The CIA

When John F. Kennedy came to office, the Central Intelligence Agency was an entity virtually unto itself.

With little supervision from previous administrations, the agency had more or less done what it wanted -- and that included the instigation of coups, the incitement of rebellions, and plots to kill foreign leaders.

But a crisis occurred in the agency after the Bay of Pigs invasion, which the CIA had orchestrated. His power threatened, Kennedy fired CIA director Allen Dulles and deputy director Charles Cabell. For those conspiracy theorists who believe that the CIA was behind the assassination, these two facts are significant.

Dulles would be one of the members of the Warren Commission that determined Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in murdering Kennedy and Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit. And Cabell was the brother of Earle Cabell, who was the mayor of Dallas in 1963.

Had the CIA looked for a way to remove the man who was threatening its power? Certainly, it showed no signs of giving in easily. On the very day of the assassination, a CIA operative in Paris was delivering a poison pen to a Cuban traitor who had agreed to hand it to Fidel Castro.

Power-hungry, secretive, riddled with all sorts of sub-groups and eager "spooks," the CIA was just the sort of entity that could have executed and concealed a plot as apparently intricate as the Kennedy assassination. What's more, congressional oversight was just about nil in 1963.

And if someone suspected? The CIA had two words for its defense -- "plausible denial." And Mark Lane, the Warren Commission critic whose 1966 book Rush to Judgment had been so important to generations of doubters, used this very phrase for a 1991 book that pointed a finger at a CIA role in the assassination.

The book was the result of documents made available by the Freedom of Information Act and by sworn depositions Lane took from former CIA operatives and officials for a little-publicized libel trial in the U.S. District Court of Miami.

The 1978 case revolved around Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, who had sued for defamation when a small magazine published a story by a CIA renegade who linked Hunt to the assassination. Lane signed up as a defense counsel, and his investigative efforts about the accuracy of the story led to victory. The forewoman of the jury said that the jury found against Hunt because it believed that the story had been truthful -- that the CIA had killed the president, Hunt had been part of it, and further investigation should be undertaken.

Yet questions still remain.

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On the grassy knoll

By HOLLY HILDEBRAND
HoustonChronicle.com

Perhaps no two words are so instantly associated with the Kennedy assassination as "grassy knoll."

This geographical description refers to the small hill next to the Texas School Book Depository. That area is where Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder took his home movie of the assassination. That area is where many conspiracy theorists believe shots -- and probably the fatal one -- were fired at President Kennedy.

It is a fact that just after the assassination, many members of the crowd a rushed up the hill in what they thought was the direction of the shots; witness Bill Newman, when asked by TV newsmen where the shots had come from, referred to "that little knoll back there."

Less certain are allegations that strange men in cars with out-of-town license plates were seen in the vicinity. http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/jfk/theory/garrison.html - Jim Garrison , the New Orleans district attorney who brought the only court case in the assassination and who claimed he had solved the case, ended up alleging that 16 gunmen were on the grassy knoll. But Garrison was far from vindicated in court.

The grassy knoll has even been linked to a grisly -- perhaps the most grisly -- Houston murder. In 1965, the dismembered bodies of Fred and Edwina Rogers were found in a refrigerator and freezer at their home at 1815 Driscoll in Houston. Their son, Charles, who was sought as a material witness, was never found, and the case remains "uncleared."

In the 1992 book The Man on the Grassy Knoll, John R. Craig and Philip A. Rogers linked Charles Rogers to the grassy knoll on Nov. 22, 1963. They also identified him as an Oswald imposter who traveled to Mexico City the month before the assassination and who took a used car for a test spin in Dallas two weeks before the president's death. The authors claim sharpshooter Rogers and Charles Harrelson, later convicted in the slaying of federal judge John Wood (and the father of actor Woody Harrelson), fired simultaneously at Kennedy from behind a picket fence. Fleeing to a boxcar, they were arrested along with another man and detained for two hours. Among conspiracy theorists, they are the famous "three tramps" whose release -- with no written record remaining of their arrest -- provides even more fodder for speculation about a conspiracy in Kennedy's death.

In 1992, however, Dallas researcher Mary La Fontaine searched the Dallas Police Department records and found the arrest records of three men who were indeed tramps. They were identified as Harold Doyle, Gus Abrams, and John Forrester Gedney. But authors Craig and Rogers raise doubts as to whether these three men were the only ones taken in after the president's killing.

Whatever the case, the place the grassy knoll holds in the minds of anyone who remembers or investigates the Kennedy assassination is not about to dim soon. Visit Dallas, and you will find conspiracy buffs of all sorts hanging out there, expounding their theories, selling their leaflets and newspapers, pointing out the landmarks. You can even stand behind the picket fence and get a view of what a killer -- maybe the killer -- saw on Nov. 22, 1963.

The grassy knoll is a place for thought.

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please, those pictures are horrible and have nothing to do with history, you can easily tell that from the name of the HP.

besides, there's also no reason to direct-link the pics at all...

conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assasination...BS

I made an entire project for my US history class about why the conspiracies cannot be correct and how Lee Harvey Oswalrd alone did in fact kill JFK.  And that is what I believe.

Garrison's entire case was based on the belief that Clay Shaw, using the alias "Clay Bertrand" conspired to kill Kennedy. Where did the name "Clay Bertrand" come from? From an eccentric, rather sleazy New Orleans lawyer named Dean Andrews.

Like the FBI in 1963, Garrison's researchers combed the French Quarter for "Clay Bertrand," the man Dean Andrews said had called him on the day after the assassination and suggested that Andrews go to Dallas to legally represent Oswald. What was the result? The following memo was written by Garrison's chief investigator, Lou Ivon.

Ivon was not the only Garrison staffer to reach this conclusion. Assistant DA Andrew "Moo-Moo" Sciambra was given the task of "squeezing" the French Quarter to get information from homosexual informants. He admitted to author Edward Jay Epstein that he failed to find any "Bertrand." See Epstein's The Assassination Chronicles (New York, 1992), p. 196.

And I agree, this is no place for autopsy photos.

  Galli:

  I'm not intending to attack you, but those pictures were too much graphic.

  A merely description of JFK assasination would be enough.

  Regards

OMG DOnt make this any dumber than it already is.  No offence, but a long dead french sage who makes vague predictions that could be interpreted any way isnt my idea of proof or even the existence of evidence.

That's a good idea, there could be children researching something........although we do have other topics I don't think they should see.

I did not even take a look.

My good friend H. did a project on Kennedy assasination too, when we were in our good old grade 10 American history class. According to the videos and books I have seen, the conspiracy theory stands. Kennedy was in fact shot from a manhole right next to his car - an expert examined what areas of the brain were blown off, and eventually found out through mathmatical calculations that the angle of the bullet meant that it flew from the ground up - hence from the gun of a man-hole sniper.

The video was called The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Truth Shall Make You Free. I watched it then gave it to H.

Good article.

 Thanks to the movie "JFK" the conspiracy theorists have had a field day assuming everything in that movie is fact and that there clearly was a conspiracy, not only does the link i've provided seems to me to totally demolish the seemingly endless myths about the assassination, what happened before hand and afterwards. Although it is largely to do with the movie it points out many things that have been played on as fact when in reality there is no evidence to suggest there is any truth to it.

 Great movie and fascinating theories, but show me some concrete evidence, because i've yet to see any that hasnt been totally discredited or can be made to say anything you want it to.

   http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100menu.html - http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100menu.html

 There are so many theories on this assassination as to make it impossible for any of them to have credibility, some people just can't accept the distinct possibility that perhaps, Lee Harvey Oswald did actually blow the presidents brains out or that Elvis really is dead or that Aliens didnt land at Roswell or any other totally baseless theories that look good on paper, but often have absolutely no depth whatsoever.

 Conspiracy theories are my pet-hate as you can tell  probably because i'm tired of hearing about how Jews supposedly rule the world or how any number of secret societies are brainwashing us in an attempt for world domination. Its very difficult to take anything conspiracy theorists say seriously, because largely of the sheere lack of evidence.

 To show the depth of some peoples insanity the sheer lack of evidence is often passed off as proof that there was a conspiracy  

I've seen the video but I dont remember 'shots' ringing out, i only seen the 1 shot that that kills JFK.

If there as more than 1 shot, where they from the same gun?

 I downloaded the footage from some website so I could decide for myself from what I could see how many shots hit Kennedy.

 One funny thing about the JFK movie is that it was claimed Oswald couldnt of fired 3 shots from the rifle in 5.6 seconds, when a character in the movie demonstrates how Oswald would of fired the rifle he claims it cant be done. If you time him firing the shots though you can see that the actor actually performs the feat in exactly 5.6 seconds  disproving the entire argument.

  I'm not intending to attack you, but those pictures were too much graphic.[quote]

Well in fairness you were warned and you didn't actually have to look!

I used to be a bit sceptical but then I realised that Oswald couldn't possibly have shot Kennedy in the side of the head because he was positioned behind him. Plus the direction in  which Kennedy's body went when he was was sideways as if the shot had come from his left. If he'd been hit from behind he would have gone foreward.

I personaly have little time for conspiracy stories in general altho thats not to say I won't give every 'dog his day in the kennel'....the stories have been written, edited, re-written and five gazillion takes on the Warren Commision and the available forensics.......mistakes-conjectures-omissions, mis-interpretations, aside for the moement....have been made.

I leave you with this note. I have personaly met one of the US military's greatest 'snipers'...the Late great Carlos Hathcock, Gunnery Sergeant, US Marine Corp, and to the paraphrase the 'gunnies' comments."i couldnt have made the shot with the weapon and the circumstances"  ...and I believe the 'gunny'. Before I  retired I personaly qualified as expert on numerous weapons to include the M21/22 and others and was a qualified O/C (observer-controller) and I know damn well I couldnt have done it...hence I'll buy this conspiracy story

best.