The
CIA Kennedy assassination theory is a prominent
John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. The CIA's potential involvement was frequently mentioned during the 1960s and 1970s when the US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in plots to assassinate foreign leaders, particularly
Fidel Castro.
[1] Kennedy was quoted as telling an official within his administration: "I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."
[2] According to author James Douglass, Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union.
[3] Accusations and confessions of and by alleged conspirators, as well as official government reports citing the CIA as uncooperative in investigations, have at times renewed interest.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas,
Texas, on November 22, 1963. Various agencies and government panels have investigated the assassination at length, drawing different conclusions.
Lee Oswald is accepted by official investigations as the assassin, but he was murdered before he could be tried in a court of law. The discrepancies between the official investigations and the extraordinary nature of the assassination have led to a variety of theories about how and why Kennedy was assassinated. The
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded in 1979 that Oswald assassinated Kennedy but that a
conspiracy was probable. The committee did not implicate U.S. Intelligence agencies. Their conclusion was reached almost entirely because of the results of forensic analysis of a police
dictabelt, which supposedly recorded the sound of a fourth bullet being fired in
Dealey Plaza. The HSCA also stated that Kennedy did not receive adequate protection in Dallas because Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper and had not acted upon some relevant information. This lack of protection may have occurred because Kennedy himself had specifically asked that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit.
[4]
Problems with the CIA[edit]
The CIA had a number of high profile conflicts with President Kennedy. The conflicts included disagreements over the CIA's assassination program, many details of which later becoming public as part of the
Church Committee. In one instance, the CIA provided $42,000 to the plotters of the assassination of President
Diem of
Vietnam, which was carried out by
Lucien Conein.
[5] Robert S. McNamara and White House historian
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. both stated that President Kennedy went pale when he heard the news about the
coup, and was shocked that Diem had been murdered.
[6]
Kennedy's relationship with the CIA was strained considerably following the failed
Bay of Pigs Invasion. He remarked that he wanted "to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."
[2] The CIA had claimed, however, that this animosity was short lived. In CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence
John L. Hegerson's words, "the [CIA's] relationship with Kennedy was not only a distinct improvement over the more formal relationship with Eisenhower, but would only rarely be matched in future administrations."
[7]While the CIA's budget has always been classified, ranking CIA official
William Colby made it clear when he wrote, "the fact of the matter is that the CIA could not have had a better friend in a President than John F. Kennedy. He understood the Agency and used it effectively, exploiting its intellectual abilities to help him analyze a complex world, and its paramilitary and covert political talents to react to it in a low-key way."
[8]
Despite the claims that relations with the agency were only momentarily strained, the embarrassment to the U.S. government and to the CIA due to the failed invasion, the withholding of intelligence, and a general atmosphere of distrust led to the Kennedy brothers firing
Allen Dulles,
Richard M. Bissell, and
Charles P. Cabell in November 1961. Allen Dulles, who had been the head of the CIA, was replaced by John McCone.
[9] After Kennedy's assassination, Dulles lobbied hard to be a part of the investigation.
[10][11]
An article concerning Kennedy's relationship with the CIA was written by journalist
Arthur Krock, and published in the New York Times on 3 October 1963. The article, entitled "The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam", quotes a high-ranking official in the government as saying "[t]he CIA's growth was likened to a malignancy" which this "very high official was not even sure the White House could control ... any longer. If the United States ever experiences [an attempt at a
coup to overthrow the government] it will come from the CIA and not the Pentagon." The "agency represents a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."
Three tramps[edit]
The "
three tramps" were three men detained and questioned briefly by police at the time of the assassination and who have been the subject of various conspiracy theories, including some that point to them being known CIA agents. Some of these allegations are listed below.
Frank Sturgis is thought by some to be the tall tramp in the photographs. Like Hunt, Sturgis was involved both in the Bay of Pigs invasion and in the
Watergate burglary. In 1959, Sturgis became involved with
Marita Lorenz, who later identified Sturgis as a gunman in the assassination.
[12] Hunt's confession before his death also implicates Sturgis.
Chauncey Holt, also alleged by some to be the oldest of the tramps, claims to have been a double agent for the CIA and the
Mafia, and has claimed that his assignment in Dallas was to provide fake Secret Service credentials to people in the vicinity.
[13] Witness reports state that there were one or more unidentified men in the area claiming to be Secret Service agents.
[14]
The
House Select Committee on Assassinations had forensic anthropologists study the photographic evidence. The committee claimed that the analysis ruled out E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Dan Carswell, Fred Lee Chapman, and other suspects.
[15] The Rockefeller Commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Frank Sturgis were in Dallas on the day of the assassination.
[16]
Individual agents[edit]
E. Howard Hunt[edit]
Former CIA agent and
Watergate figure
E. Howard Hunt has been named as a possible participant in several Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. He has been claimed to be one of the three tramps, has taken various magazines to court over accusations with regard to the assassination, and has given a confession and description of the crime and conspiracy on video to his son.
In 1976, a magazine called
The Spotlight ran an article accusing Hunt of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and of having a role in the assassination. Hunt won a libel judgment against the magazine in 1981, but this verdict was overturned on appeal. The magazine was found not guilty when the case was retried in 1985.
[18] In 1985, Hunt was in court again in a libel suit against
Liberty Lobby. During the trial, defense attorney
Mark Laneintroduced doubt as to Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination through depositions from
David Atlee Phillips,
Richard Helms,
G. Gordon Liddy,
Stansfield Turner, and
Marita Lorenz, as well as through his cross examination of Hunt.
Shortly before his death in 2007, Hunt authored an autobiography which implicated
Lyndon B. Johnson in the assassination, suggesting that Johnson had orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions as President.
[19][20] A 2007 article published in
Rolling Stone magazine revealed deathbed confessions by Hunt to his son which suggested a conspiracy to kill JFK orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson, CIA agents
Cord Meyer,
Bill Harvey and
David Sánchez Morales, and an unnamed "French gunman," who purportedly shot at Kennedy from the
grassy knoll.
[21]
David Sánchez Morales[edit]
Some researchers—among them Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, Noel Twyman, and John Simkin—believe that
Morales was involved in the assassination.. Sanchez's friend Ruben Carbajal claimed that in 1973 Morales opened up about his involvement with the
Bay of Pigs Invasion operation, and stated that "Kennedy had been responsible for him having to watch all the men he recruited and trained get wiped out." Carbajal claims that Morales exclaimed, "Well, we took care of that SOB, didn't we?" It has been suggested that Morales was the "Latin-looking" man seen with
Lee Harvey Oswald in
New Orleans in 1963. Numerous employees of New Orleans taverns saw Oswald with a man matching the appearance of Morales, as well as witnesses to Oswald's public leafleting for the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Morales is alleged to have once told friends, "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch, and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard",
[22] presumably referring to the assassination of President Kennedy in and to the later assassination of Robert Kennedy in
Los Angeles,
California on June 5, 1968.
Frank Sturgis[edit]
In an article published in the
South Florida Sun Sentinel on December 4, 1963, James Buchanan, a former reporter for the Pompano Beach Sun-Sentinel, claimed that Sturgis had met Lee Harvey Oswald in
Miami, Florida shortly before Kennedy's assassination. Buchanan claimed that Oswald had tried to infiltrate the
International Anti-Communist Brigade. When he was questioned by the FBI about this story, Sturgis claimed that Buchanan had misquoted him regarding his comments about Oswald.
George de Mohrenschildt[edit]
After returning from the Soviet Union, Oswald made a close friend in
George de Mohrenschildt. De Mohrenschildt wrote extensive memoirs about his friendship with Oswald and had a copy of one of the photos of Oswald with the rifle used in the shooting. After the assassination, the CIA requested that the FBI locate De Mohrenschildt, as he had written a letter directly to
George H.W. Bush, who was a friend, appealing to him to stop the agency from taking action against him.
A few television programs, including Jesse Ventura's "Conspiracy Theories", have alleged that De Mohrenschildt was Oswald's CIA handler. On March 29, 1977, De Mohrenschildt stated during an interview with author
Edward Jay Epstein that he had been ordered by CIA operative J. Walton Moore to meet Oswald, and that he would not have if he had not been ordered to do so. After the interview, he received a letter from the House Select Committee on Assassination, but then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head later that day.
[23][24]
Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner[edit]
![[icon]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uLynYo11nsgjuC4gIfLno__MKdj6UXn1fovvVeOkCk1a1RVZ9_Ou9RkGPioshsGRQHzlm-XQ54Zezo6bbROUmsTAOYSrZXeLEZR3fmhzOSxi0xQFcPGmEok8wtS6qjdxhZHcpij_4pMJd5BUkx6Syn1bdgYbe4j8sesHNVlQoDXPcxzgpwhugHlsit0GXazFm-1jrbGc7cCg=s0-d) | This section requiresexpansion. (December 2011) |
Organized crime and the CIA conspiracy[edit]
Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that some Mafiosi worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against
Cuban leader
Fidel Castro.
[25] CIA documents released in 2007 confirmed that in the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent
Robert Maheu to approach the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob,
Johnny Roselli. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself an advocate for international corporations. He offered to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli declined any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe." "Sam Gold" was
Sam Giancana; "Joe" was
Santo Trafficante, Jr., the Tampa, Florida boss and one of the most powerful mobsters in pre-revolution Cuba.
[26] Glenn Kessler of
The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos."
[28]
It is also alleged that Mafia criminals may have wished to retaliate against John F. Kennedy in response to the increasing pressure put on them by Robert Kennedy, who had increased by 12 times the number of prosecutions conducted under the administration of President
Dwight Eisenhower. Carlos Marcello allegedly threatened to assassinate the President to short-circuit Robert Kennedy, who was serving as US Attorney General and leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.
[30][31]
In his memoir,
Bound by Honor,
Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss
Joseph Bonanno, disclosed that several Mafia families had long-standing ties with the anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia before the
Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked President Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. They also disliked his brother, the young and idealistic Attorney General
Robert Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime. This was especially provocative because several of the Mafia "families" had allegedly worked with JFK's father,
Joseph Kennedy, to get JFK elected.
[citation needed] Both the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans were experts in assassination, the Cubans having been trained by the CIA.
[35] Bonanno reported that he realized the degree of the involvement of other Mafia families when he witnessed Jack Ruby killing Oswald on television - the Bonannos recognized
Jack Ruby as an associate of Chicago mobster
Sam Giancana.
[36]
Information released around 2006 by the FBI indicates that Carlos Marcello confessed in detail to having organized Kennedy's assassination.
[37] The FBI then covered up this information, which it had in its possession. This version of events is also supported by the findings of a 1979 Congressional Committee investigation that Marcello was likely part of a Mafia conspiracy behind the assassination, and had the means and the opportunity required to carry it out.
Cuban exiles[edit]
The House Select Committee on Assassinations believed evidence exists that indicates violent Cuban exiles may have participated in Kennedy's murder. These exiles worked closely with CIA operatives in violent clandestine activities against Castro's Cuba, such as during
Operation Mongoose. In 1979, the committee reported:
President Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by 1963. Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch on October 1, 1963.
[38]
Holding a copy of the September 26 edition of
The Dallas Morning News, featuring a front-page account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November, Cuban exile Nestor Castellanos vented his hostility:
CASTELLANOS ...we're waiting for Kennedy the 22d, [the date Kennedy was murdered] buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas. Mr. good ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even call him President Kennedy. He stinks.
[38]
In May 1967, CIA Director
Richard Helms told President Lyndon Johnson that the CIA had tried to assassinate Castro. Helms further stated that the CIA had employed members of the Mafia in this effort, and "...that CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro dated back to August of 1960—to the Eisenhower Administration." Helms also said that the plots against Castro continued into the Kennedy Administration and that Attorney General Robert Kennedy had known about both the plots and the Mafia's involvement.
[41]
On separate occasions, Johnson told two prominent television newsmen that he believed that JFK's assassination had been organized by the Cuban government as retaliation for the CIA's efforts to kill Castro. In October 1968, Johnson told veteran newsman
Howard K. Smith of
ABC that "Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first." In September 1969, in an interview with
Walter Cronkite of
CBS, Johnson said that in regard to the assassination he could not "honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections." Finally, in 1971, Johnson told his former speechwriter Leo Janos of
Time magazine that he "never believed that Oswald acted alone".
[41]
President Lyndon Johnson also implicated the CIA in the assassination. According to a FBI document released in 1977, Johnson's postmaster general, Marvin Watson told the FBI "...that [Johnson] was now convinced there was a plot in connection with the assassination. Watson stated the President felt the CIA had something to do with this plot."
[42][43][44][45][46]
References[edit]
- Jump up^ Willing, Richard (2007-06-26). "CIA used mobsters in plot to kill Castro, report says". USA Today. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Wicker, Tom; John W. Finney; Max Frankel; E. W. Kenworthy (April 25, 1966)."C.I.A.: Maker of Policy, or Tool? Survey Finds Widely Feared Agency Is Tightly Controlled". The New York Times (New York). p. 20. Retrieved December 24, 2012.
- Jump up^ George M. Anderson (November 17, 2008). "Unmasking the Truth". America Magazine.
- Jump up^ Bugliosi, Vincent. "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy." 2007, Norton: New York, New York. pp. 29, 38.
- Jump up^ Michael Evans. "(Document 17)". gwu.edu. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- Jump up^ Michael Evans. "(Note 10)". gwu.edu. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- Jump up^ John L. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President, CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, May 22, 1996, p. 26,http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/briefing/cia-6.htm.
- Jump up^ 4. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, p. 221.
- Jump up^ CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, CIA Web site
- Jump up^ The Secret History of the CIA, by Joseph J. Trento, ISBN 9-780786-715008, pags: 204, 268–269
- Jump up^ cnn.com[dead link]
- Jump up^ Lane, Mark. Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?Thunder's Mouth Press 1992. ISBN 1-56025-048-8.
- Jump up^ Video interview with Chauncey Holt by John Craig, Phillip Rogers, and Gary Shaw 10/19/91.
- Jump up^ Both Dallas police officer Joe Smith and Army veteran Gordon Arnold have claimed to have met a man on or near the grassy knoll who showed them credentials identifying him as a Secret Service agent. Summers, Anthony. "Not in Your Lifetime." Warner Books 1998. ISBN 0-7515-1840-9.
- Jump up^ "Three Tramps Photos Examined by Experts". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- Jump up^ "Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins?". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- Jump up^ "Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins?" Knuth, M.http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt_sturgis.htm.
- Jump up^ Lane, Mark, Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?Thunder's Mouth Press 1992. ISBN 1-56025-048-8.
- Jump up^ Hunt, E. Howard, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond, Wiley, 2007. ISBN 0-471-78982-8
- Jump up^ Hunt Blames Jfk Hit On Lbj NY Post, 11/4/2007.
- Jump up^ The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt, Hedegaard, Erik, Rolling Stone 4/5/2007.
- Jump up^ "CIA role claim in Kennedy killing". BBC News. November 21, 2006.
The arrest, detention charges and remand for Dee Fennell speech in Lurgan Easter Sunday is an attack on the fundamental right to have and express a political opinion as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.This is a stark warning that both the British and the 26 counties states are determined to silence anyone who dares to question the status quo or express their opposition to British rule and partition. Last August the Minister of Justice of the 26 counties announced draconian new laws designed to silence and imprison Republicans for expressing a political opinion. Now the Stormont regime is moving along the same path. These measures can also be extended to cover all forms of political dissent, whether political, social or economic. People need to be warned against this and say it.Bodies of civil and political rights must protest against this gratuitous attack on the human rights of Irish citizens. When the centenary of the 1916 Rising fast approaching, it is obvious that the British puppet regime in Stormont is trying to silence the Irish Republicanism and take underground. Such coercive methods have failed in the past as this effort will also fail. Fin / Crioch
![[icon]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
