoir : Time ] .
After the fall of the Soviet Union , the KGB ’s files on Oswald — turned over to President Bill Clinton by then - Russian President Boris Yeltsin , and translate into English — actually expose that the Soviet spy government agency had decided against recruiting Oswald . As it turned out , the Soviets escort Oswald as mentally unstable and unreliable , and even harbored suspicion that he might be a CIA spy [ author : Schorr ] . Of naturally , the truly conspiracy - minded might question whether the Russians turned over all their documents .
5: The Military-Industrial Complex
This is a scenario that ’s resonated among conspiracy buffs since 1991 , after director Oliver Stone made it the premise of his corner - office bang " JFK " [ source : Canby].We wish to remember of the slain United States President as a noble , smart leader , one who would have substantiate that the burgeon American involvement in Vietnam ’s civil warfare was a likely disaster in the fashioning , and who would have settle to cut his loss betimes .
Such a decision likely would have irk the dreadedmilitary - industrial complex , the alignment of Pentagon officials and defense contractors that Kennedy ’s predecessorDwight Eisenhowerhad warned Americans about in his farewell address in 1961 . Eisenhower felt that these contractor were gaining tremendous influence over what the armed forces spent on arms [ source : NPR ] .
So , is it potential that forces inside the military - industrial composite could have arrange the slaying of an disobliging air force officer in chief ? One great problem with the theory is that there ’s no conclusive validation that JFK really contemplated preempting the Vietnam War . To the opposite , in a 1964 oral history interview , then - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — who himself would be assassinated in 1968 — sound out that his blood brother was convinced the U.S. had to stay on in Vietnam to gainsay the spread of communism [ beginning : Grier ] .
4: LBJ Orchestrated the Assassination
It ’s no secret that legato , dashing Massachusetts blueblood JFK and his gruff Southern good - old - boy vice president had a political marriage of convenience , and were n’t particularly fond of one another . Indeed , harmonize to a 1964 oral history interview withJacqueline Kennedy , Kennedy was so distressed about what Lyndon Johnson would do if he succeeded him that he ’d start to have individual conversation with political movers about preempt the Texan ’s expected presidential candidacy in 1968 [ reservoir : Klein ] .
Some conspiracy idealogue have fence that LBJ may have decide to beat Kennedy to the punch , and displace his reelection by arranging for him to be bump off when he visited Johnson ’s home United States Department of State of Texas . In a 2011 script , source Joseph Farrell suggested that Johnson act at the behest of , or perhaps in concert with , powerful Texas oilman who feared that JFK would finish the oil depletion valuation account , their lucrative taxation good luck [ reference : Farrell ] .
Another writer even take that LBJ tried to get his friend , then - Texas Gov. John Connally , and his wife to swap bottom with another political pair in the Dallas motorcade on Nov. 22 , presumably to keep Connally out of the assembly line of fervor [ source : Smith ] . The possibility has a sure appeal , from the " who stands to gain " linear perspective . But it light considerably unforesightful in terms of real certification . Indeed , author Robert Caro , who in 2012 released No . 4 of a aforethought five - volume work on Johnson say that he has found absolutely no evidence that Johnson was involved in JFK ’s murder [ source : Italie ] .
3: The CIA Gave Oswald LSD
In 1983 , Rolling Stone cartridge clip published an clause tell how New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Edward Gillin had been visited unexpectedly in 1963 by a young human beings who tell him about a wondrous drug calledLSD , which he believe would transfer the class of human civilization . The young man ask Gillin if the drug was legal , and whether he could spell it from overseas . Gillin was puzzled and conclude that the young man was crazy . A few months later , when Gillin interpret Lee Harvey Oswald on television news reports about JFK ’s character assassination , he realise that was the unseasoned human being who had talked to him about LSD .
The article went on to position out a high-risk scenario . While Oswald was serving as a Marine Corps radio detection and ranging manipulator in Atsugi , Japan , he was recruited by the CIA to go to the Soviet Union as a fake deserter in a " cryptic cover " cognitive process . He was then establish LSD as part of his training , by investigator who were study whether it had note value as a " truth blood serum " drug , and fear that the Soviets might already be using it for query or to brainwash subjects . But after theCIAand JFK had a falling out over the Bay of Pigs and his insurance of détente with the Soviet Union , Oswald was reactivated as a " Manchurian Candidate " to off the uncooperative president [ origin : Lee , Ranftel , and Cohen ] .
Granted , that probably sounds farfetched , unless you bump to be tripping on LSD when you read it , in which case it ’s utterly cosmic .
2: The Federal Reserve Did It
A lot of people are deeply funny of the Federal Reserve system , which muck about with sake pace and the handiness of money to lend constancy to the U.S. economy . Or at least , that ’s what the Trilateral Commission , the Knights Templar and the Masonic elder want us to think . ( Before they put out a strike on us , we should emphasize that we ’re just jolly ) .
So it ’s not too surprising that conspiracy theorists would posit that the Fed had a role in JFK ’s murder , as well . Some have suggest JFK ran afoul of the fundamental banker by issuing Executive Order 11110 in June 1963 , which would have taken aside the Fed ’s business leader to leave the U.S. Treasury to go around it and issue report currentness backed by silver . This purportedly would have get rid of the demand for federal notes but vastly reduced the U.S. ’s national debt [ reference : Rense.com ] .
Or maybe not . For one affair , facile certificates , as such paper currency was call in , already existed . For another , JFK actually need to get disembarrass of silverish certificate , and had just sign up a bill elapse by Congress that allowed the political science to melt down its silver reservation and use the metal to make coins . To relieve the transition , JFK issued the executive order in interrogation , which allowed the government to keep printing the certificates for a while longer [ source : Associated Press ] . Finally , none of this really had anything to do with the Fed .
1: Part of the Government’s UFO Cover-Up
It was perhaps inevitable that the continuing torrent of JFK blackwash confederacy hypothesis would meet with another irrepressible conspiracy meme , the belief that the U.S. government has long been plight in a monolithic cover - up operation to prevent the populace from learning about visit to Earth by extraterrestrial beings .
add up impetus to this theory are former November 1963 memorandums , unearth by author William Lester through the Freedom of Information Act , in which JFK call for for a review of all intelligence file related toUFOs . The info was assay as part of the planning for a joint U.S.-Soviet distance effort that JFK hoped to induct , and Lester think that Kennedy was implicated about the Soviets misidentify flying saucer that flew over their country for U.S. spy aircraft [ reservoir : Daily Mail ] .
But in the febrile minds of confederacy buff , it ’s not hard to imagine a cabal of superior general or CIA functionary slay a squad ofMen in Blackto verify that the president did n’t find out about those alien autopsy being take at Area 51 , or about the cloak-and-dagger effort to engender a superintendent - race of human - exotic cross . Oh wait — that ’s an previous " 10 - Files " episode that we ’re thinking of . Never beware !
Lots More Information
I call back the afternoon of Nov. 22 , 1963 very vividly — the nuns herded me and my first - mark classmate up the stairs to Christian church and begin leading us in seemingly endless , teary-eyed rounds of the prayer beads , without explaining why . I was positive that the humankind was about to end . It was n’t until I got home that I learned from my mom that the president had been kill in Dallas .
Two days later , I remember sitting in front of our black - and - clean TV and take in rematch after replay ofJack Rubygunning down the suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald . Even to my youthful nous , the prescribed account of event did n’t seem to resound true . Years later , as a newspaper newsman in California , I had the occasion to actually meet and interview a man who had served in the Marine Corps with Oswald . He described the alleged assassin ’s wretched marksmanship skills — of how Oswald often scored a " Maggie ’s bloomers , " a white flag waved when a shooter missed the target . That put further dubiousness in my mind about the official story . alas , as the event fade further and further into history , I doubt that we ’ll ever know the full truth about what happened .
