04x03 - The Assassination of JFK

[bunniefuu]

The President

of the United States is dead.

Tonight, the assassination

that shook our country

to its core.

It was just a shock

that caused everybody to stop

and think for a moment about

how the world had changed.

Police quickly catch

the culprit,

but many believe

there’s more to the story.

The first

question any good theorist asks

is, "Who wants Kennedy dead?"

Now, we’ll explore

the top theories

surrounding one of America’s

most shocking events.

So, he was convinced

that Kennedy was k*lled

by enemies

high in his own government.

He believed that Fidel Castro

orchestrated the assassination

of John F. Kennedy.

Is there a conspiracy behind

John F. Kennedy’s assassination?

And if so, who is really

responsible for his death?

Dallas, Texas,

November 22nd, 1963.

At 11:25 a.m.

President John F. Kennedy

arrives on Air Force One.

President Kennedy goes to Dallas

to give a lunchtime speech

at a convention center

known as the Trade Mart.

Between his arrival

at Love Field and his speech,

he’s to lead a motorcade

through the center

of downtown Dallas.

The motorcade has over 12 cars.

Kennedy is riding

in a three-rowed

Lincoln Continental

convertible limousine

with the top down.

President Kennedy

and Mrs. Kennedy

are in the back seat,

President Kennedy

on the right side,

Mrs. Kennedy on the left.

Ahead of them are Texas Governor

John Connally

and his wife Nellie,

and ahead of them are two

Secret Service agents,

one of them is driving.

It’s a very sort of warm

reception for Kennedy,

and there’s something

like 200,000 people

lining the route,

so it is no small turnout.

And at one point,

Mrs. Connally in the car

says, "You can’t say Dallas

doesn’t love you, can you?"

And President Kennedy replies,

"No, you certainly can’t."

Those are his last words.

The motorcade

comes down Main Street

to the end of Main Street,

where it hits Dealey Plaza,

takes a sharp right turn

on Commerce Street,

and then a sharp left turn

in front of the Texas

School Book Depository.

And it’s at that moment that

the first g*nshots are heard.

Something,

I repeat, has happened

in the motorcade route.

A g*nsh*t rings out,

and then two more.

Both President Kennedy

and Governor Connally are hit.

Two sh*ts hit Kennedy.

The first enters his upper back

and comes out

through his throat.

And then the second

enters the back of his skull.

He is rushed

to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

That’s where he would soon

be declared dead

at the age of 46.

Connally is also

gravely injured, but survives.

One hour after the sh**ting,

Kennedy’s death

is officially announced

to the media.

As word spreads of this,

everybody stops where they are.

People are crying.

There’s a lot of screaming,

there’s chaos,

and just a lot

of fear and confusion.

It was just a shock

that caused everybody

to stop and think for a moment

about how the world had changed.

Any divisiveness

or any fractions

within the country,

everybody just comes together

in this moment to grieve.

As the world stops to mourn,

a manhunt begins.

As soon as it’s clear

that President Kennedy’s

been hit

and the motorcade

rushes out of Dealey Plaza,

the police go interview

eyewitnesses.

And perhaps

the most important witness

of that day was a steamfitter,

a Dallas man named

Howard Brennan,

who says that he saw

a man with a r*fle

on the sixth floor of the Texas

School Book Depository.

Deputy Constable

Seymour Weitzman

and Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone

rush inside the book depository.

And there they find

quite literally the smoking g*n.

They find

a Mannlicher Carcano r*fle,

an Italian-made r*fle,

and they also find

three spent cartridges,

suggesting that somebody

had just fired three b*ll*ts

from the sixth floor.

They find the books

have been moved around

to create sort of

a sn*per’s perch.

They also find

a 38-inch brown paper bag.

The sh**t escapes,

but building staff

identify a prime suspect.

An employee at the Texas

School Book Depository,

Buell Wesley Frazier,

offers a colleague

a trip into downtown Dallas

on the morning

of the assassination,

and the colleague is carrying

a long brown paper bag

in which he says

he has curtain rods.

A manager in the building,

Roy Truly, looks around,

and he sees that

one of his employees

is actually missing.

It’s the same man who brought in

that suspicious

brown paper bag that morning.

It’s Lee Harvey Oswald.

Police radio his description

to all city units.

So, it’s been less than an hour

since President Kennedy

was sh*t,

and thanks to the quick work

of the Dallas P.D.,

they actually have

a promising lead.

Three sh*ts fired,

three spent shell casings

found next to a r*fle

that they believe

was brought in

by Lee Harvey Oswald,

who is the only person who has

fled that book depository.

Every other employee is there

still actually talking

to investigators.

It appears that Oswald

is the man responsible

for the assassination.

The Dallas Police Department

sends out a message

to be on the lookout

for somebody who looks like

Lee Harvey Oswald.

And Officer J.D. Tippit

is in a patrol car

about three miles away.

He sees a man

on the side of the road

who appears to fit

the description of the man

who’s been identified

in Dealey Plaza

as the president’s assassin.

The police officer

tries to stop this man

and is gunned down by him,

and this man,

according to many witnesses,

is Lee Harvey Oswald.

If police had any doubt

that Lee Harvey Oswald

assassinated President Kennedy,

that doubt is gone

the moment he k*lled

Officer Tippit.

A local merchant

named Johnny Brewer

has seen this man duck

into the local movie theater.

A little bit before 2:00 p.m.,

police officers find Oswald

seated there.

He’s armed.

He puts up a struggle

before he’s arrested.

One of the arresting officers,

Nick McDonald, testifies that

as they reach him,

Oswald raises his p*stol

and pulls the trigger.

But McDonald grabs the g*n

just as the hammer falls,

hitting the webbing between

his thumb and index finger,

probably saving his life.

Oswald is brought to the police

and court’s building

in downtown Dallas

and charged for both murders.

Subsequent investigation

uncovers a lot more evidence

that actually implicates Oswald.

They find a photo of Oswald

that was taken by his wife

where he’s holding a r*fle

that matches the m*rder w*apon.

Oswald had made a fake ID

in the name of Alek Hidell.

The r*fle that was found

in the school book depository

had been ordered in the name

of Alek Hidell

and sent to a post office box

in that name.

Virtually all

of the ballistics evidence

points to Oswald as the gunman

in Dealey Plaza.

His palm prints

are found on the weapons,

and the b*ll*ts fired

in Dealey Plaza

almost certainly

came out of the r*fle

that’s found on the sixth floor.

But none of this evidence

is ever presented in court.

So, Oswald is held

in custody downtown.

He’s interrogated by the FBI,

the Secret Service,

the Dallas Police Department,

the Dallas

District Attorney’s Office.

He goes through rounds

of questioning.

What we know

from those interrogations,

that he lies again

and again and again,

and he insists he had nothing to

do with the president’s m*rder.

Then something

absolutely crazy happens.

Sunday morning, November 24th,

police are actually ready

to transfer Oswald

to the county jail.

They have an armored car ready

in the basement of the building.

And as he’s being brought out

in front of the TV cameras,

Jack Ruby,

owner of a local nightclub,

steps out of the crowd

with a .45

and sh**t Oswald

once in the stomach

on national TV.

Ruby is arrested

and Oswald is taken

to the same hospital as Kennedy,

where less than 48 hours

after the president,

he’s declared dead as well.

Oswald’s death on November 24th

means that there will

never be a trial,

never an opportunity to resolve

an awful lot of the evidence

that points to Oswald

as the gunman in Dealey Plaza.

New president Lyndon Johnson

establishes a commission to

investigate the assassination.

It becomes known

as the Warren Commission.

It’s sort of the

ultimate blue-ribbon commission.

Among the other members

are the former director

of the Central Intelligence

Agency, Allen Dulles,

as well as a young congressman

from Michigan

by the name of Gerald Ford.

The Warren Commission

works for nearly a year

compiling evidence,

gathering information.

And on September 24th, 1964,

they present an 888-page report

to President Johnson.

The Warren Commission

expresses no doubt.

They state

that Lee Harvey Oswald

is the only man responsible

for JFK’s death.

They also find

that Jack Ruby acted alone

in k*lling Oswald.

But over the years,

a lot of people

have questioned these findings,

saying that they might appear

to be a little too neat.

Making this report

far from the last word on JFK.

When the Warren

Commission releases

its findings in 1964,

it marks the end

of the official investigation

into the JFK assassination.

They find that

Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone

in k*lling

President John F. Kennedy.

But that answer doesn’t satisfy

the public for long.

Skeptics write books.

First, a trickle of books,

and then a flood of books

questioning the findings

of the report

and leading to a larger distrust

both in the commission itself

and in the sort of firmament

of American government.

After 12 years of scrutiny,

the U.S. government

takes action.

The House Select

Committee on Assassinations

was created in 1976.

The committee

takes a closer look

at the Warren Commission Report.

They agree with most of what

the Warren Commission says,

particularly regarding

the evidence against Oswald.

They’re confident that Oswald

did sh**t Kennedy

from the sixth floor

of the book depository.

But they uncover

a new piece of evidence.

Assassination researchers

in Dallas came to the committee

and said it may be that

the sound of the g*nshots

was captured on this

policeman’s radio recording.

So, the committee has

multiple acoustic experts

go over this recording,

and upon first listen,

they think, actually,

there weren’t three sh*ts

as previously thought, but four.

Three sh*ts

did in fact come from

the Texas School Book

Depository,

but that one sh*t came from

a grassy knoll

in front of the motorcade.

In other words,

Oswald didn’t act alone.

And if he didn’t act alone,

someone planned

this k*lling with him.

And if so, who was it?

The House Committee uses a word

that will become connected

to the Kennedy assassination

from then on.

The word they use

is "conspiracy."

So, the audio evidence that

seems to point to a conspiracy

is later disputed,

and in many minds,

it is found to be

completely in error.

But it’s almost too late to put

the toothpaste back in the tube,

that the idea of conspiracy

is now even further cemented

in the minds of millions

of Americans.

If the JFK

assassination is a conspiracy,

who’s behind it?

Almost immediately

after the sh**ting,

one conspiracy theory

rises to the top.

So, while there’s only

circumstantial evidence

to prove it, there’s a lot

of circumstantial evidence.

Even Lyndon Johnson

did at some point

make an aside

to an ABC news reporter

that he believed

that Fidel Castro

orchestrated the assassination

of John F. Kennedy.

Why is Fidel Castro a suspect?

Let’s start with motive.

At the time

of the assassination,

there is no foreign power

with a bigger grudge

against Kennedy than Castro.

President Kennedy

is so determined

to get rid of Castro,

that he tells the CIA

to go forward

with an invasion of Cuba

that becomes known as

the Bay of Pigs Operation.

They send Cuban exiles into Cuba

with the CIA support

to oust Castro.

It’s a debacle, and afterwards,

certainly Castro knows

that President Kennedy

is so determined

to remove him from power

that he had actually ordered

an invasion of his country.

Documents that

are later declassified

reveal more evidence.

After the Bay of Pigs Invasion

fails,

the Kennedy administration,

through the CIA,

tried to k*ll Castro

in the most exotic of ways.

Everything from poison cigars,

to poisoned skin-diving suits,

to exploding seashells, but yes.

Certainly, Castro knew

the presidency

was plotting against him.

So, we know that Fidel Castro

has reason to want to see

President Kennedy dead.

And the questions

in all of the years since

is what role did

Lee Harvey Oswald

play in whatever plot

was developed

to try to k*ll the president?

During their investigation,

the Warren Commission conducts

a thorough background check

on Oswald.

Even when he’s serving

in the Marine Corps

for three years,

Lee Harvey Oswald is not shy

about the fact that

he’s a Marxist,

so much so, his colleagues

in the Marine Corps

used to refer to him

as "Oswaldovich."

In 1959 he defects

to the Soviet Union

and marries 19-year-old

Soviet citizen

Marina Prusakova,

and they have a child.

They live there until 1962

in an apartment

just a few blocks away

from where the Soviets

are training Cuban spies

and soldiers.

Back in the U.S.

in April of 1963,

Oswald goes down to New Orleans.

There, he tries to start up

a pro-Castro activist group.

It’s clear that Oswald

likes communism.

But the biggest revelation

for investigators

is that it turns out

that Oswald went to Mexico City

in September of 1963

which of course is just

two months

before JFK’s assassination

and while there

had contact with officials

at the Cuban embassy.

According to author Gus Russo,

during these meetings

Oswald makes a chilling offer.

Russo talks to various sources,

including an FBI case officer

who has two high-level

informants

within the Communist Party.

And these two informants

are two brothers

by the names

of Morris and Jack Childs.

The Childs brothers

meet with Fidel Castro

after the Kennedy assassination

and learn just how much

Fidel Castro knew

about Lee Harvey Oswald

in the weeks before

the assassination.

According to Russo’s research,

Oswald tells embassy officials,

"I’ll k*ll that bastard Kennedy

when he goes to Dallas."

Castro is immediately informed

about this.

The embassy staff calls him up

and they ask him,

"What do we do?"

Castro denies taking Oswald up

on his offer.

I don’t think

there’s any credible evidence

that Fidel Castro

played any role

in ordering President Kennedy’s

assassination.

But I think it’s clear

that he was well aware

before the assassination

that Lee Harvey Oswald

had marched into a Cuban embassy

in Mexico City

and made the statement that

he was going to k*ll Kennedy.

Russo keeps digging.

Russo speaks to some

former Cuban spies

that tell him that when Oswald

makes this offer,

they actually encourage him.

One officer tells Russo

that they offer Oswald money,

and then tell him that

they’ll help him evacuate

if he’s successful doing this.

Oswald’s end goal

is to get a visa

to get either to Cuba,

or to the Soviet Union, or both.

And eventually, the Cubans

do give him some form

of temporary visa

in October of 1963.

But according

to Russo’s findings,

they don’t actually intend

to bring Oswald to Cuba.

They plan to pick him up

and k*ll him,

and then dump his body

in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to Gus Russo,

there’s more evidence

to support this claim.

Russo finds reports

of a private plane

sitting on an airfield in Dallas

on November 22nd.

And that plane

takes off for Havana

after the assassination.

As we know,

Oswald is not on that plane.

But that might be

where he’s headed

when he encounters

Officer Tippit,

and the entire Cuban plan

changes after that.

So, that’s the theory.

The Warren Commission

and also the later House

Committee on Assassinations

dismiss the idea that Castro

or the Cuban government

could have been responsible

for the k*lling of JFK.

And today, Oswald, Castro,

Johnson they’re all dead.

So, I’d say any hopes

of proving this theory are gone.

When Lee Harvey Oswald

visits Mexico City

in the fall of 1963,

investigators are desperate

to know what he’s up to.

He makes several visits

to the Cuban embassy.

What happens there?

Are the Cubans involved?

You have to ask, right?

But the Cuban embassy

isn’t the only place

Oswald visits in Mexico.

While in Mexico City,

he also goes

to the Soviet embassy

in his quest for a visa,

and he ends up

kind of bouncing back and forth

between the Cuban embassy

and the Soviet embassy.

So Oswald,

in visiting the Soviet embassy,

is taken to meet

with a Valery Kostikov.

Oswald has one meeting

on September 28th with Kostikov,

and they have a subsequent

telephone conversation

on October 1st.

Authorities dig

into Kostikov’s background,

and they make a chilling

discovery.

Valery Kostikov

is actually a KGB agent

and a KGB assassinations expert.

Doesn’t that suggest that

this man, Lee Harvey Oswald,

is up to no good?

So, that leads us

to the next big question,

which is, is the Soviet Union,

led be Premier

Nikita Khrushchev,

involved in JFK’s assassination?

Khrushchev may have a motive

to k*ll Kennedy

that’s just as strong

as Fidel Castro’s.

As we know, Kennedy is on

a crusade against communism,

and communism is represented

on the world stage

by its biggest superpower,

the USSR.

Premier Khrushchev

is trying to promote revolution

and communism around the world,

and JFK is trying to do

the exact opposite.

So, these two

are pitted against each other

at a geopolitical level.

And unfortunately for JFK,

90 miles from

the Florida coastline

the Soviets have a communist

nation in the form of Cuba.

Communist Cuba

would not have happened

without the Soviets.

They give the Cubans training,

financial and m*llitary support.

Castro’s victory is also

a victory for Khrushchev.

Then in 1962,

Khrushchev experiences

a very public defeat,

thanks to President Kennedy.

A year before Kennedy’s death,

the United States

and the Soviet Union

had almost gone to w*r

when the Soviet Union

attempts to set up

m*ssile launch pads in Cuba

that can be used

for nuclear weapons.

Kennedy isn’t okay

with Soviet nukes 90 miles away,

and this begins what’s known

as the Cuban m*ssile Crisis,

which ultimately, after a lot

of back-and-forth

political posturing,

Kennedy wins.

Two years later in 1964,

Khrushchev is removed

from office.

But before he’s removed,

in 1963,

Khrushchev is still

clinging to power,

looking for a way

to redeem himself

among the communists.

That would certainly

add some logic to the idea

that maybe Khrushchev

wanted to see Kennedy dead.

If Oswald walks

right into the embassy

and offers to k*ll

Kennedy in Dallas,

maybe the Soviets go for it.

Otherwise, why is he meeting

with a KGB

assassinations expert?

There is an

even-further-out theory,

which is that Khrushchev

started plotting to k*ll Kennedy

even before the Mexico City

machinations.

Author and attorney

Michael Eddowes

shares details

of his investigation

in the 1977 book

"The Oswald File."

Michael Eddowes

comes up with this theory

that Khrushchev conceives

of this plot to k*ll Kennedy

when Oswald is still living

in the Soviet Union

beginning in 1959.

Khrushchev realizes

he’s got a golden opportunity

on his hands.

Here, he’s got

an American citizen,

a former Marine,

and a vowed communist

who speaks Russian.

And everybody knows

he’s there in the USSR.

The Associated Press

had reported on his defection.

Eddowes believes that Khrushchev

detains and kills Oswald

while in the USSR,

then replaces him

with a KGB agent,

someone who looks very similar.

So, it’s not Lee Harvey Oswald

who lands back

in the United States in 1962.

It’s an impostor

whose mission it is

to k*ll John F. Kennedy.

Eddowes believes

he has definitive proof

that Oswald was replaced.

On his Marine records,

Oswald is listed as being 5’11",

but that the person

who k*lled Kennedy

is actually 5’9".

The original Oswald also had

a cranial operation as a child,

leaving him with an indentation

behind his ear

and a dime-sized hole

in his skull.

But according to Eddowes,

the autopsy

on the Kennedy assassin

shows no such features.

It does, however,

show that the assassin

has a large scar on his wrist,

which Eddowes notes

the original Oswald

did not have.

His argument

persuades the Texas courts

and Oswald’s widow Marina

to have his body exhumed.

So, this is huge news.

Eddowes has managed to convince,

you know, authorities

and Lee Harvey Oswald’s widow

that there’s something

to this theory.

So, in 1981

they dig up the body,

and it’s in an advanced state

of decomposition.

Eddowes and widow Marina Oswald

agree to have the Dallas County

Medical Examiner Linda Norton

do the examination.

Dr. Norton is able

to match dental records

and also identify the evidence

of the childhood

cranial surgery,

which together show that

actually the body in the grave

really is that

of Lee Harvey Oswald.

So, Khrushchev didn’t

replace Lee Harvey Oswald

with another k*ller,

that much we know.

But the Soviet conspiracy theory

is still alive and well,

because it doesn’t prove

that Oswald himself

didn’t work with the USSR

to plan and execute

the assassination

of John F. Kennedy.

But that’s not what

the House Committee says.

In their 1976 report,

they find that neither

the Cubans nor the Soviets

are behind the assassination.

But they do think that

somebody else could be involved.

For almost 60 years, one detail

in the JFK investigation

remains undisputed

Lee Harvey Oswald’s

communist ties.

But in 2017, thanks to

newly declassified documents,

fresh evidence comes to light

that could change

everything we think

we know about Oswald.

Recently declassified

intelligence reports

reveal that the KGB

does their own investigation

into Oswald.

They have him under

very tight surveillance

from the moment

he enters the USSR,

so they have a lot

of intelligence on him.

And according to the KGB report,

contrary to what we’ve all

been led to believe,

Oswald stops being

a communist sympathizer.

The KGB reports

that over his time

in the Soviet Union,

Oswald actually becomes

disillusioned with the cause,

and by the time

he leaves in 1962,

he is not a communist anymore.

This goes against

decades of conventional thinking

about Oswald

and the assassination.

If he’s not a communist,

then who k*lled JFK?

So, the KGB does believe

that Oswald k*lled Kennedy.

They do say that they think

he’s part of a conspiracy.

It’s just not the conspiracy

you think.

So instead, the KGB theory

is that Oswald

is part of a militant

anti-communist conspiracy group

whose intent is to poison

relations

between the Soviet Union

and the United States

by k*lling Kennedy and framing

the communists for it.

Khrushchev will

say in an interview in 1964

that in fact Oswald was working

with extremist

anti-communist forces

in the United States.

Many wonder if this theory

is simply Soviet propaganda.

Of course, Khrushchev

wants to take suspicion

off of himself.

But independently of the KGB,

a U.S. investigator

also looks into this theory.

Jim Garrison,

the district attorney

of New Orleans, comes to believe

that a murky conspiracy

involving business leaders

and Lee Harvey Oswald

have brought together

all these right wing

anti-communist elements

to k*ll JFK.

To prove his theory,

Garrison spends six years

interviewing witnesses.

Through the 1960s,

Jim Garrison’s investigation

leads to a man by the name

of David Ferrie.

Back in the 1950s, David Ferrie

serves in the Civil Air Patrol,

which also has as a member

Lee Harvey Oswald.

Dave Ferrie was rabidly

anti-communist

and heavily involved

in the anti-Castro movement

in New Orleans.

So, you might be thinking,

"Now, wait a minute,

someone who’s anti-Castro

should like Kennedy."

But David Ferrie

was disappointed in Kennedy

for not being staunch enough

in their opposition to Castro.

He thinks that

Kennedy’s attempts

at a peaceful outcome are weak,

that he’s essentially handed

Cuba to the communists.

In fact, he gives a fiery speech

in 1961

where he says

that Kennedy should be sh*t.

According to Garrison,

Ferrie follows through

with that thr*at.

In September of 1963,

a few weeks before

the assassination of JFK,

an insurance agent

named Perry Russo

would state that he was at

a party with a businessman

from New Orleans

named Clay Shaw,

Lee Harvey Oswald,

and David Ferrie,

where the assassination of JFK

would be discussed.

Russo testifies

that he remembers them

saying that they were gonna

k*ll Kennedy,

and that they were

gonna use something

called a triangulation

of sh**t.

They also discussed alibis

for the people involved

in this conspiracy.

By February of 1967,

Garrison is ready

to reveal his finding.

Newspapers in New Orleans

break Garrison’s story.

He’s convinced that David Ferrie

and Lee Harvey Oswald

are long-time friends

since their days together

in the Civil Air Patrol.

He believes they wanna

take out Kennedy

and frame the communists.

David Ferrie

and Lee Harvey Oswald

work together to plan

the assassination

with the support of Clay Shaw

and the help

of another man behind the scenes

named Guy Banister.

Ferrie and Banister were both

adamant supporters

of the anti-Castro movement,

which included arming people

to go stage att*cks in Cuba.

And Ferrie as a pilot

was moving the weapons,

and Banister was supplying them.

So, these men did have

a hard right background

that involved g*ns.

Garrison was certainly

correct about that.

Garrison’s theory

has Banister and Ferrie

as the brains behind

this operation.

Clay Shaw would be handling

logistics and financial backing.

And then, in this scenario,

there are two sh**t

involved in a crossfire

Oswald, as we know,

in the book depository,

and then another unnamed sh**t

on the grassy knoll.

Armed with the evidence,

Garrison’s ready

for his day in court.

Oswald is already dead.

And then Banister’s d*ed

of a heart att*ck by 1964,

so there are already

two alleged conspirators gone.

Then, something

more unusual happens.

Less than a week after

the Garrison investigation

goes public, Dave Ferrie

is found dead.

David Ferrie

is found in his apartment

with two typed-up su1c1de notes,

but the autopsy

finds no evidence

either of su1c1de or of m*rder,

and that David Ferrie

has d*ed of a brain hemorrhage.

Garrison is flummoxed.

He says, "I suppose it could be

just a weird coincidence"

"that the night Ferrie

pens two su1c1de notes,

he dies of natural causes."

On March 1st, 1967,

the last alleged

co-conspirator alive

is arrested.

Clay Shaw is finally tried

in 1969,

and it remains the only trial

in American history

associated with

the assassination of JFK.

But Garrison is unsuccessful

with few witnesses

remaining alive

and others deemed unreliable.

Shaw is acquitted in 45 minutes.

Ten years later in 1979,

the House Select Committee

wonders publicly

if justice was served.

The House Committee’s

final report states

that they believe

the Louisiana witnesses

were both, quote,

"credible and significant,"

and that they were telling

the truth

about Ferrie

and Oswald’s meetings in 1963.

So, Garrison’s theory’s cause

for a lot of sensational

reporting

and a lot of excitement

on the part of the public,

and you know, maybe swayed

some people

in the court of public opinion.

In actual court,

where evidence is required,

they were found to fall apart

pretty quickly.

After decades of pressure

from the American public,

Congress passes

the JFK Records Act in 1992.

The act mandates the release

of all files

relating to the case.

So, even all

these decades later,

people still want answers,

and are now hopeful

that maybe we’ll start

to get them.

These documents

aren’t released all at once,

but during the 1990s,

millions and millions of pages

of documents are made public.

The law had a deadline.

It said that everything

in the government’s files

had to be made public in 2017.

Well, guess what?

That does not happen.

But by 2017,

tens of thousands of records

have been released.

And one of them

gets a lot of attention,

because it appears to confirm

a longstanding theory

that the Mafia was involved

in the assassination of JFK.

From the moment Kennedy dies,

conspiracy theorists

are asking the right question,

which is, "Who wants him dead?"

The communists,

in a lot of minds,

feature really high

on that list.

But there’s another group

who might want Kennedy dead

even more, and that

is the Cosa Nostra

the American Mafia.

In 1962,

JFK, along with his brother,

Attorney General Robert Kennedy,

are on a crusade

to wipe out

organized crime in America.

One of the biggest

revenue streams the mob had,

obviously were the casinos

in Cuba.

The mob was kicked out of Cuba

by Castro.

So, they were angry

with President Kennedy

for not having done more,

so they wanted to see

Castro overthrown

so they could

get back into Cuba,

reopen their casinos

and their liquor operations,

and get going again.

And one way of doing that

might be

by k*lling President Kennedy.

In the minds of some mobsters,

Kennedy took billions of dollars

out of their pockets,

and they have k*lled

for a lot less.

And wouldn’t you know it,

right in the middle

of the Kennedy case,

there’s a man who could be

the key to a Mafia connection.

That man

is Lee Harvey Oswald’s k*ller,

Jack Ruby.

Jack Ruby was a tough guy

from Chicago,

Jack Rubenstein originally.

A thug, a pimp.

Moves to Dallas,

opens up his nightclub there,

and quickly becomes

a kind of fixture

among organized crime figures.

He was what you would call

a wannabe.

He gets these nightclubs

up and running,

and they become a conduit

for all the things

we know the Mafia for

gambling, running narcotics,

and eventually sex work.

Theorists long speculated

that Jack Ruby and the Mafia

worked together to k*ll Kennedy.

They say by 1963,

Jack Ruby is heavily indebted

to the Mafia,

and they force him

to find a patsy

to assassinate the president.

And afterwards, they make him

k*ll that fall guy

so that he can’t talk.

A lot more evidence

came out in the 1970s

with the House Select Committee

investigation,

and that strengthened the notion

that there was

an organized crime connection

to the assassination.

Did Ruby hire Oswald

on behalf of the Mafia?

Dallas police have two witnesses

report that

on October 4th, 1963,

seven weeks before

the assassination,

they see Ruby and Oswald meet

in Ruby’s Carousel Club

on Commerce Street in Dallas.

There, they argue

over a large sum of money

for an undisclosed job that

Oswald will be doing for Ruby.

But the Warren Commission

fails to interview

these witnesses.

After he’s arrested, Ruby denies

ever having known Oswald,

and that he didn’t know

beforehand

that the assassination

was going to happen.

Ruby says that he was

several blocks away

busy placing some newspaper ads,

and k*lled Oswald

because of grief,

because of patriotism,

and because he felt

for the First Lady,

and wanted to keep her

from having to suffer

through a prolonged trial.

For over 50 years,

no one can prove otherwise.

But then in 2017,

as part of another large dump

of declassified Kennedy files,

we see Document 32149267.

It’s a report from the FBI’s

Intelligence division

about Jack Ruby.

In it, an informant

named Bob Vanderslice

says that Ruby calls him up

on the day of the assassination.

He asks if he, quote,

"would like to watch

the fireworks."

Vanderslice goes

with Ruby to a location

right across from the Texas

School Book Depository,

and together they watch

the president get sh*t.

When it happens,

Ruby says nothing.

He just turns calmly

and walks south

towards the newspaper office

where he places the ads,

and thereby creates an alibi.

If this is true, then Jack Ruby

knew there were going

to be quote, "fireworks,"

and he knew exactly where

and when the assassination

was gonna happen.

In other words, Ruby lied,

and he knew

about the whole thing.

After months in custody,

Ruby himself claims

there’s more to his story.

At first, Ruby sticks

to his alibi.

But then, he changes his tune.

He writes letters,

he makes statements to police,

and then even testifies

to the Warren Commission

that he knows some things

he’s not saying,

but he believes

that his life is in danger.

He wants to tell

the whole truth,

but he can’t unless he can get

some protection

from the government.

But he never

gets that protection,

and he dies in 1967,

taking with him to the grave

any potential secrets about

a Mafia assassination plot.

Some believe that

members of the Mafia

work quickly

to cover their tracks

after JFK’s death.

Over a dozen witnesses

and participants

die mysteriously in

the aftermath of the sh**ting

Oswald, Ruby.

Dorothy Kilgallen,

she’s the only reporter

to interview Jack Ruby

at his trial.

She then openly questions

the Warren Commission,

and then dies of a mysterious

overdose in 1965.

So, following this trail

of murders,

it reaches its apex in 1968

when Robert F. Kennedy,

who also could be seen

as an enemy of the Mafia,

is k*lled in Los Angeles.

What kind of organization

would be willing

to leave behind

such a long string of bodies

to keep hold of their power

and their secrets?

The Mafia, that’s who.

And if they did, then it worked,

because there is no one left

to confirm this theory.

On December 20th, 1991,

Oliver Stone’s film

about the Kennedy assassination,

"JFK," is released in theaters.

Almost immediately,

it causes an uproar.

The film combines a number

of conspiracy theories,

including the alleged

New Orleans plot

and the second sh**t

on the grassy knoll.

But more important

than the film’s plot

is the impact it has

on this country.

After the film is released,

we see a tidal wave

of other publications associated

with the JFK assassination.

Including one

from a man who says

he was directly involved.

Robert Morrow claimed to be

a former CIA operative

active in the anti-Castro

movement in the 1960s.

And he alleged in a book

that he was asked

by Tracy Barnes,

a senior CIA official,

to buy g*ns that he said

were later used

in the assassination.

Morrow’s cast of characters

in the alleged CIA plot

might sound familiar.

Morrow actually names

the same co-conspirators

that are in the movie "JFK,"

and also those that were pursued

by Jim Garrison

in his New Orleans case.

He claims that Clay Shaw,

Guy Banister, and Dave Ferrie

were helping in the operations

against Castro in Cuba

before the assassination.

Morrow says they also

enlisted the help

of the Mafia through Jack Ruby.

On November 22nd in Dallas,

they placed four sh**t

Oswald in the book depository,

another on the grassy knoll,

and two more,

all with Morrow’s r*fles.

The month prior,

they laid some groundwork.

They sent Oswald to Mexico

to meet with the Cubans.

Their goal is to frame

Castro for the crime,

and therefore bring about

a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

According to Morrow,

the CIA wants redemption

from their failed

Bay of Pigs Operation,

and the Mafia has hopes

of being able to return

to reopen their casinos in Cuba.

It’s quite a story

a complicated CIA plot

with dozens of participants.

And yet, with all those people,

including government agents

and known criminals

that are under surveillance,

the Warren Commission

finds no evidence

that any of this

actually happened.

Morrow offers

a potential explanation

for that as well.

Many have speculated

that the Warren Commission

never adequately looked

into the Cuban connection

or the CIA.

Morrow believes that

that’s due to the presence

on the commission

of the former CIA director,

Allan Dulles.

When the commission is formed,

they don’t put the current

CIA director on it

or anyone from the FBI.

The only one on the commission

with intelligence experience

is Allen Dulles,

who just happens to be the man

that Kennedy fired

from his position

after the Bay of Pigs failed.

At the time

of the Warren Commission,

CIA involvement in

the Bay of Pigs is classified.

The government didn’t want

that getting out.

They also didn’t want

any information getting out

related to Operation Mongoose,

which at the time

was top-secret, but we now know

was a Kennedy-sanctioned

CIA operation

to assassination Castro

led by Allen Dulles.

As more documents

have been declassified,

more information has been

revealed about the CIA.

It is clear that they were

withholding information

from the Warren Commission

information that Allen Dulles

knew and kept hidden.

Some theorists

believe that information

could have even saved

Kennedy’s life.

In 2013 and 2014,

some very damaging records

are released about the CIA

as per the JFK Records Act.

They reveal that the CIA

actually knew

about Oswald’s trip

to Mexico City

before the assassination.

The agency claimed

to the Warren Commission

that they only found out

afterwards,

but that was a lie.

They had an eye on Oswald

since his defection to the USSR.

They were reading his mail,

tracking his movements.

The CIA field office

in Mexico City

reported Oswald’s meeting with

the Cubans almost immediately.

And the CIA had Soviet agent

Valery Kostikov

under surveillance

during the time

he was meeting with Oswald.

Does that mean

the CIA k*lled Kennedy?

No, absolutely not.

But should the CIA have known

that Oswald was a thr*at?

Yes, they probably should have.

And could an earlier

intervention

have prevented Oswald

from k*lling the president?

Again, I would say

the answer is yes.

In a now-declassified

2013 report,

CIA historian David Robarge

finds that the agency

is complicit in keeping

incendiary information

from the Warren Commission.

He says they intended to keep

the commission

focused on, quote,

"what the Agency

believed was the best truth,"

that Lee Harvey Oswald

had acted alone

in k*lling John Kennedy.

I think all of the most

credible evidence

suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald

fired the b*ll*ts

that k*lled President Kennedy,

that he probably

is the only gunman.

But whether or not

other people knew,

whether or not

other people helped him,

those are mysteries that

will probably linger forever.

The National Archives

recently released

thousands of newly

declassified documents.

Now, almost all of these

nearly five million pages

are available to the public.

Perhaps they will provide

some closure

to this enduring mystery.

I’m Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History’s Greatest Mysteries."