Conspiracies & oddities

1. Conspiracies & Oddities:
The JFK Assassination

2. Weird huh?
• Witnesses - shots from 3 directions
• route not secured
-remove bubble from car
-2 instead of 4 motorcycles
• “magic bullet” in pristine condition
• telescopic sight for gun is left handed
-Oswald right handed
• FBI destroyed letter Oswald sent week before
• 2 separate teams claim to have removed body
at Bethesda
• agents stop Dallas autopsy – (against TX law)
-doctors at Parkland said rear of head gone
-neck as entrance wound
• all film confiscated
-Zapruder film not shown till ’69 (Shaw Trial)
• should I go on…

3. Warren Commission Issues
• Purpose?
-restore calm (w/i 10 months)
• ?makeup of commission?
-ex-CIA dir. Allen Dulles (JFK fired)
-report directly to LBJ
• didn’t have own investigators
-relied on CIA/FBI
-both withheld info
• ignored eyewitnesses except those
who said shots from depository
• never questioned Ruby
• said Oswald did it for publicity
-why would Oswald deny it?
• ignored testimony connecting
Oswald with anti-Castro people

4. Top Conspiracy Theories
#1 Communist Plot
• to prevent future attacks on Castro
• as revenge for Bay of Pigs
• Oswald avowed communist
-job in Minsk (KGB training site)
-visit Soviet Embassy in Mexico
• But…
-visa request to Cuba denied
-KGB thought Oswald was CIA

5. #2 Anti-Castro
• believe JFK sold them out – Bay of Pigs
• many armed groups
• Oswald met with members
• But…
-would they trust Oswald (Com)?
#3 Mafia
• helped elect JFK – now a target
• lost Havana (gambling profits)
• Sam Trafficante –deathbed confession
• Ruby ties to Mafia
• Police detained/release man with Mafia
ties
• But…
-wiretaps at time gave no leads

6. #4 CIA/FBI/Secret Service
• Operation 40 – CIA in Latin America
-The Big Event
• withheld info from Commission
• claim Oswald was agent
-pay for trip to USSR?
-easy return to US (not monitored)
• But…
-no evidence Oswald was agent
#5 Lyndon Johnson
• wanted to be President
-under investigation for scandals
• sealed some records until 2039
• hand picked Warren Commission
• ordered car refurbished
• But…
-no evidence connecting him

7. #6 Combination
• anti-Castro, Mafia, elements of CIA
•common motive
• worked together
-Mafia with OSS in WWII
-Cuban exiles = Bay of Pigs
• ties: Oswald-Cuban; Ruby-Mafia
• Proj. Freedom (real name classified)
- ‘63 – led by RFK
-plan to bring democracy to Cuba
• But…
-no one has talked

8. Clay Shaw Trial
• Charged in New Orleans in 1969
-D.A. Jim Garrison
• acquitted less than 1 hour
• id’s David Ferrie
• first public viewing of Zapruder film
1970s Congressional Investigations
• enough evidence for possible conspiracy
• calls out Ferrie as possible conspirator
• audio recording of motorcycle cop
-likely 4 shots