John F Kennedy Assassination History Essay

John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy was the 35th president of U.S.A and he served from 1961 up till his untimely death via assassination in 1963. He was killed on his entourage in Dallas Texas while travelling on an open top car motorcade on 22 November 1963. His assassination was the fourth presidential assassination after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1965, James A. Garfield’s assassination in 1881, and William McKinley assassination in 1901. There were many assumptions on the course of the assassination. Some believed that the president was killed because he had the motive of ending his relief assistance to Vietnam. His assassination shocked every citizen since the killers and the incidences surrounding his death were not known to them. This lead to the citizens believing that there was so much behind the death of their president and the whole ordeal looked like a conspiracy. All the investigations that were conducted revealed no clear evidence behind the motive of the neither assassination nor give way for the arrest of the assassin. After his death commissions were formed to get to the root of the assassinations the two government investigations of the assassination are:

The warren commission

The House Select Committee on Assassinations

The Warren Commission

This was established on 29th November 1963 and was officially known as the president’s commission on the assassination of President Kennedy. It was headed by earl warren. This is the commission that revealed the identity of the man behind the murder of the president. The report led to the arrest and sentencing of the suspect popularly known as Oswald Lee. It stated that Oswald executed the atrocity single handed and had no political back up. The final report was 888 pages and was presented to the then president Johnson on 24th September 1964.

Methods of data collection

The commission relied on the FBI and the CIA and other government agencies for its investigations it did not have field investigators and had a staff of only lawyers. It used closed sessions to conduct hearings these sessions were not secret sessions.

Findings

On 24th September 1964, the commission in its final report concluded that Oswald was the president’s murderer. Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested on November 23th for the murder of a Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit and the following day was charged with murder of the president on November 24th 1963. He was killed by a nightclub owner Jack Ruby on November 24th 1963 as he was being moved to the county jail.

United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA

It was established in1976 to investigate the assassination of John F Kennedy, The shooting of Governor George Wallace who was shot during the assassination of John F Kennedy and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The committee investigated for two years that is until 1978 and presented its final report in 1969.

Methods of Investigation

The commission used a forensic panel to study the photographic evidence thus ruling out suspects.

Findings

The commission in 1979 that John F Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and this was as a result of a conspiracy. Notably the commission concluded that the conspiracy did not include governments of the Soviet Union and Cuba. The commission also found out that the alleged assassin was working alone and successfully assassinated the president without any political back up.

Theories

Many theories are put in place to explain the assassination. The following are the theories of the groups of people who had the means, motivation, and opportunity to assassinate the president.

Organized crime conspiracy (Mafia Conspiracy)

Mafia criminals may have wanted to react for increasing pressure put upon them by President Robert Kennedy, he had increased the number of prosecutions under President Dwight Eisenhower by 12 times. Some Documents which were never seen by the Warren Commission revealed that some Mafiosi were in work very closely with the CIA on some assassination attempts of Fidel Castro the Cuban president.

Jimmy Hoffa who was Teamsters Union president and mobsters Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti and Santo Trafficante Jr. (they were all accused by Hoffa to be working with the CIA) were on top the list of House Select Committee on Assassinations Mafia suspects. Carlos Marcello actually threatened to assassinate Him and collude with Bobby, working as the attorney general and he was leading the administration’s anti-Mafia crusade.

Bill Bonanno son of Joseph Bonanno In his biography, Bound by Honor: A Mafioso’s Story, give details implying that Mafia families had connections with Castro Cuban antagonists via the Havana casinos. Cubans disliked President John F Kennedy because he failed to fully back them in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The Mafia despised the Kennedys because as Attorney General Robert Kennedy led a record legal assault on organized crime. This was annoying for the reason that some Mafia families had operated with JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy so that his son could be elected and there was rumor about voting anomalies in the 1960 voting process, in which there were expert assassins. Bonanno reported that he realized the extent of the participation of other Mafia families when he saw Jack Ruby murder Oswald on television the Bonannos knew Jack Ruby as an associate of Sam Giancana a Chicago mobster.

From Evidence released in 2006 by the FBI Carlos Marcello plead guilty to having organized Kennedy’s assassination. This information has been covered up by the FBI. This conspiracy supported in congressional committee findings that Marcello had joined hands with the mafia behind the killing and had the capital and the chance required. The assassination came two weeks prior to a rebellion aimed at Castro by the Kennedys’ connected to the Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs Invasion.

A purported girlfriend of President Kennedy Judith Campbell Exner, Sam’s mistress she was had a live show daughter of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, Maria Shriver on ABC’s Good Morning America. She did not respond to the question of delivering messages between the two principles since she was close to both of them.

Also supporting this is James Files who claims to be a former assassin working for both the Mafia and the CIA he participated in the assassination along with Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti at the request of Sam Giancana. He is now a prisoner for a the crime of attempted murde of a security officer.

“The Men Who Killed Kennedy” a program on The History Channel, presents additional information for organized crime taking part in John F Kennedys Assassination. Christian David was interviewed in prison and said he was hired to murder the president but declined the offer. He said that there were three shooters. He revealed the name of one Lucien Sarti but not the other two shooters since they were still living and this would breach their moral practices. When he was asked what they wore David noted they dressed in costumes such as official uniforms. Most of Christian David’s testimony was confirmed by Michelle Nicole a former Corsican.

CIA conspiracy

Researchers claimed that CIA officer David A. P. with the alias “Maurice Bishop”, was working with Alpha 66, an organization of anti-Castro Cubans. Founder of Alpha 66’s, Antonio Veciana, claimed that during a secret meeting with “Bishop”,one Oswald Lee was Present. Gaeton Fonzi a HSCA investigator believed Phillips was the man using the alias “Bishop”.

John M. Newman, an NSA executive in 1995 published evidence that the CIA and FBI had intentionally interfered Oswald’s database and before and after the murder. He discovered that they had not provided all the important details that could have cautioned Dallas authorities that Oswald was a potential threat to John F Kennedy. Newman has expressed a belief that James Angleton was perhaps the key figure in the assassination.

James Douglass, Kennedy believes John F Kennedy was assassinated due to his mediation of peace with the Soviet Union and since he was avoiding the consequences.

Cuban exiles Conspiracy Theory

When Kennedy was first elected, he was a strong advocate of the Cuban invasion plan though he changed his opinion on this way later. After the catastrophic Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba supported by the CIA, Due to him changing his mind about an invasion, he was disliked by the community of exiled Cubans. Helms who was a top official in the CIA was immediately put under pressure. This was from his blood relation Robert who was the attorney general and The President to increase American efforts to Bring down Fidel Castro.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that there was evidence linking certain violent Cuban exiles who may have participated in Kennedy’s assassination. They joined forces with the CIA against Cuban violence. In 1979, The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported this in its findings:

President Kennedy’s regard among the Cuban exiles had leapt tremendously by 1963. Their bitterness is shown in a recording of Castro Cuban antagonists light headed Americans in Dallas Farmer’s Branch on October . The Dallas Morning News, focused mainly on the President’s immature trip to Texas in, the Cubans echoed his aggression.

Secret Service conspiracy

The House Select Committee on Assassinations established that although Oswald assassinated Kennedy and a conspiracy was likely. Among the findings in its report the HSCA noted that President Kennedy was not granted adequate protection in Dallas. The Secret Service had improperly analyzed, investigated information which was used by the Secret Service with regards to the President’s trip to Dallas. Secret Service agents were ineffectively combated to deal with an assassins attack. Though widely in doubt but possible, absence of caution happened due to Kennedy himself had precisely requested the Secret Service to make it unnoticeable during the Dallas visit.

Israeli conspiracy

This theory claims that the Israeli government was annoyed with President Kennedy for his pressure against their quest of a nuclear program in Negev Nuclear Research Center “Dimona” and/or the Israelis were annoyed over Kennedy’s considerations with Arabs. Lyndon B. Johnson and Meyer Lansky are Gangsters who act vital roles in organizing and preparing the assassination. Mordechai Vanunu an Israel’s nuclear whistleblower claimed in the Al-Hayat newspaper that Israel helped of John F. Kennedy In July 2004.

Importance

Organized crime has always been a thorn in the flesh of the society. From the case of the assassination of the American president, several aspects of security come into question. It is unbelievable that the security detail of the world’s strongest president was unable to combat the plan. Technological advancements should be applied in the process of planning and equipping the security personnel. In the day to day world, it is good to note that criminals have resolved to use high-technology tools in their trade. Special academies should be set up to train the security. The incidence of the September 2001 attack on the Pentagon serves as a reminder that more has to be done to beef up national security.

Thousands of innocent citizens die in each attack due to mistakes done by their presidents. It is therefore necessary to set up regulatory bodies that will work on ensuring issues of personal political interests do not put the lives of citizens at risk. In the assassination, American citizens were put at high risk; their only mistake being lining up to cheer their president.

The assassination of John F Kennedy is important in today’s world since it exposes the extent to which organized crime is rooted in government and any attempt to remove one from the other will not succeed. The only remedy is to uproot the whole tree. John F Kennedy tried to rid the world of the evil but since some selfish people were profiting from the evil thus they had to protect their “interests”

From the many cover ups by the government institutions there is doubt that the job was not an inside job since there is proof that the mafias were CIA trained. Thus showing that the institutions of government can befriend any foe but once the deal goes sour there is always one pawn to be sacrificed.

It’s said that there is nothing as profitable as war. John F Kennedy Proposed Peace this did not augur well with some individuals who may have been supplying weapons and also corporations which get paid to rebuild nations. Thus John F Kennedy was seen as a spanner to the works in these people’s agendas.

Conclusively, John F Kennedy was assassinated by the mafia (organized crime). This was so due to his brother’s anti-mafia stands, a good illustration of the saying that politics is a dirty game.