Who shot JFK? 'Magic' bullets to CIA plots - all the theories behind the assassination and why it is still a mystery
22 November 2023, 10:53 | Updated: 22 November 2023, 11:00
President John F Kennedy was killed as his motorcade passed through Dallas 60 years ago today.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Sixty years after the JFK assassination, it’s still unclear why Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president, fueling countless conspiracies.
Mafia hitmen, Russians and even rogue CIA agents have all been linked. A recent poll showed 65 per cent of Americans believe Oswald wasn't acting alone
Here are the main theories surrounding JFK's death::
Read More: Donald Trump attacks President Biden on foreign policy as Israel-Hamas war rages
Read More: Trump mocks Republican rivals urging them to stop ‘wasting time’ as candidates lock horns at debate
LEE HARVEY OSWALD AND THE RUSSIAN LINK
Questions have always been raised about how Oswald was able to leave America aged 20 to live in the Soviet Union for four years, during the Cold War era, without being detained or seemingly questioned on his return with a Russian wife and baby.
Recently US intelligence has admitted that Oswald went to Mexico two months before the assassination where he met Consul Valery Kostikov — identified by the CIA as a KGB agent in a branch responsible for “sabotage and assassination.”
It has been speculated that he may have been trying to get a visa to defect to Cuba through the Russian embassy.
THE MAFIA DID IT
The CIA had contacts with organized crime families and there were discussions about assassinating Cuba's Fidel Castro
The theory is the mob did not like Kennedy's crusading younger brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and hoped the younger brother would lose his influence if his brother was killed.
However wiretaps of Mafia leaders have never revealed any links to the assassination.
Ralph Salerno, a former New York City Police detective who investigated mafia involvement in the assassination for the House committee, said he reviewed “thousands of pages of electronic surveillances of organized crime leaders all over the United States” at the time of the assassination and heard nothing suspicious.
“We even came across a few sympathetic remarks about the president,” he told ABC “‘No, they killed the wrong one.’ ‘They should have shot his brother.’ ‘That little SOB.’ ‘He’s the guy who’s giving us a hard time.’”
THE ‘MAGIC’ BULLET
Oswald is believed to have fired three bullets from his location in the book depository as it passed through Dealey Plaza. The first missed, while the third delivered the fatal blow to the President’s head.
The second bullet has been at the centre of theories of another shooter - possibly hiding on the grassy knoll as the motorcade passed. Witnesses also claimed to have heard shots from that direction.
The Warren Commission - set up to investigate the assassination - concluded the second bullet hit Kennedy at the back of his neck, passed through his throat and went on to hit Texas governor John Connally, who was sitting in the front of the car.It then passed through Connally’s chest, then hit his wrist and thigh.
Sceptics do not believe the commission's theory. one of the President's bodyguards Paul Landis, appears to have backed the “second shooter” theory.
He has revealed he found a fully intact bullet “sitting on the back ledge” of the presidential limo and placed it next to Kennedy on his stretcher.
He thinks it was in Kennedy’s back before “popping out” as his body was taken from the car. It means it could not have gone on to hit Connally — raising questions over who fired the shot that did.
UMBRELLA MAN
The most famous theory involving multiple gunmen centers on “Umbrella Man”: a figure seen mysteriously holding a black umbrella on the sunny day of Kennedy’s assassination.
Some speculated that Umbrella Man had shot a poison dart into Kennedy’s neck, immobilizing him to allow for Oswald or others to deliver a kill-shot.
Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-fueling 1991 film “JFK” showed Umbrella Man sending signals to his fellow assassins.
However in 1978, 15 years after the assassination, Louie Steven Witt told the House committee that he brought the umbrella to heckle — not murder — the president.
Witt said he wasn’t even aware of the conspiracy theories over his umbrella until years later, and that it was “bad joke” aimed at Kennedy’s father that had monumentally backfired.
THE MISSING FILM
Tailor Abraham Zapruder took home-movie footage of the JFK shooting showing the moment of impact before wife Jackie leans over the car to retrieve part of her husband’s skull.
A second home movie, taken by maintenance worker Orville Nix, was subpoenaed by the Government as part of its investigations.
His granddaughter Gail has now filed a lawsuit in a bid to get the original back. It may be important as it contains footage of the grassy knoll.
Experts believe modern digital tech could see the original film cleaned up to see if it reveals anything new.
THE MEDICS TRYING TO SAVE THE PRESIDENT'S LIFE
Doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital said they believed there was more than one shooter involved.
The official Warren Commission investigation into JFK’s death concluded he was shot by Oswald from behind as his car passed the book depository on Dealey Plaza, but the doctors claim his injuries were caused by a bullet that appeared to have entered the front of his head.
Dr Robert McClelland said: “In all probability there was a conspiracy.“There was more than one shooter."
Dr Ronald Jones said: “If Oswald was in the sixth-floor depository, how could he (JFK) have been shot from the front then? And so was there more than one assailant?”
Some of the medics said they had seen what they thought was a bullet hole in the front of Kennedy's neck and photos of the autopsy which they said looked different from what they had seen in the Parkland trauma room. This suggests the body had been tampered with.
UMBRELLA MAN
The most famous theory involving multiple gunmen centers on “Umbrella Man”: a figure seen mysteriously holding a black umbrella on the sunny day of Kennedy’s assassination.
Some speculated that Umbrella Man had shot a poison dart into Kennedy’s neck, immobilizing him to allow for Oswald or others to deliver a kill-shot.
Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-fueling 1991 film “JFK” showed Umbrella Man sending signals to his fellow assassins.
However in 1978, 15 years after the assassination, Louie Steven Witt told the House committee that he brought the umbrella to heckle — not murder — the president.
Witt said he wasn’t even aware of the conspiracy theories over his umbrella until years later, and that it was “bad joke” aimed at Kennedy’s father that had monumentally backfired.
THE FEMALE PILOT
Author and documentary maker Mary Haverstick has investigated a pilot named Jerrie Cobb, who had passed medical tests for the 1960s Mercury space missions, only to be ruled out because she was a woman.
She discovered that Cobb flew a light aircraft in and out of a private airport in Dallas on the day JFK was killed, and suspects she played a role in the killing, possibly as a would-be getaway pilot for Oswald.
Her research also led her to a woman called June Cobb, who appears in declassified CIA files as a US agent who worked as a secretary to Fidel Castro, and alerted the CIA to Oswald’s suspicious behaviour in Mexico.
Mary is convinced Jerrie and June are the same person, and believes she is also the mysterious “Babushka Lady” — a woman in a scarf who was the closest person filming Kennedy. She has never been found.
THE WITHHELD RECORDS
Last year President Biden released 13,000 more records linked to the Kennedy case meaning 70,000 documents can now be viewed by the public.
But 3,684 documents are still partly or completely redacted, further fuelling speculation that US Government agencies are involved in a cover-up.
Officials say they are being kept back because they contain details of people who are still alive or have information and locations of intelligence offices, but many claim they hold the key to the “real” facts.
