President's Day is right around the corner and I thought it would be a good idea to write a post about a mystery surrounding a president. I then thought "what the heck, I'll do a three-part post to lead into President's Day". There are many mysteries surrounding many presidents, but I have chosen for the first post one that has been a mystery and a topic of controversy for over fifty years, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.
On November 22nd, 1963, the 35th president of the United States was assassinated in Dallas Texas. Officially three shots were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald. The first shot he fired missed, the second hit the president in the neck and went through the seat hitting Governor Connelly, and the third and final shot entered the president's head and proved to be the fatal bullet.
President Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, but the damage was too extensive and he succumbed to his wounds. For a few days, Lee Harvey Oswald was on the run and was stopped by a police officer that was subsequently murdered by Oswald in his attempt to escape. Oswald was arrested and sentenced to death row, but was later killed in prison, never to fulfill his sentence. Seems like a pretty cut and dried recollection of what happened on that fateful November day in 1963, or is it?
President Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, but the damage was too extensive and he succumbed to his wounds. For a few days, Lee Harvey Oswald was on the run and was stopped by a police officer that was subsequently murdered by Oswald in his attempt to escape. Oswald was arrested and sentenced to death row, but was later killed in prison, never to fulfill his sentence. Seems like a pretty cut and dried recollection of what happened on that fateful November day in 1963, or is it?
Immediately after JFK's death, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson took over the Oval Office and subsequently commissioned Chief Justice Earl Warren to create a committee to go over all the evidence in the assassination.
Earl Warren created the Warren Commission which is still in existence today and was responsible for the investigations into 9/11. From its inception in 1963, the Warren Commission went through all the evidence, talked with witnesses and listened to testimony before rendering its verdict in September of 1964. It was a lightning fast deliberation taking less than a year to definitively say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and was the lone shooter of JFK.
Not long after this finding by the Warren Commission, there were opinions and speculations put out by many Americans. While the Warren Commission had said about Oswald, he had "resentment of all authority" and "antagonism of the United States", those who had been interviewed told a different story.
The Warren Commission further speculated that Oswald had a troubled psyche leading him to the action of assassinating the president. In reality, no one had ever heard Oswald criticizing Kennedy and some reported when interviewed by the Warren Commission that Oswald had actually praised Kennedy. The Warren Commission further speculated that he had shot the president because of his "inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people".
This is not surprising however, due to the fact that from its inception, the Warren Commission was under intense pressure to calm the public hysteria. In fact, a major player in the findings, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach had written a memo after Oswald's death, "we need to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort".
Immediately after the Warren Commissions report, upwards of 25% of the American public thought there was more to the story, or that there was a conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy. Now, over fifty years later, upwards of 62% of Americans thinks there was a conspiracy in President Kennedy's death.
The major consensus of these 62% is that they don't believe the single shooter theory. Even some very powerful people have had doubts such as John Kerry who was quoted that he had "serious doubts" about the Warren Commission findings. President Lyndon B. Johnson who actually instated the Warren Commission said in 1969, "I can't honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections".
In 1971, President Johnson told Walter Cronkite that "Oswald was a mysterious fellow", and "I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger". Even some of Kennedy's family had privately doubted that Oswald had acted alone.
This has been a conspiracy theory that has played in people's minds for years and has been the topic of many works of fiction from books to movies. A great book that I have read that adds alternative theories with great story telling is The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter. I highly recommend reading this book if you like action and suspense with a true historic background. It is well researched and well written.
Earl Warren created the Warren Commission which is still in existence today and was responsible for the investigations into 9/11. From its inception in 1963, the Warren Commission went through all the evidence, talked with witnesses and listened to testimony before rendering its verdict in September of 1964. It was a lightning fast deliberation taking less than a year to definitively say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and was the lone shooter of JFK.
Not long after this finding by the Warren Commission, there were opinions and speculations put out by many Americans. While the Warren Commission had said about Oswald, he had "resentment of all authority" and "antagonism of the United States", those who had been interviewed told a different story.
The Warren Commission further speculated that Oswald had a troubled psyche leading him to the action of assassinating the president. In reality, no one had ever heard Oswald criticizing Kennedy and some reported when interviewed by the Warren Commission that Oswald had actually praised Kennedy. The Warren Commission further speculated that he had shot the president because of his "inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people".
This is not surprising however, due to the fact that from its inception, the Warren Commission was under intense pressure to calm the public hysteria. In fact, a major player in the findings, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach had written a memo after Oswald's death, "we need to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort".
Immediately after the Warren Commissions report, upwards of 25% of the American public thought there was more to the story, or that there was a conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy. Now, over fifty years later, upwards of 62% of Americans thinks there was a conspiracy in President Kennedy's death.
The major consensus of these 62% is that they don't believe the single shooter theory. Even some very powerful people have had doubts such as John Kerry who was quoted that he had "serious doubts" about the Warren Commission findings. President Lyndon B. Johnson who actually instated the Warren Commission said in 1969, "I can't honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections".
In 1971, President Johnson told Walter Cronkite that "Oswald was a mysterious fellow", and "I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger". Even some of Kennedy's family had privately doubted that Oswald had acted alone.
This has been a conspiracy theory that has played in people's minds for years and has been the topic of many works of fiction from books to movies. A great book that I have read that adds alternative theories with great story telling is The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter. I highly recommend reading this book if you like action and suspense with a true historic background. It is well researched and well written.
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| Image taken from www.goodreads.com |
Some of you reading may have been alive and remember this truly tragic day, and others of us have only read about it in history books, but nonetheless the mystery still remains. What do you think? Was it only Lee Harvey Oswald or was there a deeper conspiracy that led to the death of President Kennedy? That is why it goes down in the annals of History's Mysteries.
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