JFK assassination conspiracy theories

Kennedy Assassination

Summary of the Warren Commission Report

The Warren Commission (WC) concluded in its report -- given that it had "no limitations" on its inquiry and "all government agencies have fully discharged their responsibility" to cooperate fully -- that the shots fired that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally came from the "sixth floor window…of the Texas Book Depository" (Archives.gov).

This assertion is based on witness accounts of seeing rifle being fired from that window, and from other witnesses who say they saw a rifle in the window after the shots rang out. The bullets were fired from a 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was ultimately found on the sixth floor of the Depository building. That evidence was obtained from bullet fragments that were located on Governor Connally's stretcher; there were also bullet fragments found in the front seat of the limousine Kennedy and Connally were riding in, the WC concluded on page 19. The fragments found in the limo matches the cartridge cases later found in the Depository building.

The WC believed that the way the bullets entered Kennedy's neck and head -- and the way they hit Connally -- indicates the shots were fired from above and behind the men. "There is no credible evidence that the shots were fired from the Triple Underpass…or from any other location" (WC). As to the person who fired the shots, the WC (p. 21) listed a number of points that verifies their stance that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. Regarding Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald on November 24, the day after Kennedy was killed, the WC found no evidence that he, or Oswald, were part of any conspiracy to kill the president. That said, the WC (p. 22) admits that there is great "…difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be established categorically" because if there is evidence linking others with those two, "it has been beyond the reach of" agencies that investigated the matter. Moreover, the Secret Service slipped up, and "failed" to fully investigate threats against the president in Dallas and did not coordinate adequately with federal agencies; also the FBI took "…an unduly restrictive view of its role in preventive intelligence work" before Kennedy was killed (WC, p. 24).

Summary of the House Select Committee Report

The Select Committee (SC) found that Oswald fired three shots at President Kennedy, and the second and third shots hit the president; shots were fired from behind Kennedy, and they were fired from the sixth floor of the Depository building, the SC concluded. Just as the WC asserted, the SC believed that Oswald used the rifle used to kill the president, and SC notes that Oswald had access to the sixth floor, and his "other actions tend to support the conclusion that he assassinated President Kennedy" (SC, p. 2). Note the use of the phrase "tend to"; this does seem something of a backward step from earlier assertions.

Further, the SC brings up "scientific acoustical evidence" that purports to establish "a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. This is a radical departure from the WC findings. Also, the SC report appears to present conflicting conclusions. The report explains on the one hand that "Other scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations"; on the other hand, the SC believed, based on evidence, that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" albeit the SC has no clue as to the other potential shooters (SC, p. 2).

The SC rules out the Soviets, the Cubans, and "organized crime" and yet individual mafia members cannot be excluded from possible culpability in the killing (p. 2). In fact the SC accuses the WC of failing to adequately investigate the possibility of a conspiracy. That said, the SC is in agreement with the WC that in fact the Secret Service, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI were "deficient" in their duties to protect the president and to share relevant information with each other. In fact the SC found that the Warren Commission "failed" to adequately "receive all the relevant information that was in the possession of other agencies and departments in the federal government" (p. 2).

One can clearly see why additional conspiracy theories could emerge out of the contradictions in the two reports, and especially the conflicting findings within the Select Committee's report.

Jim Marrs -- Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy

Author Jim Marrs is among the long list of writers, journalists, and other theorists who put a theory together regarding who (or what) really murdered John Kennedy. His theory has been given a lot of credibility based on part on the fact that he was a journalist in Dallas who conducted an enormous amount of interviews as part of his research. His view is that, first of all, the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald was the only assassin isn't valid. It is not that he points the finger directly at anyone in Washington, but he clearly believes that at the highest level of government the vigilance was simply vague enough to allow the killing to happen.

The painstaking strategy Marrs takes in pursuing witnesses and others that the FBI and other authorities failed to interview and investigate is very impressive, even if some of his subjective narrative is a little hard to stomach. Was the president killed because of the issuance of Executive Order 11110, which gave the U.S. Treasury Secretary the authority to authorize the printing of silver certificates? Was this the work of a conspiracy that did not like Kennedy's goal to remove troops from Vietnam? Was the military involved in the plot to kill the president?

After reading Marrs' book any alert reader must now wonder, just exactly why the Warren Commission was so sloppy and why the House Select Committee's report left the door open for the possibility of a plot. The forgery of incriminating photographs of Oswald, for example, and Jack Ruby's shadowy history in terms of his links to organized crime, why did authorities not investigate these suspicious activities more thoroughly?

On page 16 of his book, Marrs examines the fact that several people in or around the Kennedy motorcade smelled gunpowder after the shots were fired. The wife of the mayor of Dallas, Mrs. Earle Cabell, was in an open convertible six cars back from the lead car. "I was acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder," she said (Marrs, 1993, p. 16). Congressman Ray Roberts was riding in the same car as Mrs. Cabell, and he smelled gunpowder. Retired Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough smelled gunpowder; "I always thought that was strange because, being familiar with firearms, I never could see how I could smell the powder from a rifle high in that building" (Marrs, 16).

Marrs notes (16) that is "does seem strange that people would smell powder from a shot fired more than sixty feet in the air and behind them"; however, if a shot was fired from the "grassy knoll" that was less than twelve feet in elevation and if there were a breeze from the north to carry smoke to the street level, that would make sense. His point here is that the theory put out by others that the shots may have come from a grassy knoll has some validity when given the number of people in the motorcade that smelled gunpowder (16).

The "official White House photographer" was also in the motorcade; Thomas Atkins had a 16-millimeter Arriflex S. camera and is quoted saying he could "hear everything quite clearly… the shots came from below and off to the right side from where I was [the location of the grassy knoll]" (Marrs, 17). Atkins said, "I never thought the shots came from above. They did not sound like shots coming from anything higher than street level" (Marrs, 17). It's important to remember that Marrs isn't necessarily promoting the "grassy knoll" theory, but he is questioning -- and in places, clearly journalistically refuting -- the Warren Commission's assertions. Many years later, in 1977, Marrs interviewed Atkins: "It's something I've always wondered about. Why didn't they ask me what I knew? I not only was on the White House staff, I was then, and still am, a photographer with a pretty keen visual sense" (Marrs, 17).

Another very suspicious report came from men named Hathaway and Lawrence, who were trying to get a good spot to see the president prior to the motorcade arriving. They saw a man carrying a rifle in a gun case, a man that was "very tall, six-foot-five or more" about 250 pounds with a crew cut and "dirty blond hair" (Marrs, 18).

One more incident worth mentioning involves the Canadian journalist named Norman Similas who had spent the previous evening at the Carousel Club in Dallas, and "spent more than an hour talking with its owner, Jack Ruby" (Marrs, 22). On November 22, the next day, Similas stood on the south side of Elm Street "not ten feed from Kennedy's car at the time of the first shots"; in his report in the Canadian magazine Liberty, the journalist wrote:

"The presidential limousine had passed me and slowed down slightly

The picture I took on the curb of Elm Street was trained momentarily on an open, sixth-floor window. The camera lens recorded what I could not possibly have seen at the moment -- a rifle barrel extended over the windowsill. When the film was developed later, it showed two figures hovering over it."

He gave his negatives to a daily newspaper in Toronto; but when he phoned and asked them to return his negative, the negative with the two figures in the window was gone. He got a "fat cheque in the mail" but never saw his negative again, Marrs writes on page 23.

The Connally Bullet - CTKA

According to an article by Robert Harris (published in Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassination, CTKA), the bullet that was alleged to have passed through Kennedy and Connally was found to be in "near pristine condition," and when examined under a microscope, no tissue or blood was found. Moreover, an orderly named Darrell Tomlinson, who found the bullet, was bringing the stretcher that had brought Connally to the hospital to the ground floor when he discovered it. The FBI "panicked" when it realized the bullet didn't match those fired from Oswald's rifle. This is highly suspicious and there is no known explanation. Another mystery in a very confusing and suspicious story. So, why did the FBI misrepresent the bullet fragments and the pristine bullet (that didn't match the Oswald rifle) and basically become involved in a sham to hide evidence? Harris insists that the FBI had to have the help of a doctor or a nurse to pull off such a deception. Hoover seems to have been involved in all of this, since he certainly had his hands in the investigation and had the means to hide what he knew. And the FBI could have covered up the killing of Kennedy. Hence, one theory is that shadowy elements of the federal government conspired to kill Kennedy.