Assassination of John F. Kennedy Thesis

Various versions of the conspiracy theories link the purported involvement of Giancana with Castro, Giancana with the CIA, and Oswald to one or the other, or to both. Finally, other conspiracy theories even linked then Vice

President Lyndon B. Johnson to the assassination plot, at least in terms of having been made aware of the operation in advance if not necessarily as a co-conspirator (Galanor,

1998).

Several specific individuals later emerged, providing information of their claimed involvement in the assassination conspiracy, including James Files and David Morales

(Benson, 1998). Files was linked to both the CIA after working as a former covert military operative in Laos as well as to organized crime through his association with Charles Nicoletti, a Mafia hitman operating in the Illinois area. Files specifically claimed to have been recruited by Nicoletti to act as a backup shooter positioned in the vicinity of the grassy knoll and that he fired the headshot, not Oswald (Benson, 1998).

Morales was also a CIA operative who had been involved in several high-level operations to depose foreign leaders in South America as well as in the Bay of Pigs.

According to some accounts (Benson, 1998), he may have been photographed with Oswald and he was reported to have made statements indicating that he had been involved in the assassination of both J.F.K. In 1963 and R.F.K. In 1968 at the democratic national convention in Los Angeles (Benson, 1998).

Modern Significance:

It is difficult to overstate the significance of the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy. In all likelihood, the President would have withdrawn U.S. Armed Forces

from Southeast Asia by the end of his (first) presidential term, which would have changed the entire course of American history for decades to follow, in terms of both domestic concerns and international and geopolitical relations. Even greater than the speculation as to what Kennedy might have accomplished in those areas is the legacy of civil rights that his work actually achieved, although its most dramatic accomplishments occurred in the decades since his death (Scott, 1996).Needless to say, the assassination fundamentally changed the approach of the U.S.

Secret Service and is largely responsible for the great lengths to which the agency goes to protect American presidents, presidential candidates, and heads of state today (Walsh,

2003). The assassination of J.F.K. also changed the way many Americans viewed their government, because a substantial portion of the public never accepted the official results of the investigations conducted by either the FBI or the Warren Commission. In that

regard, and irrespective of the precise nature of the truth of what happened in Dallas in

1964, substantial evidence remains strongly implicating various law enforcement agencies in including the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA (respectively), in deliberately concealing relevant information, destroying and/or mishandling crucial evidence, and refusing to cooperate in the congressional investigations (Galanor, 1998).

Personal Beliefs:

In my personal opinion, it is difficult to come to a responsible conclusion as to the specific nature of the conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. On the other hand, it is even more difficult to ignore the cumulative weight of all the evidence that

Oswald probably did not act alone, including but hardly limited to the conclusions of the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979. Granted, many the accounts of various purported eyewitnesses, co-conspirators, putative hitmen, and other ancillary figures with supposed first-hand relevant knowledge interviewed in connection with the suspicions of conspiracies suffer from inconsistencies. However, in many cases, those conflicting accounts still suggest that some form of conspiracy involving multiple entities is more likely than the conclusion reached by the Warren Commission in 1964, that Lee

Harvey Oswald acted alone.

References

Benson, M. (1998). Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An a to Z. Encyclopedia.

New York: Citadel.

Galanor, S. (1998). Cover-Up. New York: Kestrel Books.

The President's Commission on the Assassination. (1992). The Warren Commission

Report: Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President

John F. Kennedy. New York: St. Martin's.

Scott, P. (1996). Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Los Angeles,.....