Duluth Superior Magazine / June 2011 / Who Killed JFK?

Who Killed JFK?

Part One

Here, Saint Scholastica history professor William Miller argues that John F Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman. In part two, history buff Joseph Sabroski challenges that view, arguing that the assassination was the work of the CIA and the Pentagon.

Despite almost 50 years of speculation and theorizing, the answer remains as it was in November 1963:

Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed President John F. Kennedy. No conspiracy theory has ever presented credible evidence of an alternative explanation.

Wasn’t Oswald a Cuban sympathizer who lived in the Soviet Union for a period? Yes, but it’s a long leap from that to conclude that he was a KGB plant sent as an operative back to the U.S. The release of Soviet files following its collapse in 1991 indicates that the Soviets viewed Oswald as an unstable character who warranted observation, not a competent secret agent.

Wasn’t the famous picture of Oswald holding the rifle used in the assassination a forgery? No, extensive forensic analysis, including the grain pattern of the prints, shows no tampering. Additionally Oswald’s wife has repeatedly testified that she took the photographs.

Wasn’t it impossible for Oswald to have fired the shots in Dealey plaza, either through his lack of skill or insufficient time? And what about the so-called “magic” bullet that wounded both the President and Governor John Connally? Oswald was a skilled rifleman who earned sharpshooter status during his service in the Marines. Reenactments of the shooting, including trajectory and timing, as early as a CBS investigative report in 1967, have demonstrated repeatedly that firing three shots in the allotted time is a relatively easy task. Extensive analysis of the Zapruder film showing the position of Kennedy and Connally and forensic analysis of their wounds shows that both were wounded by a single bullet, proceeding an a straight line, tumbling as it exited the President’s chest and deflected only after striking Connally’s rib.

Doesn’t the Zapruder film show Kennedy’s reaction to being struck by a bullet from the front, proving there had to be another gunmen? All of Kennedy’s reactions, the raising of his arms and the movement of his head are consistent with bullets striking from behind and above. The House Select Committee on Assassinations, meeting from 1977-79, created a stir when it suggested a fourth shot during the assassination based on an acoustical analysis if a police motorcycle Dictabelt tape that supposedly recorded the actual assassination. But the sound interpreted as a fourth shot ahs been shown to have occurred more than a minute after the last shot and long after the presidential limousine had left Dealey Plaza.

The same House committee also concluded that there was no involvement by the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, organized crime, Cubans, or any of the other alleged assassins.

Instead: Lee Harvey Oswald purchased the gun used in the assassination. His landlady saw the package in her garage the night before the assassination. A co-worker who gave Oswald a ride the morning of the assassination to work saw him carry a large package he described as “curtain rods.” Oswald’s palm and fingerprints were found in five separate locations on the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository, along with his rifle and cartridge casings. Numerous witnesses saw Oswald kill Dallas police officer J.D. Tippett with a revolver, flee the scene, drop evidence on his escape, and enter the Texas Theater. The gun was with him when he was arrested.

But didn’t Jack Ruby murder Oswald under orders from the mob to shut him up? Jack Ruby was a small-time con-man without any of the extensive connections attributed to him. Given his activities on the morning of Sunday, November 24, his presence at the Dallas Police Department with a pistol, at precisely the time Oswald was to be transferred, was almost a chance event.

The more compelling question is, why do so many Americans reject Oswald as the lone, deranged assassin and look to conspiracy theories. Mostly because we find it hard to accept that such an inconsequential person can have such a profound effect on our sense of justice, order and the American character. There must be another explanation.

There isn’t.

For further information on the true nature of JFK’s assassination, I suggest, Gerald Posner’s Case Closed, (Random House, 1993) and Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, W.W. Norton and Co., 2007). But set aside a lot of time. The evidence is overwhelming.

The 2010 “America’s Best Colleges” survey by U.S. News & World Report magazine ranks The College of St. Scholastica in the top tier of Midwestern universities. For more information go to www.css.edu.