There has long been suspicion of a government cover-up of information about the assassination of
John F. Kennedy on
November 22, 1963. Numerous conspiracy theories regarding the assassination arose soon after
Kennedy's death and continue to this day. Most put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties as varied as the
CIA, the
KGB, the
American Mafia, the
Israeli government,
FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover, sitting
Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Cuban president
Fidel Castro, anti-Castro
Cuban exile groups, the
Federal Reserve, or some combination of those entities. In
1979, the
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that
Kennedy's assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he traveled in an open-top car in a motorcade in
Dallas, Texas at 12:30 PM,
CST (1:30 PM
EST) November 22, 1963;
Texas Governor John Connally was also injured.
Within two hours,
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of
Dallas policeman
J.D. Tippit and arraigned that evening. At 1:35 AM Saturday,
Oswald was arraigned for murdering the
President. At 11:21 AM, Sunday,
November 24,
1963, nightclub owner
Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail.
Immediately after the shooting, little information was available and many people suspected that the assassination was part of a larger plot.
Ruby's shooting of Oswald compounded initial suspicions.
Mark Lane has been described as writing "the first literary shot" among conspiracy theorists with his article in the
December 19, 1963 edition of the
National Guardian, "
Defense Brief for Oswald". Published in May 1964,
Thomas Buchanan's
Who Killed Kennedy? has been credited as the first book alleging a conspiracy.
In 1964, the
Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone and that no credible evidence supported the contention that he was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the president.
The Commission also indicated that
Dean Rusk, the
Secretary of State;
Robert S. McNamara, the
Secretary of Defense;
C. Douglas Dillon, the
Secretary of the Treasury;
Robert F. Kennedy, the
Attorney General; J. Edgar Hoover, the
Director of the FBI;
John A. McCone, the
Director of the CIA; and
James J. Rowley, the
Chief of the
Secret Service, each independently reached the same conclusion on the basis of information available to them.
In 1979, the
House Select Committee on Assassinations (
HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, but concluded that the
Commission's report and the original FBI investigation were both seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that at least four shots were fired with a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President, and that a conspiracy was probable. The HSCA also stated that "the Warren Commission failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the president."
The
Ramsey Clark Panel and the
Rockefeller Commission both supported the Warren Commission's conclusions, while
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison unsuccessfully prosecuted
Clay Shaw for conspiring to assassinate Kennedy.
According to John McAdams: "The greatest and grandest of all conspiracy theories is the
Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory."
Others have frequently referred to it as "the mother of all conspiracies". The number of books written about the assassination of Kennedy has been estimated to be in the range of one thousand to two thousand. According to
Vincent Bugliosi, 95% of those books are "pro-conspiracy and anti-Warren Commission".
Kennedy assassination enthusiasts have been described as belonging to "conspiracy theorists" on one side and "debunkers" on the other. The great amount of controversy surrounding the event has led to bitter disputes between those who support the conclusion of the Warren Commission and those who reject it or are critical of the official explanation, with each side leveling accusations of "naivete, cynicism, and selective interpretation of the evidence" toward the other.
Public opinion polls taken after the assassination have indicated that a large number of
Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill
President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A
2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That same year an
ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person. A 2004
Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.
- published: 14 Jul 2013
- views: 16124