Have you ever heard about conspiracy theories? Conspiracy theories are explanations for an event or situation that people tend to believe in. If it isn’t true, why do people believe it? Researchers think we use conspiracy theories to make sense of complex or upsetting events and situations that don’t seem to have a good explanation behind it. Our brains want better explanations for things with bigger problems. For example the John F Kennedy assassination is considered to be a conspiracy theory case. People believe the man named Lee Harvey Owswald was the one who assassinated him. Although, there are others who believe John F Kennedy’s assasaintion had a plot behind it. There have been multiple conspiracy theories about the assanation. I’ll be going over the theories behind this case.
Kenndey’s assasination happened on a friday November 22nd 1963. He was assassinated publicly while sitting in a car in Dallas Texas. The man who was convicted, his name was Lee Harvey Owswald. He shot Kennedy from a building across the street where Kennedy’s car was driving past. People believe Owswald didn’t act on his own, he might have been working for someone or with someone to commit the assasantion. It is unsure because many have criticized the motorcade route, which was the route Kenndy’s drivers were leading. Some say it had too many turns so it made the car move slower. The route they chose also had many buildings with open windows where there could’ve been a bunch of hit man’s hiding. There were over 20,000 windows. When they were investigating the case they chose not to look through them due to not having enough men for the search. Oswald was known for having a violent past. He was a sharpshooter with the exact gun that JFK was murdered with. Another thing that made this case suspicious was, Oswald was under active surveillance by the FBI in Dallas. The local FBI didn’t inform the secret service about Oswald. It was strange since he was employed at the Texas School Book Depository, the building right along the motorcade route where he fired his shots.
Moving onto some more thoughts behind this case, Oswald was killed by a guy named Jack Ruby. The Warrens Commission is a book that was written about the assastion of JFK. In the book it stated there was no evidence found that Ruby and Oswald were a part of a conspiracy. People still tend to suspect that Ruby assasinated Oswald to keep him quiet. Some other things that lead into our big conspiracy theories are how Oswald couldn’t hit 2 bullets fast enough with that type of gun. There had to be a second shooter I’m assuming. An alternative footage was found from a different point of view, there was a 2nd shooter according to the footage in the grass area. Supposedly the piece of footage went missing right after it was reviewed. The girl who took the footage, her name was Cynthia Nix Jackson sued the US government for 10 million after demanding for the footage back even though it went “missing”. Going back to what was seen in the footage, there was a 2nd gunman spotted, they probably “disposed” the footage probably knowing the 2nd gunman was involved with the government. This was considered a conspiracy theory itself, let’s look into more.
The first theory was that the Vice President, Lyndon B Johnson assassinated JFK because of political power. He had no political control over Texas anymore, JFK did though. It was heard that LBJ’s right hand man had been warned by a Texas lawyer named Bryon Skelton. He was told that the political environment wasn’t safe in Texas and he was worried for the president’s safety. JFK wasn’t warned about this by the way. A woman named Madeline Brown confessed how Lyndon whispered into her ear, “After tomorrow, those Kennedy’s will never embarrass me again, that’s no threat, that’s a promise.” Overall, people still believe he had something to do with it since he never liked his position as Vice President and was jealous of JFK.
Next is the second theory which involves the Russians. The reason people believe this is because the shooter Oswald came from Russia. Russia and the USA also had a rivalry due to the Cold War. Oswald was also in Russia a few weeks ago before thee assasination. However, people don’t find this theory to be the best one. Others believe that Russia isn’t that dumb enough to hire a well known criminal to assasinate the President knowing the blame will be put on them.
The third theory is the mobs. There were 3 mobs who claimed that they were responsible for the assasination for JFK. These mobs were named The Chicago Mob, The Miami Mob, and the New Orleans Mob. All these mobs were involved with mafia groups. Jack Ruby is rumored to be involved with some mafia connections. These mobs could’ve been working in a collusion with the CIA to take out Kennedy. A man named James Files claimed to be the “second” apparent shooter in the assasination. He said he was a part of a plot with the mafia and the CIA. There was no evidence supporting this, which could’ve been a cover up maybe. The head of the Chicago Mob was Sam Giancana. He had some close ties with Kennedy and was very close with Kennedy’s dad too, Joseph Kennedy. In 1975 Sam was supposed to testify about his role in the CIA assasination plot, until he was assassinated. It was weird though, knowing he was assassinated right before the testimony. Makes me wonder if he was killed to keep quiet too.
Last and final theory is the CIA. Many believe the CIA had something to do with the JFK assasination. The former head of the CIA was Allen Dulles, he was also a part of the Warrens Commision. Let’s keep in mind the CIA always withheld information too, such as the footage from earlier as I mentioned about there being a second shooter. Reasons why crowds believe this is because JFK had maybe found out about their plan to assassinate a man named Fidel Castro. The CIA felt as JFK was a threat and had a different plan from them after hearing about it. Another mini theory that still has to do with the CIA is the Umbrella Man. JFK refused to offer additional support to the US military, but the CIA offered an umbrella for air protection. The umbrella plays a big part in this. In the footage of the assasination there is an umbrella man spotted. The thing that was off about this was it was sunny and it wasn’t raining, so what was the purpose of the umbrella? When the first bullet was fired was when the car passed the umbrella man. Could’ve been a signal, like how moments later the umbrella man raised his umbrella 1 foot higher which could’ve been a signal for another gunman nearby. The umbrella also looked like a spy weapon too. It was portrayed as an umbrella that shot darts which could explain the hole in JFK’s neck afterwards. Matter of fact a man named Charles Senseney testified that this weapon was real because he created it, so it could’ve been a spy weapon. There were pictures of the umbrella closed before the assasination and opened after it happened. A man named Louis Steven was also “proved” to be the umbrella man. He came forward to the Senate Committee to testify while he brought the umbrella too. Louis claimed that the umbrella was used as a protest symbol against JFK’s father and that he only opened the umbrella when it was in Kennedy’s vision.
Even though people tend to find lot’s of information from the internet or other resources, conspiracy theories are not real. Nearly 60% of America believes in these theories today! The reason behind this is when people make theories about this case, they attract the attention of others. According to researchers, we like to have optimistic feelings about anything. Since Americans were so loyal to Kennedy too, they would not assume that a random Russian guy assassinated him that easily. Their eyes will be directed at Kennedey’s family or the people that are supposed to be loyal to him too. A man named Dellak says, “I’d posit a different explanation for the continuing refusal on the part of many to believe Oswald acted alone. The explanation goes beyond even the mistaken conflating of routine conspiracies with grand ones that assume mass involvement.” This proves why many theories were wrong in the first place. The people who created these theories misunderstood politics and human behavior too.
In conclusion people act a certain way towards these theories because it makes them think about things that aren’t supposed to be real. It makes them wonder things about this case that they shouldn’t be worrying about. People tend to make conspiracy theories to trick others’ minds and give the theory the attention it wants.
Camilla Ruelas Say thanks, WilkiImages on pixabay.com
Fenwick High School
DMSF Scholar