JFK Conspiracy

This essay attempts to elevate polling data into scientific fact, but in the end, it is barely more convincing that referring to the audience polls on "Family Feud."


The idea that the CIA elected to assassinate President Kennedy is the perfect bit of fantasy. Given the secrecy of the CIA, and given its reputation for operating clandestinely -- that is posing as things they are not -- it can never be disproven. And from the fact that the CIA can never prove that it had no involvement in the assassination, conspiracy buffs announce that it must have been true.


And what of the President's comments around the time of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Could Kennedy have been voicing a profound frustration with the mess in which he found himself. He had not organized the training that was behind the attempted invasion. His people did not plan the operation? It was an Eisenhower/CIA project that had hatched. Suddenly, Kennedy faced the dreadful prospect of a brigade of armed, trained zealots in central America who would soon be screaming about Kennedy being soft against Castro if he did not go ahead with the invasion. (Kennedy was foolish in believing that this minuscule force had any serious chance of success.) The CIA had failed to consider a critical problem: what if, at the end of the training, the best course is not to try an invasion?


Under the circumstances, was it maybe reasonable that Kennedy complained about the CIA's propensity for running wild?


But does that mean that anyone in the CIA would decide to commit treason?


As for Johnson: that is vulgar and cheap. Johnson played politics. He played in as a full contact sport. But where does that give rise to the idea that Johnson would conspire to murder the elected leader of his own country. Kennedy was the war hero, while Johnson had not been called to serve, but Johnson's patriotism and love of country were as deep as Kennedy's. Think about this: if Lyndon Johnson were alive today, would this author have the temerity to walk up to him and say "I believe you had John Kennedy murdered."


As for the rumors that Kennedy would have dumped Johnson in the 1964 election, where is there anything more than rumors, and those from sources far from Kennedy's inner circle. Very early on, Kennedy expected Barry Goldwater to win the Republican nomination. Any Goldwater strategy would have required carrying the South, and of the Southern states, Texas carried the biggest electoral prize, 25 votes, almost a tenth of what it would take to win. Would Kennedy risk alienating Texas's 25 votes by dumping a Texan from the ticket when he expected to run a candidate that could threaten his hold on Texas?


Time and again, this essay relies on rumor, poll data, wild speculation, and nonsense. Better research, and less of a lust for the sensational might redeem this.