The JFK Assassination, Fifty Years Later

by Frederick Hoehn, copyright 2013.  

There has been a lot in the news lately about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ("Jack Kennedy").  In just a day or two it will be exactly fifty years ago that he was slain.  

CNN is talking about it, and PBS, and Fox News Channel.  

JFK was one of the more popular presidents.  

He had been a World War II veteran (Navy) and a Harvard graduate.  When running for President, it didn't hurt that his Father, Joseph Kennedy, had deep pockets to help with JFK's political activities.  The Kennedys were Catholics.  

Lyndon Johnson, from Texas, was included on the Presidential ticket to help JFK win the South.  

But after the election, Johnson was shut out of many of the top-level meetings, since Johnson was not one of the Kennedy inner circle.  

Joe Kennedy made his money selling liquor.  He apparently had insider knowledge that Prohibition would be repealed.  He had ships waiting in the harbor so that they could start unloading their liquor the moment that the repealing of Prohibition took effect.  Joe Kennedy made a killing in the liquor business.    

Joe himself had had political ambitions, but suspicious president FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, shunted him off to an Ambassadorship.  Joe had lost another of his sons as a military pilot in World War II.    

As President, JFK seems to have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis well, and avoided a possible nuclear war with Russia.  

But the "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba went quite badly.  It was apparently a mainly CIA operation, but with Kennedy's approval.  

It was said that Kennedy was very much disappointed with himself for having listened to the advice that the operation had a very good chance of success.  

The on-the-ground soldiers, many of whom were Cuban ex-patriots, felt betrayed because they understood that they would have air support, which never came.  

There are many theories about what happened the day of the assassination.  

The Zapruder film shows Kennedy being hit by one or more bullets.  

Abraham Zapruder was a Texas businessman who went to Plaza that day to see the President, and took along his movie camera.  His movie that he shot would be used in the investigation.    

It wasn't really such a great idea for the President to be moving along in a convertible automobile with the top down.  The Secret Service must have protested.  

But they were no doubt overruled so that a better presentation could be made to the public for political reasons.  

After Kennedy's being hit, he was taken to Parkland Hospital, but a proper autopsy couldn't be done because the Secret Service insisted on quickly taking the body away to Washington, D.C., perhaps on orders from the New President, Lyndon Johnson.  

There were witnesses who claimed to have seen puffs of smoke indicating shots fired from a "grassy knoll" there at the Plaza.  

One of the bullets that hit Kennedy knocked him backward and to his left, indicating that it had come from the direction of the grassy knoll.  

It was mentioned on the Sean Hannity TV program that there's a book out suggesting that Lyndon B. Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy as President, was behind JFK's assassination.  

Johnson was apparently in trouble with some scandals he was involved in, and was expecting that he would not be JFK's running mate for a second term.  

I can believe that Johnson was corrupt enough to have had a part in the assassination.  He has been reported to have stuffed ballot boxes in Texas elections by having people vote for him who had died previous to the election they were supposed to have voted in.  

Once in the Congress, Johnson studied his fellow Congresspeople for the purpose of influencing how they voted, and was known to be very coercive in getting legislation passed that Johnson wanted passed.  

The movie "JFK" put forward conspiracy theories about the assassination.  One of the key players in that movie was the District Attorney of New Orleans, Mr. Garrison, (the role played by Kevin Costner), but he didn't really seem to have much substance to his case, for all his apparent good intentions.   

Lee Harvey Oswald, whom many thought to be the lone assassin, had spent some time in New Orleans, involved in political activities.  

Oswald, a former Marine, had stated his intention to renounce his U.S. citizenship, referred to himself as a Marxist, and had actually moved to Russia, where he married a Russian woman, Marina, and then later returned to the U.S.    

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy was quite unhappy with the CIA, and was reported to have said he would split it into a hundred pieces.  

So there could easily have been people at the CIA who would have preferred that Kennedy disappear from the scene, before he took away their livelihood.  

It has also been said that the Mob had assisted in the election of Kennedy to President.  But after Kennedy got into office, he appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, who promptly started criminally prosecuting the Mafia.  

So some say the Mob was involved in Kennedy's assassination.  

President Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination.  It was said that Chief Justice Earl Warren left Johnson's office, from a meeting with Johnson, in tears, because of the very coercive Johnson.  

Apparently the Warren Commission was not given a free hand to do a thorough investigation, and was told what kind of result they were expected to come up with.  

There is the theory of the zigzagging bullet.  A bullet, which to do all the damage it was supposed to have done, must have zigzagged in flight.  

But, of course, bullets do not zigzag in flight, though they can be deflected by hitting something.  

Oswald was an employee at the Texas Book Depository, from which building shots were said to have been fired.  

But the weapon Oswald was supposed to have used was an old Italian rifle that had to have its bolt manually operated to load each round of ammunition.  

It has been said that Oswald could not have fired as many rounds as were fired in that short period of time with that old rifle.  

Oswald was also thought to be the murderer of Police Officer Tippit, later on the same day as the Kennedy assassination.    

The book suggesting Johnson was behind the assassination says Johnson had a hit man of his own on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository that day, and with a more advanced rifle.  

It seems to me that probably there was more than one shooter.  

But Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner, was convinced that "that Communist," Oswald, was the perpetrator, and shot him dead at the Dallas police station.  Not such good security that day at the Dallas police station, an embarrassment, no doubt, to the local police.   

Though JFK had a beautiful wife, Jackie, he was said to be quite a womanizer.  Someone asked Kennedy why he would risk adultery as President, and he was reported to have answered, "I can't stop."  

Compulsive behavior such as that is likely caused by one or more demons.  Demons can be cast out by Christians, but the person having the demons must be willing.  Unfortunately, the casting out of demons is not taught as much as it ought to be, and not practiced as much as it needs to be.       

The question is sometimes asked, "Do you remember what you were doing when JFK was shot?"  

I remember.  I was doing my duties as a sailor aboard a U.S. Navy ship somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, when the announcement that the President had been shot came over the ship's public address system.  

Bobby Kennedy, JFK's brother, later ran for President, and was assassinated while running for the office.  

The younger brother, Ted Kennedy, made it to the U.S. Senate, but though he had aspirations to be President, that was apparently thwarted by the unfortunate incident with the death of Mary Jo Kopeckne.  

There was quite a serious funeral procession for JFK with horse drawn, flag-draped coffin, and plenty of military personnel in full dress uniform.