The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

die.

The Mob killed Kennedy: ALERT LEVEL 6

There is no shortage of other possible culprits. The Freemasons (antipathetic to JFK’s Catholicism), Jackie Kennedy (embarrassed and shamed by her husband’s affairs), Richard Nixon (desiring revenge for his defeat in the 1960 presidential election) and the Israelis (in anger at JFK’s use of Nazi scientists in his nuclear programme and his opposition to theirs) have all had their 15 minutes of infamy as the suspected sponsors of the hit. A remarkable number—more than 30—hoodlums, policemen and government agents have all stepped into the limelight to claim that they pulled the trigger on 22 November 1963, and for a while the diary entry of Dallas policeman Roscoe White, in which he detailed the murder, had many convinced— until it was proven to be a forgery. Around 2,000 books have been published on the JFK assassination and, just when everyone thought it was safe to say JFK was murdered by a conspiracy, there has been a recent tendency to support the Warren Commission’s “lone gunman” theory, headed by Gerald Posner’s Case Closed (1994) and Mark Furhman’s A Simple Act of Murder (2006). Oswald, an ex-Marine, was a good shot, the cavalcade was moving slowly, and a single bullet might have hit both JFK and Governor Connally, meaning that Oswald had to fire only two shots in the timeframe, not three.

The arguments of the “anti-conspirators” fall on stony ground. An ABC News poll in 2003 found that 70 per cent of American respondents “suspect a plot” in the assassination of President Kennedy. Jack Leon Ruby is the weak link in the anti-conspiracy case. Why did Ruby step out of the crowd and gun down Oswald? Because he was so morally or politically outraged by Oswald’s murder of JFK that he had to take revenge? Ruby was a hood of no fixed moral views, so: no. For the fame of it? Possibly, but the HSCA found no evidence that 56-year-old Ruby was psychologically flawed to the degree that he wished to make his mark in history as a shootist. And, when Ruby informed the Warren Commission that he would “come clean”, what was he about to divulge? On balance, it must be assumed that Ruby stepped forward with his gun because he was either paid or pressurized by others to silence Oswald permanently. If someone needed to silence Lee Harvey Oswald, then there was a conspiracy.

The whos and whys of the conspiracy may never be known. In all likelihood, the conspiracy was small- scale, not institutional, and was created in the murky backrooms of the anti-Castro exiles in New Orleans, which maverick CIA agents and the Mob also frequented. This is the thrust of the 1991 Oliver Stone movie JFK—based on Jim Garrison’s investigation—and of the HSCA report.

JFK was killed by a conspiracy, not a “lone gunman”: ALERT LEVEL 7

Further Reading

Mark Fuhrman, A Simple Act of Murder, 2006

Barr McClellan, Blood, Money and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, 2003

Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, 1989

Mark North, Act of Treason, 1991

Gerald Posner, Case Closed, 1994

Robin Ramsay, Who Shot JFK?, 2000

Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas—Watergate Connection, 1977

DOCUMENT: Extracts from the Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the US House of Representatives

2. 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 gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

The Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

[…]

Based on the evidence available to it, the committee could not preclude the possibility that individual members of anti-Castro Cuban groups or the national syndicate of organized crime were involved in the assassination. There was insufficient evidence, however, to support a finding that any individual members were involved. The ramifications of a conspiracy involving such individuals would be significant, although of perhaps less import than would be the case if a group itself—the national syndicate, for example—had been involved.

The committee recognized that a finding that two gunmen fired simultaneously at the President did not, by itself, establish that there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President. It is theoretically possible that the gunmen were acting independently, each totally unaware of the other. It was the committee’s opinion, however, that such a theoretical possibility is extremely remote. The more logical and probable inference to be drawn from two gunmen firing at the same person at the same time and in the same place is that they were acting in concert, that is, as a result of a conspiracy.

The committee found that, to be precise and loyal to the facts it established, it was compelled to find that President Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. The committee’s finding that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy was premised on four factors:

1) Since the Warren Commission’s and FBI’s investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given independent weight.

2) The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.

3) While it cannot be inferred from the significant associations of Oswald and Ruby that any of the major groups examined by the committee were involved in the assassination, a more limited conspiracy could not be ruled out.

4) There was a high probability that a second gunman fired at the President. At the same time, the committee candidly stated, in expressing its finding of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, that it was “unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.”

The photographic and other scientific evidence available to the committee was insufficient to permit the committee to answer these questions. In addition, the committee’s other investigative efforts did not develop evidence from which Oswald’s conspirator or conspirators could be firmly identified. It is possible, of course, that the extent of the conspiracy was so limited that it involved only Oswald and the second gunman. The committee was not able to reach such a conclusion, for it would have been based on speculation, not evidence. Aspects of the investigation did suggest that the conspiracy may have been relatively limited, but to state with precision exactly how small was not possible. Other aspects of the committee’s investigation did suggest, however, that while the conspiracy may not have involved a major group, it may not have been limited to only two people. […]

If the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was limited to Oswald and a second gunman, its main societal significance may be in the realization that agencies of the US Government inadequately investigated the possibility of such a conspiracy. In terms of its implications for government and society, an assassination as a consequence of a conspiracy composed solely of Oswald and a small number of persons, possibly only one, and possibly a person akin to Oswald in temperament and ideology, would not have been fundamentally different from an assassination by Oswald alone. […]