On November 22, 1963, an event that affected the whole nation took place. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. During a parade through Dallas, the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza where John F. Kennedy and Governor Connally were shot. The authorities arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository that overlooks the scene of the assassination, as the supposed assassin. Before he could make it to trial, he was murdered by Dallas nightclub owner, Jack Ruby. The official examination of the event, completed by the Warren Commission, stated that Oswald and Ruby acted alone and that there was no premeditation. Shortly after the release of the Warren Report, people from a wide variety of backgrounds found flaws in its findings, and they began to construct their own elaborate theories. Forty years later, there still is not a national consensus on what actually happened that day and why it happened.

Lee Harvey Oswald lived a bizarre life. He grew up in New York immersed in left-wing propaganda, which eventually led him to become a Marxist. He joined the Marines at age 16 and studied Russian with the intention of defecting to Russia. In 1959, he defected and married Marina Pruskova. In 1962, he returned to the United States with his wife and moved to Dallas, Texas. The mystery is why he returned to the United States. Was it on a mission from the Russian government?

Using an alias in 1963, Oswald purchased a mail order rifle and revolver. He first used the rifle in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on an extreme right-wing ex-general, Edwin Walker. Oswald proclaimed to his wife Marina that he was a 'hunter of fascists'. Kennedy was not his first target. Was the early assassination attempt practice?

In mid-1963, he was the founder and only member of the 'Fair Play For Cuba Committee,' a pro-Castro organization in New Orleans. In Mexico City, he tried to obtain a Cuban visa from the Soviet Embassy, but to no avail. Apparently, Oswald was not a soviet agent; otherwise, they would have surely granted him a visa.

Oswald returned to Dallas and started a low paying job at the Texas School Book Depository Building. On November 22, 1963, according to the Warren Report, Oswald fired shots from the sixth floor window. He then fled, and on his way to his boarding house he killed police Officer J.D. Tippit. He was arrested in a nearby movie theater and charged with the murder of President Kennedy.

Shortly after the assassination, President Johnson appointed a commission to investigate the assassination. Headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the commission became known as the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission had full jurisdiction, support of the FBI, and a staff of young Ivy League lawyers. The commission concluded that no conspiracy existed. The commission also developed the single bullet or magic bullet theory often attacked by conspiracy theorists.

Suspicion was raised about the Warren Commission itself. The commission was started because Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Robert Kennedy were afraid of all the conspiracy possibilities. Most of its members were "right-of-centre" Washington insiders and former CIA director Allen Dulles was among them. Also, the involvement of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was suspicious to several people. The FBI followed many conspiracy theories, but none of them left Hoover's desk. Hoover also saw the commission as a threat to himself and the FBI. Once Hoover found that the counsel was dependent on him, he would only release information that he wanted the commission to review. This action caused a breeding ground for conspiracy theorists. "By the late 1980s, polls showed that as many as 80 percent of the American public did not believe the Warren Commission" (Rubinstein).

One of the most well-known conspiracy advocates was former New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, due to Oliver Stone's movie JFK. Garrison believed that the assassination was a coup d'etat carried out by members of the CIA, FBI, secret service, the military, and Dallas police to prevent Kennedy from ending the Cold War. He claimed that Oswald was manipulated by the CIA and an informant to the FBI . Garrison was also certain that Oswald was only a patsy, and that the real shooter was on the grassy knoll. He claims the man present in the Texas School Book Depository was not Oswald because of eyewitness accounts that varied from a man with a bald spot to someone with dark skin. He also believes that Kennedy's body was manipulated so that proof of a shot in front could not be found. Garrison managed to bring Clay Shaw to trial for planning the assassination of JFK. Clay Shaw was manager of the International Trade Mart and a former employee of the CIA. The trial proved nothing. Clay Shaw was acquitted because the jury could not find motivation for him to have participated in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison painted an interesting theory, but it does not survive proof of the incident.

Whether or not Oswald was the assassin, there was a gunman in the Texas School Book Depository. Several witnesses saw a gun barrel protruding from a window of the depository. In every account, it was identified in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Robert Hill Jackson, a photographer in the press car, yelled to the other newsmen riding in the convertible: "There is the gun!". Howard Brennan, standing at the corner of Houston and Elm, saw a man at the window, and after the first shot, he looked back at the window and saw the same man with a rifle. Brennan told his account to the police 15 minutes after the shooting, which led to the first police description broadcast of the suspect.

On the sixth floor of the depository, the Dallas police found a rifle pushed between cartons of books on the northeast corner. The authorities thought it was a 7.65 Mauzer rifle. The rifle was actually a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm military rifle with the serial number of C-2766. The FBI traced the rifle to Klein's Sporting Goods Co. in Chicago; the store's records showed that the rifle was sold to "A. Hidell". "A. Hidell" was an alias used by Oswald; his wife said the name came from Castro's first name, and when Oswald was apprehended, he had a forged selective service card with the name "Alek J. Hidell". The gun found in the depository was traced to Oswald, placing him at the spot of the sighting.

One of the strongest advocates of the grassy knoll assassins is Robert Grodin. Using a filmed record of the assassination called the Zapruder film, he claims to have spotted several assassins on the grassy knoll. The objects that Grodin claims were rifles or helmets that appear on the film are blotches that appear for only about a quarter of a second. The frames of the film where he believes it is possible to see these assassins would cause them to be out of proportion with the rest of the film. If a head appeared where Grodin claims it does, it would take up about half of the frame. Apparently, Grodin was only seeing what he wanted to see and not what was actually there.

Another so-called assassin is the "Umbrella Man." Near the motorcade, a man with a black umbrella opened and closed his umbrella as the shots were fired. Conspiracy theorist Robert Cutler claims that the umbrella fired poisoned darts that paralyzed the president while the other assassins finished the job. The "Umbrella Man" was Louis Witt; he had no idea he was being associated with conspiracy theories. Witt still has the umbrella and explained that it was a symbol of appeasement that he used to taunt the president.

Other conspiracy theorists argue that Oswald could not have been the assassin, because he had an alibi. They claim that Oswald he had been in the depository's lunchroom with Junior Jarman, and he went to the second floor to buy a soda. This is based on Carolyn Arnold's testimony fifteen years after the assassination. Immediately after the assassination, however, she said she "could not be sure" that it was Oswald she saw.

An unbiased forensic investigation puts an end to the confusion using the Zapruder film. Frame 224 of the Zapruder film is identified as the moment when both men are struck by the single bullet. He points out that in the frame Governor Connally's jacket protruded forward because of the bullet and exiting tissue. The bullet continued to go through his wrist and burrow into his thigh. In frame 225, right after the bullet struck both men; their right arms jerk upward. The jerk of their arms is the result of muscle reactions caused by the painful stimuli. Kennedy's neck wound was a fatal injury, but the head shot overshadows it.

The forward movement of Kennedy's head starts in frame 313 of the Zapruder film. The force of the exiting tissue in the exit wound in the front drives the head back towards the gun5. The reflex of the erector spinae muscles, which cause the body to jerk when all the muscles of the body are forced forward, contributed to backward motion. The neck muscle's self-righting reflex also drove Kennedy's head backwards.

Conspiracy advocates often claim that the bullet that supposedly struck JFK and Governor Connally was a "pristine" bullet, and it could not have actually wounded the men. Several panels of medical experts have studied the evidence, and they have determined that the shots did come from behind the motorcade. The so-called "pristine" bullet did pass through both men. A test known as the neutron-activation analysis, that compares the radioactive characteristics of two objects by bombarding them with neutrons, has been used on the bullet fragments from Connally's wrist and the "pristine" bullet. The test concluded that the fragments are from the "pristine" bullet. Therefore, the "pristine" bullet could not be pristine and did pass through Connally's wrist. Had the bullet been undamaged when it hit Connally's wrist, it would have shattered his wrist. The bullet had to have passed through something before hitting Connally. The "pristine" bullet is flattened toward its base, and when it is rolled across a flat surface, it sounds "like a railroad freight car with a flat wheel. The bullet was flattened because it moved along Connally's ribs. The "pristine" bullet is certainly not pristine.

The rifle used by Oswald is easy to fire every five seconds, unlike common belief. The FBI concluded that the rifle would take a minimum range of 2.25 to 2.3 seconds to reload and re-aim. At the time of the final shot, the sight Oswald used made the president only seem 25 yards away. Oswald was accurate up to 200 yards with an M-1 rifle without a sight, and he practiced to be accurate with Mannlicher-Carcano.

The first bullet Oswald fired missed entirely and most likely hit a tree branch. This is found in about frame 160 of the Zapruder film, when part of the crowd looked back. Connally looked back, and when Kennedy leaned forward to ask what he wanted, the next bullet hit them. The path of the second bullet was altered to a more downward path after it hit Kennedy; due to a fat pad on the back of his neck and him leaning forward. The exit wound on his neck was small due to his collar holding his skin in place. The smallness of this wound has led some to believe it was an entry wound.

Conspiracy advocates often claim that the autopsy materials were altered or forged to hide a conspiracy. One example is that there are many large metal fragments clearly present on the roentgenograms, photographs of the x rays; none of these fragments were officially mentioned in a report. This is because the physicians at the autopsy were more worried about finding bullets and not fragments; the exit wounds had not yet been established. The greatest argument against the allegations of an autopsy cover-up is that in the 1960s it was not technologically possible to create forgeries that were accurate enough to fool every specialist that studied them.

Recently, Failure Analysis Associates created a three-dimensional computer model of the assassination using the Zapruder film. The model was able to determine that it is possible for both Connally and Kennedy to be hit by the same bullet. The model extrapolated that for the trajectory of the shot, the shooter would have been about the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Oswald was clearly the assassin, but was he part of a conspiracy to kill the President?

Many theorists claim that Oswald was a KGB spy sent to assassinate Kennedy, but Oswald was not a Russian spy. Two Russian psychiatrists found Oswald "mentally unstable". Yuri Nosenko, a former KGB officer, claims that the psychiatrists' findings made them want to avoid Oswald at all costs. The Russian officials at the same time decided it would be dangerous to not let Oswald stay, due to Oswald's suicide attempt. They did not want the KGB to be held responsible for the death of "an American tourist". The Russian government granted Oswald asylum and gave him work in Minsk; the KGB planned to watch him, but not recruit him7. Russia clearly believed Oswald was not stable enough to be a spy or an assassin.

Others believe that Oswald was working for the Mafia. In April 1963, Oswald moved to New Orleans with no money. He came to his Uncle Dutz Murret to find a job so that he could rent an apartment. The only major connection Dutz Murret had in New Orleans was mafia boss, Carlos Marcello. Marcello wished to get rid of Robert Kennedy for deporting him. He planned on removing Robert Kennedy by having his brother JFK killed.

In New Orleans, Oswald became friends with David W. Ferrie, a private investigator of Carlos Marcello's. Ferrie was also a legal researcher to help Marcello with his defense against the U.S. Government's charges of perjury and conspiracy. Ferrie was a militant anti-Castroite, and he turned against the Kennedy Administration after the failed Bay of Pigs operation. In August, Oswald was arrested for handing out pro-Castro leaflets, some of which had the address 544 Camp Street stamped on them; an address associated with anti-Castro groups. Oswald was also seen with Guy Banister, another private detective of Marcello's and anti-Castroite, and Sergio Arcacha Smith, leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Front, during his summer in 1963. On the date that Kennedy's trip through Texas was announced, Oswald left for a short trip to Mexico, and he returned to Dallas. Dallas and other parts of Texas were under Marcello's control3. For a Marxist, Oswald was associating himself with several militant anti-Castroites. If Oswald was working for Marcello, he had to have fabricated his Marxist tendencies, or he may have renounced them upon returning to the states.

Several facts act to refute claims of Oswald's connection to a conspiracy. Oswald did not acquire his job at the Texas School Book Depository to have a spot from which to assassinate the president. Oswald almost got a job at Padgett, which is far from the motorcade route. Padgett did not hire him because of a bad recommendation and his communist tendencies. Oswald's job at the book depository was originally a temporary job, but he was kept so that there would be enough workforce to construct a new plywood floor. Oswald could not have planned to kill Kennedy too far in advance.

There is also no proof of payment to Oswald for the assassination. Oswald and his family lived in poverty. In the five months leading up to the assassination, he did not acquire any more than $225. If Oswald was in a conspiracy, he must have agreed to assassinate the President for free.

If Oswald did act alone, as the Warren Report states, what was his motive? Maybe his target was not Kennedy at all, but Governor Connally. Connally signed a letter stating that Oswald's dishonorable discharge from the Marines would not be overturned. Connally was a right-wing Democrat who joined the ranks of the Republicans; a perfect target for the 'hunter of fascists'. Upon hearing the assassination, Marina Oswald thought her husband was shooting at Connally. If Connally was the target, there was never a conspiracy.

Oswald was out of touch with reality. He lived in his own world filled with dreams of grandeur. In his mind, Oswald was a hero, and believed he was on the verge of being recognized for his high intelligence and talent. Reality was quite different. In the Marines, he was court-martialed twice for misbehavior and ridiculed by his fellow soldiers because of his reclusiveness. The Russian's kept him in a menial job in Minsk until he returned to the U.S. in disgust. In his own mind, Oswald saw himself as a devoted husband, but he was actually abusive. He thought of himself as the "hunter of fascists" and a super spy, but he was just a nobody. On the night before the assassination, Oswald got in a fight with his wife, Marina. On the next morning he departed with a long brown package before his wife woke up. Oswald was an outcast and his emotional problems may have led to his actions.

As Oswald was being transferred to jail the Sunday following the assassination, Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby. Ruby claimed he killed Oswald to spare Jacqueline Kennedy from having to testify at Oswald's trial.

Was Ruby sent to silence Oswald? No, the area was filled with police officers; Ruby had no escape route. The conspirators would have only exchanged one agent for another. Ruby acted alone and without premeditation. He most likely wanted to make a name for himself. He saw an opening and took advantage of it.

Jack Ruby was not the mafia hitman that many conspiracy theorists claim. Jack Ruby was a local nightclub owner who barely made ends meet. He was known for his anger, and his eagerness to please the police. After JFK's assassination, he closed both of his night clubs out of respect. He was strongly affected by an anti-Kennedy ad signed with a Jewish name that ran in the Dallas newspaper on the day of the assassination; he believed that other Jews and he would be blamed for Kennedy's death. Ruby was driven by his religious convictions and his honor, not some incentive from organized crime.

Ruby did not premeditate his murder of Oswald. Two days before he shot Oswald, he came within a few feet of Oswald at the police headquarters and made no attempt. On the 24th when he killed Oswald, he had his dog Sheba. Ruby loved his dogs and referred to them as his children. According to Bill Alexander, the former Dallas Assistant D.A., "Ruby would never have taken that dog with him if he had known he was going to jail. He would have made sure that dog was at home and well taken care of." Ruby could not have known the delay of Oswald's transfer. Postal Inspector Holmes, who helped the FBI trace the money order Oswald used to purchase the rifle, decided to stop by the station to help Captain Fritz. Holmes interrogated Oswald, delaying his transfer to county jail by a half hour. In addition, Ruby passed a lie detector test, claiming he did not premeditate the murder. Ruby also volunteered to take the lie detector test. It seems more plausible that Ruby was having emotional problems at the time and believed that killing Oswald would alleviate them and make him a national hero.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy was carried out by Lee Harvey Oswald. He was the lone assassin and most likely acted alone. Jack Ruby killed Oswald and also acted alone. Most conspiracy theories are based on distorted facts and are just conjecture. It will probably never be known for certain why Oswald and Ruby actually committed these acts because they died shortly after committing them. They were most likely motivated by distorted visions of grandeur and a desire to be remembered.

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