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There exist a plethora of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the Federal Reserve, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the KGB, the Illuminati, the Mafia, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government and the military and/or government interests of the United States.

Contents 1 Background 2 Popular theories 2.1 The Three Tramps 2.1.1 Charles Rogers 2.1.2 Charles Harrelson 2.1.3 Chauncey Holt 2.2 Lone gunman 2.2.1 Witnesses 2.2.2 Findings and analysis 2.3 More than one gunman 2.3.1 Witnesses 2.3.2 Analysis 2.4 More than one Oswald 3 Conspiracy Theories 3.1 LBJ conspiracy 3.1.1 Mac Wallace 3.1.2 Deathbed confession 3.2 CIA and anti-Castro Cuban exile conspiracy 3.2.1 CIA assassinations 3.2.2 Cuban exiles 3.3 Mafia and Hoover conspiracy 3.4 Organized Crime and the CIA conspiracy 3.5 Soviet Bloc conspiracy 3.6 Roscoe White 3.6.1 Saul 3.7 Cuban conspiracy 3.8 Israeli conspiracy 3.9 Federal Reserve conspiracy 3.10 Decoy Hearse 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no "persuasive" evidence Lee Harvey Oswald was in a conspiracy to assassinate the President. Almost immediately, critics began to question the official government conclusions and wrote books attacking the Commission and its findings. Among them was Mark Lane — a lawyer who briefly represented Oswald's mother and who authored the critical book Rush to Judgment.

In the decades that followed, a dedicated group of independent researchers published dozens of different—and sometimes contradictory—theories.

In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested local congressman Clay Shaw and charged him with being part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted in less than an hour after a lengthy and controversial trial. Garrison's investigations attracted researchers from around the country who provided Garrison with information and theories. In turn these researchers were aided by the access afforded to a District Attorney. The most notable example of the latter was Garrison's subpoena of the Zapruder film which allowed jury members to see it first-hand. Bootleg copies were quickly circulated, and it was shown on television for the first time in 1975.

In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed by Congress to investigate the killings of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The HSCA investigated many theories put forward by assassination researchers and criticised some of them.

The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Oswald was the assassin and was about to conclude that he acted alone when a dictabelt recording — purportedly recorded during the assassination — then surfaced. Based on over 20 witnesses who heard shots from in front of Kennedy and scientific analysis of the recording by a group of scientists, the committee concluded that there was a fourth shot and hence a second gunman, and that Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. Researchers — who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunman was responsible for the assassination and had posited a conspiracy theory — felt vindicated by the House report.

The accuracy of the dictabelt analysis was questioned: some argue that all the impulses believed to have been shots "happened about a minute after the assassination" based on verified crosstalk.^[1] The Congressional Committee's panel of scientists then received further support that a conspiracy existed by D. B. Thomas — in 2001 — who concluded, based on further crosstalk on channel II, it was 95% likely there was a fourth shot. However, Thomas, like the HSCA, assumed the tape on channel II ran continuously; analysis by Michael O'Dell indicates this was not the case.^[1]

Director Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, which was based on the HSCA findings and books by Garrison and Jim Marrs, was what Stone called a "counter-fiction to the Warren Commission's fiction". This controversial film portrayed an extensive plot to kill the President and presented many of Garrison's allegations as fact. The revived interest in the assassination by the film led to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, to gather and declassify all unreleased U.S. Government records regarding the assassination. In the wake of Stone's film, efforts were made to refute many conspiracy theories, such as Gerald Posner's Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Case Closed, the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy hosted by Peter Jennings, and Vincent Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History.

Many doubts still remain in the minds of the public regarding the official government conclusions. An ABC News poll (in 2003) found that 70% of American respondents "suspect a plot" in the assassination of President Kennedy.^[2]

Below are among the most often suggested and heavily researched explanations as to who/why/how President Kennedy was assassinated.

There is speculation regarding the true identites of the three tramps that were detained from the train. The tramps were taken to the police station. They were never searched or fingerprinted. No record existed of their detainment until a document mysteriously appeared years after the assassination. Many people believe two of the tramps were famous Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis.

Lois Gibson might be the most respected forensic artist and facial expert in the world. From her analysis, she is certain that the three tramps were Chauncey Holt, Charles Harrelson, and Charles Rogers.
Lois Gibson's slideshow presentation

Charles Rogers was a CIA assassin/pilot. On June 23, 1965, Roger's parents, Fred and Edwina, were found brutally murdered in their home. The couple's nephew had called the police because he was very concerned about them. After police entered the home, they noticed a lot of food sitting on the counter which appeared to have been moved from the refrigerator. The officers opened the refrigerator to discover something horrific. The elderly couple's bodies had been cut into pieces and placed in the refrigerator and freezer. Charles was nowhere to be found and to this day is the prime suspect in the murders. It is rumored that Rogers was killed in South America during involvement with the Iran-Contra program.

Charles Harrelson, the father of famous actor Woody Harrelson, has been identified by Lois Gibson as the tall tramp in the photo. He became famous after being tried and convicted for killing a U.S. District Judge named John H. Wood, Jr. Right before he was arrested, he made a statement claiming that he was the one who killed JFK. He later retracted his statement saying that he was high on cocaine and he often said things that weren't true while under the influence. Harrelson died March 15, 2007 in a Colorado prison.

Chauncey Holt, the old tramp with the hat, claims to have been a double agent for the CIA and the Mafia. He says that his job in Dallas was to provide fake Secret Service credentials to people in the vicinity. Witness reports state that there were many unidentified men in the area claiming to be Secret Service Agents.

Further information: Single bullet theory

Howard Brennan, a 45-year-old steamfitter, while waiting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository for the presidential motorcade, noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository. Just after the President's car passed, he heard what he thought was a firecracker or an explosion. He looked up at the window again and saw the man with a gun, aiming and taking a final shot. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, who he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shot.^[3]

Bonnie Ray Williams and two co-workers watching the motorcade from fifth floor windows of the Depository heard three shots come from the floor above, and reverberations shook plaster from the ceiling onto his head.^[4]

Governor John Connally and Mrs. Connally and the two Secret Service agents in the presidential limousine all testified that the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.^[5]

Charles Hester, Emmett Hudson and Marilyn Sitzman, the only witnesses on the Grassy Knoll who gave testimony about the direction of the shots, all said the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.^[6]

Marilyn Sitzman was standing on a 4-foot (1.2 m) high retaining wall 15 yards (14 m) east of the 5-foot (1.5 m) high picket fence on the grassy knoll.^[7] (View from Sitzman's position.) She stated that she saw no gunman firing from behind the picket fence: "The blast of a high-powered rifle would have blown me off that wall."^[8]

Of the earwitnesses, 99 believed that all the shots came from one direction, and only 5 believed they came from two directions.^[9]

The Warren Commission, and the HSCA both concluded that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from above and behind the Presidential limousine.^[10]

Shortly after the assassination, a rifle was found partially-hidden between some boxes on the sixth floor of the Depository, and the improvised paper wrapper/bag that covered the rifle was found close to the window from which the shots were fired.^[11]

Fiber analysis of President Kennedy's clothing showed that he was hit by a bullet from the rear, which passed out the front of his clothing.^[12]

The Zapruder film shows two blood sprays moving forward from the front right-hand side of Kennedy's temple, but no blood spray from the back of his head. The motion of his head, first forward and then backward, has been mimicked in skull models hit by 6.5 mm 160 gr. military bullets.^[13]

A rifle bullet from the grassy knoll, to President Kennedy's right, would presumably have exited the left side of his head, or at least penetrated to the left side of his brain. No wound was found on the left side of his skull, no damage was found to the left side of his brain (which was removed and examined), and X-rays found no metal fragments in the left side of the brain.

The bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the two bullet fragments found in the front seat of the Presidential limousine were matched to the same lot of ammunition. The bullet found on the stretcher was a ballistic match to the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was found in the 6th floor of the Depository. No other bullet fragments from any other rifle were found.^[14]

The windshield in the Presidential limousine was struck by a bullet fragment on the inside surface of the glass, meaning that these fragments came from behind, and not in front, of the President.^[15]

The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle — from which the shots were fired — was ordered in the name of A. Hidell and sent to Oswald's P.O. Box in Dallas. Alek was the name Oswald used in the Soviet Union, and Alek James Hidell was the name on the false I.D. Oswald was carrying when arrested on the day of the assassination. The FBI found Oswald's palm print on the rifle barrel between the barrel and the stock, which could have been put there only when the rifle was disassembled.^[16]

Oswald was seen with a paper bag/wrapper in a car on the way to the Depository. He said, when he was asked, that it was full of "curtain-rods". He said they were for the rooming-house he was living in (while he was living away from his wife) although his rooming house already had curtains and rods, and Oswald had never discussed the matter with his landlady. The paper bag was found on the sixth floor, near the rifle, but the "curtain-rods" were never found at the Depository.^[17]

Three separate photographs of Oswald holding a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and wearing a pistol are known.^[18] His wife Marina Oswald testified in 1964 and 1978 that she took the photographs at his request.^[19] Two were found at Oswald's residence when he was in custody, and a third later turned up from Dallas police officer Roscoe White's collection after he died.^[20] Two photos may be viewed as a stereo pair as they were taken from slightly different angles. The original negative of one is available for study. These photos were closely studied by the HSCA, which found them to be authentic.^[21] The HSCA did not believe that the technology existed in 1963 to fake an original film emulsion or a stereo pair. Any fake would have needed access to the literature which Oswald was known to be reading in March 1963, as well as copies of the weapons he is known to have been shipped in that month.

In 1967, all three physicians who performed the autopsy of President Kennedy examined the photographic and X-ray materials from the autopsy at the National Archives, and certified their authenticity. "It was then and is now our opinion that the two missiles which struck the President causing the neck wound and the head wound were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased."^[22]

In 1988, four of the Parkland Hospital physicians — including Robert McClelland — examined the Kennedy autopsy photographs at the National Archives, and each confirmed the photos represented what they remembered seeing that day, including a picture of the rear of the President's head, which shows no defect.^[23]

Two separate computer analyses have asserted that the bullet trajectory is consistent with the single bullet theory and that the weapon could only have been fired from a high position behind Kennedy.^[24]

In the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, using a close-up frame-by-frame analysis, computer analyst Dale K. Myers points out an incident on the Zapruder film. As the limousine carrying Kennedy and Connally emerges from behind a road sign in Dealey Plaza, the lapel of Connally's suit coat appears to "pop out" as if pushed from within by an unseen force.^[25] Myers theorizes that this is the moment when the bullet from Oswald's rifle struck Connally in the back and exited through his chest. A moment later, as Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign, his hands move up to his throat, indicating that he has been hit. Myers points out that both Kennedy and Connally react simultaneously to being wounded.

Main article: Single bullet theory

The Warren Commission findings and the single bullet theory are implausible according to conspiracy theorists. Oswald's rifle, through testing by the FBI, could only be fired three times within the six seconds^{[citation needed]} of the assassination. The Warren Commission, through earwitnesses, determined that only three bullets were fired as well: one of the three bullets missed the vehicle entirely; one hit Kennedy and passed through Governor John Connally, and the final shot was fatal to the President. However, the weight of the bullet fragments taken from Connally and those remaining in his body weighed more than the bullet found on Connally's stretcher,^{[citation needed]} known as the "pristine bullet". In addition, the trajectory of the bullet, which hit Kennedy above the right shoulder blade and passed through his neck (according to the autopsy) would have had to change course to pass through Connally's chest and wrist.^{[citation needed]} Hence, the conclusion by conspiracy theorists is that more than three shots were fired and that more than one gunman had to be involved.

Nellie Connally was sitting in the presidential car next to her husband, Governor John Connally. In her book From Love Field: Our Final Hours, Mrs. Connally was adamant that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.^[26]

Roy Kellerman, a U.S. Secret Service Agent, testified that, "Now, in the seconds that I talked just now, a flurry of shells come into the car." Kellerman said that he saw a 5-inch diameter hole in the back right-hand side of the President’s head.^[27]

Lee Bowers was operating a railroad interlocking tower, overlooking the parking lot just north of the grassy knoll and west of the Texas School Book Depository. He reported that he saw two men behind the picket fence at the top the grassy knoll at the time of the shootings and he also claimed to see a puff of smoke from that direction.^[28]

Thirty-five earwitnesses who were present at the shooting thought that shots were fired from in front of the President — from the area of the Grassy Knoll or Triple Underpass — while 56 earwitnesses thought the shots came from the Depository, or at least in that direction, behind the President, and 5 earwitnesses thought that the shots came from two directions.^[29]

Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who was sheltering the President with his body on the way to the hospital, described "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car."^[30]

Dr. Robert McClelland, a physician in the emergency room who observed the head wound, testified that the back right part of the head was blown out with posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue was missing. The size of the back head wound, according to his description, indicated it was an exit wound, and that a second shooter from the front delivered the fatal head shot.^[31]

Apart from shots hitting Kennedy and Connally, the limousine was struck in the windshield — in the chrome above the windshield and the chrome around the ashtray on the back of the front seat. Some witnesses say the windshield had a definite hole through it and not just a crack, as was claimed by the Warren Commission. Frank Cormier, Dr. Evalea Glanges, Dallas Police Officer Stavis Ellis, and Dallas Police Officer H.R. Freeman all saw a 'hole'.^[32] The windshield was claimed to be replaced and "redamaged", according to the testimony of William Hess of the Ford Motor Co.^{[citation needed]} This was supposedly done to eliminate the possibility of a shot coming from the front.

Former U.S. Marine snipers, Craig Roberts, and Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, (who was the senior instructor for the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper Instructor School at Quantico, Virginia) both said it could not be done as described by the FBI investigators. “Let me tell you what we did at Quantico,” Hathcock said. “We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did. Now if I can’t do it, how in the world could a guy who was a non-qual on the rifle range and later only qualified 'marksman' do it?”^[33]

Kennedy's death certificate located the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra — which is too low to have exited his throat.^{[citation needed]} Moreover, the bullet was traveling downward, since the shooter was by a sixth floor window. The autopsy cover sheet had a diagram of a body showing this same low placement at the third thoracic vertebra. The hole in back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket are also claimed to support a wound too low to be consistent with the Single Bullet Theory.^[34][35]

It is improbable for Oswald's rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano,^[36] to be fired more than once in less than 2.3 seconds.^[37][38] According to some interpretations of the Zapruder film, Governor Connally appears to react to being shot 1.7 seconds after Kennedy. Some believe this means they were hit by two separate shots fired in more rapid succession than would have been possible for Oswald's Carcano. Top rifle experts of the FBI were incapable of making the rifle fire two shots in the 2.3-second timeframe.^[39]

Claims that Oswald was impersonated by a political decoy appeared very early in the assassination controversy. Professor Richard H Popkin's 1966 work The Second Oswald set out the best case for an impersonation of the alleged assassin. Much of this was based on eyewitness testimony, but Popkin did have a "star witness" in the person of FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who wrote a memo predating the assassination in which he warned that an imposter could be using Oswald's personal details.^[40]

More recently, the work of John Armstrong has purportedly identified the "phoney Oswald" as part of an MKULTRA experiment which originally had no connection to the assassination.^{[citation needed]}

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson became President as a result of the assassination.

Kennedy's selection of Johnson as running mate in 1960 was (as such selections often are)^[41] largely an attempt to provide a ´regional balance´ to the party's ticket. It was rumored, however, that Kennedy was considering dropping LBJ in the 1964 election. Richard Nixon, who was in Dallas on November 20, 1963 until just an hour before Kennedy arrived, was quoted in the November 22, 1963 Dallas Morning News as saying he believed Kennedy would drop Johnson from the 1964 Democratic ticket because Johnson was embroiled in several high-profile political scandals.^[42] Evelyn Lincoln, JFK's secretary, in 1968 wrote that just days before the assassination, she asked President Kennedy who his running mate in 1964 would be. He answered: "It will not be Lyndon." Jackie Kennedy denied that her husband ever considered removing LBJ from the 1964 ticket.^[43]

Johnson's mistress Madeleine Brown has stated that on the night before the assassination, Johnson met with powerful Texans in Dallas. Following the meeting, he seized her arm in a very intense manner and told her: "After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again - that's no threat - that's a promise."^[44]

Brown also claimed that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner and assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald, was a member of the "8F group." The group was an informal association of men in the circle of Lyndon Johnson and H.L. Hunt, the Texas oil tycoon.^[45] Brown had a son with Johnson, though LBJ never acknowledged him.^[46]

In his book Death of a President, William Manchester describes an odd scene. On the morning of the assassination, word reached Johnson that a new seating arrangement in the motorcade would place his friend, Texas Governor John Connally, in the limousine with Kennedy. The previous seating arrangement had put Johnson's bitter enemy Senator Ralph Yarborough in the President's car, with Connally riding further behind with LBJ. Upon learning of the seating change, Johnson, furious, stormed into Kennedy's suite. Loud arguing could be heard from outside, the word "Yarborough" shouted more than once. Johnson finally stormed out "like a pistol." He did not get his way. The next day, John Connally was seriously wounded in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

At the moment of Kennedy's death, Johnson legally became President of the United States. However, he insisted upon being sworn in on Air Force One, even asking the photographer "where he wanted them."^[47] A second or so after the famous swearing-in shot, the photographer also captured an odd moment: Texas congressman Albert Thomas winking at LBJ.^[48]

Jack Ruby, Oswald's assassin, implicitly and explicitly implicated Lyndon Johnson in the death of John F. Kennedy.^[49]

At the time of Kennedy's death, Johnson was the subject of four major criminal investigations involving government contract violations, misappropriation of funds, money laundering and bribery.^[50] All these investigations were terminated upon LBJ's accession to the Presidency.^{[citation needed]}

Johnson was linked professionally and personally to a convicted murderer, Malcolm 'Mac' Wallace, who in turn was linked to the JFK assassination by testimony and forensic evidence, including a fingerprint; however, both of the forms of evidence are disputed.^[51] Wallace, who was studying at Columbia University in the 1940s, while teaching at Long Island University, the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina, met Johnson through a mutual acquaintance, Edward Clark, and took a job at the US Department of Agriculture in October 1950. Wallace began an affair with LBJ's sister, Josefa, who was also having a relationship with Texan golf course owner John Kinser. Kinser is believed to have attempted to blackmail Johnson through his connection with Josefa. This is in dispute. On October 22, 1951, Wallace killed Kinser in his golf shop and escaped by vehicle. An eyewitness to the shooting made a note of Wallace's license plate, and Wallace was arrested and charged with murder. Wallace was released on bail after Edward Clark arranged for two financial supporters of LBJ (M. E. Ruby and Bill Carroll) to stand bail for him. LBJ's personal attorney John Cofer agreed to represent Wallace at his trial, which began in February 1952.

The jury found Wallace guilty of "murder with malice aforethought", eleven of the jurors urging the death penalty. Judge Charles O. Betts overruled the jury and announced a suspended sentence of five years imprisonment. Wallace immediately walked free. Other deaths were linked to him, especially some relating to the Billie Sol Estes fraud. On August 9, 1984, Estes' lawyer, Douglas Caddy, wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming that Wallace, Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson and Cliff Carter had been involved in eight murders, including that of John F. Kennedy. Caddy stated: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders." Fourteen years later, in May 1998, Texan assassination researcher Walt Brown called a press conference to discuss a previously unidentified fingerprint at the "sniper's nest" in the Depository. According to Brown this fingerprint had been identified as belonging to Wallace. Initially, the match was a 14-point match made by a certified expert in latent prints. Twelve points is the threshold for court admissible evidence in Texas. Faced with hostile comment, the fingerprint expert in question went away and subjected the print to greater scrutiny, returning with a 32-point match.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003 Barr McClellan published Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK. In the book McClellan argues that Lyndon B. Johnson and attorney Edward Clark were involved in the planning and cover-up of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He states that LBJ, using an intermediary, sent an envelope to his attorney in 1961 with documents that detailed security protection of the President, along with the statement "see what you can do with it." McClellan also named Wallace as one of the assassins. The book states that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil millionaires such as Clint Murchison and Haroldson L. Hunt, and that Clark received $6 million for this work. In addition, McClellan noted that LBJ was treated and counseled by a psychiatrist for severe depression following his presidency at his ranch in Texas, and that the records of the treatment were received by Clark and were in his possession in a safe in his offices in Austin, Texas.

Former CIA and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt wrote a book just before his death^[52] implicating Johnson in the assassination. Hunt stated that Johnson may have orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions in the past,^[53] which included an affair that Kennedy had with a wife of one of the agents. An article published in Rolling Stone magazine about the death of E. Howard Hunt reveals his deathbed confessions to his son which names Johnson, CIA agents Cord Meyer, Bill Harvey and David Sánchez Morales, as well as a "French" gunman named Lucien Sarti, who shot at Kennedy from the grassy knoll. Since 1974 it had been speculated that Hunt and CIA agent Frank Sturgis were among the "Three Tramps" who were photographed in Dealey Plaza, and held by the Dallas Police, shortly after the assassination.^[54] Alternatively, other researchers propose to identify as Hunt a figure crossing Dealey Plaza in a raincoat and fedora immediately after the assassination.^[55]

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was frequently mentioned in theories during the 1960s and 1970s, and it was rumoured then that the CIA was involved in plots to assassinate foreign leaders. The CIA was banned from assassinating anyone abroad 25 years ago, but that ban is currently under pressure to be lifted.^[56] Kennedy said to his collaborator Clark Clifford (shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion) that, "Something very bad is going on within the CIA and I want to know what it is. I want to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds."^[57][58]

Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA during the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by a small army of Cuban nationals in April 1961. Kennedy forced his resignation in September 1961.^[59] He was later appointed by Lyndon Johnson as one of the seven members of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. Congress began investigating the intelligence agencies by way of the Church Committee.

In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed. Among the matters the Church Committee investigated was the involvement by U.S. intelligence agencies to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo^[60] and Fidel Castro.

The CIA provided $42,000 in immediate support money to the plotters on the morning of the assassination of President Diem of Vietnam, which was carried out by Lucien Conein,^[61] although Robert S. McNamara and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., (who was a participant as a White House historian) both stated that President Kennedy went pale when he heard the news about the coup and was shocked that Diem had been murdered.^[62]

Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic was killed by his own armed forces on May 30, 1961, while traveling in an automobile. The CIA had provided the weapons, which were kept by Simon Thomas Stocker, an American citizen, code-named "Hector" by the CIA, and a resident of the Dominican Republic since 1942, who willingly declined CIA monetary compensation for his efforts.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations later reviewed these issues and, in 1979, concluded that although Oswald assassinated Kennedy, a conspiracy was probable but that the conspiracy did not implicate any U.S Intelligence agencies. The HSCA also said that President Kennedy did not receive adequate protection in Dallas, and 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; in addition, Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper.^[63]

Richard Helms, director of the CIA's Office of Special Operations, had reason to be hostile to Kennedy since when first elected, Kennedy supported invading Cuba and then only later changed his mind about how to approach the matter. Thus, Helms was immediately put under pressure from President Kennedy and his brother Robert (the attorney general) to increase American efforts to get rid of the Castro regime. Operation Mongoose had nearly 4,000 operators involved in attacks on Cuban economic targets. After the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba sponsored by the CIA, Kennedy changed his mind about an invasion, earning the hatred of the Cuban exile community.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations believed evidence existed implicating certain violent Cuban exiles may 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 this:

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. (37)

Holding a copy of the September 26 edition of The Dallas Morning News, featuring a front-page account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November, the Cuban exile vented his hostility:

"CASTELLANOS. ...we're waiting for Kennedy the 22d, [the day Kennedy was murdered] buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas. Mr. good ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even call him President Kennedy. He stinks."^[64]

Author Joan Didion explored the Miami anti-Castro Cuban theory in her 1987 non-fiction book "Miami."^[65][66]

J. Edgar Hoover was the long-time director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1925-1972), and close friend of Lyndon Johnson.

It is well-documented that before President Kennedy was elected, Hoover rarely acknowledged the existence of the Mafia. Jack Anderson reported on J. Edgar Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia, and also the reluctance of the FBI to prosecute it. The Mafia's financial genius Meyer Lansky had allegedly blackmailed Hoover over his homosexuality as early as 1935.^[67] Another probable reason for Hoover's failure to prosecute the Mob was his preference of easy targets to boost the FBI's image.

After Kennedy became President, the prosecutions of the Mafia by the Justice Department (of which the FBI is a part) increased elevenfold. The Mafia war that started in the late 1950s encouraged Attorney General Robert Kennedy to prosecute the Mafia heavily after 1960. His attacks focused on Teamsters Union boss Jimmy Hoffa and the mafia bosses of Chicago, Tampa and New Orleans.^[68] On May 8, 1964, just days before Hoover was due to give testimony to the Warren Commission, Lyndon Johnson announced he had exempted Hoover from compulsory retirement and was appointed Director of the FBI "for life" at seventy years of age. In the White House Rose Garden, Johnson said, “The nation cannot afford to lose you.”^[69] Since Hoover's death in May 1972, the tenure of the FBI director is, by law, limited to a single 10-year term.

Another possible culprit was the Mafia, in retaliation for the increasing pressure put upon them by Robert Kennedy (who had increased by 12 times the number of prosecutions under President Dwight Eisenhower). Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that the Mafia was working very closely with the CIA on several assassination attempts of Fidel Castro.^[70] Frank Sinatra has been accused of being a "go-between" for the Mafia and the Kennedys.^[71] In addition, allegedly the Mafia had funneled thousands of dollars to the Kennedy presidential campaign through back channels, supposedly in exchange for influence in the White House; in one instance, the money was used to pay off county sheriffs in the state of West Virginia so that the published slate of local candidates included Kennedy for the West Virginia primary.^[72][73] It is also theorized that the Chicago mob helped fix the election returns in the city so that Kennedy would win Illinois' electoral votes, partly as a favor to JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, and that they later felt betrayed by the pressure put upon the Mob by the Kennedy Administration.

Judith Campbell Exner, as described in her book My Story in 1977, was having an affair with Jack Kennedy and Sam Giancana and was used to send money back and forth between the mob and the campaign.^[73]

Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, and mobsters Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti and Santo Trafficante Jr. (all of whom say Hoffa worked with the CIA on the Castro assassination plots) top the list of House Select Committee on Assassinations Mafia suspects.^[74]

Carlos Marcello believed it was necessary to assassinate the President to short-circuit his younger brother Bobby, who was serving as attorney general and leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.^{[citation needed]}

In a documentary titled, "The Murder of JFK: Confession of an Assassin" (1996) (ASIN 6304138458) James Files claims that he assassinated Kennedy and that Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti were also present at the assassination on the orders of Sam Giancana.^[75] He is currently serving a 30-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a policeman.

The perception of a conspiracy was widespread, even in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. A source considered reliable by the FBI related that Colonel Boris Ivanov, Chief of the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), who resided in New York City at the time of the assassination, stated that it was his personal feeling that the assassination of President Kennedy had been planned by an organized group rather than being the act of one individual assassin.^[76]

Much later, the highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill": "László Rajk and Imre Nagy of Hungary; Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu and Gheorghiu-Dej in Romania; Rudolf Slánský, the head of Czechoslovakia, and Jan Masaryk, that country’s chief diplomat; the shah of Iran; Palmiro Togliatti of Italy; American President John F. Kennedy; and Mao Zedong." Pacepa provided some additional details, such as a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB and noted 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."^[77]

Ricky White (the son of Roscoe White, who was a Dallas policeman) claims that his father’s diary clearly showed that he was part of a three-man assassination team in Kennedy’s murder.^[78] The diary stated that there were six shots fired — two by his father. Roscoe White was behind the wooden fence on top of the grassy knoll and had the code-name Mandarin. His first shot hit the President in the throat. His second shot hit the President in the head. Of the other two assassins, one was located in the Dallas County Records Building and used the code name Saul. The third assassin was located in the Texas School Book Depository Building and used the code-name Lebanon. The diary also said that Mauser rifles were used in the assassination. Ricky White remembers his father giving him two rifles after the assassination in Dallas. One was an Argentinian rifle and the other was a 7.65 Mauser.

Ricky White claims that the diary showed that Oswald knew of the assassination plot but did not fire any shots. Oswald was told to bring his rifle to work on November 22, 1963, and to build a sniper's nest with boxes by the sixth floor window. All three of the assassins had an assistant whose job was to disassemble the rifles and take them away.^[79]

The diary also states that Roscoe White and Oswald had plans to escape together after the assassination and go to Red Bird Airport in south Dallas. Their driver was J.D. Tippit, who did not know anything concerning the plot. Whilst driving the two in south Dallas, Tippit heard radio reports of the assassination and suspected that his two passengers were involved. Oswald became agitated and jumped out of the car. White got out of the car and shot Tippit with a pistol when Tippit told him he would have to take White downtown for questioning. Ricky White says that the diary (which is no longer in his possession) states: "I killed an officer at Tenth and Patton."^[80]

After two photos of Oswald had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third photograph of Oswald with a backyard pose that was different (CE 133-C, with newspapers held in his right hand away from his body). This photo was found by the widow of Dallas police officer Roscoe White, amongst his belongings.^[81]

The claims of Ricky White were dealt a severe blow, however, when forensic testing showed that "cables" White produced — supposedly to his father ordering the assassination — had been forged.^[82]

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Hugh C. McDonald (a veteran of military intelligence, the FBI, and Hughes Aircraft) said that experts will recognize Saul as the unidentified man who was photographed exiting the Russian embassy in Mexico City in September 1963, whose photos were sent to the FBI in Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963, before the assassination, mislabeled Lee Harvey Oswald. Saul reportedly told McDonald that he had been in Mexico City to observe Oswald.

McDonald claims that, after being told the "truth" about JFK's death by CIA agent Herman Kimsey in 1964, he spent years trying to locate Saul. With the help of a European network of intelligence agents known to him as the "Blue Fox", McDonald finally tracked Saul down in London in 1972. Saul, who admitted being a professional killer, said he was assigned the Kennedy hit by a man known to him as Trois (the number three in French), whom he met in Guatemala and Haiti.

Saul reportedly said that he was paid $50,000, half of which he received in advance, the other half of which was kept for him in a Swiss bank account. Saul knew from experience that the assassination was the work of a very powerful group but had no real idea who he was working for when he shot the president.

To explain why Oswald, not a killer, did what he did on November 22, Saul reportedly said that Oswald had been told that he was to stage a fake assassination attempt to alert the government of the necessity for beefed-up Secret Service security.

After Oswald fired and missed on purpose, Saul was to 1. shoot JFK and 2. shoot Oswald. The Secret Service would get credit for killing "the assassin." When the Secret Service failed to return Oswald's fire, Saul didn't fire upon the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Saul reportedly told McDonald that he sneaked his weapon into the Records building assembled, loaded, and strapped to his body underneath his clothes. Saul said he used disintegrating ammunition that left little or no ballistic evidence. Therefore any ballistic evidence that was found would link the crime to Oswald's rifle.

Saul reportedly said he did his best to coincide his shots to Oswald's so that it would sound to ear witnesses as if only one man were shooting. According to this scenario, all three of Oswald's shots missed while Saul fired twice, the first shot causing all of the president's and Governor Connally's nonfatal wounds. The second blew out the right side of JFK's head. So McDonald's scenario, like that of the Warren Commission, asks us to believe in the magic bullet.

There is even a bigger problem with "Saul's" scenario. It would have been impossible to shoot President Kennedy from the second floor of the Dallas County Records Building. The windows in that building do not open.^{[83][84][85][86]}

This theory is succinctly expressed in the following reported remark of Lyndon Johnson: "Kennedy was trying to kill Castro. Castro got him first",^[87][88] and in purported incidents.

On September 7, 1963, Castro entered the Brazilian embassy in Havana and granted an unusual interview to an American reporter. Castro stated that the leaders of the U.S. government would not be safe if they continued their efforts to kill Cuban leaders. Castro's remarks were widely reported in the American press.^[88]

In some variations this theory is compounded with the Organized Crime theory; they both had reasons to hate JFK, and Castro is supposed to have paid the Mafia off by allowing them to use Cuban ports to smuggle drugs into the United States.

Another theory of the involvement of a Cuban secret service was recently published by an investigation of German journalists Wilfried Huismann and Heribert Blondiau. In their documentary "Rendezvous with Death" (Rendezvous mit dem Tod) for public German television station ARD, they present various sources formerly within the FBI, KGB and Cuban service G-2, which state the following:

Oswald contacted the Cuban embassy in Mexico City in September 1963, maybe already planning to assassinate the President out of personal motives (frustration with both political systems in the U.S. and the Soviet Bloc). However it is not quite clear whether this was really Oswald's initiative or a Cuban idea. Following this, the Cuban intelligence Service G-2 keeps contact. Fidel Castro, enraged about the multiple assassination plots against him supported by the American CIA and the President's brother Robert F. Kennedy, had already sent out multiple warnings to the U.S. government to stop these plots. Frustrated by their futility, the Cuban leadership decides to support Oswald by sending him money through a high-ranking G-2 official acting as courier. Oswald then returns to the U.S. and carries out the assassination successfully. He is allegedly left to believe there is an escape plan for him prepared by Cuba, although there is not.

The FBI investigation following the assassination then traces back Oswald's contact to the Cuban embassy in Mexico and, supported by Mexican authorities, finds out about Oswald's contacts to G-2, and reports this back. The presidential bureau of Lyndon Johnson however, does not want this information to become public out of the following political considerations:

• A feared right-wing and anti-Castro uprising in the U.S. which would mean probable defeat to the Democrats in the next election;

• Fear of a possible and probable nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Bloc following a retaliatory invasion of Cuba by U.S. forces.

Thus, the U.S. government orders the stop of the Mexican investigation and keeps the findings to themselves. Following this theory, tragically, unknowingly and unwillingly, Robert Kennedy is in a way responsible for his brother's death, through his efforts to support an assassination of Fidel Castro. He was said to have found out about this and be devastated.

Doubts as to the credibility of this theory were expressed by the German magazine "Focus". However, they were rejected by ARD and the authors of the documentary.^[89]

This theory alleges that the Israeli government was displeased with Kennedy for his pressure against their pursuit of a top-secret nuclear program or, the Israelis were angry over Kennedy's sympathies with Arabs, and his use of men formerly under the employment of the Nazis in their rocket program, such as Wernher von Braun. Gangster Meyer Lansky and Lyndon B. Johnson often play pivotal roles in this conspiracy theory as organizing and preparing the hit, thus bleeding into and possibly catalyzing many of the other conspiracies as well.^[90]

Further information: Negev Nuclear Research Center  and Mordechai Vanunu

Jim Marrs in his book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy has alleged that the assassination of Kennedy occurred from fallout over the issuance of Executive Order 11110.

This executive order enabled the Treasury to print silver certificates, bypassing the Federal Reserve System. Executive Order 11110 was not officially repealed until the Ronald Reagan Administration. Official explanations claim that the executive order was simply an attempt to drain the silver reserves^[91][92]

David S. Lifton and others have theorized that the coffin removed from Air Force One and placed in a waiting ambulance at Andrews Air Force Base on the evening of November 22, 1963 was empty. The president's body was taken off the jet out of the television camera's view. This portion of Lifton's theory comes from a House Select Committee on Assassinations report of an interview of Lt. Richard A. Lipsey on January 18, 1978 by committee staff members Donald Andrew Purdy Jr. and T. Mark Flanagan Jr. in which Lipsey said in that his capacity as aide to General Wehle, he had met President Kennedy's body at Andrews Air Force Base. The report stated that Lipsey "placed [the casket] in a hearse to be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Lipsey mentioned that he and Whele then flew by helicopter to Bethesda and took the President's body into the back of Bethesda. A decoy hearse had been driven to the front." A decoy hearse carrying an empty casket.^[93]

Labroratory Technologist Paul Kelly O'Connor^[94] was one of the major witnesses supporting 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 says that President Kennedy's body arrived at Bethesda in a commercial shipping casket which differed from the sheet it was wrapped in at Parkland Hospital. He stated the brain had already been removed by the time it got to Bethesda, and that there was only "half of a handful" of brain matter left inside the skull.

According to Nigel Turner, director of the 1988 British television documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy. "There were mysterious men in civilian clothes at the autopsy. They seemed to command a lot of respect and look over my shoulder or over Dr. J. Thornton Boswell's shoulder, then they'd go back and have a conference in the corner. Then one of them would say 'Stop what you're doing and go on to another procedure.' We jumped back and forth, back and forth. There was no smooth flow of procedure at all."

As done with all cargo on airplanes for safety, 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. The casket was also under ample armed guard at all times, a fact that Lifton neglects to mention. In addition, the plane was watched by thousands of people that bathed the far side of the plane in lights and provided a very public stage for any body snatchers.^[95] However, Kennedy's casket was switched sometime between Dallas and Kennedy's internment at Arlington National Cemetery. The original casket was dumped into the Altantic Ocean. ^[96]

• Connally, Nellie (October 28, 2003). From Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy. Rugged Land. ISBN 0-316-86032-8. 
• Hurt, Henry. Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: Holt, Rinhart, and Winston, 1985. (ISBN 0805003606)
• Lane, Mark. Rush to Judgement: A critique of the Warren Commission's inquiry in the murders of John F. Kennedy, Officer J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald. Holt Rhinehart. 1966 (ISBN needed)
• Thompson, Josiah. Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination. New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1967. ISBN 978-0394445717
• Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An A-to-Z Encyclopedia by Michael Benson Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-1444-2
• Marrs, Jim. Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1989 (ISBN 0881846481).
• Benson, Michael (2002). Encyclopedia Of The JFK Assassination. Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0816044771. 

• ABC News Presents The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy – Peter Jennings' 2003 TV special reconstructing and analyzing the shooting
• spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk – Spartacus' collection of excerpts from Fetzer's books on conspiracy and the CIA
• BBC News – German documentary about the assassination
• Frontline: Who was L.H. Oswald – PBS documentary focuses on the man and his life
• PBS News 2003 – Public's belief that a conspiracy existed
• The Kennedys and the underworld; documents (JFKUnderworld.com).
• The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt

John F. Kennedy assassination
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