Lee Harvey Oswald was being led down a hall at Dallas police headquarters on the night of November 22, 1963, when he uttered maybe probably the most fateful phrase within the historical past of conspiracy theories.
‘I am only a patsy!’ he screamed at reporters demanding to know whether or not he’d shot lifeless President John F Kennedy earlier that day in Dealey Plaza.
Two days later, Oswald was himself shot lifeless by nightclub proprietor Jack Ruby in a second captured dwell on tv. He might by no means reveal whose ‘patsy’ he’d been – however there’s been no scarcity of solutions.
The Warren Fee, the official federal investigation into JFK’s killing, concluded in 1964 that 24-year-old Oswald acted alone with no proof of a conspiracy.
Nevertheless, the shortage of an apparent motive on his half has led to mountains of hypothesis and conjecture through the years.
Why would a dedicated Left-winger wish to kill a liberal president dedicated to civil rights? Furthermore, Ruby was a shady character with Mafia hyperlinks, making Oswald’s dying all of the extra suspicious.
Most Individuals clearly consider that the Warren Fee did not get to the entire reality, with a significant ballot final yr discovering that 65 per cent refuse to consider Oswald acted alone.
So if he was a ‘patsy’, who was actually behind the homicide?
US President John F Kennedy smile at crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas, Texas, minutes earlier than he was assassinated
President-elect Donald Trump shakes arms with Robert F Kennedy Jr at a marketing campaign rally
Kennedy’s spouse Jackie’s desperately makes an attempt to avoid wasting her husband after he’s shot in Dallas
Of all of the organisations and teams linked with the assassination through the years, one has all the time appeared notably tantalising.
The Central Intelligence Company, or CIA, is devoted to defending the US – together with its president. However it has nonetheless featured prominently in a number of theories, some totally outlandish, that allege there was a darkish ‘deep state’ conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
From the Mob and Fidel Castro’s Communist Cuba to ‘large enterprise’ and conservatives in his personal authorities (who noticed him as insufficiently hawkish overseas, particularly in Vietnam the place he was reluctant to commit extra troops), Kennedy had lots of enemies.
They included the CIA – typically often called ‘the company’ or ‘the corporate’ – which JFK had threatened to dismantle after its disastrous try to invade Cuba and produce down Castro in 1961, in what was known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Many Individuals consider the Warren Fee too readily absolved the CIA of any involvement within the President’s homicide.
These conspiracy theories have been infected for many years by the refusal of successive US presidents to launch all the key authorities paperwork regarding the killing.
Now, 61 years after the assassination, the highlight is as soon as once more set to fall on the CIA. Within the run-up to this yr’s US presidential election, Donald Trump promised JFK’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that he would launch in full the ultimate remaining paperwork – hopefully fixing the thriller as soon as and for all.
Held within the US Nationwide Archives, these quantity 3,100 out of an unique trove of 320,000. These papers, both partially or solely censored, have been the main target of fervent hopes amongst JFK obsessives that the redactions may conceal a ‘smoking gun’ – definitive proof that Oswald did not act alone.
John F Kennedy waving from his automotive roughly one minute earlier than he was shot
But Trump might come to remorse that pledge.
RFK Jr, who dropped his personal presidential run in favour of Trump and who has been rewarded by being nominated as well being secretary within the Trump administration, isn’t any stranger to conspiracy theories, from vaccine security to fluoride in water.
For years, the gravel-voiced ex-lawyer has been arguing that there’s ‘overwhelming proof’ that the CIA was concerned in his uncle’s dying, claiming that that is ‘past affordable doubt’.
RFK Jr has accused the US authorities of orchestrating a ’60-year cover-up’ over the assassination, which he believes was linked to JFK’s refusal to commit US fight forces to Vietnam.
He claims that the ‘first intuition’ of his father Bobby, who was JFK’s Legal professional Normal, (and who was himself assassinated in 1968), was that the company was behind the President’s killing.
RFK Jr insists that everybody linked to the assassination has now died and the CIA’s lingering opposition to launch all incriminating recordsdata concerning the case is solely to ‘defend the establishment’.
He advised Fox Information final yr: ‘The day that his brother [JFK] died, my father’s first cellphone name was to the CIA desk officer at Langley [Virginia, the agency’s HQ]. My father mentioned to him: ‘Did your individuals do that?’
Over time, the CIA’s ongoing insistence that the paperwork stay sealed has solely enhanced claims of a cover-up.
Donald Trump promised JFK’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that he would launch in full the ultimate remaining paperwork on the assassination of his uncle (pictured) – a pledge he might come to remorse
Underneath an act handed in 1992, all authorities paperwork concerning the assassination have been to be made publicly out there by October 2017, though some may very well be delayed for ‘nationwide safety’ and ‘privateness’ causes.
Considerably, 1992 was the yr after the discharge of director Oliver Stone’s controversial political thriller JFK which alleged the CIA was concerned in a wide-ranging conspiracy to kill the President.
Trump has mentioned that in his first time period, his then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (himself a former CIA director) urged him to rethink an earlier promise to launch the papers, insisting ‘it wants slightly extra time’.
Trump claimed the CIA was ‘in all probability’ behind Pompeo’s request. Earlier this month, it was revealed that RFK Jr can also be lobbying to have his personal daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, appointed deputy head of the CIA so she will be able to additional uncover the online of conspiracies he believes lies behind his uncle’s dying.
RFK Jr has been lobbying to have his personal daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy (pictured), appointed deputy head of the CIA
Fox Kennedy, who was RFK Jr’s election marketing campaign supervisor, is a former spy who mentioned she was recruited in her early 20s, changing into one of many company’s youngest feminine officers.
On condition that Trump is eager to maintain RFK Jr near him, reportedly seeing the ex-Democrat as a means of broadening his assist base, he might really feel he has no selection however to launch the recordsdata.
And if Trump does attempt to make good on his pledge, specialists predict he’ll face a decided battle from an organisation as soon as infamous for ruthless political scheming and soiled methods.
So what is perhaps in these closing redacted recordsdata? For one factor, JFK assassination sleuths count on additional proof that CIA bosses shamelessly lied after they repeatedly claimed they knew nothing about Oswald earlier than the killing.
Robert F Kennedy Jr assembly Donald Trump at a marketing campaign rally in October. RFK Jr has insisted that the CIA’s reluctance to reveal the remaining recordsdata is to ‘defend the establishment’
The truth is, it had compiled an 181-page file of knowledge – a few of it redacted to at the present time – about Oswald lengthy earlier than he shot JFK.
Even those that consider the CIA performed no half within the assassination concede that the remaining paperwork might severely embarrass the company by revealing that it failed to lift the alarm over a person it knew a lot about.
In accordance with Jefferson Morley, a famend JFK assassination professional who has written three books on the CIA, it had been watching Oswald fastidiously for 4 years, inserting him underneath surveillance and even assigning an agent to open his mail.
The CIA knew that after being discharged from lively responsibility into the Marine Corps Reserve in 1959, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union and spent two and a half years in Minsk the place he married a Russian lady named Marina and had a daughter.
The CIA wasn’t monitoring him, claims Morley, as a result of it suspected he was a risk to the presidency however as a result of he was inadvertently permitting them to maintain tabs on Left-wing organisations – corresponding to a pro-Castro outfit named the Honest Play For Cuba Committee – which Oswald supported, however which the company thought to be a risk to nationwide safety.
But when it was watching Oswald so carefully, why on earth was the CIA unable to warn the US authorities that he was about to kill the President?
That, says Morley, goes to the center of the matter. ‘Was the CIA negligent with Oswald? Watched him all the way in which into Dealey Plaza after which he shot the President and it is simply ‘Oh, sorry, we missed him’?’ Morley advised the Mail.
‘So was it negligence? Was it ‘intentional negligence’ or was it truly a ‘false flag’ CIA operation to assassinate the President and blame Cuba? These are the alternatives… it seems very dangerous for the CIA.’
A mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald. The marxist and former US marine famously screamed at reporters ‘I am only a patsy!’
Morley advised the Mail he believes an individual or individuals throughout the CIA, or maybe the Pentagon, was ‘manipulating’ Oswald: presumably ‘rogue brokers’ working with out high-level authorisation.
Not solely was Kennedy speaking of radically reforming the CIA however –only a yr after narrowly averting nuclear warfare with Russia in the course of the Cuban Missile Disaster of 1962 –was adopting a much more dovish line in direction of America’s Communist foes all over the world. This method was infuriating the intelligence institution.
Hollywood, which loves nothing higher than sinister Proper-wing bogeymen, has been blaming the CIA for the assassination for years.
Oliver Stone primarily based his 1991 movie on claims that anti-Castro and anti-Communist components throughout the CIA have been behind a conspiracy to kill Kennedy that concerned Oswald.
Extra not too long ago, Rob Reiner –director of movies corresponding to When Harry Met Sally and This Is Spinal Faucet – has produced a well-liked podcast which additionally claims JFK was killed by his enemies within the CIA and Pentagon.
A CIA spokesperson insisted to the Washington Submit in 2022 that the company was not withholding details about Oswald or the assassination.
‘The CIA believes all substantive data identified to be immediately associated to Oswald has been launched,’ claimed the spokesman.
‘The few remaining redactions defend CIA worker names, sources, places and CIA tradecraft.’
Oswald proven after his arrest. He was later shot lifeless by nightclub proprietor Jack Ruby in a second captured dwell on tv
Which may be so, and it stays true that not all JFK assassination specialists consider the CIA got down to kill the President and even that Oswald had any help.
However even those that consider the gunman acted alone count on the remaining paperwork to point out that the CIA failed in its responsibility to alert the FBI, which handles home safety, about Oswald.
So if the CIA is merely attempting to guard itself, does that imply Trump will ignore its objections and publish the recordsdata in full? Not essentially.
There’s mentioned to be one other secret lurking within the recordsdata which will keep Trump’s hand.
The one doc with probably the most redactions issues Oswald’s intriguing go to to Mexico simply two months earlier than the JFK capturing, to acquire visas for the Soviet Union and Communist Cuba.
The CIA was capable of monitor his actions and even his cellphone calls with Soviet officers as a result of it was already bugging these embassies – together with these of different Communist nations corresponding to Czechoslovakia – because of cooperation with the Mexican authorities.
The truth is, in keeping with Jefferson Morley, three successive Mexican presidents, from the early Nineteen Sixties to the mid-Seventies, have been working ‘hand in glove’ with a CIA soiled methods marketing campaign which additionally concerned bugging the Presidents’ political rivals and which, even now, the Mexican authorities could be ‘very embarrassed and livid’ to see disclosed.
At the moment, Trump is anxious for Mexico’s assist in stemming the tide of migrants streaming over America’s southern border.
RFK Jr strolling by way of the Russell Senate Workplace Constructing in Washington. He has been nominated by Trump to run the Division for Well being and Human Companies
He might calculate that the political threat of releasing this data is just too excessive.
And even when Trump places his alliance with the eccentric however decided RFK Jr first, and releases all of the paperwork, will that finish all of the hypothesis concerning the assassination?
Hardly. In accordance with professional Gerald Posner, who believes Oswald acted alone: ‘Individuals believing in conspiracy will declare: ‘Effectively, see, there you go. They destroyed the true paperwork.’
One factor is for certain: in attempting to appease the calls for of his well being secretary-in-waiting, Donald Trump – normally a canny operator – has created an almighty headache for himself.
