The JFK Assassination Conspiracy PDF

Preview

Summary

Download The JFK Assassination Conspiracy PDF

Description

Last Name1 Students’ Name

Professor’s Name

Course Name Date The JFK Assassination Conspiracy November 22, 1963, was a day that changed our country's leadership and changed the trust level most people have regarding their leaders. While most citizens were left feeling shocked, devastated, and concerned after the assassination, as time grew, we became suspicious and distrusting of what we were being told (Douglas 539). A small percentage of the population believe what the Warren Commission report portrayed as a lone gunman incident; others began to question what our leaders were hiding and why they were lying to us. After 50 years, the case has been closed, but many questions remain. Did Oswald act alone, was he the only shooter, was he carrying out orders from someone else, and the motive behind the murder of President Kennedy.

For more than 50 years, conspiracy theories have swirled around why President Kennedy was killed and responsible (Douglas 540). On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his motorcade and his wife Jackie and Texas Governor John Connally in Dallas, Texas. That same day, Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee at the Texas Book Depository, was arrested and charged with Kennedy's murder. While Oswald spoke only briefly to the media, he maintained his innocence and proclaimed that he was simply a "patsy" in the plot to assassinate the President. Oswald never got to tell his story. He was silenced forever on November 24, 1963…two days after the murder of President Kennedy. On November 29, 1963, President Johnson initiated the Warren Commission to investigate the murder of John F.

Last Name2 Kennedy. After nearly a year, the Warren Commission presented its findings in an 888-page report to President Johnson on September 24, 1964. In the report, the commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman and acted alone with no conspiracy evidence. Since the release of the Warren Commission report in 1964, conspiracy theories have become the norm, and many questions regarding the investigation's accuracy have surfaced.

One of the most controversial elements of the investigation is the ability of a mediocre marksman, such as Oswald, to fire three shots with such accuracy in approximately 6 seconds (Hofstadter, 223). While many attempts have been made to simulate and recreate the exact angles, trajectories, and timeframe in which the bullets were fired, there still is no conclusive evidence. Some have proven that it can be done with that same rifle; others do not believe that the circumstances and criteria were followed exactly. One of the reasons these recreations are believable to some but not to others is the human factor. Someone with the same military training, with the same rifle, the same angle of the shot, and the same speed of the target may be able to make the shots, but what cannot be recreated is what's at stake. The simple nervousness and anxiety posed by the mission's importance can never be duplicated, therefore allowing the results to be doubted (Hofstadter 24). Another widely misunderstood aspect of the investigation that I found is the circumstances surrounding the military career, defection, and return to the United States. I find it difficult to believe that Oswald was discharged from the US military after extensive training in the Russian language, defected to Russia, and was able to return to the United States so easily. In an era immediately following the McCarthy hearings, and during the midst of the cold war, when tensions ran extremely high between the United States and Russia, he should have had

Last Name3 more difficulty or been investigated in depth upon his return to the United States. With a climate of distrust and general overall hatred for communist Russia, there has to be more to the story that is not being told when a former military member formally renounces his citizenship and publicly makes anti-American statements on a routine basis. For some reason, he was treated well and allowed to return to the United States with no questions. This may be an example of biased assimilation or the information released to the public may not be the entire story. (McHoskey, 1995).

It is known that there have been three bullets used to assassinate a very famous man known as John F. Kennedy (JFK) and incredibly injure the governor of Texas, John Connally. Only one assassin was put up for that test killed him, and the shot into the governor was a complete accident. Although that may be true, it is the most likely believed, but other theories, such as one of two assassins that had two different tasks, one for the President and one for the governor. That is not what we're here for, though, and we are here to understand something drastic and a very popular conspiracy theory. This certain theory explains how this assassin shot only one bullet into the back of Kennedy's head, out under his nipple and into the governor's back (and he is sitting in the car seat in front of Kennedy). After it hits the governor's back, the bullet locates its way down to the governor's right calf and shot out into his left calf, where it stayed snug in his leg. This is known as the magic bullet theory, or better known, the one bullet theory.

This all started on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, where John Kennedy was

Last Name4 assassinated at 12:30 P.M central time. The assassin was believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy was in an open convertible where he and the governor were shot. But there was a twist, there was only the sound of one shot, and there was no evidence of there being multiple shots. People found it a bit odd that there were no secret service or bodyguard agents in the car with Kennedy at the time. No one knows how this was possible; people say this was a one in a million chance of this single bullet hitting the two of them (Artwohl 1541). To start this research, we will start with information on the questioned assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. He was reported missing to the Dallas police by Roy Truly, his supervisor, was arrested 70 minutes after the assassination for the murder of Dallas police officer, J.D Tippit. According to a witness, Tippit had spotted Oswald walking along a sidewalk in the neighborhood of Oak Cliff, which was three miles from Dealey Plaza (where Kennedy was assassinated). Officer Tippit had earlier received a radio message that described the suspect being seen during the assassination and called Oswald over to the patrol car. Tippit got out of his car, and Oswald shot him four times. This was the major suspicion of Oswald killing Kennedy. Throughout the day, Oswald was then shot on American television by a night club owner who seemed furious with Oswald, soon ending in his death. If he were to have stayed alive, all the conspiracies would not happen because of the interrogation that would've been done ( Artwohl 1542). This is the declaration of which president Kennedy was announced dead. Kennedy was brought to Parkland Hospital's Trauma in Room 1. The staff who treated President Kennedy observed that his condition was a mortal wound, meaning that he had no chance of surviving. Dr. George Burkley, the President's physician, stated that a

Last Name5 gunshot wound to the skull was the cause of death. Dr. Burkley signed President Kennedy's death certificate. Thus announced that President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. There was no police or secret security worker's insight during the time of the assassination. Instead, they were waiting at the Dallas Trade Market, awaiting his arrival. The Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency to channel one was used for routine police communications. A second channel, for channel two, was an auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the President's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of the current police chief saying its announcements of the locations through Dallas's streets.

The next research developed was with the FBI, which was the first authority to complete an investigation. On December 9, 1963, the FBI issued a report and gave it to Warren. The FBI stated that three bullets were fired during the Kennedy assassination. The Warren agreed with the FBI investigation that three shots were fired and disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit Kennedy and hit Governor Connally. The FBI report said that the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit President Kennedy in the head, killing him. Although Warren had found that two of the three shots missed, only one of the shots hit President Kennedy in the head, killing him, and then struck Governor Connally.

This is all information provided by the people in the stories themselves. To summarize

Last Name6 these brilliant stories, Oswald was questioned by Tippit, then minutes later, Tippit was killed by Oswald, proving Oswald to be the assassin. President Kennedy was pronounced dead at the Parkland Hospital at 1 p.m when his doctor, Dr. Burkley, signed his death note. There were oddly no police and secret service workers with him at the time of the disaster. The police only found this out during transmission on one of the two police channels on the radio. The FBI assigned the warden to find out the background and investigate Kennedy's assassination. Finding out there were three bullets fired, but only one hit but hit bother Kennedy and Connally. All leading up to the conclusion that there were only three bullets fired but only one hitting. This provides the fact that the conspiracy's better name would be the "magic bullet theory," rather than the one bullet theory (Willman 422). This also proves that this conspiracy theory was, in fact, true.

While continuing my research, I have to note that I was quite amazed at the number of theories there are surrounding the events on November 22, 1963. I have read multiple theories, including Oswald acting under orders from the CIA, military leaders ordering the assassination due to Kennedy's intent to withdraw troops from the Vietnam conflict, a professional hit paid for by the mafia in retaliation for Kennedy's policies, and investigations of union leaders, an accidental shooting by a secret service agent in the follow up car. The most farfetched conspiracy I read about a small group of people who believe that Kennedy did not die; he staged his death, underwent plastic surgery, and even served another term as President under his new identity, Jimmy Carter. In reading through many of these theories and reviewing the evidence supporting or debunking them, I found some of them completely reasonable and plausible, while others were more farfetched (Willman 405).

Last Name7 The involvement of multiple conspirators is a definite possibility from what I have read. Whether there is involvement in the planning of the assassination, the actual execution, or the cover-up following the assassination, multiple people, and potentially multiple agencies or groups by definition, it is a conspiracy. The execution of a leader, in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of witnesses took precise timing, planning, and precautions and multiple cover stories in order for the plot to be successful. Each source that I reviewed stated that there were entirely too many coincidences for the events that happened that day to be the act of a lone gunman. Someone knew either what was about to happen or knew more than they admitted when interviewed afterward during the investigation.

I believe that there was a conspiracy surrounding the death of President John F. Kennedy. I also believe, after reviewing pages and pages of evidence, witness statements, and opinions, that Oswald was not the only gunman. Unfortunately, I am still not sure who was responsible or what the actual motive was. During my research, I found the conspiracy regarding CIA involvement to be the most likely but have not ruled out others' possible involvement. The consensus among the sources I reviewed stated that there were multiple possibilities as to who was involved, and I find that completely believable. Unfortunately, we may never know the truth surrounding what happened that day, and the mystery will never be solved. Most of the key players involved have either passed away or have been discredited by government officials as unreliable. This makes it extremely difficult to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was indeed a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy.

Last Name8

Work Cited Artwohl, Robert R. "JFK's Assassination: Conspiracy, Forensic Science, and Common Sense." JAMA 269.12 (1993): 1540-1543. Douglas, Karen M., Robbie M. Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka. "The psychology of conspiracy theories." Current directions in psychological science 26.6 (2017): 538-542. Hofstadter, Richard. The paranoid style in American politics. Vintage, 2012. Willman, Skip. "Traversing the Fantasies of the JFK Assassination: Conspiracy and Contingency in Don Delillo's" Libra." Contemporary Literature 39.3 (1998): 405-433....