The Kennedy and Oswald Assassinations Essay Example for Free

The Kennedy and Oswald Assassinations Essay On a beautiful autumn day in Dallas 1963, President John F. Kennedy arrived in for what could have been a hostile greeting.   Unofficially, it was a campaign trip, but officially, the trip was meant to put out fires and garner support for a soon to come Presidential campaign the following year.   The Presidential party started in Ft. Worth, TX where the reception was cordial and warm, and then, after a brief speech by the President, boarded the plane for what would be a short but fateful trip to Love field in Dallas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As was true in Ft. Worth, the reception in Dallas was cordial and warm, filling the young President and his host with pleasure and confidence.   Mrs. Connelly, wife of Texas Governor John Connelly, was later to remark to the President, You cant say Dallas doesnt love you Mr. President.   After de-planning in Dallas, the entourage loaded into cars for the next Presidential address.   The party moved from Love Field into Dallas, towards downtown and the Texas School Book Depository, past the building and towards an underpass when three, perhaps four shots rang out, two hitting the President and one hitting Governor Connelly.    One bullet missed the entourage.   The number of bullets fired has never been clear, but one bullet, eventually labeled the magic bullet, was said to have struck the Governor, exited his body before hitting the President.   Whatever, the case, the second bullet to hit the young leader delivered the mortal blow, knocking the statesman backwards and to his left.   Although the brain damage indicates that JFK never knew what his him—brain matter splattered over the accompanying motorcycle cops—the President was not pronounced dead until after valiant efforts to revive him at Parkland Memorial Hospital.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In an era when television went off the air between 11 PM and 1 AM and most people had black and white television sets, the three news networks remained on the air 24 hours as a grief stricken, startled nation kept abreast of event in Washington, DC and every detail about the assassination came in.   Anything that could be said and told about the Kennedys was, and whatever could be learned about the alleged assassin was reported.   As a shocked nation tried to make sense of the senseless tragedy, and a Camelot myth took hold, Americans stayed glued to their television sets throughout Saturday and the networks remained on throughout the night for a second night.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Sunday morning, many Americans went to their places of worship, prayed for the First Family and prepared to lay their fallen leader in state in the Capitol Rotunda before laying him to rest on Monday.   Sunday was a bright, crisp, cold day in Washington, unlike the cloudy and cool but not cold Friday of the assassination.   The beauty of the day did not betray the next shock in store for the nation.   Almost exactly 48 hours after the Presidents assassination, with most Americans wondering why this tragedy had occurred, answers would be pushed further away as the alleged assassin was himself assassinated and a grieving nation became even more stunned.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The second assassin was Jack Ruby, a businessman, night club owner and small time hustler with ties to organized crime.   Theories as to why Ruby cut down Oswald included that, like the nation as a whole, Ruby was grief stricken, but it is also a mystery how he gained access to the area where this second assassination occurred.    In interviews during the days after the two assassinations, Ruby acknowledged on film that other individuals were behind his actions, but gave no names and only made a somewhat off-handed comment indicating that information about the Kennedy assassination wouldnt be revealed—the public would never learn the truth.   The indication was not so much that Ruby didnt want Oswald to reveal the truth, but rather that individuals behind Ruby wanted information hidden.   Oswald, it seems, was set up.   Indeed, there was evidence that the initial attempt to cut down the President was to have been made a few days earlier in Florida, but the Presidents trip was cancelled.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After the two assassinations, many unusual events took place.   The Presidents autopsy was flawed, information was hidden from the Warren Commission and, in many respects, it appeared as though even the US Government did not want the truth about the assassination revealed.   Blacks felt that the President had been cut down because of his support for Civil Rights, and even the Presidents brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, appears to have made efforts to hold back the truth of the assassination.   Perhaps the most interesting idea about the assassination of the President, one that seldom comes out, connects the assassination with an earlier assassination in South Vietnam barely a month before the President was cut down. (OLeary Seymour, 2003; Weisberg, 1984). President Nguyen Van Thieu, leader of South Vietnam, was assassinated in a coup only a month after he had unseated then-president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and only about a month before President Kennedy’s assassination.   Madame Thieu, in the US at the time, felt that President Thieu would not have been cut down if President Kennedy had supported her husband, support she felt would have prevented the coup against him.   The theory goes that Madame Thieu put out a contract on the President that organized crime figures knew about but that was carried out by hired killers.   The mob refused to make the hit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   While this idea has seldom been discussed, it appears that even Attorney General Kennedy realized that actions he took against organized crime and events in Vietnam had ultimately led to the murder of his brother.   Jack Ruby suggested on film that the nation would not learn the facts behind the assassination.   Events after the assassination led to government cover-ups, involvement of organized crime and even to efforts by the Warren Commission to ignore the facts, but these events only added to the confusion surrounding the assassination.   Some have noted that President Kennedy intended to cut back on US involvement in Vietnam had he lived, and the war itself was not a big issue in the US at that time. South Vietnamese officials did not want the US to remove its military advisors, but part of the US retreat from Vietnam would have involved ending support for President Thieu.   This left the South Vietnamese President open to assassination.   Attorney General Kennedy had urged that his brother scale back efforts in and support for South Vietnam, and realized that these efforts had ultimately led to his brothers demise.   So, even the Attorney General, brother of the President and the chief law enforcer of the US, decided that it was politically (regarding world politics) best not to openly pursue the events behind his brothers assassination.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jack Rubys ties to organized crime, perhaps, did not render him privy to all of the details behind the cover-up of the US Presidents assassination, but he did have enough information to suspect that Oswald was a patsy for a larger conspiracy.   While most people suspected the cover-up probably did not involve the US Government (why would the government, including the Attorney General, cover up details of the Presidents assassination), the possible South Vietnam aspect of the Kennedy assassination answers many difficult questions.   It explains why President Johnson and Attorney General Kennedy wanted the investigation of the US Presidents assassination resolved quickly, why so many government, medical and other abnormalities seemed apparent and even the ties to organized crime.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Judging from the available information, Lee Harvey Oswald clearly did not assassinate President Kennedy.   Based on a taped police interview released the day after Oswald’s assassination, Jack Ruby appears to have known this.   Evidence from investigation of the assassination confirms that Oswald could not have assassinated the young Chief Executive.   Attempts to duplicate the assassination feat demonstrated that none of the expert sharpshooters could hit a moving vehicle from that distance, and Oswald was a poor marksman. The bullet that caused the fatal shot knocked the President’s body backwards and to his left, a difficult feat for a bullet coming from behind the President.   Eyewitness accounts confirm that shots did come from the grassy knoll to the right and slightly in front of the President’s car.   This evidence was ignored by the Warren Commission.   And there is evidence that a fourth bullet was fired from one side of the President.   Clearly, even if Oswald was involved, his involvement could not account for all of these strange details.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The little known Vietnam connection is based mostly on the research and ideas of Bradley S. OLeary, author of Triangle of Death:   The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK.   It accounts for many of the mysteries behind the assassination.   If this Vietnam connection theory is correct, both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby were patsies, the difference being that Ruby realized he was being used (perhaps not entirely clear on who was using him) whereas Oswald did not.   President Johnson and Attorney General Kennedy realized that they could not openly acknowledge a South Vietnam connection in President Kennedys assassination because it could possibly turn the wrath of the country against South Vietnamese leaders, so the appearance of cover-up by US government, various branches of government and some involvement in a cover-up by the mob seem reasonable. While mob hired guns probably pulled the trigger to assassinate the President, the mob itself was not involved.   Hired killers just kill for a living.   They take the job or refuse it, but they do so as independent killers.   Therefore, the Kennedy assassination was not a mob job, but a contract from a family member of the murdered South Vietnamese leader.   Ruby probably did not realize this fact and mob officials, some of whom seem to have known about the assassination before hand, had a vested interest in seeing that the government and the people did not hold them responsible put heat on the mob underworld for cutting down a President who had been popular around the world outside of his politics.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   If any of these ideas regarding a South Vietnam connection in the assassination are correct, then it is feasible, even probable, that there really was a cover-up conspiracy, in the interest of national security, at the highest levels of government, including the Attorney General, in the JFK assassination.   The cover-up was an effort to avert the appearance of an international conspiracy on the part of the US or South Vietnam in connection with the death of the US President. It is not likely that Ruby knew the details, but he probably knew enough to have been aware of a cover-up involving the mob, to have known that Oswald was a patsy and, perhaps, to have wondered if he himself might have been one.   Perhaps these ideas are wrong, but this possible South Vietnamese connection explains many gray areas that have surrounded President Kennedys assassination over the years.   In this case, the full details of the story, if true, will probably never be released. References: Bradley S. OLeary and L. E. Seymour (2003).   Triangle of Death:   The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK.   Nashville, TN:   WND Books. Weisberg, Harold (1984).   Case Open: The Unanswered JFK Assassination Questions.   New York, NY:   Carroll Graf.