The John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination is one of the most tragic events to have happened in the American history. JFK was one of the most loved Presidents due to his unique qualities that endeared him to many. “His lively family, his winning personality and his tireless energy and the respected courage in time of decision” (Stockland 102). Those were attributes that the American populace held about JFK. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States further doubling as the youngest and first Catholic President. It is his unique nature that pre-empted impediments towards his presidency. Shock was what befell the whole world on his assassination. It was during the peak of US involvement in Vietnam and heightened Cold War between the Soviet Union and America. To fully comprehend the full picture it is important to note the status quo at that time between the United States, Germany, Cuba, and Russia (Soviet Union). The assassination came at a critical time when the Kennedy regime was cementing its national and foreign policy (Poe and Kaiser 31).
President Kennedy was felled by a sniper’s bullet on November 22, 1963 as his motorcade rode through the Dealey Plaza streets in Dallas, Texas. Within six seconds, three shots were fired at the youthful president as he was seated in his open limousine. The then Texas Governor John Connally was also wounded in the process but luckily enough, the two leaders’ wives, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Nellie Connaly escaped unscathed. The President was rushed to the Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was soon pronounced dead.
Commissions of Inquiry
The shots were identified to have emanated from a nearby warehouse. Hours after the shooting police arrested one Lee Harvey Oswald, a warehouse employee, who also happened to be a former marine with links to the Soviet Union. Oswald was however was also killed by a Dallas resident known as Jack Ruby (Livingstone 56). All these dramatic events made many people ponder whether a conspiracy was at play. A commission was established by Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, to investigate the assassination. The commission was chaired by Earl Warren the then Supreme Court Chief Justice. After ten months, the commission came to a few conclusions regarding the JFK assassination. It cited that Lee Harvey Oswald indeed killed the president, acting alone and also that the Dallas resident; Jack Ruby acted alone when he slayed Oswald before he could stand trial (Poe and Kaiser 66). The findings however were received with great skepticism by the American public. Many could not come to terms how the assassin acted alone and how Jack Ruby’s action was not part of a cover-up plot.
Another commission, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) arrived at conclusions that contrasted the Warren Commission findings. The HSCA cited that the conspiracy might have been afoot in the assassination. Additionally, the HSCA pinpointed serious flaws in the original FBI investigation and the Warren report. The HSCA seemed to agree with the Warren team that “three shots were fired by Oswald, but there was a fourth shot which portended that there were two gunmen involved” (Poe and Kaiser 68). The HSCA findings were founded on acoustical information that was later disrepute. The commission, despite, its sensational claims did not identify any other group or person in the assassination besides Lee Harvey Oswald. It however exonerated Soviet Union, FBI, and organized crime from blame but could not explicitly say whether there was involvement of the groups’ individual members. The John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination, to date, is still subject to immense debate spawning a great deal of conspiracy theories and possible alternative scenarios.
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