John F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago by Lee Harvey
Oswald.
Or was he?
The JFK assassination is perhaps the most substantial and
significant event of the 20th century, and it has elicited much
speculation as to whom was ultimately responsible.
In fact, the assassination is the most popular conspiracy theory
in the United States, says Kathryn Olmsted, associate professor of
history at UC Davis, who is researching conspiracy theories for a
book.
About 90 percent of Americans believe Oswald did not act alone,
Olmsted said.
With upcoming presidential elections, Kennedy had visited Texas
in the autumn of 1963 to boost his appeal in the South.
As his limousine rolled down a crowded Dallas street in the
early afternoon of Nov. 22, shots were fired and Kennedy was
struck, along with fellow passenger Texas Gov. John Connally.
Kennedy was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly
thereafter.
A week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed a commission
to look into what happened.
In September 1964, the Warren Commission Report determined that
Lee Harvey Oswald, holed up in the sixth floor of the Texas School
Book Depository, acted alone in causing Kennedy’s death.
The assassination and the subsequent report provided fodder for
conspiracy theorists to develop a myriad of theories on what may
have happened.
Some claim CIA Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Director Charles
Cabell were angry because they were fired after the failed Bay of
Pigs invasion. Others believe Johnson was responsible in a Julius
Caesar-style coup. Even the mafia was thrown into the mix.
The government’s secrecy, coupled with the gravity of the
situation, caused many skeptical Americans to develop original
theories on the assassination.
But conspiracy theories did not gain much ground in the
immediate aftermath of the event.
“Immediately after the assassination, there was a belief
that there was a conspiracy, but when the Warren Commission Report
came out, people believed that,” Olmsted said.
But the Daily Bruin was not so fickle.
“No less than three gunmen fired on the Presidential
motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963,” said the Daily
Bruin in a 14-page presentation of its own conspiracy theory,
published on Jan. 5, 1967.
Drawing from the Warren Commission Report, supplemented graphics
and witness testimony, The Bruin detailed the problems with the
lone-gunman scenario and made a case for multiple shooters.
The issue was the culmination of a 10-month investigation.
In 1975, the revelation that there had been government cover-ups
in the Warren Commission Report spurred many idle conspiracy
theorists, Olmsted said.
Sketchy reports, unreliable witnesses and changed stories bred
formulations of new theories in the following years.
In 1991, Oliver Stone’s film “JFK,” mired in
historical inaccuracies, heaped Stone’s own brand of
conspiracy theory upon the world and fueled the conspiratorial fire
for a whole new generation.
As for Olmsted, she does not believe in a conspiracy theory.
“I started out thinking there was (a conspiracy), but with
more research, now I don’t think there was,” she
said.