geeky
In 1964, the Warren Commission published its report, which concluded that only Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that a second gunman besides Oswald probably fired at Kennedy. The HSCA did not identify the second gunman, nor did it identify any other person or organization as having been involved.
For those looking to read some of these conspiracy theories, here are a few of the more interesting books posing theories:
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs: Published in 1989, the author, a veteran Texas journalist, reviews a wealth of evidence, including rare photos, documents, and interviews,and concludes that the motives for Kennedy's assassination included Attorney General Robert Kennedy's attack on organized crime, as President Kennedy's failure to support the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs, the 1963 Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (opposed by the military-industrial complex, Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam before the end of 1965, Kennedy's talk about taking away the oil-depletion allowance (Texas oil men motive), Kennedy's decision to drop Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson from the ticket in 1964 and Kennedy's active civil rights policy. Approximately 25 major U.S. publishers turned down the book before it was finally published in 1989 by Carroll & Graf Publishers. The book was used as a primary sources for the Oliver Stone movie JFK.
Best Evidence by David Lifton: This book was rejected by an estimated 23 publishers before Macmillan published this book in 1981.Best Evidence is written in the first-person as a chronological narrative of the author's 15-year investigation of the Kennedy assassination. The central thesis of the book is that President Kennedy’s body had been altered between the Dallas hospital and the autopsy site at Bethesda for the purpose of creating erroneous conclusions about the number and direction of the shots. He details evidence from both the Warren Commission documents and original research and interviews with those involved at both Dallas and Bethesda to highlight a stark and radical change between the descriptions of the wounds seen by the medical staff at Dallas and those at Bethesda. For example, the Dallas medical staff recalled that the head wound entered from the front and exited through a 2-in. by 2.-in. hole in the exterior. The Kennedy autopsy however reported a massive exit wound in the front (about 4x the size of the reports of the Dallas staff), which would indicate a shot from the rear. It was these sort of conflicts that motivated the author to embark on his quest. He concluded that there was intentional fraud, or as Lifton puts it, a “medical forgery”. Lifton suggests that after John F. Kennedy's assassination, unnamed conspirators on Air Force One removed Kennedy's body from its original bronze casket and placed it in a shipping casket, while en route from Dallas to Washington. Once the presidential plane arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the shipping casket with the President's body was surreptitiously taken by helicopter from the side of the plane. He believes that the assassination was an “inside” job with, at minimum, a number of secret service men involved—the ones who controlled the scene and the evidence and that Oswald was, as he stated after his arrest, “a patsy."
JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas: This book covers Kennedy's moral struggle with the potential for nuclear war and how Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs, offending the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost. Douglas speculates that Kennedy’s change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence and argues that these forces saw their president as a dangerous traitor, plotted his assassination, and orchestrated the subsequent cover-up. Douglass takes readers from the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, along on the strange journey of Lee Harvey Oswald and his shadowy handlers, and to Dealey Plaza in Dallas where an ambush awaited the President’s motorcade. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called this book “a very well-documented and convincing portrait. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions.”
Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK by Bonar Meninger: In Mortal Error, Bonar Menninger chronicles the twenty-five-year investigation of President Kennedy's death by a man named Howard Donahue, an expert in firearms forensics, and the stunning revelation it led him to. Using the recollection of John Connolly, the Zapruder film and other sources that support the theory that Kennedy was killed by a second gunman. He also disputes the autopsy evidence and concludes that the bullets from Oswald's rifle could not have caused the kind of damage revealed by X-rays of the President's skull but were consistent with the damage caused by bullets fired from an assault rifle.
Plausible Denial by Mark Lane: This is the second book by attorney and former New York state legislator Lane, and was published in 1991. In 1978, when a magazine ran a story by CIA renegade Victor Marchetti linking ex-CIA operative and convicted Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt to the assassination, Hunt sued for defamation. Lane signed on as defense counsel for the publication, and set out to prove the truth of the allegations against Hunt and the CIA. Lane’s investigation uncovered evidence that suggested a conspiracy between anti-Castro Cubans, Watergate conspirators, and public officials at the highest levels of the intelligence community. He concludes that the CIA was responsible for Kennedy's death. Lane also sets out numerous criticisms of the Warren Commission.
Contract on America by David Scheim: David Schein makes the case that the Mafia was complicit in the assassination of President Kennedy and in the murder of his accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, by Jack Ruby. Scheim makes the case for Ruby's Mafia ties and key role in the conspiracy.
On The Trail of The Assassins by Jim Garrison: As New Orleans District Attorney, Garrison began an investigation into the Kennedy assassination in late 1966, after receiving several tips that a man named David Ferrie may have been involved in the assassination. The end result of Garrison's investigation was the arrest and trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw in 1969, with Shaw being unanimously acquitted less than one hour after the case went to the jury. Garrison was able to subpoena the Zapruder film from Life magazine. Garrison's key witness against Clay Shaw was Perry Russo, a 25-year-old insurance salesman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who testified that he had attended a party at Ferrie's apartment. At the party, Russo said that Lee Harvey Oswald (who Russo said was introduced to him as "Leon Oswald"), David Ferrie, and "Clem Bertrand" (who Russo identified in the courtroom as Clay Shaw) discussed killing President Kennedy. Their conversation included plans for the "triangulation of crossfire" and alibis for the participants.
The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ by Roger Stone: This has been regarded as one of the least credible of the many conspiracy theories, but it offers a most interesting hypothesis. Stone contends that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy and was complicit in at least six other murders. As one reviewed has said, "The title pretty much explains the book's theory. If a reader doesn't let facts get in the way, it could be an interesting adventure." Pulling no punches, the reviewer concludes that the book "is totally full of all kinds of crap." Stone suggests that Johnson had the motive, means, and opportunity to orchestrate the murder of JFK. He alleges that Johnson blackmailed his way on to the ticket in 1960 and was being dumped in 1964 to face prosecution for corruption initiated by his nemesis, Robert Kennedy. Stone claims that JFK was shot by a long-time LBJ hit man—not Lee Harvey Oswald. He claims that Johnson used his personal connections in Texas, from the criminal underworld, and from the United States government to escape an untimely end in politics and to seize even greater power. He calls Johnson "the driving force" behind a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
They Killed Our President by Jesse Ventura: the former Governor of Minnesota and current media personality sets out his reasons for concluding that Kennedy was assassinated by his own government. His sources of information include a discussion he had with Cuban President Fidel Castro.
The Kennedy assassination has spawned literally hundreds of books postulating many conspiracy theories. Some of them make for interesting reading because they either read like fiction or because they are fiction disguised as non-fiction.