Who Killed JFK: Round Two!
Last week, Saint Scholastica history professor William Miller argued that John F Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman. Here, history buff Joseph Sabroski challenges that view, arguing that the assassination was the work of the CIA and the Pentagon.
Although Kennedy was killed over 40 years ago, the American public still can’t decide who killed him. Most people think the question is no longer relevant—it’s now just a part of history, and so it’s time to quit worrying about an ancient past.
This question is now more relevant than ever. Kennedy was the last President who was willing to oppose the Pentagon and the CIA. These organizations now control much of American foreign policy under the table and promote war and violence throughout the world.
When you read John F. Kennedy’s Address to American University, given on June 10th, 1963, you can clearly see that Kennedy had a very different vision for the world—a more just, and peaceful approach to relations with America’s adversaries, grounded in a greater common interest that the world could never again afford to go to the brink of nuclear war.
Sadly, this vision died along with Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963. Would the Cold War have ended had Kennedy lived to assume a second term? Would Kennedy have been able to end the Vietnam War, as his National Security Memorandum 263 had already set into motion? In a time when escalation of violence seems to be the standard option, the world can only wonder.
The Three Reasons They Wanted Him Dead
Throughout his presidency, Kennedy’s foreign policy had ultimately become an anathema to the Pentagon and the ever-uncontrollable CIA, whose repeated calls for violence (a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, an invasion of Cuba, and the escalation in Vietnam, to name a few) were usually met by the President’s isolated opposition. To these Cold Warriors (the Joint Chiefs of Staff), who were willing to destroy the world by starting an all-out nuclear war in the name of fighting communism, Kennedy posed an obstacle. At the height of the Cold War, to even contemplate negotiating with the enemy was regarded as treasonous. Meanwhile, the President’s back-channel dialogue with the Soviet Premier himself was setting the stage for an ideological standoff.
In the newly published JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, author James Douglass astutely chronicled three major events in Kennedy’s presidency that represent the President’s own inner turning from a hard-line, militaristic Cold War policy to one of peace which, consequentially, set him diametrically opposed to an increasingly enraged military bureaucracy. The first event is the Bay of Pigs, in which Kennedy shocked the CIA by refusing to send in military support to their failing invasion. Douglass argues it was this decision that was the beginning of CIA hatred for Kennedy, since he actually held to his own terms, which, emphatically, were that the US military was not to intervene. (Douglass’ book also points out the chilling fact that, based on the unpublished drafts of CIA director Allen Dulles, the CIA had designed the Bay of Pigs invasion to require US intervention, but intentionally hid this issue from Kennedy, so as to entrap him).
Hatred of Kennedy was only intensified to a much larger scale when, the following year, Kennedy also refused to escalate the Cuban Missile Crisis through violence. He knew that to do so would lead to all-out nuclear war, and instead the President turned with Khrushchev towards a peaceful solution, as the two leaders realized that they were both in grave danger of losing control of their respective military establishments. Twice now, the National Security State had felt severely betrayed, as they had wrongfully miscalculated that bombing Cuba would pose no threat to the security of the U.S. Lastly, Douglass points to Kennedy’s revolutionary speech on world peace at American University as the sealing of his fate, since he had proposed banning nuclear testing and eventual disarmament with the Soviet Union.
The CIA Considered Him A Traitor
The history of Kennedy’s first term is absolutely crucial to understanding why he was murdered. If it can be proven that Kennedy’s national security establishment regarded him as a traitor, in a time when it was “better to be dead than red,” then a motive is established. Then, if it can be proven that only forces within the government were able to carry out and cover up the President’s murder, it becomes clear who or what killed him, even if it isn’t yet known who specifically gave the order and who pulled the trigger.
Despite the claim today by Warren Commission apologists that no conspiracy theory has yet produced any credible evidence (which already contradicts the House Select Committee on Assassination’s conclusion that the murder was “probably” carried out by a conspiracy), there is in fact a large body of evidence which points to a conspiracy within the government, which the apologists either aren’t aware of, or are willfully dismissive of. Thanks to both early investigators and a new flood of information released by the JFK Records Act, the truth can now be known.
The evidence shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the patsy he claimed to be; he was in fact a US intelligence operative being moved around as a pawn in a deadly game that culminated in the murder of Kennedy. If Oswald’s ties to the US intelligence community can be confirmed, then one can conclude that he was not the “lone-nut,” communist assassin he is depicted as.
Oswald Was An Official Government Operative, Not A Crazed Loner
James Douglass raises an important question about Oswald—why was he so tolerated and supported by the US government that he had betrayed? Why was he allowed to return to the US a year and a half before the assassination with a loan from the American Embassy in Moscow, after defecting to the Soviet Union and denouncing the US? Why wasn’t he prosecuted for promising to give away military secrets to the Soviets? It’s possible he was a double agent. In fact, such a program for “defectors” existed at the time. According to former CIA agent Victor Marchetti, the CIA-connected-Office of Naval Intelligence implemented program in 1959 that sent young men to the Soviets pretending to be disenchanted Americans, with the intent of becoming KGB doubles.
Upon returning to the US, Oswald was then befriended by a man named George de Mohrenschildt, an anti-communist Russian who directed Oswald’s return, finding him employment at a company that made maps for U.S. spy-plane missions over Cuba, and also directed him throughout Dallas. On March 29, 1977, the day de Mohrenschildt revealed that the CIA had contacted him and sanctioned his contact with Oswald, he was found shot to death in his house three hours later, by an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound to the mouth. This occurred on the same day that HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi had scheduled an evening appointment to question de Mohrenschildt.
There are two other noteworthy witnesses that attest to Oswald’s intelligence connections. James Douglass takes note of former CIA finance officer Jim Wilcott, who worked for the CIA’s Tokyo Station from 1960 to 1964. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, in 1978, Wilcott stated, “It was common knowledge in the Tokyo CIA station that Oswald worked for the agency.” His wife, Elsie Wilcott, who also worked for the agency, corroborated, saying, “Right after the President was killed, people in the Tokyo station were talking openly about Oswald having gone to Russia for the CIA. Everyone was wondering how the agency was going to be able to keep the lid on Oswald.” (Douglass 147).
Additionally, there is now the testimony of scientist Judyth Vary Baker who recently published her memoir, Me and Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald. In it, she testifies to how as a young scientist, she was recruited to work alongside prominent cancer researcher Dr. Mary Sherman on what may have been a biological weapon project. Along the way, she was brought into contact with Oswald, whom she had an affair with the summer before Oswald was killed. Having known Oswald intimately, she also attests to his role as a deep-cover intelligence operative. It’s no surprise that after being confronted with death threats in the US, she now lives in Europe as an accepted political asylum seeker, the first-ever non-combatant woman to gain such status.
There Was More Than One Shooter…And Doctors Were Ordered To Cover It Up
Finally, as to the evidence of there being more than one actual shooter in Dealey Plaza, James Douglass’ book includes the recorded testimony of the Parkland Hospital doctors, who claimed the wound in Kennedy’s neck was an entrance wound. First, there is Dr. Crenshaw, a resident surgeon at the time, who, upon looking at the president’s neck wound upon arrival to the hospital, recalled, “It was a bullet entry wound. There was no doubt in my mind about that wound, as I had seen dozens of them…” (307). Then, upon noticing that the right rear of Kennedy’s brain was gone, Crenshaw concluded, “It looked like a crater—an empty cavity…from the damage I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that the bullet had entered his head through the front…” (308). Then, there was Dr. Malcolm Perry who stated in a press conference that afternoon, “…the throat wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct” (308). This conference was cited in The New York Times the following day (308). Interestingly enough, Douglass also records how Dallas Secret Service Agent Elmer Moore later admitted to a friend that he “had been ordered to tell Dr. Perry to change his testimony” (Douglass 309), which explains why he had later redacted his press conference statements, and also points to the simple reality that the government was actively seeking to cover-up key medical evidence.
It is my hope that this article serves as a reference point for further study. I would also recommend listening to the deathbed confession of CIA operative E. Howard Hunt, which was recorded in 2007 and can easily be found online. In it, Hunt named himself, Cord Meyer, David Sanchez-Morales, William Harvey, and Lyndon B. Johnson as co-conspirators in the JFK assassination, which they code-named “The Big Event.” This further corroborates the testimonies of the aforementioned that acknowledged the CIA was behind the assassination.
What Does This Mean For Today?
Not only was JFK the victim of a conspiracy, he was removed from power by forces within the government that viewed him as a threat to the Cold War ideologies of the time. Though it cannot be concluded with confidence who specifically ordered the murder, it is clear what organization carried it out and subsequently covered it up. More importantly, though, we as a nation must ponder why President John F. Kennedy was murdered. The answer to this question provides a necessary context for understanding our past and deciding our future.
Joseph Sabroski is in his second year at the University of Minnesota, studying management, economics and music. He’s studied the assassination of John F. Kennedy fairly extensively, though he’s not technically a “professor”.
Works Cited: Douglass, James W. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Print.
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