Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Kennedy Assassination And The Persistence Of Conspiracy Theories -- Part III
Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 26 Mar, 2025 | Francis Menton

Posted on 03/27/2025 4:30:35 AM PDT by MtnClimber

As mentioned in Part I of this series, I don’t have a firm view on whether there was or was not a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. However, if there was such a conspiracy, then clearly that is something that would be significant, and that all Americans would have a big interest in knowing about.

The reason a conspiracy would be so significant is that its very existence would imply that its members foresaw important consequences from the assassination. If the assassination was just the work of a lone gunman, presumably Oswald, then there need be nothing more to it than the mania of one crazy guy. The lone assassin would not need to have any motive beyond the satisfaction of taking out his target, or perhaps the perceived public glory and notoriety of being recognized as the successful killer. If there is a conspiracy, that completely changes.

In the Kennedy assassination, a problem for conspiracy theorists is coming up with a theory that is plausible. What potential group of conspirators in this circumstance would have had both something that makes sense as the motive for the crime, plus the ability to put together this plot and carry it out? There are not that many possibilities. For today, I will set out the main theories that have been put forth, and apply some preliminary criteria to rate them.

But first, as a basis for triaging the potential theories, consider the issue of motive for a conspiracy, particularly a conspiracy involving at least several state actors:

- By contrast to a lone gunman, such a group almost certainly would want the opposite of glory and notoriety, which would entail near certainty of getting caught and punished for the killing. Therefore, such a group inherently will have to be committed from the outset to long-term cover-up of their involvement.

- Such a group would also inherently have a well-thought-out concept of what they were trying to accomplish; and the planned accomplishment must be something that makes the huge risks of the conspiracy worthwhile. As a clear corollary, in assassinating Kennedy, it would be evident to rational conspirators that Johnson will become the President. Therefore any viable conspiracy theory must hypothesize that the conspirators have some strong reasons to prefer Johnson over Kennedy as President. They would foresee major changes of policy from the change of Presidents, at least in some area they care about, and the policy changes would have to be such as to justify the assassination in their minds.

With those preliminaries, here are the principal conspiracy theories that I am aware of:

Soviet Union/Cuba. There is plenty of evidence — including Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1962 — to support the proposition that Oswald was a Communist sympathizer and supporter of the Soviet Union and of Cuba. Both were the sworn enemies of the United States. This theory hypothesizes that one or both of those entities recruited and supported Oswald to take out Kennedy.

Johnson. The most obvious person who stood to gain immediately from Kennedy’s assassination was Johnson. And there has never been a more desperately ambitious and completely unprincipled man than Johnson to occupy high office in this country. As Vice President, Johnson had access to various security and/or law enforcement personnel of the federal government to assist in the plot. Among the many books hypothesizing Johnson as the leader of the assassination conspiracy is “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ” by Roger Stone (2013).

CIA theory (1) — New Orleans businessmen. This is the theory put forth by New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in his 1967 prosecution of businessman Clay Shaw for participating in the alleged plot to kill Kennedy. The theory is that a group of anti-Castro businessmen, with CIA support, recruited and paid Oswald to kill Kennedy. Garrison claimed to have eye-witnesses to the businessmen recruiting and paying Oswald. The motive would be that Kennedy was providing insufficient support to the CIA efforts to take out Castro. The two main New Orleans businessmen accused by Garrison were Shaw and David Ferrie. Ferrie died before he could be arrested. In Garrison’s prosecution, Shaw was acquitted by a jury that deliberated for less than an hour. For a piece that lays out Garrison’s theory sympathetically and in more detail, try this one from the New York Review of Books in 1967 (concluding that Garrison’s case “deserves a fair hearing”).

CIA theory (2) — “The Mob.” This theory differs from the previous one in that the hypothesized participants, besides Oswald and the CIA, were some notorious Italian-American Gambling Entrepreneurs (IGEs) sometimes referred to as “The Mob.” When this theory was first mentioned to me, I thought it was ridiculous — why would the CIA and the IGEs possibly be working with each other? But the theory is less preposterous than it might at first seem. The IGEs had had hugely profitable gambling interests in Cuba, from which they had been ousted when Castro took power in 1960. Now they had large numbers of ex-employees on the ground in Cuba, who could be recruited to work with the CIA on its plans to eliminate Castro. But Kennedy had failed to provide crucial support to the CIA at the Bay of Pigs, bringing about that disaster, and then had backed off on confronting Russia after the Cuban missile crisis. In this hypothesis, members of the CIA also saw Kennedy as failing to provide appropriate support to their efforts in Vietnam.

Thus while it might at first blush seem the least plausible of the theories, it is the last of these — the CIA/Mob theory — that has gotten the most traction over time. Why? Because the others have flaws that probably disqualify them out of the box. For example, the Soviet Union/Cuba theory suffers from the problem that those entities showed little interest in Oswald when he defected. During his time there, the Soviet Union sent Oswald off to an out-of-the-way provincial location (Minsk, now in Belarus) and mostly ignored him. (Could they have smelled a rat — suspecting, or even knowing, that he was a CIA plant?). The Johnson theory has the problem of lack of any direct evidence, plus that none of the major “anomalies” (that I will discuss in following posts) points to him over other theories. The Garrison theory was discredited by the jury verdict, and by allegations of witness tampering.

Of the four contending conspiracy theories, the CIA/Mob theory is the one that offers the best potential explanation for all of the major factual anomalies that make people doubt the “lone gunman” hypothesis. That does not mean that it is correct.

In the next post, I will consider the previously identified “anomalies” in the context of the four potential conspiracy theories.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: 19631122; assassination; carlosmarcello; francismenton; jfk; mafiahit; manhattancontrarian; oswald
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-53 next last
To: Fiji Hill

I am with you.


21 posted on 03/27/2025 6:35:11 AM PDT by mfish13 (Elections have Consequences.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom
The Warren Commission report states that not only did Oswald shoot Kennedy with a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle but that he shot Officer Tippitt with a pistol. I would assume that the negative test for gunpowder residue was explained away in that report somehow.
22 posted on 03/27/2025 6:38:32 AM PDT by Wallace T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Jan_Sobieski
It was the mob. Jimmy Ola told me.


23 posted on 03/27/2025 6:50:12 AM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“Six Seconds in Dallas”, exposes the complete hoax of the lone gunman. Kill shoot came from behind the fence of the grassy knoll. The head jerk indicates as much in the Z film.


24 posted on 03/27/2025 6:51:53 AM PDT by stockpirate (A group of baboons is referred to as a "Congress" of baboons.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stockpirate

The head jerk indicates as much in the Z film.
!!!!
Let’s talk about the hole in the driver’s windshield now


25 posted on 03/27/2025 7:02:17 AM PDT by South Dakota (Vance / Trump...2028 )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

1. The physical evidence contradicts and rules out the official narrative, that Oswald shot Kennedy with one bullet from high and to the right of Kennedy. There were at least three shots which came from in front of, and behind, Kennedy.

2. The fact that officials were placed in a position to lie to us about the assassination says that the people who gained power afterward were conspirators in the assassination.


26 posted on 03/27/2025 7:08:27 AM PDT by nagant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

What potential group of conspirators in this circumstance would have had both something that makes sense as the motive for the crime, plus the ability to put together this plot and carry it out?

\/

hmmm

lets see if history has any clues...

Julius Caesar , stabbed to death by political opponants...?

conspiracy FACT

.


27 posted on 03/27/2025 7:13:43 AM PDT by cuz1961
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Considered.
Thanks!


28 posted on 03/27/2025 7:38:49 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: cuz1961

Here is a modern clue:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/regarding-new-jfk-disclosures-state-department-refuses-acknowledge-israels-nukes

More than sixty years later and the coverup continues...


29 posted on 03/27/2025 7:43:40 AM PDT by cgbg (It was not us. It was them--all along.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: mfish13

Right, cycling the bolt almost always means taking your eye out of the scope to do it. Yes, a bolt can be recycled in 2.3 seconds. But to reacquire the target, a moving target, all in that same time frame, impossible.

Oswald’s position was one of height. That does not necessarily make it a sniper’s perch. Anyone wanting to shoot above and away from the crowd would have selected it.


30 posted on 03/27/2025 9:08:52 AM PDT by redfreedom (Happiness is shopping at Walmart and not hearing Spanish once!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: mfish13

I agree an open sights shot at 68 yards (88 actually) is easy to do. I can do it myself at a hundred yards, even at my age.

I do not like scopes because it takes too long to acquire a target that requires a quick shot. They are great for big game hunters killing that grazing elk 300 yards away. Snipers like them for distance shots, as they also have a spotter.

Here we are talking a guy with a scope on a moving target. To cycle, reacquire on a moving target and get a perfect shot in, no, I’ll never believe it.


31 posted on 03/27/2025 9:13:43 AM PDT by redfreedom (Happiness is shopping at Walmart and not hearing Spanish once!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

‘The Carcano’ has many Mysteries to it.
.
I’m curious about your opinion on the
Zapruder head shot the final shot
‘Back and to JFKs’ Left’ ?


32 posted on 03/27/2025 10:12:46 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: cgbg

Israeli nukes... interesting.


33 posted on 03/27/2025 10:21:19 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom

Right, cycling the bolt almost always means taking your eye out of the scope to do it. Yes, a bolt can be recycled in 2.3 seconds. But to reacquire the target, a moving target, all in that same time frame, impossible.


If you are using good technique, you do not move the rifle but from your shoulder when cycling the bolt. The is easier to do if you are holding the rifle on a solid rest, such as Oswald had access to. Lots of people have shown acquiring and shooting at targets with a low powered scope, such as was mounted on the Carcano, is not hard to do, and can be faster than using iron sights.

Here is a video of a bolt action shooter hitting targets at 200 yards, 39 shots in one minute, including reloading. This is a superb shooter, but he is doing it much faster than Oswald was supposed to have done it.

https://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2019/06/norway-mad-minute-shockingly-fast-bolt-action-rifle-shooting/


34 posted on 03/27/2025 10:34:38 AM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Big Red Badger

If you are not familiar with this old Washington Post article it is worth a read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/12/05/the-secret-ceremony/d8d30dab-fe95-4ba0-b52f-c50a04795b77/

Override paywall:

https://archive.is/4LnQs

Saved from box:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/12/05/the-secret-ceremony/d8d30dab-fe95-4ba0-b52f-c50a04795b77/

Excerpts:

“By Glenn FrankelDecember 5, 1987
JERUSALEM — The most powerful members of the Israeli intelligence establishment past and present came together in clandestine conclave on a barren hillside last week — to plant a tree.

The head of the pathologically secretive spy agency, the Mossad, was there, as was his counterpart with Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service. Five former heads of those agencies and three former military intelligence chiefs were also present. Their mission: to pay final tribute to a beloved member of their covert fraternity — the late CIA chief of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton.”....

they dedicated a memorial stone that read, in English, Hebrew and Arabic: “In memory of a dear friend, James (Jim) Angleton” but that gave no indication of who Angleton was or what he did....

Angleton played a crucial role in the early years of the young Jewish state. In the 1950s and early 1960s, when most of official Washington was wary of — even hostile to — Israel, he helped forge links between the Mossad and the CIA that established the basis for cooperation in intelligence gathering that still exists today....”


35 posted on 03/27/2025 10:37:36 AM PDT by cgbg (It was not us. It was them--all along.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

For some reason the video link did not show up, but I reviewed the material. It appears they are shooting at a 15.75 inch stationary target at 200 yards. These are people that have plenty of range time to practice their skills to become perfectionists in competition.

You cannot compare that to Oswald, a minimally experienced shooter, shooting at a volley ball size target at 88 yards that is in motion.

When someone shows me a person that scored marksman in the military, that seldom gets range time, whose scope is known not to be zeroed, using a rifle and scope identical to Oswald’s, shooting from the same elevation Oswald did, at a volley ball size target, moving at the same speed JFK’s vehicle was, in the same direction, at the same range, and get two perfect shots in 2.3 seconds, I will then believe Oswald could have done it all by himself. That’s comparing apples to apples.

Anything else is like trying to call an apple an orange or a grape or whatever else is not identical.


36 posted on 03/27/2025 3:17:29 PM PDT by redfreedom (Happiness is shopping at Walmart and not hearing Spanish once!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom

When someone shows me a person that scored marksman in the military, that seldom gets range time, whose scope is known not to be zeroed, using a rifle and scope identical to Oswald’s, shooting from the same elevation Oswald did, at a volley ball size target, moving at the same speed JFK’s vehicle was, in the same direction, at the same range, and get two perfect shots in 2.3 seconds, I will then believe Oswald could have done it all by himself. That’s comparing apples to apples.


There was testimony that Oswald constantly practiced working the action on the Carcano.

There have been other re-creations of the shots with a moving target, at the same range. Several other people were able to re-create hitting the target twice in the allotted time.

Why would you assume the scope was not zeroed?

I can see why you are skeptical. However, the shooting has been shown to be possible with the rifle and scope used.


37 posted on 03/27/2025 3:55:57 PM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom; marktwain

Good Points All!
.
I’ve wondered why not the rifle that he had ‘some’ practice on???
.
I think Oliver Stone added Ammo for the Carcano was Very difficult to find back then ...so difficult that ‘Spooks’ had to supply it !?!
.
Back then Oswald could have bought anything by walking into a shop
Paying Cash anonymously.
.
Like I’ve said there is So much wrong with the supposed evidence that there is Very little to make an informed decision.
.
Lone Nutters ain’t really being diligent.


38 posted on 03/27/2025 4:10:48 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom

The target is barely moving. The limo goes downhill, a little to the left, so it is just a straight on shot at a target moving away from you, but easy to get in the target in the scope.


39 posted on 03/27/2025 6:03:21 PM PDT by mfish13 (Elections have Consequences.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: redfreedom

Not impossible as Oswald had a good perch to shoot from, from a target that was basically not moving.


40 posted on 03/27/2025 6:04:28 PM PDT by mfish13 (Elections have Consequences.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-53 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson