The theory of multiple assassins in Dallas on November 22nd continues fifty years later. At the heart of history, Dealey Plaza hosts several conspiracy theorists. (Nov. 19) AP
David Jackson, USA TODAY 5:03 a.m. EST November 21, 2013
An image produced by the Warren Commission simulates the view Lee Harvey Oswald would have had through the sight of his rifle as he aimed at the president's limousine.(Photo: Warren Commission via AP)
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The most investigated crime in history still generates the most questions.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in broad daylight on a city street a half-century ago, has been probed by law enforcement agencies, a special presidential commission, a special congressional committee, and innumerable private investigators. Yet many Americans believe he fell victim to a still-mysterious conspiracy.
"I don't think we have a good explanation of the assassination," says Jefferson Morley, creator of the website JFKfacts.org. "The causes of the crime were obscured, and we're still living with the consequences."
Since that fateful day in Dallas, the federal government has conducted two massive investigations: the Warren Commission of 1963-64 and the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations of 1976-79.
Both determined that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president, but they disagreed on whether there may have been a second gunman.
Over the past two decades, in the wake of Oliver Stone's conspiracy movie JFK (1991), the National Archives has released millions of documents on the assassination.
Yet polls show most Americans still believe there was a conspiracy.
In many ways, the 26-volume report that the Warren Commission delivered in 1964 remains the urtext of the Kennedy assassination, both for conspiracy theorists and for those who say Oswald acted alone.
Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, created the commission a week after the assassination. His goal, ironically enough: to allay public worries about a conspiracy.
Johnson's fear that then-budding tales of an international conspiracy, perhaps organized by Cuba or the Soviet Union, might turn the Cold War into a hot one.
Formally dubbed The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, the group became better known through the name of its chairman: Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Commission included other prominent public officials, including former CIA director Allen Dulles and Republican congressman and future president Gerald Ford.
Its lengthy and complex report reached two basic conclusions: Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald two days later.
Critics have spent the better part of five decades challenging both conclusions, in part because of the Warren Commission's methodology.
For one thing, the CIA and the FBI withheld vital information from the commission, including investigations of Oswald after he left the country in 1959 to live in the Soviet Union and after he returned to the United States in 1962.
The CIA did not disclose activities that many would see as motives for JFK's murder: assassination plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, some of which involved members of organized crime.
These omissions would give rise to many conspiracy theories, including those that implicate the U.S. government itself.
Even some defenders of the Warren Commission's work point out one flaw: haste.
Johnson, fearful of war, demanded that the commission produce results as soon as possible and before the next presidential election in November 1964. The commission issued its 26-volume report in less than 10 months, leading to accusations of a "rush to judgment," which would become the title of a critical book published in 1966.
Questions about the Warren Commission helped inspire a second major investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, created in 1976.
In previous years, the government had investigated various aspects of the assassination, including emerging Kennedy medical records and the possible impact of assassination plots. Seeking to pull all this information together, the special House committee issued a report in 1979 that agreed with the Warren Commission in one respect: Oswald did shoot Kennedy with a high-powered rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
But the committee also said there was a high probability of a second shooter, citing acoustic evidence gathered from Dealey Plaza.
That conclusion drew its own share of critics, including a 1982 National Academy of Science report — requested by the Justice Department — that said House investigators erred in their acoustic analysis.
The House report also raised more questions about the government's efforts in general.
"You have two official investigations conducted by the government reaching contradictory conclusions," says Larry Sabato, who wrote about the impact of the assassination in his book The Kennedy Half-Century.
Continuing doubts about what happened to Kennedy led to the high-water mark for conspiracy theorists: JFK.
Relying in large part on an investigation begun in 1968 by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, Stone's 1991 film alleged a government-wide plot that amounted to a "coup d'état" against Kennedy, the goal of which was to maintain the Vietnam War.
The subject of intense debate, JFK did inspire government action: passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
In the decades since, the National Archives and Records Administration has collected more than 5million pages of records related to the assassination, including photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts. Most are available to the public.
Gerald Posner, who made the Oswald-acted-alone case in his best-selling 1993 book Case Closed, says all of these documents prove nothing more than the conclusion reached by the Warren Commission: no conspiracy.
While the commission has received much "Monday morning quarterbacking," Posner says that "when all is said and done, they did a good job."
Sabato, meanwhile, points out that the government continues to withhold many JFK documents.
"The federal government has made a hash out of it at every turn," he says.
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David Jackson, USA TODAY 5:03 a.m. EST November 21, 2013
An image produced by the Warren Commission simulates the view Lee Harvey Oswald would have had through the sight of his rifle as he aimed at the president's limousine.(Photo: Warren Commission via AP)
SHARE 6 CONNECT EMAILMORE
The most investigated crime in history still generates the most questions.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in broad daylight on a city street a half-century ago, has been probed by law enforcement agencies, a special presidential commission, a special congressional committee, and innumerable private investigators. Yet many Americans believe he fell victim to a still-mysterious conspiracy.
"I don't think we have a good explanation of the assassination," says Jefferson Morley, creator of the website JFKfacts.org. "The causes of the crime were obscured, and we're still living with the consequences."
Since that fateful day in Dallas, the federal government has conducted two massive investigations: the Warren Commission of 1963-64 and the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations of 1976-79.
Both determined that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president, but they disagreed on whether there may have been a second gunman.
Over the past two decades, in the wake of Oliver Stone's conspiracy movie JFK (1991), the National Archives has released millions of documents on the assassination.
Yet polls show most Americans still believe there was a conspiracy.
In many ways, the 26-volume report that the Warren Commission delivered in 1964 remains the urtext of the Kennedy assassination, both for conspiracy theorists and for those who say Oswald acted alone.
Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, created the commission a week after the assassination. His goal, ironically enough: to allay public worries about a conspiracy.
Johnson's fear that then-budding tales of an international conspiracy, perhaps organized by Cuba or the Soviet Union, might turn the Cold War into a hot one.
Formally dubbed The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, the group became better known through the name of its chairman: Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Commission included other prominent public officials, including former CIA director Allen Dulles and Republican congressman and future president Gerald Ford.
Its lengthy and complex report reached two basic conclusions: Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald two days later.
Critics have spent the better part of five decades challenging both conclusions, in part because of the Warren Commission's methodology.
For one thing, the CIA and the FBI withheld vital information from the commission, including investigations of Oswald after he left the country in 1959 to live in the Soviet Union and after he returned to the United States in 1962.
The CIA did not disclose activities that many would see as motives for JFK's murder: assassination plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, some of which involved members of organized crime.
These omissions would give rise to many conspiracy theories, including those that implicate the U.S. government itself.
Even some defenders of the Warren Commission's work point out one flaw: haste.
Johnson, fearful of war, demanded that the commission produce results as soon as possible and before the next presidential election in November 1964. The commission issued its 26-volume report in less than 10 months, leading to accusations of a "rush to judgment," which would become the title of a critical book published in 1966.
Questions about the Warren Commission helped inspire a second major investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, created in 1976.
In previous years, the government had investigated various aspects of the assassination, including emerging Kennedy medical records and the possible impact of assassination plots. Seeking to pull all this information together, the special House committee issued a report in 1979 that agreed with the Warren Commission in one respect: Oswald did shoot Kennedy with a high-powered rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
But the committee also said there was a high probability of a second shooter, citing acoustic evidence gathered from Dealey Plaza.
That conclusion drew its own share of critics, including a 1982 National Academy of Science report — requested by the Justice Department — that said House investigators erred in their acoustic analysis.
The House report also raised more questions about the government's efforts in general.
"You have two official investigations conducted by the government reaching contradictory conclusions," says Larry Sabato, who wrote about the impact of the assassination in his book The Kennedy Half-Century.
Continuing doubts about what happened to Kennedy led to the high-water mark for conspiracy theorists: JFK.
Relying in large part on an investigation begun in 1968 by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, Stone's 1991 film alleged a government-wide plot that amounted to a "coup d'état" against Kennedy, the goal of which was to maintain the Vietnam War.
The subject of intense debate, JFK did inspire government action: passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
In the decades since, the National Archives and Records Administration has collected more than 5million pages of records related to the assassination, including photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts. Most are available to the public.
Gerald Posner, who made the Oswald-acted-alone case in his best-selling 1993 book Case Closed, says all of these documents prove nothing more than the conclusion reached by the Warren Commission: no conspiracy.
While the commission has received much "Monday morning quarterbacking," Posner says that "when all is said and done, they did a good job."
Sabato, meanwhile, points out that the government continues to withhold many JFK documents.
"The federal government has made a hash out of it at every turn," he says.
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