Who Killed JFK?
It was mid-afternoon when I was released from class. I was passing across a large grassy area of the LSU campus on my way to visit with a high school friend who lived with his wife and child just off campus in an old two-story apartment building when a car radio got my attention. I saw the car, a fancy new red and white Ford I believe, and saw that there were several students gathered around it leaning toward the radio which I could hear but not understand. I found it odd, but not very interesting.
I arrived at my friend's apartment and found him seated before his black and white TV. He looked up at me and said, “The President's been shot.” Well, that explains the loud car radio.
I watched the TV reports for about 30 minutes. I walked back across campus to the apartment of my mom and dad and myself. My brother was off for a brief stint with the marines.
Of course, Mom and Dad and I discussed the assassination, and by that time we had learned the name Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days later I heard my dad shout from downstairs, “They shot the son-of-a-bitch.”
The Warren Commission concluded its study of the assassination in '64. The conclusion was that there was no larger conspiracy. The actions of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby were independent of each other and not associated with anyone else.
I, along with the vast majority of the American public, said, “Okay.” We all knew it wasn't true, but it was probably the best thing for the country to draw the conclusion they did. Frankly, the country was a nervous wreck over the assassination and the report had a calming affect.
Because few folks actually believed the Warren Commission's conclusion, in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters.
Neither report was able to discern the entire truth. The big suspects as participants in a conspiracy were Cuba, the Russians, the Mafia, and, marginally, the CIA.
Castro had plenty of reasons to want to kill Kennedy, but that seems a little risky for the dictator of a banana republic to contemplate.
The Russians---one of the usual suspects---certainly could have been part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, but their motivation was a little lacking when you consider Johnson was the alternative.
Jack and Robert had certainly rubbed the Mafia the wrong way, but what the Mafia needed was less attention, not more.
I never had a favorite until recently. I've observed folks particularly from the FBI but also from the CIA recently give testimony before Congress. Holy moly! I'm 77 years old and had never witnessed the degree of arrogance that I have recently. I never even realized it was possible to be that arrogant.
All these years since the assassination, I've given the CIA a pass. Although I understood that they were a little more gung ho about our participation in Vietnam than Kennedy, and they didn't like what they perceived as Kennedy's desire to share space knowledge with Ruskies, and they may have other differences with our President, but surely they would not allow their policy differences with the President be enough to motivate them to kill him.
During recent Congressional hearings, members and ex-members of the CIA and the FBI dropped their masks to reveal themselves as devotees at the alter of arrogance. It is not a pretty picture.
Why do I suspect the CIA as part of the conspiracy but not the FBI. In '62 the FBI was Hoover's FBI, and Hoover's interest did not extend to international policy. His interest was in his own survival which he did quite well with his secret files on anyone who might be a threat to him.
It has taken me over 60 years to pin the donkey's tale on the CIA. The CIA is the only entity capable of secretly planning and executing and maintaining the secrecy.
Well done, you arrogant bastards.
enough