Kennedy Assassination Essay, Research Paper

President Kennedy was dead. I stopped by a giant live oak tree on the vast front lawn of Parkland Hospital and cried.” As this reporter said, people everywhere were distraught when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. News reporters from other countries flew in, called up, and sent letters back to tell the people in their country what had happened and to give advice to the Dallas Police Station. Everyone everywhere was upset by this tragic loss. People were sent home from work, kids sent home from school, and an entire nation with one question, who? The only answer that was given and is still the accepted answer is that, Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin in the murder of President John F. Kennedy.

The events surrounding President Kennedy s death are still under speculation, but this is known for sure: President Kennedy landed in Love Field, Dallas along with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy at about 11:35 a.m. They left the airport in the motorcade along with Governor Collany and followed by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Claudia Lady Bird Taylor. At approximately 12:30 p.m., both President Kennedy and Governor Collany were shot. Lee Harvey Oswald left the Texas Book Depository just three minutes later. By 1:00 p.m., just an hour and a half after Kennedy arrived in Texas, he was announced dead.

After the assassination, Oswald got onto a city bus, but once the bus got stuck in traffic, Oswald got off. He then took a taxi to within 4 blocks of his house, but did not go directly to his house. Oswald grabbed a different coat, a handgun, and left without saying a word to his housemaid, who was watching the assassination details on television. He then began walking around Dallas. A police officer named J.T. Tippet saw a man that fit the description of the assassin, so he stopped to ask Oswald some questions. Oswald panicked and shot Officer Tippet and then fled the area. He then entered a cinema where police finally arrested him.

The public was outraged that President Kennedy was murdered and wanted an explanation. President Lyndon B. Johnson set up the Warren Commission lead by Earl Warren to head investigation. The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin in the murder of John F. Kennedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald had a major role in the assassination of President Kennedy, no matter how it is looked upon. Oswald moved twenty-two times as a child and went to eleven different schools, causing him not to have many close friends. A psychologist at a New York City Youth Home concluded Lee has to be seen as an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother.

Oswald joined the Marine Corps Basic Training on October 26, 1956 and was released form active duty in September 1959. During his time there, Oswald once attempted to shoot himself. He again attempted suicide on October 21, 1959. Just ten days later, he tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship and moved to Minsk, Russia in the following January. He decided to return to America in February 1962.

Oswald ordered the Mannlicher Carcano rifle in March 1963. On April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to kill General Edwin Walker. He had left a note for his new wife, Marrina, tell her what to do if he was killed or imprisoned. This shooting demonstrated Oswald s lack of compassion for human life.

It seemed like no problem nailing Oswald as the assassin. Witnesses saw a gunman in the window on the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository; those witnesses matched Lee Harvey Oswald to the person in the window. The bullets found in the limo and on the stretcher were from the 6.5-Millimeter Mannlicher Carcano rifle, which Oswald owned and was found in the Book Depository. Three used cartridges were also found in the Book Depository. It seemed as though the Warren Commission had their man nailed. But there were a few pieces of evidence that made people begin to wonder.

The angle of the bullets caused a lot of controversy. After the assassination, the first official autopsy on the human body took place on President Kennedy. There were two autopsies on President Kennedy, one in Bethesda Naval Hospital, and another in Parkland Hospital in Dallas. In Bethesda, the doctors said that the bullets had entered President Kennedy s body in this upper portion of the neck, and emerged out of the neck about 2 centimeters above his bow tie. However, Parkland Hospital said that the back wounds were lower, and had different modes of entry. Parkland doctors found that the bullets entered about 2 centimeters above the President s bow tie, and emerged out of his lower back, about 14 centimeters below the entering wound. With that trajectory, the gunman would have to have been situated well above the President, an impossible shot. Because of these false claims, the Warren Commission almost completely ignored these findings and did not make mention of them in the official report.

The public in general was not happy with the findings. It seemed as though the Warren Commission had purposely left key points of evidence that might have hurt their case. After careful consideration by the House Select Committee, a second group of people who headed the investigation, they found that, only 20 witnesses who actually believed they heard the shots from the vicinity of the Grassy Knoll, and 46 who thought the shots came from the direction of the Depository.” The problem with where people claim there heard the shots from is that Dealy Plaza is an echo valley. It could have seemed like the shots came from many directions.

There was also the question of how many shots were fired. After acoustic evidence like the Zapeduar film was analyzed, the Warren Commission concluded that three shots had been fired. There were also three used gun shells found in the sixth floor of the Book Depository. But one thing said about the gun was that it took 2.5 seconds to load and shoot a bullet. Authors without ballistic evidence took this to mean that Oswald could not have fired all three shots within the allotted time, 6.8 seconds. But after ballistic testing, it was shown that with the Mannlicher Carcano rifle could accurately fire three shots in less the 6.8 seconds.

Within a few years, over 20 books were published on the assassination of President Kennedy. Many authors tended to believe that the Government was hiding something from them, and jumped to conclusions. Authors believing that Oswald did not fire all three shots jumped to radical conclusions, assuming that someone must have helped the assassin.

Fidel Castro was under speculation because of his hostility towards the United States. Experts agreed that it would have been easy for Castro to find Oswald, a Communist, and persuade him to assassinate President Kennedy. It did not seem likely that Castro would do such a thing, after telling a television reporter that it would begin a war and may cause Castro to loss his power.

Robert Kennedy was working on persecuting organized crime, including the Mafia. The Mafia had said that it would be beneficial to them if either Robert or John were out of the way. The Mafia may have hired Oswald, many witnesses confess to seeing him with Mafia gang members. It would make sense that Jack Ruby was also hired by the Mafia to kill Oswald before he confessed anything. It seems very unlikely that the Mafia could have carried out an assassination this extreme with only five days, which was when Kennedy announced his idea to drive through Dallas in a motorcade, to plan the assassination.

One of the biggest conspiracies is that the CIA was involved in the assassination. It seems as though a lot of evidence was covered up and the CIA was head of the investigation. People believed that the CIA planted the bullet found on Governor Collany s stretcher, and that it did not fall out of his leg, were the wound was located.

Jack Ruby also caused a lot of controversy. On November 23, Jack Ruby entered the basement of the Dallas Police Station while police officials were moving Oswald to the county jail. Oswald pulled out his handgun, and in front of the entire country, shot Oswald at point blank range.

Immediately, people began speculating that Ruby was part of a conspiracy to silence Oswald. Ruby was a strip club owner, and was said to have connections with the Mob. Witnesses claim to have seen Oswald and Ruby talking the morning of the assassination, which was later proved false, and the Warren Commission knew where Ruby was that morning. People believe that Ruby was let in the Dallas Police basement, but the basement had poor security. But one reporter said I took my press card out of my wallet ready to show who ever might challenge me. But no one ever asked to see it. This shows that the Dallas Police didn t let Ruby in to assassinate Oswald.

Ruby assassinated Oswald, but for what reason is not entirely known. The only plausible reason is that Ruby was in a poor mental condition. He had recently been imprisoned two and a half years, was sick with cancer, and had stopped all shows that he controlled after hearing of the President s death. The President s death had a deep effect on Ruby. Ruby killed Oswald because Oswald killed Kennedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. There is no evidence to support a conspiracy. A conspiracy of that level takes months to plan. If it was a conspiracy attempting to blame Oswald, then how did they come up with all the evidence in just a short time? Oswald s fingerprints were on the gun; it is very unlikely that his fingerprints could have been on the gun in a conspiracy to blame him. The fact that President Kennedy decided less than a week before the assassination also shows that this was one man acting alone.

Oswald more then had to ability to carry out the assassination, and he showed that he would kill someone like when he attempted to kill General Edwin Walker. There is also no plausible evidence linking anyone to the crime besides Lee Harvey Oswald. There is nothing linking a second gunman to the assassination. The main argument that there is a second gunman is he would have been situated in the grassy knoll, but injuries would be on the side of the body, where there were no injuries. The Warren Commission had more evidence that conspirators do not have, and came to their conclusion. Even with all the technology that we have, it is apparent that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.