The Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories

The assassination of John F. Kennedy is one of the most controversial and debated topics in American History. JFK was one of the most beloved presidents of our time. One article of his death wrote, "The day the country cried". Unlike previous presidential assassinations, the JFK assassination is one that is filled the conspiracy theories. Such theories include a Government cover-up, Mafia influence and Cuban President Fidel Castro. The idea of a lone mind, Lee Harvey Oswald, plotting to kill President Kennedy is too simple. In the eyes of scholars there is simply no way that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Even with the growing number of bogus theories, there are a number of logical theories that do hold water. In this paper I will discuss a couple of the conspiracy theories that are published for the public to read.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 while riding through the streets of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Many people now believe that his murder was a result of a conspiracy. Based on acoustical evidence, it has been scientifically proven, with 96.3% certainty that there were four shots fired from two different shooters. Many people believe that there was no possible way that Oswald had the time to fire all four shots, therefore there must have been a second shooter, right? Theorists who support the fact that Oswald acted alone like to question several ideas supported by these conspiracy theorists. To look at it more in depth you have to look at it in three different directions.

The first way to look at it is through the assumption that there were, with 96.3% certainty, two shooters, one in the Texas School Book Depository, and a second in a curbside sewer on Elm Street, not on the grassy knoll. This fact in itself is a conspiracy theory. The second is the involvement of Mafia bosses and the CIA. It is said that President Kennedy ordered a meeting between him, the CIA, a group of Cuban exiles and various Mafia bosses to devise a plan to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. Kennedy believed he could assassinate Castro utilizing CIA/Mafia resources along with the Cuban exiles. However Castro found out about the plot, apparently through one of the Mafia bosses who was a Cuban sympathizer, Carlos Trafficante, and redirected it back at Kennedy. Another one of the mafia bosses also wanted to get back at Kennedy. Kennedy had won the presidential election with the mafia's help, and still his brother Robert, Attorney General at the time, was publicly prosecuting these same bosses as an effort to put down organized crime. It is believed that Trafficante redirected the Cuban exiles to accompany Oswald in Dallas. The third is the amount of government cover-ups that arose from the assassination. One year earlier Kennedy had made a secret pack with Russia that he would not interfere with the Cuban government. But Kennedy broke this pack by plotting to assassinate Castro. It was believed that if Castro was assassinated then Russia would have retaliated with nuclear weapons. Therefore Kennedy had to be eliminated so that this would not have happened. His death virtually eliminated the threat of Soviet retaliation against the U.S. for his plot to remove Castro using Mafia resources. The murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby plays into this theory that the government was somehow involved. Why would Jack Ruby kill Oswald? I believe that Ruby killed Oswald so that he would not leak to the public that the assassination was a conspiracy. How would the American people take it? Our president was killed by our own government. The implications could be disastrous