I was 13 years old, and in band class when the announcement came over the PA system that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Ever since then, I have paid an above-average amount of attention to the facts and theories surrounding that assassination.
I used to love listening to a good conspiracy theory, but the herd of nutbars and Russian trolls who surfaced in 2016 ruined it for me. So I’ll start off by dismissing a couple of them.
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The New Orleans gay community, led by Clay Shaw, was part of it. Another event during my teenage-hood was the case organized by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. It was regarded at the time as a media circus, and deservedly so. So what if Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and Lee Harvey Oswald knew each other? Garrison was trying to make something out of nothing. Unfortunately, 24 years later, film director Oliver Stone turned Garrison’s nothing-burger into another nothing-burger.
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The CIA did it. The same CIA will tell you that two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.
The unfortunate reality is, the trail has gone cold. One of those dead people with a secret was Jack Ruby, a man with organized crime connections as long as your arm. I have always been skeptical of his story that he just happened to be near the Dallas police station to wire money to one of his strippers, at the time when Oswald was being transferred.
Kennedy had a near-insatiable appetite for sex with women. What was it that made Judith Campbell Exner so special? That she was also a mistress of mobster Sam Giancana? She claimed to have carried messages between Kennedy and Giancana. Giancana certainly had reasons to have a grudge against Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (JFK and Giancana also shared Phyllis McGuire of the McGuire Sisters singing group.)
Then there’s Lee Harvey Oswald. Since you’re read this far, you’re interested in this subject matter, and I strongly suggest reading Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery, by Norman Mailer. The primary focus of this book was the time Oswald spent in the Soviet Union, and Mailer had access to government files that were opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. One message of this book was, the Soviet Union didn’t have much use for Oswald. However, Oswald had a lot of silly ideas about Marxism, Communism, and the Castro regime in Cuba. We also learn that Oswald wasn’t very smart, and was a nobody who wanted to be somebody. He succeeded.
It’s a fact that Oswald brought a rifle into the Texas School Book Depository. It’s also a fact that, not long after the assassination, he murdered Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. Another fact is, Oswald took a bus trip to Mexico City six weeks before the assassination, and visited the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate. It would certainly be interesting to know exactly what was discussed. The CIA and FBI were watching this, but alas, we don’t know.
Were there additional gunmen at Dealey Plaza? It’s possible, but after 60 years, we still have no evidence of it.
Look out, here comes a theory: Oswald was a patsy. He was promised something in exchange for shooting Kennedy. Transportation to Cuba, and a new life there? That’s one guess. But whatever it was, Oswald was supposed to meet a connection when he left the book depository. Instead, he met Officer Tippit, and panicked. The various law enforcement people lost the chance to interrogate Oswald when he was murdered by Ruby.
