By: Emarie Butler
Introduction
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president, the youngest man elected, and the youngest president to die, had served just a few days over a thousand in the White House before he was assassinated (“John F. Kennedy”). Did the handsome, forty-six year old president have underlying enemies? Perhaps the originally suspected killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, is the man responsible for the assassination? Or, was Oswald simply the guinea pig in a larger scheme? Did Jack Ruby, the man who killed Oswald, have a hand in President Kennedy’s murder (Gutmann 707-08)? Let us evaluate these theories and embark on an adventure of uncovering the truth about President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Character Analysis
John F. Kennedy was a determined president who had big aspirations for his presidency. In his inaugural speech, he vowed to America that he would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty” (JFK and Communism). One example is President Kennedy’s fight against communism. After three months in office, Kennedy had his first encounter with communism in Latin America. Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro, a then growing threat to Kennedy, had the support of the Soviet Union. According to PBS, “Castro's message of revolution was well received in the region, where many people struggled under repressive regimes,” this caused Kenndey to attempt to invade Cuba (JFK and Communism). Kennedy’s ambitions did not stop there, another goal he had was to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. A paper by NASA says on May 25, 1961, Kennedy announced his “dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade” (The Decision to Go to the Moon).
One of President Kennedy’s other goals was to secure the civil rights of all American citizens and end segregation. In a televised address to the nation, President Kennedy defined civil rights as a “moral issue” as well as a constitutional issue (The Kennedys and the Civil Rights Movement). The National Park Service says “He also proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1963, which would provide protection of every American’s right to vote under the United States Constitution, end segregation in public facilities, and require public schools to be integrated” (The Kennedys and the Civil Rights Movement). John F. Kennedy’s goals for his presidency were evident in his actions to improve the safety and well-being of the United States while in office.
John F. Kennedy was a trustworthy man who had the support of many across the United States of America. Before entering politics, Kennedy served in the Navy. While serving, he commanded the boat Patrol-Torpedo which got hit by a Japanese destroyer. The History Channel says “Kennedy helped some of his marooned crew back to safety and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism”, this established a sense of credibility in his campaign (“John F. Kennedy”). In the presidential race, his young and vibrant energy caught the attention of American citizens, giving him a different look than his opponent Richard Nixon (“John F. Kennedy”). According to the History Channel, “Kennedy won by a narrow margin, fewer than 120,000 out of some 70 million votes cast, becoming the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to be elected president of the United States” (“John F. Kennedy”). His determined nature quickly earned him the admiration of the people of America. Not only was he admired in the United States, but his efforts to defeat communism granted him favorability in Latin America as well. Also, his dedication to ending segregation contributed to America’s love for him.
There is no doubt that President Kennedy’s good looks also gave him extra popularity. In a journal article, Burton I. Kaufman says “Most Americans think of President Kennedy as the young, handsome, athletic, vibrant chief executive,” proving that his handsomeness and energetic nature gained him much support amongst the people of the United States (Kaufman).
President Kennedy is still loved today and is remembered as one of the most handsome men to ever serve in executive office. The good deeds and character of John F. Kennedy helped him acquire the love and support of a great number of American citizens.
Conspiracy Theories
In the assassination case of President John F. Kennedy, many conspiracy theories have come to the surface. One theory suggests that President Kennedy had numerous secret enemies that conspired to kill him. Some believe that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot that killed Kennedy. An alternative theory suggests that there was a second shooter who used Oswald as a pawn. Another idea implies that Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald to prevent a larger scheme regarding President Kennedy from coming to light.
The first conspiracy theory proposes that President Kennedy was the victim of many underlying enemies. There is an idea that floats around the Kennedy assassination that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson conspired to have him killed. President Johnson wanted so badly to be the president and made that fairly clear. He did not have much support for Kennedy’s actions in office and his hesitancy to enter the Vietnam War. However, the main reason Johnson would have JFK killed was “to become president himself and to avert the precipitous political and legal fall that was about to beset him” (Stone 1).
Prescient Johnson was only one of JFK’s secret enemies. In events leading up to the murder, JFK put a tax on oil companies, which severely hurt the right-winged Big Oil business in Dallas, Texas, where JFK just happened to be assassinated (Mclellan 2). Another issue that the conservatives of Texas had with JFK was how he was a “traitor” for negotiating with the Soviets (2). Another group that opposed President Kennedy was the CIA. The CIA openly opposed JFK, especially over his Cuba policy (Stone 4). There were multiple times the CIA disobeyed the orders of Henry Cabot Lodge, Kennedy’s ambassador to Vietnam. A Washington Daily News article by Richard Starnes says that “twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge,” and compared their opposition to each other as a turf war (3). The idea that Lyndon B. Johnson and the CIA worked together to murder JFK is not a stretch either because when asked about who truly killed JFK, “Cabot said it was the Agency Boys (CIA) and Lyndon” (2).
Another theory questions whether Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected shooter, was a lone gunman or if there was a second shooter in front of the motorcade that used Oswald as a guinea pig. Oswald, sometimes referred to as a “lone nut,” was originally believed to be alone in the act of killing the president. However, when “a second lone nut carried out a mob-like execution of the first lone nut,” many people began to question whether Oswald was the mastermind behind the assassination (Mclellan 2). Some believe that Oswald acted alone and had motives to kill President Kennedy because of his efforts to stop the spread of communism. Oswald’s behavior leading up to the assassination gives probable cause to believe he was the assassin. For example, on April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to kill Edwin Walker, a U.S. Major General (“Lee Harvey Oswald”). Oswald loved the Soviet Union and Walker was outspoken about his anti-communist beliefs (“Lee Harvey Oswald”). In the Kennedy case, Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots: one was missed, one went through JFK’s harm and hit John Connally, the former governor of Texas, and the third shot hit him in the head which killed him (“Lee Harvey Oswald”).
The problem with this theory is that Oswald’s location was behind JFK and the shot that killed President Kennedy threw his head back and to the side. So Oswald firing the last shot is impossible due to Newton’s third law of motion that states “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” because that would mean JFK did not have an opposite reaction to the gunshot (“Newton’s Laws of Motion”). The other, more logical explanation to this theory is that there were two shooters, Lee Harvey Oswald, and someone in front of the motorcade. Although people make the argument that his body snapped forward when the bullet hit his head, his body is what went forward, amateur filmmaker, Abraham Zapruder, captured President Kennedy’s head “thrown backward as the front right side of the skull appears to explode, suggesting to critics of the Warren Commission's findings that the President was struck by a bullet that entered the front of the head” (“Findings”). Unfortunately, there is no specific location where the second shooter would have been.
In addition, if Lee Harvey Oswald was just a pawn, who was the second shooter? Jack Ruby, a Dallas pub and gentlemen’s establishment owner may know. Jack Ruby was a popular man in the criminal and law enforcement scenes. He was also the shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before his trial. So, perhaps the Mafia contributed to the assassination of President Kennedy because of their hatred for the Kennedy family. This hatred stemmed from Robert Kennedy’s ambition to put an end to the Mafia (Henriod). So if the Mafia wanted to kill President John F. Kennedy, where does Lee Harvey Oswald come in? The Mafia did not want the assassination to be pinned back on them (Schiem 4). Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans Mob boss, plotted to have “Kennedy killed by an outsider who would not be traced to the Mob'' (4). Jack Ruby ties into all of this because he was considered a gangster and is rumored that the Mob sent Ruby “to Dallas in 1946 to run a nightclub for the Mafia” (4). Therefore, if Lee Harvey Oswald had testified in court and exposed the Mafia, that would have ruined Ruby’s business, so he took matters into his own hands and killed him.
Conclusion
President John F. Kennedy was the youngest man elected and the youngest president to die in office (“John F. Kennedy”). There are a handful of conspiracies surrounding the assassination of this young, charming president. Did President Kennedy have secret enemies? Did Lee Harvey Oswald truly assassinate the president? Or, was he the pawn in a larger scheme that included the Dallas pub owner, Jack Ruby? Based on facts uncovered while evaluating these theories, the truth surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination remains a mystery.
Works Cited
“Findings.” National Archives, 15 Aug. 2016, https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1a.html.
Gutmann, Ludwig. “Jack Ruby.” Neurology, vol. 68, no. 9, Feb. 2007, pp. 707–08. n.neurology.org, https://doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000256034.72576.13.
Henriod, Joe. “Robert F. Kennedy’s Crusade against the Mob.” The Mob Museum, 6 June 2018, https://themobmuseum.org/blog/robert-f-kennedys-crusade-mob/.
JFK and Communism | American Experience | PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/jfk-foreign-affairs/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
“John F. Kennedy.” The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/john-f-kennedy/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
“John F. Kennedy - Facts, Presidency & Assassination.” HISTORY, 13 Nov. 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/john-f-kennedy.
Kaufman, Burton I. “John F. Kennedy as World Leader: A Perspective on the Literature.” Diplomatic History, vol. 17, no. 3, July 1993, pp. 447–70. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00590.x.
Lee Harvey Oswald - Infogalactic: The Planetary Knowledge Core. https://infogalactic.com/info/Lee_Harvey_Oswald. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
McClellan, Barr. Blood, Money, & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK. Skyhorse, 2014.
“Newton’s Laws of Motion.” Glenn Research Center | NASA, https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/newtons-laws-of-motion/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
Scheim, David E. Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy. SP Books, 1988.
Stone, Roger. The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ. Simon and Schuster, 2014.
The Decision to Go to the Moon: President John F. Kennedy’s May 25, 1961 Speech before Congress. https://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
The Kennedys and the Civil Rights Movement (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-kennedys-and-civil-rights.htm. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
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