JFK theories will never be exhausted
There is no shortage of diversions in this day and age, but only one that is guaranteed not only to last a lifetime but to have the potential to solve the greatest crime in American history.
Of course, I am referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
I am well aware that many people have concluded rather dryly that the assassination was the single solitary demented work of one Lee Harvey Oswald. That?s fine. Some people also think that ?paint-by-numbers? is a form of art.
Depending on your own deficit of imagination, you may well choose to believe that the Warren Commission stumbled onto the truth even though they did not have 90 percent of the relevant information we have today. But even the most hopelessly blindered examination of the evidence of this crime still results in a deep appreciation for the machinations of history, fate and personality which led to the bullet shots in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. (?Mr. President, you certainly can?t say Dallas doesn?t love you!? blurted out Nellie Connally moments before the president?s head was blown off.)
The dramatis personae of that day and the weeks and months leading up to it were worthy of any Greek tragedy ? with the wounded king and his beautiful queen, noble brother and long-suffering mother joined by the hunchback-ugly viceroy LBJ; foreign jester Fidel Castro; Mafia mercenaries like Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello and Johnny Rosselli; Cuban hotheads like Tony Varona and Manuel Artime; CIA mercenaries like E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips; conveniently colorful clowns like David Ferrie, Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald; and even a Hollywood princess named Marilyn Monroe.
No matter which way you turn in this case, you will find yourself quickly lost in a maze of alternate theories, plausible explanations, red herrings and incredible coincidences. Who exactly did Oswald write his note to on Nov. 8 that said: ?Dear Mr. Hunt: I would like information concerding (sic) my position. I am asking only for information. I am suggesting that we discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else. Thank you. Lee Harvey Oswald.?
Was it right-wing oilman H.L. Hunt? His son Nelson Bunker Hunt? Or was it CIA operative E. Howard Hunt, who was stationed by the CIA in Mexico City at the time of Oswald?s visit there in September 2003? Hunt is a fascinating character, who was known to be involved in the CIA?s successful 1954 Guatemalan coup as well as their failed bids to assassinate Castro. He later worked for President Nixon on illegal operations including the Watergate break-in and President Nixon said of him on the secret White House tapes: ?…this is a Hunt, you will ? that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves…?
On another occasion, President Nixon said: ?very bad, to have this fellow Hunt, ah, you know, ah, it's, he, he knows too damn much and he was involved, we happen to know that. And that it gets out that the whole, this is all involved in the Cuban thing, that it's a fiasco, and it's going to make the FB, ah CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole, uh, Bay of Pigs thing which we think would be very unfortunate for CIA and for the country at this time, and for American foreign policy, and he just better tough it and lay it on them.?
What the ?whole, uh, Bay of Pigs thing? really was remains anyone?s guess, but it is very unlikely to have anything to do with the CIA?s involvement in planning an invasion of Cuba in 1961. That was long since studied and understood, and the black eye had long since healed by 1972. And that ultimately is why speculation in the years since Watergate has focused on the possibility that Nixon?s repeated references to the ?Bay of Pigs thing? was actually code for the operation that followed the Bay of Pigs debacle ? the rogue CIA-Cuban exile-Mafia payback assassination of Kennedy.
Interestingly, E. Howard Hunt?s son, St. John Hunt, revealed in 2007 that his father had made a confession in his final years that he was marginally involved in the assassination ? and that he named names on both tape and paper, putting blame for the assassination on Vice President Lyndon Johnson and saying that it had been put together by CIA black-ops chief Cord Meyer, whose ex-wife (not?) coincidentally had had an affair with JFK and who herself was mysteriously murdered in 1964.
You couldn?t really hope for a better theory of the Kennedy assassination ? except that is for all the other ones. No matter which path you follow, the evidence is rich and varied.
The Mafia did it? Of course they did. Why wouldn?t they, after helping Kennedy try to assassinate Castro and then having Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department go after them like gangbusters?
The anti-Castro Cubans did it? Of course they did. Why wouldn?t they after Kennedy had betrayed them at the Bay of Pigs and taken away their funding?
The military did it? Of course they did. Why wouldn?t they after they had already used assassination successfully in South Vietnam and were afraid that Kennedy was going to order the troops home?
The FBI did it? Of course they did. Why wouldn?t they after J. Edgar Hoover?s morality police found out that Kennedy was fooling around with a variety of women in the White House including some with Mafia connections?
Ultimately, the Kennedy assassination is like an M.C. Escher painting of infinite regress. The more you look at it, the more puzzles you are likely to see, the more bridges to nowhere you are likely to cross, and the less likely you are to say with any assuredness, ?Everyone knows that Oswald killed Kennedy.?
For those with a few thousands hours to spare, the Internet offers an endless resource of free material to peruse on the assassination. Of particular note is the recent addition of the just-released contents of Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade?s safe, including hundreds of pages of investigative material, especially relating to Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who shot and silenced Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Dallas Morning News, after reporting on the release of the material by current D.A. Craig Watkins, posted all the electronic documents on its web site, at the following address:
Plenty of the material is well-known to assassination researchers in one form or another, but some of it is new. The Dallas News was clearly overwhelmed by it all, as it said in a note to readers:
?The documents appear here exactly as they were received by The News. They are neither cataloged nor indexed, and they are in no apparent order. Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why we are calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination. Take a look, and let us know if you see something interesting.?
You?ll definitely find plenty of interest, mostly in the form of hints and suggestions, rather than as direct evidence. You?ll read of some people who thought they saw Oswald in Ruby?s club, but couldn?t be sure. You?ll read of Ruby?s trips to Cuba to help on mob business, and of his trip to New Orleans in the summer of 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald was living there. You?ll read of Ruby?s unusual interest in Oswald, including his correcting Wade at a Nov. 23 press conference about Oswald?s affiliation with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Most interestingly, you?ll read the ?transcript? of a conversation between a man named ?Lee? (also called Oswald) and a man named ?Ruby? that supposedly took place on Oct. 4, 1963, in Jack Ruby?s Carousel Club. The two men discuss killing the president as a way to silence Bobby Kennedy on behalf of the Chicago mob, and Ruby warns Oswald that if he does not get away ?they will make me kill you.?
The transcript represents pages 9 and 10 of a longer document, and the sole indication of where it might have originated comes at the end of the conversation when Lee Harvey Oswald spots someone in the crowd who he claims is ?from the F.B.I.? and who ?heard everything.?
Because, however, the document is so conveniently fraught with meaning, researchers have almost universally assumed that it is fictional. Generally it has been considered part of a film script that Henry Wade supposedly wanted to sell, but of course there is no public suggestion anywhere that Wade believed Ruby and Oswald had a prior relationship. That makes it seem a tad bit strange he would base his movie on such a conspiratorial gambit, but who knows?
Indeed, regarding the Kennedy assassination in general, that about sums it up ? who knows?
Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana, and writes a column every Sunday.