John F. Kennedy was the 35th president from January 31st, 1961 until his assassination on November 22, 1963. It is common knowledge that Kennedy was in Dallas Texas as he traveled in a motorcade when Lee Harvey Oswald killed him. He was the sole perpetrator of the assassination and Oswald was also assassinated two days later on November 24. Lyndon B Johnson the current vice president then became president just minutes after J.F.K was pronounced dead.

J.F.K has become a pop culture icon because of all the conspiracies that surround him even including the “Happy Birthday Mr. President” that was sung by the glamorous Marilyn Monroe. This song had affair rumors flying back in the day.  I enjoy conspiracies theories! I am not saying I believe in them, but it is interesting how different people can take a set of information and interpret it in their own way. So who killed J.F.K and what is up with the newly released files?

The Mafia took him out. This conspiracy implies that a Chicago mobster had the money power and influence to have J.F.K killed because of Robert Kennedy push to stop the mobster’s drug activity. What makes this theory appealing to others is because Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby who had connections with the Chicago Mobster.

Lyndon Johnson was behind it.  A theory suggests that Richard Nixon and Jackie Kennedy believe this theory because Johnson had the most to gain from J.F.K’s death. Most of the evidence to back this claim up is based on rumors.

The Oswald Conspiracies. One theory suggests that the KGB hired Oswald to assassinate Kennedy because he was an undercover Soviet agent. However, this theory did not hold up as later released documents suggested that Russia actively avoided recruiting Oswald as they deemed him mentally unstable.

Another theory involving Oswald linked him to the New Orleans Conspiracy where a right-wing businessman got Oswald to be the patsy since the businessman did not want peace negotiations to begin with Russia. The plan was to hire Oswald, arrange the shooting, and get back to New Orleans that night. The businessman was later arrested and went to trial over these allegations, but the jury found the case groundless and dismissed it.

The third conspiracy directly involving Oswald proposes that he couldn’t have fired the shot that killed Kennedy. The conspiracy states that Oswald was shooting from a 60-year-old rifle that was hard to aim let alone almost impossible to shoot three shots in eight seconds. It also stated that Oswald was not that great of a marksman. Later investigation proved this theory false because his wife said he always was practicing with this gun and Oswald did have a marine background. When the shooting of J.F.K occurred, he was only 90 meters away from Oswald and J.F.K. was moving slowly. In the marines, they practiced shooting at 200 meters, so J.F.K wasn’t even half the distance Oswald was used to shooting. Also, the Warren Commission and even CBS news organization duplicated the shot several years later with the same model weapon and overall conditions and proved that it was possible to take the shots within 8 seconds with most marksmen hitting the target 2 out of 3 times.

Some of the files revealed that;

• The FBI knew there was a threat to Oswald life before he died.
• Oswald contacted the Soviet Embassy inquiring about a visa.
• The documents stated that the CIA looked into whether Hitler was alive in Venezuela
• Several memos revealed plots to kill Castro from poisoning his swimsuits, to putting a bounty on his head, although the price of his head has been debated.
• A CIA document notes they were looking into Martin Luther King’s companions thinking most of them had communist ties.

For more information visit http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/26/politics/jfk-file-release-highlights/index.html