The JFK Assassination Conspiracy: Part II - Exposing the Cover-Up & the Establishment's Role (1989)

Secret history of the CIA: https://thememoryhole.substack.com/

"JFK Assassination: Cover-Up and Conspiracy (Part II)" concludes the compelling two-part series, featuring John Stockwell and Gary Shaw as they delve into the intricate cover-up surrounding President Kennedy's assassination.

The discussion unravels two aspects of the cover-up: the first being intertwined with the actual shooting conspiracy, and the second stemming from actions taken by the American ruling Establishment. This includes scrutiny of the Warren Commission, FBI, federal government entities, and the mass media, shedding light on their roles in perpetuating the cover-up.

Additionally, the program offers a comprehensive review of the array of new books that have emerged, each adding fresh perspectives and insights into the assassination mystery.

Recorded in September 1989, this 59-minute installment provides a detailed examination of the cover-up's dimensions and the evolving narrative surrounding this pivotal moment in history.

Conspiracy theorists consider four or five groups, alone or in combination, to be the primary suspects in the assassination of Kennedy: the CIA,[313] the military-industrial complex,[313] organized crime,[313][314] the government of Cuba led by Fidel Castro,[313][314][315] and Cuban exiles.[313] Other domestic individuals, groups, or organizations implicated in various conspiracy theories include Lyndon Johnson,[315][313][314] George H. W. Bush,[313][314] Sam Giancana,[315] Carlos Marcello,[316] J. Edgar Hoover,[314] Earl Warren,[315] the Federal Bureau of Investigation,[313] the United States Secret Service,[313][314] the John Birch Society,[313][314] and far-right wealthy Texans.[313] Some other alleged foreign conspirators include the KGB and Nikita Khrushchev,[315][313] Aristotle Onassis,[314] the government of South Vietnam,[317] and international drug lords,[313] including a French heroin syndicate.[317]
New Orleans conspiracy
Further information: Trial of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison began an investigation into the Kennedy assassination in 1966. Garrison developed a theory of a plot that included a group of New Orleans residents in his jurisdiction.[318][319] Garrison's 1988 book On the Trail of the Assassins discusses his prosecution of Clay Shaw for the assassination, and was partially adapted by Oliver Stone for his 1991 film JFK.[320] The final report of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) stated that the film "popularized a version of President Kennedy's assassination that featured U.S. government agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the military as conspirators."[321] Journalist Rosemary James, whose article with Jack Dempsey and David Snyder in the New Orleans States-Item broke the news of the Garrison investigation, stated that because Garrison's theory evolved frequently, it was mockingly called the "theory du jour" by the media.[318][322]

Pamela Colloff and Michael Hall summarized the theory held by Garrison and Stone for Texas Monthly: "There is a secret government within our government, a cabal that in 1963 ordered the murder of a popular president, set up a patsy, installed its own puppet, and orchestrated an elaborate cover-up that included tampering with the corpse, destroying and suppressing evidence, and killing witnesses. Heading the cabal were some of the world’s most powerful men: rich and corrupt industrialists, generals, and right-wing politicians. Down below was an eclectic group of mobsters, spooks, lowlifes, and anti-Castro extremists, many of whom were headquartered at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans, including Oswald, former FBI agent Guy Banister, soldier of fortune David Ferrie, and suspected CIA informant Clay Shaw. Together, in the summer of 1963, they plotted Kennedy’s demise."[323]

Soon after the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald's activities in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the spring and summer of 1963, came under scrutiny. Three days after the assassination, on November 25, 1963, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews told the FBI that he received a telephone call from a man named Clay Bertrand, on the day of the assassination, asking him to defend Oswald.[324][325] Andrews would later repeat this claim in testimony to the Warren Commission.[326]
David Ferrie (second from left) with Lee Harvey Oswald (far right) in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol in 1955

Also, in late November 1963, an employee of New Orleans private investigator Guy Banister named Jack Martin began making accusations that fellow Banister employee David Ferrie was involved in the JFK assassination. Martin told police that Ferrie "was supposed to have been the getaway pilot in the assassination."[327] He said that Ferrie had outlined plans to kill Kennedy and that Ferrie might have taught Oswald how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. Martin claimed that Ferrie had known Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol, and that he had seen a photograph, at Ferrie's home, of Oswald in a Civil Air Patrol group.[328] Ferrie denied any association with Oswald.[329]

It was later discovered that Ferrie had attended Civil Air Patrol meetings in New Orleans in the 1950s that were also attended by a teenage Lee Harvey Oswald.[330] In 1993, the PBS television program Frontline obtained a photograph taken in 1955 (eight years before the assassination) showing Oswald and Ferrie at a Civil Air Patrol cookout with other C.A.P. cadets.[330] Whether Oswald's and Ferrie's association in the Civil Air Patrol in 1955 is relevant to their later possible association in 1963 is a subject of debate.[330][331]

According to several witnesses, in 1963, both Ferrie and Banister were working for lawyer G. Wray Gill on behalf of Gill's client, New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, in an attempt to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala.[332][333] On the afternoon of November 22, 1963 – the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the day Marcello was acquitted in his deportation case – New Orleans private investigator Guy Banister and his employee, Jack Martin, were drinking together at a local bar. On their return to Banister's office, the two men got into a heated argument. According to Martin, Banister said something to which Martin replied, "What are you going to do – kill me like you all did Kennedy?". Banister drew his .357 magnum revolver and pistol-whipped Martin several times. Martin, badly injured, went by ambulance to Charity Hospital.[334]

Earlier, in the spring of 1963, Oswald had written to the New York City headquarters of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, proposing to rent "a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a FPCC branch here in New Orleans".[335] As the sole member of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Oswald ordered 1,000 leaflets with the heading, "Hands Off Cuba" from a local printer.[336] On August 16, 1963, Oswald passed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in front of the International Trade Mart in New Orleans.[337]

One of Oswald's leaflets had the address "544 Camp Street" hand-stamped on it, apparently by Oswald himself.[338] The address was in the "Newman Building", which from October 1961 to February 1962 housed the Cuban Revolutionary Council, a militant anti-Castro group.[339][340] Around the corner but located in the same building, with a different entrance, was the address 531 Lafayette Street – the address of "Guy Banister Associates", the private detective agency run by Guy Banister. Banister's office was involved in anti-Castro and private investigative activities in the New Orleans area. A CIA file indicated that in September 1960, the CIA had considered "using Guy Banister Associates for the collection of foreign intelligence, but ultimately decided against it".[341][342][343]

In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated the possible relationship of Oswald to Banister's office. While the committee was unable to interview Guy Banister (who died in 1964), the committee did interview his brother Ross Banister. Ross "told the committee that his brother had mentioned seeing Oswald hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature on one occasion. Ross theorized that Oswald had used the 544 Camp Street address on his literature to embarrass Guy."[344]

Guy Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, would later tell author Anthony Summers that she saw Oswald at Banister's office, and that he filled out one of Banister's "agent" application forms. She said, "Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office."[345] The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated Roberts's claims and said that "because of contradictions in Roberts' statements to the committee and lack of independent corroboration of many of her statements, the reliability of her statements could not be determined."[346]

In 1966, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison began an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. Garrison's investigation led him to conclude that a group of right-wing extremists, including David Ferrie and Guy Banister, were involved with elements of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison would later claim that the motive for the assassination was anger over Kennedy's attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam.[347][348] Garrison also came to believe that New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw was part of the conspiracy and that Clay Shaw used the pseudonym "Clay Bertrand".[349] Garrison further believed that Shaw, Banister, and Ferrie conspired to set up Oswald as a patsy in the JFK assassination.[350] On March 1, 1967, Garrison arrested and charged Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. On January 29, 1969, Clay Shaw was brought to trial on these charges, and the jury found him not guilty.
CIA conspiracy
Main article: CIA Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory

Addressing speculation that Oswald was a CIA agent or had some relationship with the Agency, the Warren Commission stated in 1964 that their investigation "revealed no evidence that Oswald was ever employed [by the] CIA in any capacity."[351] The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported similarly in 1979 that "there was no indication in Oswald's CIA file that he had ever had contact with the Agency" and concluded that the CIA was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.[352] Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, wrote that investigators were pressured not to look into the relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and the CIA. He stated that CIA agent David Atlee Phillips, using the pseudonym "Maurice Bishop", was involved with Oswald prior to the Kennedy assassination in connection with anti-Castro Cuban groups.[353]

In 1995, former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and National Security Agency executive assistant John M. Newman published evidence that both the CIA and FBI deliberately tampered with their files on Lee Harvey Oswald both before and after the assassination. Furthermore, he found that both agencies withheld information that might have alerted authorities in Dallas that Oswald posed a potential threat to the President. Subsequently, Newman expressed the belief that CIA chief of counter-intelligence James Angleton was probably the key figure in the assassination. According to Newman, only Angleton "had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot." However, Newman surmised that the cover operation was not under James Angleton, but under Allen Dulles (the former CIA director, and later Warren Commission member, who had been dismissed by Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion).[354]

In 1977, the FBI released 40,000 files pertaining to the assassination of Kennedy, including an April 3, 1967, memorandum from Deputy Director Cartha DeLoach to Associate Director Clyde Tolson that was written less than a month after President Johnson learned from J. Edgar Hoover about CIA plots to kill Fidel Castro.[355][356] The memorandum reads: "Marvin Watson [adviser to President Johnson] called me late last night and stated that the president had told him, in an off moment, that he was now convinced that there was a plot in connection with the [JFK] assassination. Watson stated the president felt that [the] CIA had had something to do with plot."[355][357][358][359][360] Later, Cartha DeLoach testified to the Church Committee that he "felt this to be sheer speculation".[361]
Shadow government conspiracy

One conspiracy theory suggests that a secret or shadow government including wealthy industrialists and right-wing politicians ordered the assassination of Kennedy.[362] Peter Dale Scott has indicated that Kennedy's death allowed for policy reversals desired by the secret government to escalate the United States' military involvement in Vietnam.[363]
Sukarno with John F. Kennedy in 1961

In JFK vs Allen Dulles, author Greg Poulgrain describes an attempt by America's Rockefeller family to gain control over West Irian gold mines in Indonesia, in particular the substantially gold-rich Grasberg mine. Poulgrain speculates that President Kennedy's close relationship with Indonesian President Sukarno and a planned 1964 US–Indonesian summit could have led to Indonesia granting independence to West Irian, making it difficult for Rockefeller-owned Freeport Sulphur to gain control of the mines. Poulgrain contends that Allen Dulles, who had ties to the Rockefellers through his employment at Sullivan & Cromwell, organized the assassination on the Rockefellers' behalf to eliminate Kennedy's interference by easing Lee Harvey Oswald's return to the United States and getting him a job at the Texas School Book Depository, before instigating a coup in Indonesia with the cooperation of military officer Suharto to discredit the Communist Party of Indonesia. The subsequent nationwide massacres and Suharto's assumption of the presidency, Poulgrain purports, led to Freeport securing the mines with the approval of Suharto's pro-Western government.[364]

In the biographical book, The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government, David Talbot examines Dulles' career.[365] Talbot also posits that Allen Dulles orchestrated the assassination of President Kennedy at the behest of corporate leaders, though on the basis of their perceiving Kennedy as a threat to national security instead of to primarily secure any specific business interests. According to Talbot, Dulles lobbied the new president, Lyndon Johnson, to have himself appointed to the Warren Commission. Talbot says that Allen Dulles also arranged to have Lee Harvey Oswald take sole responsibility for the assassination.[365] The book asserts that the conspirators behind John Kennedy's death also murdered his brother Robert Kennedy, who the conspirators perceived to be "a wild card, an uncontrollable threat" that would reveal the plot.[365]
Military-industrial complex

In the farewell speech given by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower before he left office on January 17, 1961, warned the nation about the power of the military establishment and the arms industry. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."[366] Some conspiracy theorists have argued that Kennedy planned to end the involvement of the United States in Vietnam, and was therefore targeted by those who had an interest in sustained military conflict, including the Pentagon and defense contractors.[367]

Former United States Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1991 stated: "Had Kennedy lived, I think we would have had no Vietnam War, with all of its traumatic and divisive influences in America. I think we would have escaped that."[368] According to author James W. Douglass, Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union.[369] Douglass argued that this "was not the kind of leadership the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex wanted in the White House."[370][371] Oliver Stone's film, JFK, explored the possibility that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy involving the military-industrial complex.[372] L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, and the person who inspired the character "Mr. X" in Stone's film, wrote that Kennedy's assassination was actually a coup d'état.[373]
Secret Service conspiracy

The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that it investigated "alleged Secret Service complicity in the assassination" and concluded that the Secret Service was not involved.[352] However, the HSCA declared that "the Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties."[374] Among its findings, the HSCA noted: (1) that President Kennedy had not received adequate protection in Dallas, (2) that the Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated, or used by the Secret Service in connection with the President's trip to Dallas, and (3) that the Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper.[375] The HSCA specifically noted:

No actions were taken by the agent in the right front seat of the presidential limousine Roy Kellerman to cover the President with his body, although it would have been consistent with Secret Service procedure for him to have done so. The primary function of the agent was to remain at all times in close proximity to the President in the event of such emergencies.[376]

Some argue that the lack of Secret Service protection occurred because Kennedy himself had asked that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit.[377] However, Vince Palamara, who interviewed several Secret Service agents assigned to the Kennedy detail, disputes this. Palamara reports that Secret Service driver Sam Kinney told him that requests – such as removing the bubble top from the limousine in Dallas, not having agents positioned beside the limousine's rear bumper, and reducing the number of Dallas police motorcycle outriders near the limousine's rear bumper – were not made by Kennedy.[378][175][379]

In The Echo from Dealey Plaza, Abraham Bolden – the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail – claimed to have overheard agents say that they would not protect Kennedy from would-be assassins.[380] Questions regarding the forthrightness of the Secret Service increased in the 1990s when the Assassination Records Review Board – which was created when Congress passed the JFK Records Act – requested access to Secret Service records. The Review Board was told by the Secret Service that in January 1995, in violation of the JFK Records Act, the Secret Service destroyed protective survey reports that covered JFK's trips from September 24 through November 8, 1963.[381][382][383]
Cuban exiles

The House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved".[352] With the 1959 Cuban Revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, many Cubans left Cuba to live in the United States. Many of these exiles hoped to overthrow Castro and return to Cuba. Their hopes were dashed with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, and many blamed President Kennedy for the failure.[384] The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that some militant Cuban exiles might have participated in Kennedy's murder. These exiles worked closely with CIA operatives in violent activities against Castro's Cuba. In 1979, the committee reported:

President Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by 1963. Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch on October 1, 1963.[385]

Author Joan Didion explored the Miami anti-Castro Cuban theory in her 1987 book Miami.[386][387] She discussed Marita Lorenz's testimony regarding Guillermo Novo, a Cuban exile who, in 1964, was involved in shooting a bazooka at the headquarters of the United Nations building from the East River during a speech by Che Guevara. Allegedly, Novo was affiliated with Lee Harvey Oswald, and Frank Sturgis. Lorenz claimed that she, Oswald, and seven anti-Castro Cubans transported weapons from Miami to Dallas in two cars just prior to the assassination.[388][389] These claims, though put forth to the House Assassinations Committee by Lorenz, have never been substantiated. Don DeLillo dramatized the Cuban theory in his 1988 novel Libra.
Organized crime conspiracy

In 1964, the Warren Commission found no evidence linking Ruby's killing of Oswald with any broader conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.[10] The Commission concluded: "Based on its evaluation of the record, the Commission believes that the evidence does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime. Both State and Federal officials have indicated that Ruby was not affiliated with organized criminal activity."[390]

However, in 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved".[352] Robert Blakey, who was chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, would later conclude in his book, The Plot to Kill the President, that New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello was likely part of a Mafia conspiracy behind the assassination, and that the Mafia had the means and the opportunity required to carry it out.[391][392]

In a 1993 Washington Post article, Blakey added: "It is difficult to dispute the underworld pedigree of Jack Ruby, though the Warren Commission did it in 1964. Author Gerald Posner similarly ignores Ruby's ties to Joseph Civello, the organized crime boss in Dallas. His relationship with Joseph Campisi, the No. 2 man in the mob in Dallas, is even more difficult to ignore. In fact, Campisi and Ruby were close friends; they had dinner together at Campisi's restaurant, the Egyptian Lounge, on the night before the assassination. After Ruby was jailed for killing Oswald, Campisi regularly visited him. The select committee thought Campisi's connection to Marcello was telling; he told us, for example, that every year at Christmas he sent 260 pounds of Italian sausage to Marcello, a sort of Mafia tribute. We also learned that he called New Orleans up to 20 times a day."[393]

Government documents have revealed that some members of the Mafia worked with the Central Intelligence Agency on assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.[394] In summer 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu to approach the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob, Johnny Roselli.[395] When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself as an advocate for international corporations. He offered to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli declined any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe". "Sam Gold" was Sam Giancana; "Joe" was Santo Trafficante, Jr., the Tampa, Florida, boss and one of the most powerful mobsters in pre-revolution Cuba.[396][397] Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro – the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos."[398]

In his memoir, Bound by Honor, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, disclosed that several Mafia families had long-standing ties with the anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia before the Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked President Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.[399] They also disliked his brother, then United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime.[400][401] This was especially provocative because several Mafia "families" had allegedly worked with JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, to get JFK elected.[402] Both the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans were experts in assassination – the Cubans having been trained by the CIA.[403] Bonanno reported that he recognized the high degree of involvement of other Mafia families when Jack Ruby killed Oswald, since Bonanno was aware that Ruby was an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.[404]

Some conspiracy researchers have alleged a plot involving elements of the Mafia, the CIA, and the anti-Castro Cubans, including Anthony Summers, who stated: "Sometimes people sort of glaze over about the notion that the Mafia and U.S. intelligence and the anti-Castro activists were involved together in the assassination of President Kennedy. In fact, there's no contradiction there. Those three groups were all in bed together at the time and had been for several years in the fight to topple Fidel Castro."[405] News reporter Ruben Castaneda wrote in 2012: "Based on the evidence, it is likely that JFK was killed by a coalition of anti-Castro Cubans, the Mob, and elements of the CIA."[406] In his book, They Killed Our President, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura concluded: "John F. Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy involving disgruntled CIA agents, anti-Castro Cubans, and members of the Mafia, all of whom were extremely angry at what they viewed as Kennedy's appeasement policies toward Communist Cuba and the Soviet Union."[407]

Carlos Marcello allegedly threatened to assassinate the President to short-circuit his younger brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.[408][409] Information released in 2006 by the FBI has led some to conclude that Carlos Marcello confessed to his cellmate in Texas, Jack Van Lanningham, an FBI informant, using a transistor radio that was bugged by the FBI, to having organized Kennedy's assassination, and that the FBI covered up this information that it had in its possession.[410]

In his book, Contract on America, David Scheim provided evidence that Mafia leaders Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Jimmy Hoffa ordered the assassination of President Kennedy. Scheim cited in particular a 25-fold increase in the number of out-of-state telephone calls from Jack Ruby to associates of these crime bosses in the months before the assassination, and to an attempted confession by Jack Ruby while in prison.[411] David E. Kaiser has also suggested mob involvement in his book, The Road to Dallas.[412]

Investigative reporter Jack Anderson concluded that Fidel Castro worked with organized crime figures to arrange the JFK assassination. In his book Peace, War, and Politics, Anderson claimed that Mafia member Johnny Roselli gave him extensive details of the plot. Anderson said that although he was never able to independently confirm Roselli's entire story, many of Roselli's details checked out. Anderson said that Oswald may have played a role in the assassination, but that more than one gunman was involved. Johnny Roselli, as previously noted, had worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against Castro.

The History Channel program The Men Who Killed Kennedy presented additional claims of organized crime involvement.[413] Christian David was a Corsican Mafia member interviewed in prison. He said that he was offered the assassination contract on President Kennedy, but that he did not accept it. However, he said that he knew the men who did accept the contract. According to David, there were three shooters. He provided the name of one – Lucien Sarti. David said that since the other two shooters were still alive, it would break a code of conduct for him to identify them. When asked what the shooters were wearing, David noted their modus operandi was to dress in costumes such as official uniforms. Much of Christian David's testimony was confirmed by former Corsican member Michelle Nicole, who was part of the DEA witness protection program.[413]

The book Ultimate Sacrifice, by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, attempted to synthesize these theories with new evidence. The authors argued that government officials felt obliged to help the assassins cover up the truth because the assassination conspiracy had direct ties to American government plots to assassinate Castro. Outraged at Robert Kennedy's attack on organized crime, mob leaders had President Kennedy killed to remove Robert from power. A government investigation of the plot was thwarted, the authors allege, because it would have revealed embarrassing evidence of American government involvement with organized crime in plots to kill Castro.[414]
Lyndon B. Johnson conspiracy
Johnson is sworn in on Air Force One.

A 2003 Gallup poll indicated that nearly 20% of Americans suspected Lyndon B. Johnson of being involved in the assassination of Kennedy.[415] Critics of the Warren Commission have accused Johnson of plotting the assassination because he "disliked" the Kennedys and feared that he would be dropped from the Democratic ticket for the 1964 election.[416][417]

According to journalist Max Holland, the first published allegation that Johnson perpetrated the assassination of Kennedy appeared in Penn Jones, Jr.'s book Forgive My Grief, self-published in May 1966.[418] In the book, Jones provided excerpts of a letter purported to have been authored by Jack Ruby charging LBJ with the murder of the President.[418] With his 1968 book, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Joachim Joesten is credited by Bugliosi as being the first conspiracy author to accuse Johnson of having a role in the assassination.[419] According to Joesten, Johnson "played the leading part" in a conspiracy that involved "the Dallas oligarchy and ... local branches of the CIA, the FBI, and the Secret Service".[419] Others who have indicated there was complicity on the part of Johnson include Jim Marrs,[419] Ralph D. Thomas,[419] J. Gary Shaw,[419] Larry Harris,[419] Walt Brown,[419] Noel Twyman,[419] Barr McClellan,[419] Craig Zirbel,[420] Phillip F. Nelson,[421] and Madeleine Brown.[422]

The fact that JFK was seriously considering dropping Johnson from the ticket in favor of North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford should Kennedy run in 1964 has been cited as a possible motive for Johnson's complicity in the assassination. In 1968, Kennedy's personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln wrote in her book, Kennedy and Johnson, that President Kennedy had told her that Lyndon B. Johnson would be replaced as Vice President of the United States. That conversation took place on November 19, 1963, just three days before the assassination of President Kennedy and was recorded that evening in her diary and reads as follows:

As Mr. Kennedy sat in the rocker in my office, his head resting on its back he placed his left leg across his right knee. He rocked slightly as he talked. In a slow pensive voice he said to me, 'You know if I am re-elected in sixty-four, I am going to spend more and more time toward making government service an honorable career. I would like to tailor the executive and legislative branches of government so that they can keep up with the tremendous strides and progress being made in other fields.' 'I am going to advocate changing some of the outmoded rules and regulations in the Congress, such as the seniority rule. To do this I will need as a running mate in sixty-four a man who believes as I do.' Mrs. Lincoln went on to write "I was fascinated by this conversation and wrote it down verbatim in my diary. Now I asked, 'Who is your choice as a running-mate?' 'He looked straight ahead, and without hesitating he replied, 'at this time I am thinking about Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. But it will not be Lyndon.'[423]

In 2003, researcher Barr McClellan published the book Blood, Money & Power.[424] McClellan claims that Johnson, motivated by the fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and the need to cover up various scandals, masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his friend, Austin attorney Edward A. Clark. The book suggests that a smudged partial fingerprint from the sniper's nest likely belonged to Johnson's associate Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, and that Mac Wallace was, therefore, on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time of the shooting. The book further claims that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil magnates, including Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt. McClellan states that the assassination of Kennedy allowed the oil depletion allowance to be kept at 27.5 percent. It remained unchanged during the Johnson presidency. According to McClellan, this resulted in a saving of over $100 million to the American oil industry. McClellan's book subsequently became the subject of an episode of Nigel Turner's ongoing documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. The episode, "The Guilty Men", drew angry condemnation from the Johnson family, Johnson's former aides, and former Presidents Gerald Ford (who was a member of the Warren Commission[425]) and Jimmy Carter following its airing on The History Channel. The History Channel assembled a committee of historians who concluded the accusations in the documentary were without merit, and The History Channel apologized to the Johnson family and agreed not to air the series in the future.[426]

Madeleine Brown, who alleged she was the mistress of Johnson, also implicated him in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. In 1997, Brown said that Johnson, along with H. L. Hunt, had begun planning Kennedy's demise as early as 1960. Brown claimed that by its fruition in 1963, the conspiracy involved dozens of persons, including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia, as well as prominent politicians and journalists.[427] In the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Madeleine Brown and May Newman (an employee of Texas oilman Clint Murchison) both placed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at a social gathering at Murchison's mansion the night before the assassination.[428] Also in attendance, according to Brown, were John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, and H. L. Hunt.[429] Madeleine Brown claimed that Johnson arrived at the gathering late in the evening and, in a "grating whisper", told her that the "... Kennedys will never embarrass me again – that's no threat – that's a promise."[429][430] In addition, Brown said that on New Year's Eve 1963, she met Johnson at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, and that he confirmed the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, insisting that "the fat cats of Texas and [U.S.] intelligence" had been responsible.[428] Brown reiterated her allegations against Johnson in the 2006 documentary Evidence of Revision. In the same documentary, several other Johnson associates also voiced their suspicions of Johnson.

Dr. Charles Crenshaw authored the 1992 book JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, along with conspiracy theorists Jens Hansen and J. Gary Shaw. Crenshaw was a third-year surgical resident on the trauma team at Parkland Hospital that attended to President Kennedy. He also treated Oswald after he was shot by Jack Ruby.[431] While attending to Oswald, Crenshaw said that he answered a telephone call from Lyndon Johnson. Crenshaw said that Johnson inquired about Oswald's status, and that Johnson demanded a "death-bed confession from the accused assassin [Oswald]".[431] Crenshaw said that he relayed Johnson's message to Dr. Shires, but that Oswald was in no condition to give any statement.[428][432] Critics of Crenshaw's allegation state that Johnson was in his limousine at the moment the call would have been made, that no one in his car corroborated that the call was made, and that there is no record of such a call being routed through the White House switchboard.[433][434]

Former CIA agent and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt accused Johnson (along with several CIA agents whom he named) of complicity in the assassination in his posthumously released autobiography American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond. Referencing that section of the book, Tim Weiner of The New York Times called into question the sincerity of the charges, and William F. Buckley, Jr., who wrote the foreword, said material "was clearly ghostwritten".[435][436] Shortly afterwards, an audio-taped "deathbed confession" in which Hunt claimed first-hand knowledge of a conspiracy, as a co-conspirator, was released by his sons;[255] the authenticity of the confession was also met with some skepticism.[253][256][257]

In 1984, convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes made statements to a Grand Jury in Texas indicating that he had "inside knowledge" that implicated Johnson in the death of Kennedy and others.[437][438] Historian Michael L. Kurtz wrote that there is no evidence suggesting that Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy.[439] According to Kurtz, Johnson believed Fidel Castro was responsible for the assassination and that Johnson covered up the truth because he feared the possibility that retaliatory measures against Cuba might escalate to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.[439] In 2012, biographer Robert Caro published his fourth volume on Johnson's career, The Passage of Power, which chronicles Johnson's communications and actions as Vice President, and describes the events leading up to the assassination.[440] Caro wrote that "nothing that I have found in my research" points to involvement by Johnson.[441] Political consultant and convicted felon Roger Stone believes that Johnson orchestrated Kennedy's assassination. He also claims that Rafael Cruz, father of Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 elections Ted Cruz, is tied to Lee Harvey Oswald.[442][443][444]
George H. W. Bush conspiracy

Some critics of the official findings theorize that George H. W. Bush was involved in the assassination as a CIA operative in Dealey Plaza.[445] In the book Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?, American attorney Mark Lane suggests that Bush worked out of a Houston office as a CIA agent at the time of the assassination.[446][447][448] In the book Family of Secrets, Russ Baker contends that Bush became an intelligence agent in his teenage years and was later at the center of a plot to assassinate Kennedy that included his father, Prescott Bush, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, CIA Director Allen Dulles, Cuban and Russian exiles and emigrants, and various Texas oilmen.[449] According to Baker, Bush was in Dallas on the night before and morning of the assassination.[450][451]

On November 29, 1963, exactly one week after the assassination, an employee of the FBI wrote in a memo that "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" was given a briefing on the reaction to the assassination by Cuban exiles living in Miami. Joseph McBride speculated that the "George Bush" cited in the memo was the future U.S. president, George H. W. Bush, who was appointed head of the CIA by president Gerald Ford in 1976, 13 years after the assassination.[452] During Bush's presidential campaign in 1988, the memo resurfaced, prompting the CIA to claim that the memo was referring to an employee named George William Bush.[453] However, George William Bush disputed this suggestion, declaring under oath that "I am not the George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum."[452] In 1998, the ARRB instructed the CIA to review its personnel files of former President Bush and to provide a definitive statement as to whether he was the person referred to in the memo. The CIA responded that it had no record of any association with former President Bush during the 1963 time period.[454] On the website JFK Facts, author Jefferson Morley writes that any communication by Bush with the FBI or CIA in November 1963 does not necessarily demonstrate culpability in the assassination, and that it is unclear whether Bush had any affiliation with the CIA prior to his appointment to head the agency in 1976.[455]
Cuban government conspiracy

In its report, the Warren Commission stated that it had investigated "dozens of allegations of a conspiratorial contact between Oswald and agents of the Cuban Government" and had found no evidence of Cuban involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.[456] The House Select Committee on Assassinations also wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy".[352] However, some conspiracy theorists continue to allege that Fidel Castro ordered the assassination of Kennedy in retaliation for the CIA's previous attempts to assassinate him.[401]

In the early 1960s, Clare Boothe Luce, wife of Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, was one of a number of prominent Americans who sponsored anti-Castro groups. This support included funding exiles in commando speedboat raids against Cuba. In 1975, Clare Luce said that on the night of the assassination, she received a call from a member of a commando group she had sponsored. According to Luce, the caller's name was "something like" Julio Fernandez and he claimed he was calling her from New Orleans.[457][458]

According to Luce, Fernandez told her that Oswald had approached his group with an offer to help assassinate Castro. Fernandez further claimed that he and his associates eventually found out that Oswald was a communist and supporter of Castro. He said that with this new-found knowledge, his group kept a close watch on Oswald until Oswald suddenly came into money and went to Mexico City and then Dallas.[459] Finally, according to Luce, Fernandez told her, "There is a Cuban Communist assassination team at large and Oswald was their hired gun."[460]

Luce said that she told the caller to give his information to the FBI. Subsequently, Luce would reveal the details of the incident to both the Church Committee and the HSCA. Both committees investigated the incident, but were unable to uncover any evidence to corroborate the allegations.[461] In May 1967, CIA Director Richard Helms told President Lyndon Johnson that the CIA had tried to assassinate Castro. Helms further stated that the CIA had employed members of the Mafia in this effort, and "... that CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro dated back to August of 1960 – to the Eisenhower Administration." Helms also said that the plots against Castro continued into the Kennedy Administration and that Attorney General Robert Kennedy had known about both the plots and the Mafia's involvement.[462]

On separate occasions, Johnson told two prominent television newsmen that he believed that JFK's assassination had been organized by Castro as retaliation for the CIA's efforts to kill Castro. In October 1968, Johnson told veteran newsman Howard K. Smith of ABC that "Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first." In September 1969, in an interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS, Johnson said in regard to the assassination, "[I could not] honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections", and referenced unnamed "others". Finally, in 1971, Johnson told his former speechwriter Leo Janos of Time magazine that he "never believed that Oswald acted alone".[462]

In 1977, Castro was interviewed by newsman Bill Moyers. Castro denied any involvement in Kennedy's death, saying:

It would have been absolute insanity by Cuba. ... It would have been a provocation. Needless to say, it would have been to run the risk that our country would have been destroyed by the United States. Nobody who's not insane could have thought about [killing Kennedy in retaliation].[403][463]

When Castro was interviewed later in 2013 by Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, Castro said:

There were people in the American government who thought Kennedy was a traitor because he didn't invade Cuba when he had the chance, when they were asking him. He was never forgiven for that.[464]

Soviet government conspiracy

The Warren Commission reported that they found no evidence that the Soviet Union was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.[10] The House Select Committee on Assassinations also wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy".[352] According to some conspiracy theorists, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, was responsible for the assassination, motivated by the humiliation of having to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[401]

According to a 1966 FBI document, Colonel Boris Ivanov – chief of the KGB Residency in New York City at the time of the assassination – stated that it was his personal opinion that the assassination had been planned by an organized group, rather than a lone individual. The same document stated, "... officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union believed there was some well-organized conspiracy on the part of the 'ultraright' in the United States to effect a 'coup.'"[465]

Much later, the high-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, said that he had a conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill", including Kennedy. He claimed that "among the leaders of Moscow's satellite intelligence services there was unanimous agreement that the KGB had been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."[466] Pacepa later released a book, Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination, in 2007. Similar views on the JFK assassination were expressed by Robert Holmes, former First Secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow, in his 2012 book Spy Like No Other.
Decoy hearse and wound alteration

David Lifton presented a scenario in which conspirators on Air Force One removed Kennedy's body from its original bronze casket and placed it in a shipping casket, while en route from Dallas to Washington. Once the presidential plane arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the shipping casket with the President's body in it was surreptitiously taken by helicopter from the side of the plane that was out of the television camera's view. Kennedy's body was then taken to an unknown location – most likely Walter Reed Army Medical Center[467] – to surgically alter the body to make it appear that he was shot only from the rear.[468][469][470][471][472][473]

Part of Lifton's theory comes from a House Select Committee on Assassinations report of an interview of Lt. Richard Lipsey on January 18, 1978, by committee staff members Donald Purdy and Mark Flanagan. According to the report, Lt. Richard Lipsey said that he and General Wehle had met President Kennedy's body at Andrews Air Force Base. Lipsey "... placed [the casket] in a hearse to be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Lipsey mentioned that he and Wehle then flew by helicopter to Bethesda and took [the body of] JFK into the back of Bethesda." Lipsey said that "a decoy hearse had been driven to the front [of Bethesda]".[474] With Lipsey's mention of a "decoy hearse" at Bethesda, Lifton theorized that the casket removed by Lipsey from Air Force One – from the side of the plane exposed to television – was probably also a decoy and was likely empty.[475][476]

Laboratory technologist Paul O'Connor was one of the major witnesses supporting another part of David Lifton's theory that somewhere between Parkland and Bethesda the President's body was made to appear as if it had been shot only from the rear. O'Connor said that President Kennedy's body arrived at Bethesda inside a body bag in "a cheap, shipping-type of casket", which differed from the description of the ornamental bronze casket and sheet that the body had been wrapped in at Parkland Hospital.[477] O'Connor said that the brain had already been removed by the time it got to Bethesda,[477] and that there were "just little pieces" of brain matter left inside the skull.[478]

Researcher David R. Wrone dismissed the theory that Kennedy's body was surreptitiously removed from the presidential plane, stating that as is done with all cargo on airplanes for safety precautions, the coffin and lid were held by steel wrapping cables to prevent shifting during takeoff and landing and in case of air disturbances in flight.[470] According to Wrone, the side of the plane away from the television camera "was bathed in klieg lights, and thousands of persons watched along the fence that bent backward along that side, providing, in effect, a well-lit and very public stage for any would-be body snatchers".[470]
Federal Reserve conspiracy

Jim Marrs, in his book Crossfire, presented the theory that Kennedy was trying to rein in the power of the Federal Reserve, and that forces opposed to such action might have played at least some part in the assassination.[479][480] According to Marrs, the issuance of Executive Order 11110 was an effort by Kennedy to transfer power from the Federal Reserve to the United States Department of the Treasury by replacing Federal Reserve Notes with silver certificates.[479] Actor and author Richard Belzer named the responsible parties in this theory as American "billionaires, power brokers, and bankers ... working in tandem with the CIA and other sympathetic agents of the government".[481]

A 2010 article in Research magazine discussing various controversies surrounding the Federal Reserve stated that "the wildest accusation against the Fed is that it was involved in Kennedy's assassination."[479] Critics of the theory note that Kennedy called for and signed legislation phasing out Silver Certificates in favor of Federal Reserve Notes, thereby enhancing the power of the Federal Reserve; and that Executive Order 11110 was a technicality that only delegated existing presidential powers to the Secretary of the Treasury for administrative convenience during a period of transition.[479][480]
Israeli government conspiracy

Immediately following Kennedy's death, speculation that he was assassinated by a "Zionist conspiracy" was prevalent in much of the Muslim world.[482] Among these views were that Zionists were motivated to kill Kennedy due to his opposition to an Israeli nuclear program, that Lyndon B. Johnson received orders from Zionists to have Kennedy killed, and that the assassin was a Zionist agent.[482]

According to Michael Collins Piper in Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Controversy, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orchestrated the assassination after learning that Kennedy planned to keep Israel from obtaining nuclear weapons.[483] Piper said that the assassination "was a joint enterprise conducted on the highest levels of the American CIA, in collaboration with organized crime – and most specifically, with direct and profound involvement by the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad."[484] The theory also alleges involvement of Meyer Lansky and the Anti-Defamation League.[483] In 2004, Mordechai Vanunu stated that the assassination was Israel's response to "pressure [Kennedy] exerted on ... Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor in Israel".[485] In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi also alleged that Kennedy was killed for wanting to investigate Dimona.[486]
Others

Returning from the funeral of President Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle, the president of France, told his confidant Alain Peyrefitte that the Dallas police were linked to far-right segregationist "ultras" in the Ku Klux Klan, and that the far-right John Birch Society manipulated Oswald and used Jack Ruby to silence him.[487][488]
Other published theories
Secret Service Agent George Hickey holding his AR-15 rifle

Reasonable Doubt (1985) by Henry Hurt, who writes about his Warren Commission doubts. Hurt pins the plot on professional crook Robert Easterling, along with Texas oilmen and the supposed Ferrie/Shaw alliance. ISBN 0-03-004059-0.
Behold a Pale Horse (1991) by William Cooper alleges that Kennedy was shot by the presidential limousine's driver, Secret Service agent William Greer. In the Zapruder film, Greer can be seen turning to his right and looking backwards, just before speeding away from Dealey Plaza. This theory has come under severe criticism from others in the research community.[489] ISBN 0-929385-22-5.
Former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden's The Echo from Dealey Plaza (2008) (ISBN 978-0-307-38201-6) and Kevin James Shay's Death of the Rising Sun (2017) (ISBN 978-1-881-36556-3) detail plots that occurred shortly before Kennedy's trip to Dallas in 1963, in Chicago and Florida. Within the Secret Service during those chaotic months, "rumors were flying" about Cuban dissidents and right-wing southerners who were stalking Kennedy for a chance to kill him, Bolden wrote. The security threat in Chicago on November 2, 1963, involved former Marine Thomas Arthur Vallee, who was arrested after police found two M-1 rifles, a handgun, and 2,500 rounds of ammunition in his apartment.[490] A high-powered rifle was confiscated from another suspected conspirator in Chicago shortly before Kennedy's trip there was canceled, Bolden said. Authorities also cited similar threats in Kennedy's Tampa, Fla., and Miami visits on November 18.
Mark North's Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the Assassination of President Kennedy, (1991) implicates the FBI Director. North documents that Hoover was aware of threats against Kennedy by organized crime before 1963, and suggests that he failed to take proper action to prevent the assassination. North also charges Hoover with failure to work adequately to uncover the truth behind Kennedy's murder, ISBN 0-88184-877-8.
Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK (1992) by Bonar Menninger (ISBN 0-312-08074-3) alleges that while Oswald did attempt to assassinate JFK and did succeed in wounding him, the fatal shot was accidentally fired by Secret Service agent George Hickey, who was riding in the Secret Service follow-up car directly behind the presidential limousine. The theory alleges that after the first two shots were fired the motorcade sped up while Hickey was attempting to respond to Oswald's shots and he lost his balance and accidentally pulled the trigger of his AR-15 and the shot fatally hit JFK. Hickey's testimony says otherwise: "At the end of the last report (shot) I reached to the bottom of the car and picked up the AR 15 rifle, cocked and loaded it, and turned to the rear." (italics added).[491] George Hickey sued Menninger in April 1995 for what he had written in Mortal Error. The case was dismissed as its statute of limitations had run out. The theory received public attention in 2013 when it was supported by Colin McLaren's book and documentary titled JFK: The Smoking Gun (ISBN 978-0-7336-3044-6). No Secret Service agent fired a weapon that day.
Who Shot JFK? : A Guide to the Major Conspiracy Theories (1993) by Bob Callahan and Mark Zingarelli explores some of the more obscure theories regarding JFK's murder, such as "The Coca-Cola Theory". According to this theory, suggested by the editor of an organic gardening magazine, Oswald killed JFK due to mental impairment stemming from an addiction to refined sugar, as evidenced by his need for his favorite beverage immediately after the assassination. ISBN 0-671-79494-9.
Passport to Assassination (1993) by Oleg M. Nechiporenko, the Soviet consular official (and highly placed KGB officer) who met with Oswald in Mexico City in 1963. He was afforded the unique opportunity to interview Oswald about his goals including his genuine desire for a Cuban visa. His conclusions were: (1) that Oswald killed Kennedy due to extreme feelings of inadequacy versus his wife's professed admiration for JFK, and (2) that the KGB never sought intelligence information from Oswald during his time in the USSR as they did not trust his motivations. ISBN 1-55972-210-X.
Norman Mailer's Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (1995) concludes that Oswald was guilty, but holds that the evidence may point to a second gunman on the grassy knoll, who, purely by coincidence, was attempting to kill JFK at the same time as Oswald. "If there was indeed another shot, it was not necessarily fired by a conspirator of Oswald's. Such a gun could have belonged to another lone killer or to a conspirator working for some other group altogether."[492] ISBN 0-679-42535-7.
David Wrone's The Zapruder Film (2003) concludes that JFK's head wound and his throat and back wounds were caused by in-and-through shots originating from the grassy knoll. Three shots were fired from three different angles, none of them from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Wrone is a professor of history (emeritus) at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. ISBN 0-7006-1291-2.
The Gemstone File: A Memoir (2006), by Stephanie Caruana, posits that Oswald was part of a 28-man assassination team that included three U.S. Mafia hitmen (Jimmy Fratianno, John Roselli, and Eugene Brading). Oswald's role was to shoot John Connally. Bruce Roberts, author of the Gemstone File papers, claimed that the JFK assassination scenario was modeled after a supposed attempted assassination of President F.D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was riding in an open car with Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Cermak was shot and killed by Giuseppe Zangara. In Dallas, JFK was the real target, and Connally was a secondary target. The JFK assassination is only a small part of the Gemstone File's account. ISBN 1-4120-6137-7.
In "Allegations of PFC Eugene Dinkin",[493] the Mary Farrell Foundation summarizes and archives documents related to Private First Class Eugene B. Dinkin, a cryptographic code operator stationed in Metz, France, who went AWOL in early November 1963, entered Switzerland using a false ID, and visited the United Nations' press office and declared that officials in the U.S. government were planning to assassinate President Kennedy, adding that "something" might happen to the Commander in Chief in Texas. Dinkin was arrested nine days before Kennedy was killed, placed in psychiatric care (deemed a mad man?), and released shortly thereafter. His allegations eventually made their way to the Warren Commission, but according to the Ferrell Foundation account, the Commission "took no interest in the matter, and indeed omitted any mention of Dinkin from its purportedly encyclopedic 26 volumes of evidence."[494]
Described by the Associated Press as "one of the strangest theories",[495] Hugh McDonald's Appointment in Dallas stated that the Soviet government contracted with a rogue CIA agent named "Saul" to have Kennedy killed.[496] McDonald said he worked for the CIA "on assignment for $100 a day" and met "Saul" at the Agency's headquarters after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.[497] According to McDonald, his CIA mentor told him that "Saul" was the world's best assassin.[498] McDonald stated that after the assassination, he recognized the man's photo in the Warren Commission report and eventually tracked him to a London hotel in 1972.[497][498] McDonald stated that "Saul" assumed he, too, was a CIA agent and confided to him that he shot Kennedy from a building on the other side of the street from the Texas School Book Depository.[495]
Judyth Vary Baker claims that during the summer of 1963, she had an adulterous affair with Oswald in New Orleans while working with him on a CIA bioweapons project to kill Fidel Castro. According to John McAdams, Baker presents a "classic case of pushing the limits of plausibility too far".[499]

See also

Conspiracy theories in United States politics
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination conspiracy theories
Robert F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories
Assassination of John F. Kennedy in popular culture

Notes

The Warren Commission never asked Reynolds what the man he saw was wearing, despite Reynolds saying he later learned that the man left his "coat" in a parking lot (in fact, a zipper jacket was found there).
Among those who believe that the Zapruder film has been altered are John Costella,[131] James H. Fetzer,[131] David Lifton,[131] David Mantik,[131] Jack White,[131] Noel Twyman,[132] and Harrison Livingstone, who has called it "the biggest hoax of the 20th century".[131]
In Bill Newman's voluntary statement to the Sheriff's Department, signed and notarized on November 22, 1963, he wrote that the gunshot "had come from the garden directly behind me, that was on an elevation from where I was as I was right on the curb. I do not recall looking toward the Texas School Book Depository. I looked back in the vacinity [sic] of the garden."[170]
see "Testimony of James B. Wilcott, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency" (PDF). HSCA hearings. March 22, 1978.

According to the Warren Commission, after Earlene Roberts saw Oswald standing near the bus stop outside his rooming house, "[he] was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile (1.4 km) away at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue, moments before the Tippit shooting."[295]

References

"Findings". Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives. August 15, 2016. p. 149 – via National Archives.; HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 9, p. 336, par. 917, Joseph Campisi. Ancestry.com, Social Security Death Index [database on-line], Provo, Utah: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. Ancestry.com, Texas Death Index, 1903–2000 [database on-line], Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.; Summers, Anthony (1998). Not in Your Lifetime. New York: Marlowe & Company. p. 346. ISBN 1-56924-739-0.
"One JFK conspiracy theory that could be true". CNN. November 18, 2013.
Warren Commission 1964, p. 198, "Chapter 5".
Tippit murder affidavit: text, cover. Kennedy murder affidavit: text, cover.
Knight 2007, p. 75
Krauss, Clifford (January 5, 1992). "28 Years After Kennedy's Assassination, Conspiracy Theories Refuse to Die". The New York Times. Retrieved April 26, 2017.
Bugliosi, Vincent (2007). Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 989. ISBN 978-0-393-04525-3.
"Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer's Brief". Nation