"The Suspicious Assassination of JFK" is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on September 29, 2017. It was the tenth episode of the second season of BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime, and the thirty-ninth episode overall. You can find it here.
Description[]
Season finale. The unexplained death of a president.
Background[]
On Friday, November 22nd, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was publicly assassinated while sitting in a car in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was struck by two bullets, with the second being a fatal headshot. Governor John B. Connally Jr., who was in the car with JFK, was also hit in the shooting, but survived. Officially, there were three bullets fired by the gunman. The horrifying act was caught on film by a man named Abraham Zapruder with his eight-millimeter film camera. The film, now referred to as the Zapruder film, would later go on to be integral into the investigation as it allowed for frame-by-frame analysis. The shooting occurred from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository, a building along the motorcade route. The official ruling was that the gunman was a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days after the assassination, Oswald was killed by a man named Jack Ruby at the Dallas Police Department. In fact, that shooting was broadcast on live television.
Returning to JFK, there are many who have criticized the motorcade route, believing it to have an unusual amount of turns, which would have caused the motorcade to have to slow down. The route was chosen by Secret Service agents, Winston G. Lawson and Forrest V. Sorrels. Secret Servicemen sent in advance to check out the route noted that there were over 20,000 windows overlooking the route. But since they didn't have enough men to station at every window, they opted to inspect none of the windows along the route.
One week after the assassination, newly sworn-in President and former Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, created a commission to investigate the circumstances of the JFK assassination and subsequent killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. This commission was to be headed by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and staffed with other esteemed officials, And while the official findings of the commission believes there was only one shooter, it does have one thing in common with numerous conspiracy theories, that the shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald.
The main theory is the official ruling by the Warren Commission, that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK alone, with no conspiracy involved. Oswald had been in Russia in 1959 and had tried to renounce his American citizenship. Oswald had a history of violence from a young age. He once chased a half-brother with a knife. And while in the Marine Corps, where he spent three years, he became qualified as a sharpshooter with the M-1 rifle. Oswald, a Dallas resident, was actually under active surveillance by the FBI office in Dallas. However, the local FBI strangely did not inform the Secret Service about Oswald. This is especially shocking considering the fact that Oswald was employed at the Texas School Book Depository, a location right along the motorcade route, from where Oswald would eventually fire the fatal shots from the southeast corner of the sixth floor window. However, to be fair, the Secret Service did not inform the local FBI office of the motorcade route either.
Here are direct quotes from the Warren Commission in regards to evidence proving Oswald was the shooter. "The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle from which the shots were fired was owned by and in the possession of Oswald." This was determined due to the fact that there was a nearly whole bullet recovered from Governor Connally's stretcher, and two bullet fragments in the car that matched that rifle. "To the exclusion of all other weapons." The rifle was found hidden near the sixth floor window, as well as three bullet cartridges matching the three shots heard. Continuing with the commission's evidence, "Oswald had attempted to kill Major General Edwin A. Walker on April 10th, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition to take human life."
Furthermore, Oswald unquestionably also killed Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit with a revolver approximately 45 minutes after the assassination. This is backed up by eyewitness testimony and also due to the cartridge cases found at the scene belonging to a revolver on Oswald at the time of his arrest, among other things as well.
With all that in mind, it seems pretty clear that Oswald was the shooter. However, many have wondered if Oswald acted alone. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, we may never know for sure. And while it should be noted that the Warren Commission found no evidence that Ruby or Oswald were part of a conspiracy to kill the President, it's natural to wonder if Ruby may have killed Oswald to keep him quiet. The Warren Commission also found, "No evidence that Oswald was involved with any person or group in a conspiracy to assassinate the President."
The Warren Commission was firm in their belief that Oswald was the sole shooter. To examine that, let's take a closer look at the scene of the crime, and more specifically, the bullets fired. The Warren Commission believes that there were only three bullets fired with these three subsequent results. The first bullet missed, the second bullet hit JFK in the neck and also hit Governor Connally, and the third bullet was the fatal headshot. The second bullet, in particular, is the most controversial, and that the Warren Commission posits it hit both JFK and Connally. This idea is referred to as the magic bullet theory.
The Commission theorizes that from the sixth floor window, the bullet entered through the back of JFK's neck, exiting downward, then entered through Connolly's right side of his back, exited below his right nipple, then entered and exited through Connolly's right wrist, and, finally, ended in Connolly's left thigh. They even concluded that the nearly full bullet found in Connally's stretcher was this second bullet. However, this magic bullet, as it's often referred to online, has been met with a fair share of skepticism. The main point of contention is that many believe the trajectory from the sixth floor window is impossible. Yet, computer renderings of the event have shown that it is indeed possible when you consider that Governor Connally was sitting on a lower seat than Kennedy, and also when you consider their body positions.
Interestingly, the Warren Commission claims the magic bullet theory is not integral to their theory that Oswald was the sole shooter. However, when you examine the frames of the Zapruder film, it shows that there was not enough time for Oswald to fire two shots within the time span that JFK and Connally were first hit. Basically, if the magic bullet theory isn't true, then there had to be two shooters.
Taking that into consideration, let's attempt to disprove the magic bullet theory. Here is a quote from Governor Connally in a 1966 interview with Life Magazine. "There is my absolute knowledge, and Nellie's too, that one bullet caused the President's first wound, and that an entirely separate shot struck me." As stated before, if this is true, then it had to be two shooters.
Let's also look at the testimony of James T. Tague, a spectator along the motorcade route who claims that a stray bullet hit the sidewalk near him and a fragment of that bullet struck him in the cheek. There was in fact a mark on the sidewalk that, according to the Warren Commission report, "could have originated from the lead core of a bullet." This potential stray bullet is noteworthy because Tague claims this stray bullet was actually the second shot and not the first shot, which is particularly damning to the magic bullet theory, which posits that the magic bullet was the second shot and the missed bullet was the first. So either Tague misinterpreted the situation or there were more than three bullets fired. And if you recall, there was only three cartridges found by Oswald's window in the Texas School Book Depository, so that would suggest more than one shooter.
Furthermore, in the 1970s, a new acoustic research technique was used to analyze the audio of the shooting, which found six points in the audio that could contain echo patterns similar to those of gunfire. This further suggests that there may have been more than one shooter. There's even supposedly footage of the JFK assassination from an angle different than the Zapruder film. This alternate footage reportedly shows a now infamous grassy knoll in the background. People who have seen the footage claim to see anything from puffs of gun smoke or a second shooter located on the grassy knoll. However, this footage has supposedly gone missing.
Cynthia Nix Jackson, the granddaughter of the person who took the film, sued the US government for $10 million in 2015 for the return of the film. Apparently, this film has not been seen since the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This committee, by the way, was formed in 1976 to conduct an investigation into the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. Why it was formed is of particular interest. The House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed after a Senate committee confirmed that the CIA had purposefully withheld information from the Warren Commission investigation. The information withheld involved plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 that scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen had shot at JFK. Also, here's a direct quote from the committee's findings. "The committee believes on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy."
When considering the conclusions of this committee, the acoustic evidence, the testimonies of Connolly and Tague, and the shaky premise of the magic bullet theory, there is evidence to suggest multiple shooters. It seems quite likely that there is more to this story than Lee Harvey Oswald killing the President with no clear motive.
Theories[]
- Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had JFK assassinated for political gain in power.
- Before Kennedy was elected, LBJ had attempted to take the Democratic nomination from JFK at the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. According to the book The Death of a President, LBJ asked the President to continue doing part of his old job as Texas Senator, which basically meant LBJ was bored and emasculated by the showy office of Vice President as opposed to the actual power he had held while being the Majority Leader of the Senate. There were also rumors that LBJ might be dropped from the reelection ticket the following year.
- LBJ and JFK also apparently had words the day before the assassination. LBJ also played a big part in Kennedy going to Dallas in the first place. LBJ no longer had political control of Texas, which was an important swing state necessary for JFK's reelection. As a result, JFK reluctantly went to Dallas to try and solve the Texas political crisis. Texas was LBJ's home turf, and JFK felt LBJ should have had it handled. LBJ's right-hand man had actually been warned by a high-profile Texas lawyer named Byron Skelton that the political climate in Dallas was not safe and that he feared for the President's safety but the President was not informed, though this information was also received by other officials close to JFK, including JFK's brother Robert Kennedy.
- One incident that proponents of this LBJ theory point to involves a woman named Madeleine Brown, who claimed to have an affair with LBJ. Brown claimed that she attended a party with LBJ, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover the night before JFK's assassination. She claimed that LBJ had whispered into her ear, "after tomorrow, those Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That's no threat. That's a promise."
- LBJ was on the Texas trip the night before the assassination, where his movements were heavily documented. Therefore, it's not possible that this exchange with Madeleine Brown happened. Furthermore, while there is evidence that LBJ wasn't happiest as VP, there is nothing to support the theory that he had JFK assassinated. He even helped form the Warren Commission.
- The Russians were behind President Kennedy's assassination. Obviously, there was tension between the two nations with the Cold War.
- Lee Harvey Oswald had tried to defect to the Soviet Union before, and some theorize that he could have been acting as a KGB agent. Oswald was also inexplicably at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City a few weeks before the Kennedy assassination. Though, it's worth mentioning that Oswald would not be a smart option for the Russians to use since he would immediately cast suspicions on Russia due to his well-known Russian ties.
- The mob assassinated Kennedy. Three different mob groups separately claimed that they were responsible for JFK's assassination: the Chicago mob, the Miami mob, and the New Orleans mob.
- As Attorney General, Robert Kennedy had made moves against organized crime possibly, possibly angering them. Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, was a Dallas nightclub owner who some theorize had Mafia connections. Some even believe that the mob was working in collusion with the CIA to carry out the Kennedy hit. In 2015, an imprisoned former Mafia hitman named James Files claimed to have been the second shooter in the assassination, saying he was part of a plot in collaboration between the Mafia and the CIA. However, there's no evidence supporting this.
- Perhaps the most compelling aspect to the mob and CIA theory comes from JFK's supposed ties to Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Syndicate at the time. JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, supposedly worked with Sam Giancana in the bootlegging industry during the Prohibition. There have also been rumors that Giancana and the mob helped JFK win the 1960 election in the first place. JFK and Giancana also reportedly shared a mistress at different times, named Judith Campbell Exner. In fact, in 1975, Giancana was supposed to testify to a Senate committee about his role in a CIA assassination plot when he himself was assassinated. It makes you wonder if someone was trying to keep him quiet.
- The CIA was ultimately behind the assassination of JFK. Allen Dulles, the former head of the CIA, was actually on the Warren Commission, and, as mentioned before, the CIA withheld information from that commission. The CIA now refers to this as a, "Benign coverup."
- There are plenty of wild theories out there for possible motives for the CIA assassinating Kennedy. Some feel that JFK may have found out that the CIA had a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, and the CIA felt threatened that Kennedy might have a different agenda or even disband them, so they plotted to assassinate him.
- Forensic historian Patrick Nolan wrote a book entitled CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys, in which he theorizes that four high-level agents not only planned the shooting, but three of them fired four shots during the assassination. People also feel that the CIA could have picked Oswald to carry out the hit, as he was a known communist and Russian sympathizer. Another possible CIA motive was that, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion into Cuba, the CIA underwent personnel changes at the hand of Kennedy, which may have upset them.
- Also during that Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy refused to offer additional US military support despite the CIA offering an umbrella of air protection. The explicit use of the word umbrella unlocks one controversial wrinkle to this CIA theory. This wrinkle, which is popular in conspiracy circles, is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted with a potential CIA operative, referred to as the Umbrella Man.
- In the Zapruder film and other photos taken at the time of the shooting, you can see one lone man holding an open umbrella above his head. At a glance, this may seem fairly innocuous, but there are two things that make it unusual. The first is that it wasn't raining, and despite it raining in Dallas the night before, nobody in the crowd, as far as pictures and media can tell, had an umbrella. The second and more dubious occurrence is the fact that Kennedy is struck by the first bullet at the moment his car passes in front of this umbrella man. Also in that moment, some believe that the Umbrella Man appears to lift his umbrella a foot or so. Both of these things in conjunction have led some to believe that the umbrella was a signal to another gunman, or that the umbrella itself was a spy-like weapon that could fire darts, perhaps explaining the slight hole in JFK's neck.
- As outlandish as this may seem, a Department of Defense weapons developer named Charles Senseney incredibly testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that a form of this wacky umbrella weapon exists because he designed it. Senseney described an umbrella-like weapon that could silently fire darts. One JFK book author named Jim Marrs also claimed that these darts were fired through the umbrellas webbing when opened. Furthermore, there are pictures that show the umbrella closed before and after the assassination. But during the assassination, the umbrella was clearly open as Kennedy passed the Umbrella Man.
- Also suspicious is the fact that, after the shooting, while other spectators fled the scene, this Umbrella Man, along with another man, sat down next to each other on the curb, seemingly undisturbed. However, a possible explanation came from the purported Umbrella Man himself. This man was a man named Louie Steven Witt, who came forward to the Senate committee to testify, even bringing the umbrella along with him. He claimed that the umbrella was a symbol of protest to JFK's father Joseph Kennedy. Witt was not a fan of Joseph Kennedy's appeasement policies when Joseph was ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1938 to 1939. So, as a symbol of protest, Witt used an umbrella, a reference to the signature accessory of Neville Chamberlain, who promoted appeasement as Prime Minister of England. Witt also explains that he only opened the umbrella when he believed Kennedy could see it. And as odd as this may seem, throughout history, many people, both in England and America, have used umbrellas as a symbol of protest. Even the paranoid former President Nixon banned his aides from having umbrellas when he was Vice President to Eisenhower for fear of having a visual link to the unpopular policy of appeasement.
- The supposed Umbrella Man, Witt, also claimed that the umbrella blocked his view of Kennedy being assassinated, thus explaining his apparent state of calm, or shock, as he described it, as he sat on the curb after the shooting. but some have claimed this isn't proven in the footage Perhaps Louis Stephen Witt is in fact the umbrella man and this is all a misunderstanding or perhaps Witt is a puppet for the CIA to cover its tracks. Nobody can say definitively which is true.