Kennedy S Assassination Essay, Research Paper

November 22, 1963. Another shot heard around the world. The assassination of Kennedy is the one of the most trivial events in the history of the United States. Many different people have various opinions to who actually assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Two authors who have written books on the trivial subject of Kennedy s assassination are: Jim Garrison who wrote A Heritage of Stone, and Anthony Summers who authored Conspiracy. They both share the idea that Oswald was part of a conspiracy, and similarly they think the assassination was carried out by a powerful group of people. President Lyndon B. Johnson was appointed to president after the death of J.F.K. and a commission was set-up by him to investigate the assassination. The Warren Commission, after analyzing the events for ten months, reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was not part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy. The findings of the Warren Commission are questioned in both books and are written about as though the commission was lying about what actually happened. In Anthony Summers book, Conspiracy, he presents to the reader many possible organizations that could be linked to the Kennedy assassination. Summers does not come out and say whom he thinks killed Kennedy, rather he offers different possibilities and allows the reader to decide. Not even one of his possibilities agrees with the conclusion of the Warren Commission of Oswald not being part of any conspiracy. The organizations he presents, as ones associated with the assassination are the Mafia, the government intelligence agencies and Fidel Castro. Similarly, to the conclusions of the Warren Commission, the writings in the Conspiracy give no definite answer to who actually murdered Kennedy. Primarily, Summers associates the Kennedy assassination to have been carried out by the Mafia leaders who were affected by the policies of Kennedy. His interviews with mobsters show that it was a probable organization connected with the Kennedy assassination. Summers interviewed Jose Aleman to get information on the feelings of the Florida Mafia boss, Santo Trafficante. During the course of the interview, Aleman spoke about Trafficante s disgust with the Kennedy s and their crack down on organized crime. Trafficante was quoted as saying; Kennedy s not going to make it to the election. He is going to be hit. (p.284) The hit the Mafia boss referred to is a word that the Mafia uses when they are going to kill someone and the hit could have been when Kennedy was shot to death. Summers also found Ed Becker, a mobster who had testified for the Assassinations Committee and said that Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans Mafia boss, had taken out insurance for President Kennedy s death. Becker also testified that the insurance could have been to, Set-up a nut to take the blame. (p. 290). One of the people on the committee said after hearing testifiers, I am now firmly of the opinion that the mob did it. It is a historical truth. (p. 290). Another organization possibly linked to the assassination, according to Summers in his book is the government agency called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In this possibility, he connects Oswald to the government agencies when he interviewed Senator Schweiker, a committee member, who said that he strongly believed that Oswald was related to the assassination. Summers also found another person who stated that he firmly believes President Kennedy was killed as the direct result of a plot by an element of American intelligence. (p. 296) A third theory, also presented in the Conspiracy, is that of Castro plotting a plan to kill Kennedy. This theory is possible because Kennedy was an enemy of Castro due to Kennedy s theoretical plot to kill Castro. Castro discovered this plan and in retaliation he sent out troops to kill Kennedy before he could kill him. John Roselli who said I was a good friend of Castro and he told me that he had sent troops to the United States confirmed the troops that were sent by Castro. (p. 121). All three theories were well supported by Summers and the decision of what is true he has left up to the reader. His interviews and his researching show that all his theories have substance to them. Similar to the book Conspiracy, A Heritage of Stone by Jim Garrison also denounces the conclusions made by the Warren Commission and he states that they gave the people unbelievable lies. (p. 19). I believe that the Kennedy assassination was carried out by the force inside the United States government and the assassination is a conspiracy. According to Garrison the inside forces are the only groups that could have done this. He presents a one sided point of view on the Kennedy assassination and gives no other possibilities for the reader to consider. Undoubtedly, Garrison takes a great amount of time to show the contradictions and faults of the conclusion of the Warren Commission. Through the entirety of the novel, A Heritage of Stone, Garrison discover many secret about the Commission and the information they destroyed or hid away somewhere. He is so specific that he even lists the actual file names that were that were missing from the conclusion of the Commission. Garrison states There was information given to the Secret Service about Oswald and his past history which was not presented to the Commission to analyze. (p.93). The main theory, presented by Garrison is that President Kennedy s was assassinated by the real power, the CIA. (p.73) He states that Kennedy s plan to abandon military troops in Vietnam and his attempt to end the Cold War put him on a collision course with the CIA. According to Garrison, Kennedy took on a foreign policy that would end the spending of billions of dollars on the military technology that the CIA wanted to advance. Garrison also used interviews with members in the Warren Commission to support his theory that the Kennedy incident was a government set-up conspiracy. Garrison seems to have believed in his theory greatly and he would do anything to prove this. He did not care about anything else and he thought what he said was true and nothing else. These were one of the flaws in the writing of Garrison in the book A Heritage of Stone. In the above two books, there are many ideas shared by the authors, but there are more that differ in their opinion and writing style. The both have the theme of Who assassinated President Kennedy and why? however they express this by unique methods. Garrison and Summers also share the idea that the conclusion made by the Warren Commission were flat out lies and there was no substance to what they declared. Both, Garrison and Summers investigated the Kennedy assassination by interviewing people and going to the true sources just in order to find the truth which was not found by the Warren Commission. The two authors also look at the government with suspicions finding evidence of a cover up especially with the CIA and Oswald s real identity. The primary goals of the authors were to discover the truth and present it to the people. They did not want the government to get away with something by covering it up and create a credibility gap . Clearly, there are many differences to what Garrison writes about and what Summers writes about. On one hand there is Garrison who knows for sure that the CIA planed and did assassinate Kennedy. Whereon the other hand Summers, suggest this as only a possibility with many other theories along with it. Both authors do put their investigations in their books, but only Garrison shows his stand on what really happened. He only shows one possible theory and tries to drill it into the reader, whereas Summers presents multiple ideas and lets the reader decide. For example, Garrison presents his opinion in his book when he states, I know that the government has their hand behind any big event that goes on in the United States, and I do not want the citizens of this nation to be lied to. (p.27). Whereas, for example, Summers presents an idea and gives to the reader an interpretation of what it is. This is one of the greatest differences between Garrison, a strong opinion writer, and Summers, a powerful factual writer. The theories of Summers are more spread apart and are linked from in the Mafia to Fidel Castro. Garrison views the Kennedy assassination as government conspiracy that is trying to be covered up. Anthony Summers sees the cover-up as a possible idea and also presents the theory of Fidel Castro and the Mafia. Jim Garrison is very single minded and does not want to perceive any other possibilities even if their as possible as the Mafia connection to the assassination. Garrison s fault to not include the Mafia possibility shows that does not believe in anything else than what he stated. It is extremely clear that Garrison has a total different approach to the Kennedy assassination than Summers that is strong in its own way. After analyzing the two books, I would say that Conspiracy written by Summers is more powerful than Garrison s A Heritage of Stone. Although Garrison s book is very insightful due to his opinions that were made throughout the course of the book, his claims were not as easy to believe. He was very honest in his writing, which is strength, but his weaknesses were the inability to fully support his theory and one-sided perception of the assassination. However Summers had great strengths that Garrison did not possess. His momentous amount of quotations was believable because it came from a first hand account. The variety of theories presented allowed me to make my own decisions on what I believed. His research and presentation of many possibilities made his book more of an impact on me than did the other by Garrison.