The streets were packed, a lovely flurry of colour, cheerful faces and waving flags. The rain that had persisted throughout the last couple of days had stopped and the sun was shining brightly on this beautiful Friday morning. People were rushing, parents pulling their children with them, everyone hoping to catch sight of the much adored couple. Even a small glimpse would be a cherished memory to be treasured forever. Especially today…
They say that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when John Kennedy was killed. His sudden death had a tremendous impact on the USA and, indeed, the rest of the world. A great man was gone.
Throughout the years, however, many have speculated on his assassination – that it was not as clear cut as it was meant to be portrayed. If truth be told, when the entire event is carefully examined, it’s quite literally full of holes.
The more I started to dig, the more it looked to me like it had to have been an inside job. Perhaps President Kennedy was making waves, ruffling the wrong feathers and it may have been decided, at a high level, that he had to go. Making someone like Lee Harvey Oswald the fall guy seems like the natural choice.
Apparently, straight after the shooting, people were speculating that the assassination was part of a much bigger ploy. One of the first to bite the bullet, ironically, was Mark Lane with his controversial article “Defense Brief for Oswald” on the 19th December 1963, closely followed by author Thomas Buchanan with his book “Who Killed Kennedy?” published in May 1964.
In 1964, the Warren Commission, established by President Johnson one week after the shooting to investigate the assassination, came to the conclusion that there had been no conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, and that Oswald had planned the whole thing on his own.
There were other significant supporters of the Warren Commission theory – people like the Ramsey Clark Panel and, curiously, the Rockefeller Commission (one wonders what they may have had to gain by the President’s death).
In 1979, the United States House of Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) also concurred with the Warren Commission regarding the Oswald lone shooter theory, but they reckoned that the preliminary FBI investigation was severely flawed. However, after the HSCA discovered that a minimum of four shots had been discharged and that it was extremely likely that at least two shooters had fired at the President, they determined that it might have been a conspiracy after all.
Michael Benson, author of “The Encyclopedia of the JFK Assassination”, claimed that the Warren Commission based their investigation exclusively on information supplied by the FBI, which may have suited their objective to give the official nod on the lone gunman theory and close the case.
Astoundingly, a most unlikely person also firmly believes the President’s assassination was part of a conspiracy – his nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother (whose ‘cut-and-dried’ assassination might have been cloaking a rather more sinister objective).
Initially, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination looked like a clear-cut case; Sirhan Sirhan appeared to have acted alone, on a personal quest of rage against Robert Kennedy.
And, after having been analysed by psychiatrists, Sirhan was found to be very receptive to hypnosis. Apparently, he possessed a notebook where investigators found significant phrases like “RFK must die” and “Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68”. Curiously, Sirhan, a US citizen since the age of 12, was actually perplexed and fervently insisted that he knew nothing of the writings in the notebook. This has influenced many into believing that Sirhan may have been a true-to-life Manchurian Candidate.
For a very interesting and detailed article on Robert Kennedy’s assassination, click on this link.
After John Kennedy’s shooting, rumours of witness intimidation surfaced. In his book “Why the JFK Assassination Still Matters”, Richard Buyer wrote that many witnesses, whose testimonies indicated a conspiracy, were either ignored or intimidated by the Warren Commission.
And in 1992, Bill Sloan wrote a biography of Jean Hill, a key witness in the JFK shooting. In this book, “JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness”, the author explained that the Warren Commission assistant, Arlen Specter, endeavoured to humiliate, discredit and intimidate Jean Hill into altering her statement. Even more shockingly, it appears that Jean Hill was maltreated by Secret Service agents, hounded by the FBI and even received death threats!
In a subsequent book by Bill Sloan, “JFK: Breaking the Silence”, he mentions a further number of eyewitnesses who claimed that the Warren Commission interviewers constantly interrupted or stopped any attestation which might throw doubt on the report that Oswald had acted alone.
Unbelievably, still more witnesses were bullied or harassed. “Crossfire” is a book written by Jim Marrs, in which he brings to light the testimonies of these people – people like Richard Carr, Acquilla Clemmons, Sandy Speaker and A.J. Millican, all purported to have been subjected to intimidation from FBI agents and even anonymous individuals. They were told to either change or withhold what they knew.
Texas School Depository employee Joe Molina was threatened by authorities. He lost his job shortly after the assassination. And witness Ed Hoffman was threatened by an FBI agent; he was informed that he “might get killed” if he disclosed what he saw in Dealey Plaza on the day of the shooting.
The opening of this dreadful rabbit hole is appalling enough but, unfortunately, the witch hunt against these poor witnesses didn’t end at just intimidation.
There were also a substantial number of suspicious deaths and they were brought to light by various sources – like journalist Penn Jones Jr., Ramparts magazine and several newspapers.
Jim Koethe
He was allowed to inspect Ruby’s apartment, with another reporter, the night after Ruby shot Oswald. His affiliation with Ruby’s lawyers made this possible. However, on the 21st September 1964, he was killed by an ‘intruder’ with a “karate chop on the neck”.
Bill Hunter
Hunter was another reporter that accompanied Jim Koethe to Ruby’s apartment. His death, on the 23rd April 1964, was ruled accidental when a police officer shot him at a police station.
William Whaley
This chap was the taxi driver who transported Oswald away from the murder scene. In December 1965, he was killed in a car accident when a vehicle crashed into his cab. Penn Jones Jr. found it rather peculiar as, apparently, this was the “first Dallas cab driver to die on duty since 1937”.
Tom Howard
According to Penn Jones Jr., this was Ruby’s lead lawyer. Tom Howard went to Ruby’s apartment with Koethe and Hunter. In March 1965, he died of a heart attack at only 48; but, it appears he had been behaving oddly for some days, and he had trouble recognising his friends. Not surprisingly, they failed to carry out an autopsy.
Lee Bowers
In August 1966, Lee Bowers died when his car smashed into a bridge support. This man was yet another witness; he had been in a railway interlocking tower overlooking Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was shot.
Hank Killam
His wife had been a cigarette girl/dancer at Ruby’s nightclub. He later moved to Florida. One night in March 1964, he received a mysterious phone call at 4:00 am, after which he entered a building in downtown Pensacola and threw himself out of a first floor window. They found him fatally wounded from cuts to his throat and surrounded by broken glass. What did this guy know?
Edward Benavides
His brother, Domingo Benavides, witnessed the attack on J.D. Tippit (the policeman that was shot during the President’s assassination). He radioed for assistance from Tippit’s car. Yet, it was Edward who got shot in the head in a bar in February 1965. It looks like he was the intended victim as no one else was harmed; like a mob-style execution. Penn Jones Jr. reckoned it was a case of mistaken identity and that his brother Domingo, the witness, was the actual target.
Nancy Jane Mooney
Nancy (alias Betty McDonald) was arrested in February 1964 after a quarrel with her flatmate. She worked as a stripper at Jack Ruby’s club. Whilst in her cell in Dallas, she allegedly hanged herself. The connection? Wait, the plot thickens. Mooney had supplied an alibi for none other than the gunman implicated in the shooting of Warren Reynolds, who, in turn, had been shot in the head in January 1964 after giving a witness statement to the FBI about the shooting of Police Officer Tippit!
Looking at the above statistics, it’s quite clear that key people were systematically being silenced. No stone was left unturned and no end was left untied. Sobering thought…
However, the most convincing suspicious witness death has to be that of Dorothy Kilgallen. Between 1964 and 1965, this intrepid journalist publicly contradicted the official account of President Kennedy’s assassination and Ruby’s shooting of Oswald. She wrote various newspaper articles and short items in her daily column, clearly expressing her scepticism.
There were rumours that she had a second rendezvous with Ruby a few days later, but it was never confirmed.
In any case, Kilgallen must have pushed too many buttons as she died just over a year later after making a very dangerous statement. Her last article about the Kennedy assassination, published on the 3rd September 1965, finished with these words:- “That story isn’t going to die as long as there’s a real reporter alive – and there are a lot of them alive.
If you ask me, she signed her own death warrant. On the 8th November 1965, the journalist was found dead in her Manhattan townhouse, after a fatal cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates, it was reported.
Regardless of whatever the official records say, there is one very important fact that sticks out like a sore thumb. Let’s consider that all the planning of the President’s trip to Dallas, including the specific route that the motorcade would take, was all top secret and internal.
The intended route, with any changes, would be made public on the day. Then how on earth would a simple citizen like Oswald know that the planned route would be diverted to a side road that would take the motorcade past Dealey Plaza? This diversion was, apparently, impromptu.
The original route would have taken the President and all his entourage directly down Main Street and not through Houston and Elm street. To further reinforce their case, the Warren Commission stated that it was impossible to go on Main Street and onto Stemmons freeway, presenting this as proof that Oswald could have learnt this information in advance and, therefore, prepared for it.
Therefore, there is no logic to the story that Oswald planned well in advance. An assassination attempt at that level would require months of intricate planning. It would have been more credible if Oswald had positioned himself at a strategic vantage point on Main Street; but for all intents and purposes, he was at the wrong place!
The fact that Oswald was a former US Marine and was used to following orders unquestioningly, made him a perfect fall guy. In my opinion, they must have chosen him for this ‘special mission’ and fed him a load of hogwash about giving him a new identity, a new life. It somehow correlates with the evidence that Oswald left a ring (which he never took off) and a goodbye note for his wife. He knew he was not coming back, no matter what the outcome was.
At the end of the day, I guess we shall never know the absolute truth for certain.
But allow me to leave you with some food for thought. Let’s assume that the Warren Commission’s report is actually true and Oswald did, in fact, shoot President Kennedy. Taking into consideration that it had been raining since the President arrived in Dallas,how was Oswald to know, well in advance, that it would not rain that day and that the top of the Lincoln limousine would be down, giving him a clear shot?
“There will be great presidents again but there will never be another Camelot.”
Jackie Kennedy
.png)