On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, the Dallas authorities removed the markings from one of the most mysterious political assassinations. Our article is devoted to the circumstances of this high-profile murder
CRIME PLACE: ELM STREET
Friday 22 November 1963 11 hours 40 minutes. John F. Kennedy's plane lands at Dallas airport. This is the first official visit of an American head of state since 1948 to Texas, a stronghold of the right-wing opposition. Kennedy was going to fight for the votes of the residents of the state and fight the local conservatives. The head of the White House prepared a speech, which he planned to give at the city's Trade Center at a formal dinner. And so the presidential couple settles in an open limousine. The front seats are already occupied by the Governor of the State John Connally and his wife. At 11:50 a.m. the motorcade set off from the airport to the city center. Throughout the entire route, crowds of residents greeted the leader of the state with a standing ovation: welcoming banners, flags, flowers ... Meanwhile, the shopping center was not more than ten minutes away. The clock showed 12:30. The president's black Lincoln dropped the move and turned from Houston Street to Elm Street. At that moment, shots rang out from somewhere. Kennedy was wounded in the neck and head. The Texas governor was also shot in the back. Half an hour later, the 35th President of the United States died in Parkland Hospital. Connally was saved.
OFFICIAL VERSION: LONE KILLER
Dallas police responded promptly. It turned out that at the time of the assassination attempt, some saw a young man with a rifle in his hands in the window of the sixth floor of a school textbook warehouse (located at the bend from Houston Street to Elm Street). His marks were immediately broadcast by radio.
A few hours later, among others, a retired Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, working in a textbook warehouse from where the shooting was allegedly carried out. There (on the sixth floor), behind the boxes, they found an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with a telescopic sight and three spent cartridges. As it turned out, the rifle bore Oswald's fingerprints. But the arrested person denied his guilt. They didn't manage to get more from him. Two days later, on November 24, when the suspect was escorted from the police station to a federal prison, he was fatally shot in the stomach. A certain Jack Ruby, the owner of the Karusel strip club, was shooting. During the investigation, Ruby claimed that it was an act of personal revenge for the assassinated president.
On November 29, 1963, a week after the Dallas tragedy, the new head of the White House, Lyndon Johnson, established a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Kennedy assassination. Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was put in charge of the Commission. After 10 months of work, he provided a report with the following conclusions:
1) Kennedy and Connally were shot from a sixth-floor window of a school textbook warehouse;
2) the fire was led by Lee Harvey Oswald alone;
3) no evidence was found that Oswald and Jack Ruby knew each other and were in a conspiracy.
It seemed that the case could be closed. But the Commission's materials contained so many unfounded judgments and exaggerations that many Americans refused to believe them. Over the past half century, a dozen independent examinations have been carried out, refuting the conclusions of Earl Warren.
 BIOGRAPHY Leave a mark at any cost Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939. The family lived in poverty. Since childhood, Oswald was withdrawn, but he read a lot. At the age of 15, he discovered Marx. The German philosopher captivated Lee so much that the young man began to consider himself a convinced Marxist and dreamed of visiting the USSR. In October 1959, after returning from the army, he arrived in Moscow and asked for Soviet citizenship. He was not given citizenship, but he was allowed to stay in the country: he was provided with an apartment in Minsk and arranged for workers at a radio plant. In 1961, Oswald married student Marina Prusakova. True, by this time the American had become disillusioned with the Soviet system, and in 1962, together with Marina and daughter June (pictured), he left for the United States. Here, Lee wandered around the cities in search of permanent work. At the same time, he conducted pro-caste propaganda. But the main thing is that now a pathological idea has settled in him - to leave a mark on history at any cost. To this end, on April 10, 1963, he made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of General Edwin Walker, an ardent anti-communist. But the mistake only inflamed Oswald's desire to remain a hero in his memory. The thirst for fame, lack of money and the desire to "intercede" for Cuba were probably the reasons why Lee went to work with the mafia. |
 |
|
The scheme of movement of the Kennedy car along Elm Street, the location of the shooters (1, 2, 3) and the trajectory of the bullets |
EVIDENCE: AN UNDoubtful Conspiracy
This mainly concerns the question of the number of shooters. An amateur filming by a resident of Dallas, Abraham Zapruder, captured the very moments when the presidential limousine was fired upon, at the disposal of the investigation. Experts have determined that in the 208th frame of the film, Kennedy is hiding behind a road sign in order to appear in the 225th frame already wounded.
Governor Connally is hit by a bullet in frame 234, and in frame 313 there is a third shot that wounds the president in the head. It was found that in frames 166-210, the car was passing through the section of Elm Street, which was hidden from the shooter in the textbook warehouse by the crown of an oak tree, which implied that Kennedy was overtaken by the first bullet somewhere between frames 210 and 225. Zapruder's camera worked at a speed of 18.3 frames per second. Knowing this, it is easy to calculate that only 1.3 seconds elapsed from the shot that struck the president (frame 210) to the shot that wounded the governor (frame 234): (234-210): 18.3 = 1.31. But the results of the examination showed that even the most skilled snipers were unable to fire two shots in a row from the Lee Harvey Oswald rifle in less than 2.6 seconds.
Members of the Warren Commission put forward the "single bullet theory" to resolve this controversy (pictured). They argued that Governor Connally was hit by the same first bullet that hit the president in the back and exited through his throat, and the second shot was fired 1.3 seconds later and missed. But this version raises serious doubts. The bullet entered the body of the Texas governor near his right armpit, shooting through the fifth rib, exited the front under his right chest, shattered his right hand and lodged in his left thigh. If it were the same bullet that came out from the left side of the president's throat, then in order to hit Connally, she would first have to turn sharply to the right, fly about half a meter, and then turn left.
In addition, the Commission's claim that the first bullet had been fired at Kennedy from behind, not from the front, aroused serious objection. The fact is that the hole she left in the president's back is located below the hole in his neck, from which she supposedly came out.
And this cannot be possible if the president was shot from behind and from above. Members of the Commission explain this discrepancy by the fact that at the moment of the bullet hit, Kennedy probably bent forward strongly (almost to his knees). But this looks unconvincing. It is much more reasonable to accept the version that the first shot was fired at Kennedy from the front.
This is confirmed by an analysis of bullet holes on the president's clothing. Those of them that were in the tie and shirt collar did not contain microscopic particles of metal, which is typical only for the entrance holes, when the bullet was not yet destroyed, but the edges of the holes on the shirt and jacket in the back just contained particles of copper, which makes them recognize weekend. So there were at least two shooters, and the first shot was not fired by Oswald, but by someone located somewhere on the dais in front of Kennedy's Lincoln. If you trace the alleged trajectory of the bullet that hit the president's neck, you can conclude that it was fired from the window of a car parked in the parking lot on Commerce Street.
As for the second bullet, which wounded Connally and was later found by criminologists, it was indeed fired from an Oswald rifle, which was confirmed by a ballistic examination. But, apparently, this was the only shot that the former Marine made: experts drew attention to the fact that only one of the three casings found at the site of Oswald's ambush had characteristic microscopic marks from the bolt of his rifle. This means that the third shot, which hit the president in the head, was not fired from the "Mannlicher-carcano". The commission asserted that the third bullet hit Kennedy's head from behind, too, although it was not possible to find the entrance hole - almost the entire right side of the president's skull was demolished. But the Zapruder film shows that after the third shot, the president's head made a sharp jerk back and to the left, from which we can conclude that the shooter was in front and on the right. A neutron-radioactive analysis carried out in the 1970s found that the chemical composition of the fragments removed from the president's head did not match the composition of the bullets that Oswald fired. The gunman took up position behind a wooden fence on the grassy slope to the right of Elm Street.
Many witnesses said that the shooting was fired from there, but the members of the Warren Commission did not attach much importance to them.
Obviously, the Warren Commission's lone killer hypothesis is bursting at the seams. Oswald had accomplices, which means that a carefully planned action took place. But it seems that Warren was initially tasked with proving with all his might that Oswald acted alone. This means that the US intelligence services had something to hide. But what exactly: that they missed the conspiracy under their noses, or that they themselves had to do with it?
FIRST SUSPECTS: SPECIAL SERVICES AND THE PENTAGON
Dozens of books have been written, the authors of which claim that the FBI, CIA or Pentagon are behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But direct evidence of this is nowhere given, it all comes down to the presence of motives. So, it is no secret to anyone that there was a deep personal enmity between the President of the United States and the Director of the FBI, Edgar Hoover. Kennedy would have fired the head of the secret department long ago, but he had dirt on the owner of the White House: information about his love affair with Judith Campbell. As for the CIA and the Pentagon, there were many dissatisfied with Kennedy's foreign policy in their leadership. He was accused of disrupting the landing of anti-Castro troops in Cuba in April 1961, banning the sending of aircraft to help the rebels, compromised with Moscow during the Caribbean and Berlin crises (1961, 1962) and was going to withdraw American troops from Vietnam. But are these facts enough to prove the involvement of the siloviki in the removal of Kennedy? Of course not.
SPECIAL SERVICES NOT WHAT TO DO
But there is one important circumstance, which indicates that the special services have nothing to do with it. Even if any of these agencies had planned to remove the president, they would never have gotten involved with Lee Harvey Oswald. At various times (late 1950s - early 1960s) military intelligence, the CIA and the FBI tried to recruit him. But unsuccessfully. The fact is that Oswald suffered from a sluggish schizophrenia, was quarrelsome, hot-tempered, uncommunicative and, moreover, did not even have a secondary education. There was no way to work constructively with him, so he seemed useless to the special services. Would such a person be trusted to participate in an operation against the president?
In addition, it is worth agreeing with the opinion of the historian Igor Efimov, author of the book Who Killed President Kennedy ?, who believes that “within such organizations as the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, etc., the system of mutual control is so intense that no major conspiracy can not<...>do not remain unrevealed. "
SECOND SUSPECT: CUBAN DICTATOR
Another personal enemy of Kennedy is Fidel Castro. Here the matter was not limited to open military confrontation. The Cuban commander knew very well that the US special services had been preparing an attempt on his life more than once. On September 7, 1963, he even stated in an interview with the Associated Press: "If American leaders continue to attempt on the lives of Cuban leaders ... we will fight back and respond in kind."
The following facts are usually cited to prove that the communist Oswald was recruited by the Cubans to remove the American president:
1) at the end of September 1963, he secretly visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico City several times, where he probably received the necessary instructions;
2) at the same time he was seen at a party where Mexican communists and Cuban diplomats were present and where the need to destroy President Kennedy was discussed aloud;
3) in mid-November, Oswald was practicing at a shooting range in the vicinity of Dallas in the company of unknown Hispanics;
4) On November 22, the day of the assassination attempt on Kennedy, Cuban intelligence agent Louise Calderon, in a conversation with a friend, let slip that the Cuban embassy knew about the president's assassination in advance. However, all this looks unconvincing. Castro understood perfectly well: if he really sent the killers to the United States and the case was solved, then the American invasion of Cuba could not be avoided and he would not have to rely on the military intercession of the USSR.
THIRD SUSPECT: MAFIA
The version about involvement in the assassination attempt on the head of the White House by the American mafia looks more plausible. It is known that in the 1960 elections, Kennedy bypassed Republican rival Richard Nixon by only 0.1% of the vote. But Kennedy's biographers try not to emphasize that this advantage was provided by the efforts of the mafia. John F. Kennedy's father signed an agreement with one of America's main mafiosi, Sam Giancana, that if he helps his son win the election campaign, the new president will take care of the interests of the bosses of the underworld. But that did not happen. On the contrary, John and his brother Robert Kennedy (Minister of Justice), after joining the White House, launched an unprecedented campaign against the mafia. Sam Giancana was named the first on the list of the most dangerous and wanted US mafiosi.
Cosa Nostra could not forgive such a betrayal, and her power made it possible to begin to prepare a conspiracy against the president.
In 1994, professional hitman James Files, who is serving a life sentence for a combination of crimes, gave a sensational interview. Files said that in the summer of 1963 he received an order to assassinate the American president from the gangster Charles Nicoletti, who represented the interests of Sam Giancana. Lee Harvey Oswald was given to him as an assistant (the mafia reached the former Marine through his uncle, Charles Murret, who ran an underground gambling business in New Orleans). Also, according to Files, gangsters Jack Ruby (as a liaison) and John Roselli (as a third shooter) were involved in the conspiracy. Together they developed a plan for the assassination attempt, identified the places of the shooters (almost the same as indicated by the ballistic examination, which was mentioned above) and chose the weapon. Files himself stood behind a hedge on a grassy slope and sent a bullet into the president's head.
The FBI (Assistant to the Warren Commission), conducting the investigation, got on the right track, but did their best to shift the blame on Oswald. On the one hand, it did not want to admit that it had missed a state conspiracy at its side, and on the other hand, it feared that in the course of a serious investigation, close contacts between the FBI, CIA and the mafia, whose services were widely used by the secret services to collect compromising evidence on politicians, would emerge. and the organization of secret actions, in particular the attempts on the life of Fidel Castro. James Files' story seems plausible, but there is no need to rush to conclusions: there are still no documents confirming his words. It remains to wait for the year 2038, when all the materials of the investigation will be declassified.
"John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, has passed away at the age of 46," The New York Herald Tribune reported on the front page on November 23, 1963. Shortly before the assassination, the newspaper continues, "Mr. Kennedy was greeted by enthusiastic residents, despite the predictions that the president would receive a cold welcome in Dallas, the stronghold of the right-wing republican."
The killer shot Kennedy in the head at the very moment when the presidential motorcade was driving triumphantly along one of the streets of Dallas. "The President passed away at 2 pm ET at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, about 40 minutes after being shot twice with a gun, one in the neck and one in the right temple," the newspaper said.
How it was: an eyewitness account
What is John F. Kennedy known forNovember 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the 35th US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.On November 22, 1963, the Canadian newspaper Toronto Daily Star published the story of one of the eyewitnesses to the assassination of Kennedy: "I suddenly heard a loud bang. The first thing that came to my mind was that someone might be starting firecrackers. I turned away from the president's car and looked over to where a pop was heard. Then someone - I don't know who it was - shouted: “They shot at the president!” I turned to look at the car. A security officer ran up, holding a pistol in his hand. The policeman who was next to me took out a revolver and began to look for someone with his eyes in the crowd.
After that, another shot rang out, followed almost immediately by a third. I was still looking at the car. One of the intelligence officers opened the car door, and then I saw the president fall down, practically falling out onto the sidewalk.
Jackie Kennedy sat to the left of the President and Governor Connolly to the right. I saw a bullet hole in the president's left temple. "
Heavy shock for America
What Lee Harvey Oswald is known forNovember 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from a window on the sixth floor of the depository building, killing Kennedy and wounding Governor John Connelly.Kennedy's assassination caused shock in the United States among both ordinary people and the ranks of the political elite.
The New York Times (International edition) on November 23, 1963 quotes the statement of the new US President Lyndon Johnson, made immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy: "This is a difficult time for all people. We have not yet realized what a loss we have all suffered. For This is a deep personal tragedy for me. I know the world shares the grief that fell on the shoulders of Ms. Kennedy and her family. "
The sad news of President Kennedy's death caused a severe shock in New York, according to the New York Herald Tribune on November 23, 1963. In his article, a newspaper reporter describes one of the scenes typical of that day. An elderly cleaning lady, Mary McGrath, stopped on one of the streets leading to one of the parishes of the Roman Catholic Church - St. Agnes Cathedral. “Suddenly she began to stop passers-by:“ Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, ”she said. “President Kennedy was shot!” “They killed him,” she was told, and then she fell to her knees and wept, and passers-by wept with her.
Some also knelt down and prayed on the sidewalk in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. "
By three and a half in the afternoon, the general shock only intensified, the correspondent continues. Traffic jams began to appear everywhere in the city, drivers stopped cars, often right in the middle of the street. "Shortly after the first news of the assassination attempt on the president, the stock exchange, which immediately began to panic among investors, was closed," the New York Herald Tribune reported.
"Some Muscovites Wept"
“It was midnight in Moscow, but a bell rang at the US Embassy. Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, who took part in negotiations with the president during the Cold War on a wide range of issues, ranging from the Cuban missile crisis to improving relations between the East and West, told US Ambassador Foy D. Kohler of his "shock and expressed his most sincere condolences to the American people," the New York Herald Tribune reported on November 23, 1963.
“An ordinary Moscow inhabitant could sense here [in the city] sadness and concern about the future of Soviet-American relations. Some Muscovites were crying. And one of the policemen, whom the correspondent asked about his attitude [to the assassination of the US President], shook his head and could not find words for an answer, "continues the New York Herald Tribune.
"The newspaper of the communist party Pravda deliberately changed its front page - this event, in the opinion of Western citizens living in Moscow, is almost unprecedented," the New York Herald Tribune correspondent notes.
In the West and in the East
In Western countries, the assassination of President Kennedy did not leave anyone indifferent.
In her message to US President Lyndon Johnson, reported in The Times of London on November 23, 1963, the Queen of Great Britain stated: “Upon learning of the tragic death of President Kennedy, I am deeply shocked and horrified. On behalf of my people, I send my sincere condolences to the Government, Congress and to the people of the United States of America. " Sir Winston Churchill called the assassination of the President a "monstrous act" and the President
Charles de Gaulle of France said: "President Kennedy died as a soldier, under fire ..."
In India, the news of President Kennedy's death caused shock. "Today, India has experienced deep sorrow and shock after the country learned the terrible news of the assassination of President Kennedy, who, like Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, fell in the struggle to establish equality between races and better understanding between peoples," the service said in a statement. News from The Times of India on November 23, 1963. "In a special statement on the radio, Mr. Nehru called this dastardly murder" a terrible tragedy for the whole world. "
In addition, it is reported that "on Monday, the country's Parliament may postpone its work as a sign of respect for the memory of [the President of the United States]. The only time the meetings were postponed for one day was only in 1953 - on the day of Stalin's death."
Who is accused of murder?
The Times of India, Sunday, November 24, 1963, reports that 24-year-old former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, "who lived in the Soviet Union for three years, is accused of Kennedy's assassination."
The New York Times (International Edition) on November 23, 1963 adds that during his stay in the USSR, Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to take Soviet citizenship and "vowed that he would never return to the United States." In addition, the newspaper reports that Oswald speaks Russian. He has a child from his marriage with a Russian girl.
The balance of power on the political scene in 1964 will change
The assassination of President Kennedy caused panic in US political circles, according to The New York Times on November 23, 1963. “In one blow, a man was eliminated, who in nine months would have been nominated for a second term in the White House,” the newspaper continues.
According to the New York Times, the assassination of President Kennedy will change the balance of power on the domestic political scene. As a result, Lyndon Johnson, "an older and more conservative man, steeped in the culture of the South," became president and at the helm of the Democratic Party. In this regard, the newspaper asks the question: "Will Mr. Johnson, who is the first Southerner to be nominated for the presidency in this century, gain support in the US South, despite the fact that he supported the civil rights movement?"
According to the newspaper, the death of President Kennedy "gives the Republicans new hope." Despite everything, however, John F. Kennedy's personality "made a lasting impression on American voters."
Assassinations of US presidents: bloody statistics
In an article on November 23, 1963, The New York Herald Tribune reminded Americans that the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was not the first in US history. In addition to President Kennedy, three current American presidents have been killed in the United States:
1 - Abraham Lincoln (April 14, 1865)
2 - James A. Garfield (2 July 1861)
3 - William McKinley (September 6, 1897).
In addition, attempts were made on the life of three other presidents - Theodore Roosevelt (October 14, 1912), Franklin Roosevelt (February 15, 1933) and Harry Truman (November 1, 1950).
Why the best conspiracy theories about the John F. Kennedy assassination don't stand up to scrutiny
In Brookline (Massachusetts, USA) in the family of a large businessman. After graduating from Harvard University, he served in the navy in the Pacific during World War II. In 1946 he was elected to the US Congress, in 1952 - to the US Senate. On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy won the presidential elections. On January 20, 1961, he was sworn in.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline were in Dallas, Texas. The main purpose of the trip was pre-election: a year later, the presidential elections were coming, in which Kennedy was going to fight for re-election. Texas played a large role in Kennedy's difficult victory over Richard Nixon in 1960. In addition, many wealthy people lived here, whom Kennedy hoped to persuade to sponsor the campaign. From Love Field Airport, Kennedy headed to the Dallas Mall where he was scheduled to give a speech. The route the presidential motorcade was supposed to take was published by local newspapers on November 19 and 21. On the morning of November 22, the Secret Service, responsible for protecting the president, corrected the route.
Initially, it was supposed to run along Main Street, but upon arrival in Dallas, it turned out that there was no turn on the Stemmons Highway from it. So the motorcade had to make two extra turns into Daily Plaza to get to Elm Street.
The motorcade left the airport at about ten to twelve. He drove down Main Street through the living corridor. Kennedy and Gov. John Connally and their wives, sitting in a topless Lincoln Continental, smiled and waved at the greeters.
At 12:30, when the car turned into Daily Plaza, three shots rang out. The bullets hit Kennedy and Connally. The driver hurried to the nearest hospital, where the president's death was officially recorded, and the wounded governor received medical attention.
According to the FBI, the first bullet hit Kennedy, the second hit Governor Connally, and the third hit Kennedy again (in the head). According to the Kennedy Assassination Commission, the first bullet hit Kennedy and, passing through, hit Connally, the second went past, and the third hit Kennedy in the head.
Thanks to the testimony of witnesses, it soon became clear that the gunman was hiding on the sixth floor of a nearby book depository, and one of the employees, Lee Harvey Oswald, left the building shortly after the shots were fired. On the sixth floor of the book depository, behind the boxes, they found an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with a telescopic sight and three spent cartridges. As it turned out, the rifle bore Oswald's fingerprints.
Soon Oswald was stopped on one of the streets by a policeman and at the time of his arrest he killed him, shot four times. After a while, he was detained at the city cinema and taken to the police.
From the moment of the assassination attempt on Kennedy to the arrest of Oswald, it took only 1 hour and 20 minutes. That same night, Oswald was charged with the murder of the president and a police officer.
The arrested person denied his guilt.
On November 24, Oswald at the Dallas, Texas police station, nightclub owner Jack Ruby, as he was taken out to be sent to federal prison.
Ruby gave two reasons why he killed Oswald: to avenge the president and to save Jacqueline Kennedy from having to testify in court. On March 14, 1964, Ruby was sentenced to death but appealed and won. In December 1966, while Ruby was waiting for a date for a new trial, he was diagnosed with cancer. He died at Parkland Hospital on January 3, 1967.
To investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 29, 1963, a special commission was created by US President Lyndon Johnson, headed by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Earl Warren.
After 10 months of work, he provided a report with the following conclusions:
1) Kennedy and Connally were shot from a sixth-floor window of a school textbook warehouse;
2) the fire was led by Lee Harvey Oswald alone;
3) no evidence was found that Oswald and Jack Ruby knew each other and were in a conspiracy.
According to the commission's report, Oswald was in the Soviet Union from October 1959 to June 1962, where he worked at a radio plant in Minsk, in April 1961 he married a USSR citizen Marina Prusakova, with whom he had a daughter.
The commission found no evidence that Oswald was an agent of foreign states, an employee or informant of the FBI, CIA.
The conclusions of the commission were repeatedly subjected to justified criticism, but no one was able to prove the correctness of another version of Kennedy's assassination. Many independent investigators have died under mysterious circumstances, and most Americans consider the mystery of President Kennedy's assassination unsolved.
In particular, against the official version is evidenced by the fact that Oswald barely fulfilled the shooting standards in the army, and during the attack - according to the official version - in just six seconds he was able to fire three shots from a non-self-loading rifle, and two bullets hit the target, which was moving.
In 1968, a panel of three doctors "supported the medical side of the Warren Commission's conclusions."
In 1975, the Rockefeller Commission, which investigated CIA activities at home and abroad, "found no confirmation of the CIA's involvement" in the Kennedy assassination.
In 1979, the US House Political Assassinations Committee, created three years earlier, broadly supported the Warren Commission's findings, but noted that "there is a high likelihood that President Kennedy was shot by two." The committee suggested that there was a group of conspirators behind Oswald's back.
There have been many speculations about who "commissioned" Kennedy, from CIA-affiliated Cuban exiles to organized crime groups. In 2007, former CIA agent Howard Hunt, in his autobiography, pointed to US President Lyndon Johnson, who died in 1973, as the ordering party for the assassination. In 2013, Roger Stone, a former aide to former US President Richard Nixon, laid out a similar theory in the pages of a book he wrote entitled The Man Who Killed Kennedy - The Case Against Lyndon Johnson.
In 1992, the US Congress passed a law under which all political assassination files - approximately five million pages - were transferred to the National Archives.
In July 2017, the US National Archives released more than 16 gigabytes of previously unpublished documents related to the Kennedy assassination, two gigabytes of partially published. Among them were 17 audio recordings with the testimony of Yuri Nosenko, a former KGB agent who fled to the United States in 1964. As a Soviet intelligence officer, Nosenko worked on the Lee Harvey Oswald case when he came to the USSR. The defector stated that Oswald did not work for Moscow, and at the Lubyanka he was considered mentally unstable.
On October 21, 2017, US President Donald Trump is ready to declassify data related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
October 27, 2017 by his order from 2891 documents concerning the assassination of the 35th President of the United States.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
The assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas at 12:30 pm local time.
Kennedy was fatally wounded by a rifle shot as he and his wife, Jacqueline, rode in the presidential motorcade in an open limousine down Elm Street.
The president was hit by two bullets: one in the neck, the other in the head. He died before reaching Parkland Memorial Hospital.
The murder was investigated for ten months by a specially convened commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States ("Warren Commission"), which concluded that the murder was committed by a lone criminal, Lee Harvey Oswald.a former Marine with contacts with both right-wing and left-wing groups, organized crime and federal counterintelligence services.
Subsequent official investigations confirmed that Oswald was the killer, but some conspirators were likely behind him.
There are a number of conspiracy theories questioning the Warren Commission's findings and presenting alternative versions of the assassination, including a conspiracy by American or Soviet intelligence services, but none of them has been proven.
"Alternative" versions of the tragedy suggest that the president was actually shot by two or more people and that the US government and secret services for some reason hid the truth about what happened. Doubts were initially caused by the incredible ability of the sniper, who made two accurate shots, being able to reload the rifle in a matter of seconds as the presidential motorcade moved. The data collected by independent experts indicate that not three, as indicated in the conclusion of the Warren Commission, were fired, but six shots. Moreover, they fired from different points, and not from one place.
Opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans (over 70%) do not believe in the official version of the murder.
Even the current US Secretary of State John Kerry doubted that Oswald acted alone.
To this day, I still have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, "
said the chief American diplomat in an interview with NBC.
There are many versions of who could be behind the assassination of the 35th President of the United States. We will introduce you to 10 of the most popular of them.
1. Kennedy really killed Lee Harvey Oswald: scientists have proven the authenticity of the most important evidence
According to the official version, the main suspect in the murder of DFK is the lone killer Lee Harvey Oswald.
He was seen leaving the book depository building immediately after the shots, even before the police cordoned off the building. The weapon, a 6.5mm Carcano Model 91/38 rifle, alleged in an investigation by the Warren Commission, was hidden behind boxes. Lee bought it in March 1963 under the name A. Hydell "by mail.Less than an hour and a half after the murder, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater. He was charged with the murder of a police officer who stopped him in the street. When the patrolman approached him, he drew his revolver and fired at him five times.
Recently, a group of forensic scientistsUsing the latest technology, they managed to create a three-dimensional image of Lee Harvey Oswald and prove that the photograph in which he is depicted with a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other is genuine, according to the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law.
In addition, scientists were able to prove that the infantryman is holding exactly the Carcano Model 91/38 carbine of 6.5 mm caliber - Kennedy was killed from a rifle of the same model. The photograph, which was later assigned the CE number 133-A, was allegedly taken by Lee Harvey Oswald's wife Marina around March 31, 1963.
Pictured above, the only official suspect in the Kennedy assassination is standing in the backyard of his home, holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other. The picture is considered by experts as one of the proofs of Oswald's guilt in the Kennedy assassination, but its authenticity has been challenged more than once.
Earlier, some researchers stated that the length of the rifle with which Oswald was captured does not correspond to the real size of the weapon of this model. The infantryman's pose also raised doubts: according to experts, in this position, one cannot maintain balance, so it seems that Oswald is leaning against the wall, and in the picture there is no wall behind him. All this, as well as the ratio of light and shadow in the image, supposedly indicate the fact of editing.
It is worth noting that immediately after his arrest, Oswald claimed that all the photographs (including the one where he was captured with a rifle in his hands), taken several months before the assassination attempt on the American president and transferred to the investigation by his wife, were fake. They did not manage to find out whether this was so during the life of the accused.
Photo: 3D model of Lee Harvey Oswald with a rifle
Recall that on the morning of November 24, Oswald was shot dead while leaving the police station by the owner of the nightclub Jack Ruby.
2. Kennedy could be killed because of top-secret UFO documents
There is another version that seems fantastic at first glance. Its author is a former intelligence officer Milton William Cooper. Without denying the possibility of the above motives for the assassination of J. Kennedy, he believes that the most important reason was that the President discovered the connection of the US ruling elite with aliens from outer space and intended to make this fact public.
Ten days before his death, President Kennedy demanded to show him top-secret UFO documents, as evidenced by Kennedy's recently published letter to the CIA director on November 12, 1963. Writer William Lester says that the CIA, at his request, declassified two Kennedy letters from that day, writes InoPressa, citing the Daily Mail.
The letters support the theory that the president was shot to prevent him from learning the truth about the UFO.
In a second letter addressed to the head of NASA, Kennedy expressed his desire to cooperate with the USSR in space exploration. The publication publishes photocopies of both letters. According to Lester, Kennedy was alarmed by the fact that many UFOs were observed over the territory of the USSR. He feared that the Soviet authorities would mistakenly consider these UFOs to be a sign of American aggression and the presence of American technology.
For their part, conspiracy theorists argue that Kennedy's letter draws attention to the controversial "charred dossier" that American ufologist Timothy Cooper received in 1999.
According to Cooper, the document with the charred margins was sent by an unknown CIA officer who claimed to have snatched the paper from the fire when the top-secret files were destroyed.
As you should know, Ulan is making inquiries about our activities, which we cannot allow. Please communicate your point of view no later than October. Your opinion on this issue will play a major role in the continuation of the group's activities, "
the director of the CIA allegedly wrote on the first page of the document.
"Ulan" is President Kennedy's code name for his guard, the newspaper explains.
3. The assassination of Kennedy could have been ordered by the US vice president Lyndon Johnson
The same newspaper Daily Mail reported that the widow of President Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, in an interview with American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., accused Vice President and later President Lyndon Johnson of the death of her husband.
According to the publication, Jacqueline Kennedy believed that Lyndon Johnson and a certain businessman from the south were behind the murder, and Harvey Lee Oswald was only one of the participants in the conspiracy.
Johnson was motivated not only by the lust for power, but also by the instinct of self-preservation. The post of vice president and even more so the president protected him from accusations of corruption.
If Kennedy had not been killed that day, Lyndon Johnson would most likely have gone to jail. "
said shortly before her death in 2002, Johnson's mistress Madeleine Brown.
Dallas was not chosen as the place of murder by chance. Lyndon Johnson was originally from Texas and controlled the Dallas police. This helped to hide a number of clues. For example, fingerprints in the book vault of the hitman, ex-Marine Mack Wallace, who died in 1971.
It is also known that Johnson and Texas Gov. John Connally changed the route of the presidential motorcade through Dallas so that it went through Dealey Plaza.
The fact that the murder was ordered by Vice President Johnson was believed by many: Madeleine Brown, to whom he allegedly confessed on the eve of the murder; Richard Nixon, who succeeded him in the White House, and others.
4. Kennedy was killed by mistake
In the middle of 1990, a book by the former Israeli intelligence officer V. Ostrovsky was published in the West entitled “I was an agent of the Mossad.” It says the following about Kennedy's assassination:
According to the Mossad, the murderers - mafia mercenaries, not Lee Harvey Oswald, actually wanted to kill then-governor of Texas John Connelly, who was in the car with John F. Kennedy, but was only wounded. Connally thwarted gangsters trying to work their way into the oil business. To test this view, the president's travel sequence was replayed to determine if snipers with better weapons than Oswald's could have hit a moving target from 88 yards away. They couldn't. "
5. Kennedy "ordered" the CIA for "treacherous" policy
In 1966, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison began his own murder investigation. His main suspects were former Eastern Air Lines pilot David Ferry and New Orleans banker Clay Shaw. According to him, the assassination was organized by a paramilitary group of far-right activists with links to the CIA and anti-Castro sabotage groups created and funded by the CIA, which consisted of Cuban immigrants.
The reason for the murder could have been dissatisfaction with the course of the Kennedy administration (the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation and the warming of relations with the USSR and the Castro regime after the Cuban missile crisis, easing of interracial conflicts).
Garrison believed that the killers fired from three points (one from the book depository, two from the grassy hill), and he considered Oswald a "scapegoat" on whom the Kennedy and Tippit murders were "hung" and then removed.
Harrison's conclusions were based on an analysis of the Zapruder film and other photographic materials from the scene of the assassination attempt on J. Kennedy, which was carried out by Richard Sprague, an information technology specialist who has long worked as an expert with US law enforcement agencies. Comparing Zapruder's film with other photographic and film footage, Sprague found signs of six shots from three different directions.
A 26-second amateur documentary filmed by Abraham Zapruder in Dallas on the day of the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, became one of the main pieces of evidence in the investigation of the most mysterious murder of the twentieth century
On February 17, 1967, information about the investigation was leaked to the press, and on February 22, Ferry was found dead at his home. Shaw remained the only suspect. On March 11, Garrison indicted him for complicity in the Kennedy assassination. Several witnesses appeared on the prosecution side, claiming that Ferry, Oswald and Shaw knew each other and discussed the plan of the crime together.
The trial lasted two years, and on March 1, 1969, a jury found Shaw innocent. The Shaw case was the only trial in which anyone was formally charged with the Kennedy assassination.
Harrison's findings were later the subject of analysis by the US House Homicide Committee. At the same time, the Committee noted that Harrison was criticized for "dubious methods"
6. Kennedy was shot by the president's guard
According to this version, DFK's death was not a murder, but a tragic accident. The accidental killer was George Hickey, a secret service agent that protects the president, his family members, and senior US officials. On that fateful November day, he was driving behind the presidential limousine. After Oswald's first shot, Hickey attempted to return fire with an AR-15 self-loading rifle next to him.
Three circumstances turned out to be fatal for the President of the United States. At that moment, the car rocked, and Hickey lost sight. In addition, he was unfamiliar with such rifles and, possibly, for the first time ever held it in his hands. And, to top it all off, all the previous night he had been out with friends until morning, and his hands were slightly shaking. The bullet fired by Hickey, by chance, naturally, hit the president in front of him in the neck.
The White House knew about George Hickey's shot and that it was a fatal accident. But by order of Robert Kennedy, the case was hushed up in order to avoid a grandiose scandal, and all evidence was destroyed.
7. Mafia is behind the murder of DFK
Supporters of this version believe that the godfathers Carlos Marcello, Santo Traficante and Sam Giancana decided to remove Kennedy, who, with the help of his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, declared war on organized crime in the United States.
It is believed that the mafia helped DFK become president, and he "thanked" her by declaring a crusade against her. Mafiosi killed the president and framed Lee Harvey Oswald. Supporters of this version claim that the FBI received Marcello's recognition back in 1985, but decided to keep it secret.
8. The military avenged Kennedy for Vietnam
This version became popular again after Oliver Stone's film "JFK" was released in 1993 in the United States and then around the world. This film features a mysterious character, a certain X, who claims that the President of the United States was removed by the top of the Pentagon, frightened by Kennedy's plans to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam.
This X - L. Fletcher Prouty, an Air Force colonel who served on the Chiefs of Staff, discovered in classified information HCAM memo 263, drawn up six weeks before Kennedy's assassination and approved by the President. It spoke of the withdrawal of thousands of American advisers from South Vietnam by the end of 1963. The complete withdrawal of all American personnel was to be completed no later than December 1965.
Meanwhile, four days after Kennedy's assassination, the new US President Lyndon Johnson issued a new memorandum, HCAM 273, which did not mention any withdrawal of troops. This is how the Vietnam War began.
On this occasion, Professor Peter Scott in an interview with the magazine "Echo of the Planet" (No. 16, 1968) said:
The war was prepared and started by more than one person. Fortune, political careers were made on it. She opened the road to power for a whole generation of politicians. They do not voluntarily refuse such a thing. During the years of preparation for the war in Indochina, and especially during it, a whole apparatus was formed within the American political machine, which lived this war and which supported it. One can only guess about his power ... I do not see a real possibility that in this situation John F. Kennedy could stop this process. His fate was a foregone conclusion. "
9. The 35th President of the United States was "removed" Cuban Intelligence G2
Vladimir Kryuchkov advised the Cuban comrades to take a closer look at Oswald. The most important of several meetings took place in Mexico City, where Oswald arrived by bus in September 1963. She passed in the garage of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico. The American told Fabian Escalante, the future head of Cuban intelligence, and his nephew Anibal, the son of the former president of the Cuban Communist Party, that he wanted to become a "soldier of the revolution." He is ready to prove the seriousness of his intentions ... by the assassination of the President of the United States.
Although Oswald was not a very reliable person, the Cubans decided not to give up such a chance. They considered Kennedy the main enemy of the Cuban revolution. The head of the American president was estimated inexpensively - only 6.5 thousand dollars. Cubans also promised Oswald asylum on Liberty Island, but they did not keep their word and left him to his fate.
The very next day, an FBI officer named Lawrence Keenan went to unravel the "Cuban" trail in Mexico City. However, three days later, Hoover recalled him to Washington without any explanation. Keenan is confident that Lyndon Johnson insisted on stopping the investigation. He was afraid that an outburst of indignation would force him to attack Cuba, which would inevitably lead to a war with the USSR.
Oswald was a dissident, and fiercely hated his country ... He offered to kill John F. Kennedy. We took advantage of it. He was our tool ... ", -
claims Oscar Marino, a former member of the Cuban secret service.
Marino doesn't know if the order to kill Kennedy bears Castro's signature, but Castro and Kennedy looked like two duelists trying to get rid of each other. Suffice it to say that after his brother's death, Robert Kennedy tried to take revenge on Fidel at least eight times.
10.The South Vietnamese government is behind the Kennedy assassination
On November 1, 1963, a military coup took place in South Vietnam. The legally elected government was overthrown, Ngo Din Dim, along with two brothers, was killed. The coup and assassination was organized and carried out by the CIA on direct orders from John F. Kennedy.
If the DFK counted on the gratitude of the Vietnamese, then he was greatly miscalculated. This mistake cost him his life. Revenge was swift and brutal. Three weeks later, fatal shots rang out in Dallas.
Less than 48 hours after the assassination of President Kennedy, Lucier Sarti, a Corsican contract killer and drug dealer, was arrested. On the morning of November 22, he was in Fort Worth, where Kennedy gave a speech outside the Texas Hotel, and a few hours later, at the time of the assassination, he was already in Dallas.
The FBI knew full well that the man had been trained in military camps by one of the foreign armies and that he was wanted by the French authorities for subversive activities against the state. He was a fighter of the infamous SLA, a secret ultra-radical organization of the French military that opposed President de Gaulle. Instead of arresting and interrogating this man, who, according to a number of conspiracy theorists, was hired by the Vietnamese, the FBI secretly took him to Mexico or Canada and released him on all four sides.
Original taken from ru_strange_st in Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Brief Chronology 22 November 1963
On November 22, 1963, in front of hundreds of witnesses, US President Kennedy was fatally wounded in downtown Dallas. November 22, 1963 is arguably the most well-documented day in world history. For fifty years, thousands of books have been written about this day and many films have been shot. Full of ambiguities, inconsistencies, unexplained and unexplained coincidences, this story, apparently, will forever remain the subject of various conspiracy theories. I tried to add my own to the hundreds of "timelines" of this day, mainly in an attempt to collect the most dramatic, in my opinion, photographic evidence.
11.10
President and Mrs Kennedy board Air Force One at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth for a short flight to Dallas.
11:39
Arrival at Love Field, Dallas, photo by Presidential photographer Sacil Stoughton.
11:55
After welcoming Dallas residents to the airfield, the President and First Lady take their seats in the open Lincoln, photo by Tom Dillard, reporter for the Dallas Morning News.
Texas Governor Connally and his wife are already in the car. The limousine is driven by Secret Service agent William Greer, agent Roy Kellerman is in the right front seat. Mrs. Kennedy is behind her bodyguard, Agent Clint Hill. After a brief rain, the weather clears up, and, at the insistence of Kennedy, who needs to make a favorable impression on Texans, it is decided not to install a removable roof on the limousine.
12:28
The President's motorcade along Main Street is heading towards Dealey Plaza.
The mayor of Dallas estimates that there are about a quarter of a million residents on the streets welcoming the president. In some places, the crowd splashes onto the roadway, forcing the driver to slow down to minimum speed. There are approximately 20,000 open windows along the route of the motorcade, which makes the work of the presidential bodyguards extremely difficult.
12:29
The motorcade enters Dealey Plaza, turning onto Houston Street, photo by Jack Weaver.
The window on the far right is captured on the sixth floor of the book depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald is supposedly prepared to shoot. Unfortunately, all the efforts of the FBI experts to improve the quality of the image did not help to draw a definite conclusion about the arrow in the window.
Modern panorama from the shooting point:
After a short stretch along Houston Street, the car makes a 120-degree left onto Elm. To avoid hitting the curb, the long limousine slows down to almost zero. Kennedy is at a minimum distance from the "sniper nest" on the sixth floor. Strangely, the alleged killer is not taking advantage of this moment.
12:30
Kennedy's limousine begins moving down Elm Street, photo by Robert Croft.
Apparently, Croft, on the left side of Elm Street, takes this picture a second after the first shot (missed). Kennedy stops greeting the audience for a moment, Governor Connally looks at the secret agents with a puzzled look, Jacqueline Kennedy stops smiling. It is unclear why the alleged killer had to shoot at the moment when there is quite dense foliage on the trajectory between the "sniper nest" and the limousine.
12:30
The first bullet hits Kennedy, photo by AP reporter James "Icke" Altgen.
The photograph, which has become one of the canonical photos of the Kennedy assassination, captured the moment the second shot hit the president's back. Kennedy reflexively throws his arms to his chest in a fit of pain, his wife supports him with a white gloved hand, Connally (who was wounded, according to the official version, by the same bullet) also reacts to pain, but bodyguards and police motorcyclists do not yet realize what is happening. Clint Hill, standing on the left side step of the guard's car, looks at the back of the limousine; Agents Landis and Reedy turn around on the right footboard towards the side where the shot rang out. Driver Greer, against all instructions, slows down and turns to look at the passengers.
Over time, this photo will cause a heated discussion among supporters of the conspiracy theory, who claim that the person standing on the entrance steps of the book depository in the background is none other than Oswald himself, who, therefore, could not be at this moment on the sixth floor ... The Warran Commission, the government agency that officially investigated the Kennedy assassination, concluded that the photo shows Billy Lovelady, another warehouse worker who looks vaguely like Oswald.
12:30
Third shot fatally wounds President Kennedy, amateur shot film Mary Machmore.
A second before the fatal shot, Clint Hill finally realizes what is happening and, jumping off the steps, runs to the limousine to cover the president with his body, as required by the instructions of the secret service agent. Witnesses standing on the stairs on the "grassy hill" react with horror as the bullet smashes Kennedy's head. Who is the guy in the red shirt by the way?
Agent Hill jumps onto the bumper of the presidential limousine, shot from an amateur movie by Abraham Zapruder.
Apparently shocked by what is happening, Jacqueline Kennedy tries to get onto the trunk of the limousine. Hill, who jumped on the bumper just before Kellerman in the front seat commands the driver to pick up speed, would later explain to the Warren Commission that Mrs. Kennedy was trying to pick up a piece of the president's skull that had flown back.
12:36
The limousine arrives at the emergency room of Parkland Hospital, from the Thomas Atkins chronicle.
Jacqueline Kennedy does not let her husband out of her hands; Agent Hill takes off his jacket and wraps it around the president's head. Kennedy and Governor Connally are wheeled into operating theaters. While the car is in the ambulance parking lot, the police and the secret service clean up traces of blood and install a removable roof, thereby violating the integrity of the crime scene and destroying possible evidence.
12:49
For the last communion ceremony, a Catholic priest, Father Oscar Huber, arrives in operating room 1 of Parkland Hospital.
For about fifteen minutes, a team of ambulance surgeons tries in vain to carry out resuscitation procedures; At about five o'clock, the priest, in the presence of Jacqueline Kennedy, the doctors and Agent Hill, administers the last sacrament.
13:00
At one o'clock local time, Dr. William Clarke announces the death of Kennedy. The photo shows operating room 1, which will later be completely dismantled and taken to the warehouse of the US State Archives.
13:33
After the Secret Service, fearing a large-scale conspiracy, takes Vice President Johnson to the plane, White House spokesman Malcolm Kilduff makes an official statement to the press: “President John F. Kennedy passed away about one hour central time here in Dallas. died of a gunshot wound to the head. I have no other information about the assassination of the president. "
14:04
Jacqueline Kennedy sits in a hearse with her husband's body at Parkland Hospital, photo by Joe Laird / Dallas Morning News.
Under 1963 law, the assassination of the president was not a federal crime, so the investigation and autopsy had to be carried out by the local police. Secret Service agents, threatening with police weapons, retrieve Kennedy's body from the hospital.
14:14
The Irish Mafia, Kennedy's closest associates, lift the president's coffin aboard Air Force One at Dallas Airport, photo by Sacil Stoughton.
Vice President Johnson is already on board, which was an unpleasant surprise for Kennedy's team - according to the protocol, he must follow on the second plane. During the half hour they were in Parkland, Johnson had already managed to prepare the procedure for taking the presidential oath. The coffin is installed in the rear compartment; Johnson and his wife are leaving the presidential bedroom when Mrs. Kennedy enters.
14:38
Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, whom Johnson has urgently called out of town, swears in by him aboard Air Force One, photo by Sacil Stoughton.
18:00
After the presidential plane arrives at Andrews AFB in Washington, the President's brother Robert Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy escort the hearse to a Navy hospital for an official autopsy.
About 50,000 documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy have not yet been released for reasons of "national security." According to the requirements of US law, they must be published by October 26, 2017, provided that the incumbent does not consider such a publication to threaten the interests of defense, intelligence or international relations.
