Ten JFK Assassination “Conspiracy Facts”

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, suspicions persist about the assassination of President Kennedy because much evidence points to a conspiracy and to a government effort to cover it up. Here are ten “conspiracy facts” that lead many observers to doubt the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald alone, firing from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, and that there was no evidence “of conspiracy, subversion, or disloyalty to the US government by any Federal, State, or local official" (p. 22 of the Warren Commission Report). All of the following facts are discussed and documented in Conspiracy Theory in America.

1 

The bullet holes in the President’s shirt indicate that he was shot from the front. The lone-gunman hypothesis is contradicted by the locations of the holes in Kennedy’s shirt from the first bullet that hit him. The Warren Commission report (page 92) says that the hole in the front of the president’s shirt is less than 1 inch below the collar button, while the hole in the shirt’s back is 5 and 3/4 inches below the top of the collar. This means that the hole in back is lower than the hole in front. However, if Kennedy had been shot in the back from six floors up, the bullet’s trajectory would have been downward, and the hole in the back of his shirt would have been higher than the hole in front. The location of the holes suggests that the first shot to hit Kennedy came from a location in front of him and slightly above street level.

2 

The location and immediate consequences of President’s Kennedy’s assassination cast suspicion on Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy was killed while touring the home state of the vice president, who became president upon Kennedy’s death. In any murder investigation, the first question is: Who benefitted? Suspects are identified on this basis, and then their statements and actions in relation to the crime are scrutinized. The government failed to pursue this, the most obvious line of inquiry, at least in part because Johnson had much control over the investigation. Within a week of the assassination, he selected and appointed the members of the Warren Commission, which included, among other Johnson friends, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency who had been fired by Kennedy after the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation.

3

Vice President Johnson had a strong motive to want Kennedy dead. It was rumored that Johnson was going to be dropped from the president’s ticket in Kennedy’s upcoming bid for reelection. The morning of the assassination, this rumor appeared on the front page of the Dallas newspaper. It came from none other than former vice president Richard Nixon, who happened to be in town on business and had been interviewed by the newspaper the day before. One reason for thinking Kennedy might be considering other running mates was that an ongoing Senate investigation had linked Johnson to a bribery scandal centered on Senate Majority Secretary Bobby Baker. in January 1964, two months after the assassination, Johnson admitted he had accepted an expensive phonograph from Baker, and he acknowledged wrongdoing to Congress, which, no longer wanting to pursue the case against him now that he was president, ended further inquiry into Johnson’s role.

Publisher's Weekly :: Conspiracy Theory in America

Conspiracy Theory in America

by Lance deHaven-Smith

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Publisher's Weekly reviewed Lance deHaven Smith's forthcoming book Conspiracy Theory in America:

DeHaven-Smith (The Hidden Teachings of Jesus) offers an intriguing take on the origins and implications of conspiracy theories and the paranoid mindset itself in this accessible academic study. The author, a professor of public administration and policy at Florida State University, provocatively argues that conspiracy theories, far from being merely the stuff of outlier fantasy, have played a major role in the formation of U.S. history; the Founding Fathers, he insists, developed a kind of protoconspiracy theory as a means to justify revolution, citing the abuses of King George as "proof he was plotting to subject the colonies to ‘an absolute tyranny.’” And of course no talk of conspiracy theories would be complete without mention of the J.F.K. assassination. Indeed, DeHaven-Smith shows that it was in the aftermath of the killing that the phrase “conspiracy theory” entered American parlance, a phenomenon he chalks up to government efforts to discredit skeptics of the Warren Commission’s findings (which scheme he dubs “the Conspiracy-Theory Conspiracy”). DeHaven-Smith ultimately suggests that we “apply the same forensic protocols to elite crimes” (i.e. crimes involving political figures and celebrities) as are used in solving “ordinary cases” involving citizens. Confronted with these compelling arguments, even the most incredulous readers will find themselves questioning their own preconceived notions of paranoia, governmental transparency, and conspiracy theorists. ―Publisher’s Weekly

Read the full review at publishersweekly.com>>