'Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names'- The JFK Assassination Conspiracy

‘Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names’

The JFK Assassination Conspiracy  

12:30pm on Friday the 22^nd of November 1963, American President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He is shot twice, in the neck and his head. Little could be done to save the president who was pronounced dead at 1:00pm. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine was arrested for shooting and killing a police officer J.D. Tippet but was then accused of assassinating the president.  

Scapegoat?

Oswald was stopped by Tippet due to the initial police reports of a possible shooter whose description matched Oswald’s. After exchanging words through the car window, Oswald pulled out a hand gun and shot five times before fleeing. Numerous witnesses positively identified Oswald as the shooter. Witness Howard Brennan saw a man matching Oswald’s description shooting a rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depositary building. This also happened to be Oswald’s work place and he was unaccounted for that day. Investigators charged Oswald for both murders even though he continuously denied them. Two days later, as Oswald was escorted from Dallas Police Headquarters, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, never having the chance to clear his name or stand trial.

Convenient?

The death of Kennedy has been long debated due to many suspicious aspects of it. Oswald’s association with the Soviet Union amid The Cold War made him a perfect candidate to place blame. Opinion polls, even now, show that a majority of Americans believe it was a conspiracy and there was a major cover up.

 There are many unanswered questions say conspirators one of these being the’ single bullet theory’ or the ‘magic bullet’. Governer John Connally was seated in front of the president and was seriously injured in the assassination. The single bullet theory says that the first bullet that struck the president in the throat was the same bullet that struck Connally in the chest. However, bullet trajectories do not add up and the bullet that supposedly passed through both men was left unmarked which is not consistent with the injuries. Connally testified that he was shot with a separate bullet. This leads theorists to believe there was perhaps two assassins.

A key piece of evidence for investigators is the Zapruder film by Abraham Zapruder on that day capturing the moment the President is killed in graphic detail. Due to the location of the building, Kennedy was shot from behind however the film shows the presidents head to shock backwards indicating it came from in front or even to the right, from the grassy knoll where witnesses heard the shots. The footage was kept from the public until 1975 and conspirators believe it has been tampered with the possibility some frames were removed.

Was this part of a government conspiracy to set up Oswald?

Why did Johnson demand Kennedy’s body be moved from the hospital which was illegal and why did he order the immediate clean up and repair of the limo before it could be examined? It can be argued he was the one with the most to gain from the President’s death. One of the main theories is that the assassination was due to JFK’s feud with the CIA and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion which was blamed on the president. He limited the CIA control over the military which weakened the agency. More interesting, Lee Harvey Oswald had worked for the CIA. Was he working for them in 1963 or was his background known to the CIA and that is why he was chosen as a scapegoat?

The report seems to conflict eyewitness testimonies, film and physics. It is highly unlikely Oswald acted alone. There was fear at the time it was part of a larger Soviet plot due to The Cold War and could have been a government conspiracy. Furthermore, the amount of television and film based on the assassination demonstrates its importance in history. 

Lucy Bracher