JFK’s Hidden Truth: Declassified Files That Change Everything – Documentary Historical – EM SS

thought at first it was a motorcycle backfire from one of the many motorcycles alongside of us in the motorcade. Bob Pure Point jumped out of his seat and said, “That’s gunfire.” >> Something has happened in the motorcade route. Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route. The further release of declassified assassination files in 2022 shed further light on the events [music] surrounding the assassination of Kennedy in 1963.

>> More documents have been released about the presidency first [music] the context of of what happened then about the assassination it itself. [music] The fact we could not interrogate him and find out his motive and exactly why he did this has created all the uh room for conspiracies [music] of all kinds.

And there’s a new one every day. >> We’ve we’ve got different perspectives, but I don’t think we’ve necessarily had anything [music] that’s fundamentally challenged our view of of what happened on the day. What’s crystal clear, despite the fact that over 4,000 files are still being held classified, [music] the overwhelming fact is that both the CIA and the FBI were fully aware of Oswald’s movement prior [music] to 22nd of November.

>> People have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything. You shoot the >> I didn’t shoot anybody. No, sir. >> You should think the shot came from up on top of the vaok toward the president. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. Not no not on the VOC itself, but up on top of the hill. a little mound of ground there, the garden.

>> So, you can see why [music] non crazy people would wonder about what really happened. And of course, many have wondered. The House of Representatives impanled a special committee to reinvestigate the JFK assassination. Their bipartisan conclusion, Jack Kennedy was almost certainly murdered [music] as the result of a conspiracy.

> It is our conclusion with a probability of 95% or better, there was indeed a shot fired from the Graciol. In fact, one of the declassified documents is a release that transcribes a message given by Jay Gahoover of the FBI just 2 days after the assassination. What it states is that the FBI were intercepting [music] Oswald’s mail prior to the 22nd of November.

Further, the FBI knew that Oswald had contacted both the Cuban and the Russian embassies in the weeks leading up to the event. >> Congress found that yeah, it was a plot. It was a conspiracy. there were multiple people involved. >> Could this have simply been CIA incompetence? Or does it hint at something more sinister? Some sort of coordinated activity between some complex mix of the intelligence agencies and the mob Heat. Heat.

>> [music] [music] [music] >> Where did all this begin? You know, as you said, we know a lot about the 20th century Kennedys and their success and what they mean to us as a country and what they represent. Where did it all begin? >> The only way we can truly understand what unfolded on that November day in Dallas is to go back 16 years to the inception of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA was formed in 1947 directly after Truman’s signing of the National Security Act. But Truman was painfully aware of the war ways fragmentation, disorganization, and interervice rivalries had contributed to Pearl Harbor. And he wanted to create a new post-war military and national intelligence structure, which had a backdrop of increasing concerns about Soviet Union activity post World War II.

you begin to get by the late 1940s is this clash of systems and this [music] sense that both sides are trying to build alliances. Self-p protection is a primary function of any organism. This is the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States government. We watch for the electronic imprint of the enemy’s bombers.

We listen for the whine of his missiles. The very air is full of information for the spies of today. I think to to to put this simply, to boil it down, the CIA was born out of fear. People on on on Capitol Hill, people in the White House, people across the country broadly did not want the United States caught napping again.

They did not want another strategic surprise along the lines of of Pearl Harbor. >> But also this sense that the US needs to be on its toes with regards to the Soviet Union, international communism. The US now has many more military bases. Its presence is global, unlike any other time in its history. >> Just as the new Central Intelligence Agency was asserting itself, a fresh-faced young war hero was taking his first steps into the political arena.

Aged just 29, John Fitzgerald [music] Kennedy took his seat in the United States Congress as the representative for Massachusetts 11th Congressional District. Just 5 years later, he had graduated [music] to the upper house as the junior senator for Massachusetts and was already being groomed as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the top job.

>> He’s well thought of as a a [music] senator and then builds that profile up. >> But during his time there, he actually wrote the Pulitzer Prizewinning book, Profiles Encourage, [music] >> which we now know was ghostritten by the guy who becames one one of his one of Kennedy’s [music] speech writers, Theodore Sorenson.

there’s a big thing that gets national attention, big lots of television coverage and national audience. Um, so he’s gradually building what is sort of local support into [music] a national TV audience. >> JFK was making quite a name for himself. Aside from publishing his Pulitzer [music] Prize award-winning book, he was actively promoting the economy of Massachusetts and [music] fighting against the movement of jobs to the south.

Such standards would be of [music] tremendous importance to us in not only helping the average man and woman who is thrown out of work but in also maintaining purchasing power in this country. >> The Kennedes had the arrival of their first child Caroline. The celebrity status of the Kennedy family [music] was well into the ascendancy >> placed sort of an American ideal of the the family particularly in the cold war era.

you know, the family, the home as the the important part of American [music] society, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help you God. So help me God. >> CIA was was was an instrument of the presidency really during this time. was working for the president but unchecked in other ways. No one was really overseeing or holding the CIA to to account.

[music] There’s two sides to the CIA house. One side looks very much like a university. The mission of that side of the house is to go out into the world [music] and understand what’s going on in the world. But then you have the other side of the CIA house and that’s the special operations covert action side of the house. And this is where um agencies like the CIA go out into the world with a view to change the world.

Uh covert action can be defined as an attempt by states to influence, impact or change the domestic affairs of foreign states. >> Alan Dles started his career in the diplomatic service, then becoming a lawyer and joining the same law firm as his brother John. >> Worked in Wall Street as well. He loved business. Loved business.

And that that that I think is is is an important point to [music] acknowledge when we consider and when we look at some of the American covert interventions in the 1950s [music] and how they arguably serve to advance the cause of of American capitalism. Through the 1930s he was legal adviser to the League of Nations and met a number of world leaders including both Mussolini and Hitler.

And in 1952 Eisenhower appointed him as the head of the CIA. The CIA’s Executive Action Committee played a significant role in developments in Guatemala. The United Food Company had long been a strong corporate force within the country. They appointed Alan Dulles as their legal council. Guatemala City, 5,000 ft above sea level, has a population about the size of Jacksonville, Florida, or Fort Worth, Texas.

For many years, these fascinating tropical countries have been served by United Fruit Company’s Great White Fleet. The United States was using its commercial muscle to infiltrate countries it feared were becoming infected by communism. It is considered by many that the United Fruit Company was in effect a front for the CIA. Hakabo Arbenz took power in Guatemala and undertook a major program of reform.

Arbenz [music] in Guatemala after coming to power starts to introduce a lot of land reform, starts to appropriate the profits [music] proceeds of companies like the United Fruit Company. And obviously this is impacting the American bottom line. [music] >> In 1954, the CIA under Alan Dulles, supposedly concerned that the communists [music] were supporting Arbans, organized to overthrow him.

But I think the the basic question with regard to Guatemala is whether or not the CIA [music] carried this out on its own initiative, in which case it would be wholly improper. >> Alan Dulles was absolutely instrumental in the overthrow of their sitting [music] leader in 1954. >> Through the lens of policy [music] makers in in Washington, Arbenz appears a little bit too left-leaning for their liking.

[music] Appears a little bit too socialist, appears even a little bit too communist. Putting aside his obvious financial interests in the country, the argument from a CIA perspective was the suppression of the development of communism. >> I can assure you that the CIA has given these committees full information about what it’s doing, how it’s spending its money, and how it operates.

>> Carlos Castillo Amas then became president and took about reversing all of the reforms that had taken place, returning the profitability to the United Fruit Company. Well, he’s gone by 57 because he’s a pretty nasty individual. He very much falls into the category of what we would associate as being a dictator.

>> In 1957, Armos was assassinated by Romeo Vasquez. [music] Vasquez had been in the military but dismissed due to his communist leanings. Rather curiously, he was then rapidly appointed to the presidential palace guard and then assassinated the president with two bullets. Shortly after that, Vasquez committed suicide before he was tried and left behind [music] some Soviet supporting diaries.

>> The killer was a palace sentry who took his own life. Therefore, no one knows for sure who murdered Castillo Armas. >> It was this ruthless removal of a head of state by the CIA, which some will claim [music] later was a dress rehearsal for aiding and abetting in the slaughter of their own commander-in-chief in Dallas on November the 22nd, 1963.

Lee Harvey Oswald had a troubled education. At the age of 12, he was put in juvenile detention for truency. This boy was first brought into the domestic relations court children’s division here in New York. Uh he was brought in as you know uh because he had been tring from school.

He had been absent 47 days from a period from October till January. >> He was an oddball. I really think it was a matter of he felt like he was a little smarter, possibly better than the [music] rest of the people >> because he wasn’t very personable. He didn’t seem to get along with everybody, talk a lot. >> He had uh a fight with a couple of boys and that’s how I first uh saw him >> and went to 12 different schools prior to joining the Marines at the age of 17.

>> Said that this boy had passive aggressive tendencies, that he had skezoid features, and that he really was a boy who was uh feeling a deep sense of isolation, a deep sense of rejection, and who really had a supposedly hostility towards father figures. He was then posted to Japan at the Atsugi air base where they flew U2 spy planes.

He was caught marshaled twice. Once for accidentally shooting himself and the second time for getting into a fight with the sergeant that disciplined him. He was briefly imprisoned but then released but demoted. He taught himself how to speak Russian whilst on the base and was qualified as initially a sharpshooter but then taken down to the level of marksman.

The problem is when you have um issues that cross the the the sort of the domestic international line. So what happens when there is an issue an individual will fall under the rem of the CIA but also the FBI and Lee Harvey Oswald would be one of those In 1959, Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and set about transforming his country into the first communist state in the Western world.

>> So Castro’s rise to power in in in Cuba sets off a whole host of anxieties uh [music] within the United States. Um Castro is a self-declared communist. Later that year, Castro flew to Washington DC where [music] he had a private meeting with Vice President Richard Nixon. >> We are not afraid of an idea because we have our idea and we believe in our we believe in our idea.

>> He wants to [music] meet Castro to see how truly communist Castro was. Try to get a feel for how close to the Soviet Union Castro was. Nixon comes away from that meeting thinking, “Wow, Castro is a problem.” only answer to [music] communism is a massive offensive for freedom, freedom from hunger, from disease, and a victory [music] for the ageless hope of people everywhere, freedom from tyranny.

>> The relationship between the United [music] States and Cuba deteriorated rapidly. >> Nixon wanted to see Castro gone. So, the word is put out to the CIA, [music] what can you do to help us here? and the CIA starts to put together [music] certain plans, certain operations with respect to Cuba.

Assassination is discussed, but the road they ultimately want to go down is is removal of Castro. They want to remove him by way of a covert action. So getting rid of Castro becomes something bordering on an obsession, not just for the policym community, [music] but also for the CIA. But even as Nixon was facing off against Castro, he was gearing up for his own tilt at the [music] United States presidency, where his opponent will be none other than the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.

Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts, Democrat, throws his hat in the presidential ring at a Washington press conference. >> I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. >> John F. Kennedy announced [music] his intention to run for presidency. In January 1960, Kennedy spoke of a new frontier that promoted the expansion of programs to [music] the poor, protect African-Americans right to vote, and improve African-Americans employment and education opportunities.

Kennedy told the convention delegates that he would get the nation moving again. He declared that the United States would have both the will and the strength to resist communism around the world. One of the big problems that John Kennedy [music] faced running for the presidency was that he was Catholic. We don’t talk a lot about it now, [music] but in the 1940s and 1950s, there was virulent anti-atholicism in the United States.

He and his team knew that they had to [music] address that. So, he spends a lot of the campaign having to say, “I’m I’m a presidential candidate. I’m the Democratic [music] presidential candidate, not the Catholic candidate for for president.” His father’s money [music] is really important. It takes a lot of money, even in the 1940s and 1950s, [music] to to run for political office.

His links with the film industry bought him into connection [music] with celebrities, um, which then sort of feeds into JFK’s [music] later career. >> But above all, Kennedy needed to present himself as vital and vigorous a cold warrior as his Republican rival for the presidency, Richard Nixon. >> [music] >> Nixon absolutely despised JFK.

It was really for a for for a social reason. [music] Richard Nixon had been born effectively into poverty. Nixon therefore coming out of poverty, coming out of this um this this background. He had a real chip on his shoulder about um people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. people who had not had to struggle like Nixon had had to [music] struggle to get to the top.

And who was the darling of the Silver Spoon group? Who was the individual in US political life who personified [music] privilege? It was JFK so far as Nixon was concerned. But in the bitter presidential election battle of 1960, it was the boy with the silver spoon who would come out on top. >> Has a decision been reached uh on how far this country would be willing to go in helping an anti-Castro uprising or invasion in Cuba are concerned? >> Well, first I want to say that there will not be under any conditions be an

intervention in Cuba by United States armed forces. But when he reached the White House, Kennedy found that the CIA was already hard at work on a plan to sabotage the Castro regime and take back control in Cuba. >> Is the White House the home and the office of the president of the United States? Last November, some 70 million American citizens cast secret ballots to determine who would fill this chair, to determine upon whom would fall the responsibilities of this office.

The choice was John [music] Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected. >> I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States >> and will to the best of your ability >> and will to the best of my ability >> preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. >> He’s facing quite an uphill battle um on on inauguration [music] day.

He really has to convince a lot of Americans that he’s the right person, [music] that he can do this, that he’s got something to bring to the table. >> Immediately after his inauguration as president of the United States, John Kennedy appointed [music] his brother Robert Kennedy as the attorney general, >> who had been his campaign manager.

So he he was sort of visible, quite a highprofile role >> [music] >> um for someone who hadn’t had a lot of trial experience. He then made it a priority to clamp down on organized crime. >> Robert Kennedy is trying to convince Hoover that [music] the FBI needs to refocus that actually organized crime is one of the biggest threats to the the nation.

>> The biggest haven for organized crime in the 1950s had been Cuba with the ability to launder their illegal gains through Havana’s casinos. Whilst hoping to avoid Bobby Kennedy’s crusade against their interests in mainland America, mob bosses were hoping that his brother could wrench back control of Cuba from Castro so they could restart their businesses there.

Lee Harvey Oswald was honorably released from the Marine Corps and moved into the Marine Corps Reserve. Much has been made about Oswald’s apparent obsession with communism and Marxism, but there’s some debate about that. There are various instances where he was clearly pro-castro, but equally there are times when he’s viewed as being anti-Castro.

[music] >> So, I am not a communist and uh I think that the uh the red herring and so forth is rather uh ridiculous to toss into this conversation. >> And are you a Marxist? >> Well, I have studied Marxist philosophy. Yes, sir. and also other philosophers >> in your work with the Fair Play for Cuba committee.

[music] Uh what are you advocating? >> We advocate restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. >> He flew to Europe and in 1959 defected into Russia. He then met and married his [music] wife Marina and they had a baby daughter. The toppling of Fidel Castro in Cuba was intended to be a carbon copy of the CIA’s activity in Guatemala in 1954.

>> [music] >> In the months that followed JFK becoming president and based on his pre-election campaign, the CIA were absolutely convinced that he had no choice other than to support their plans in Cuba. >> So Kennedy takes office and becomes aware that there is has been a plan in place [music] under the Eisenhower administration to invade Cuba.

There has been tension with Cuba since Castro took office a few years earlier. Communist power [music] 90 miles off the Florida coast. Does not look good for America’s Cold War position. >> We have to remember that the intention of the Republican campaign here was to effectively wrong foot Kennedy to seize public support by their plan to return Cuba to the exiles to suppress the development of communism on their doorstep.

Alan Dulles, head of the CIA, briefed John F. Kennedy with regard to the CIA’s plans to depose Fidel Castro. And what he did was to come out with a plan where he publicly announced his support for the exiles and the idea of suppressing communism in Cuba. Suddenly, out of nowhere, [music] Kennedy inserts Castro, inserts Cuba as an election issue into the American psyche, into American [music] minds.

He basically starts saying to the American people in televised debates, President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon are doing nothing about Castro’s Cuba. [music] They’re weak on national security. They’re weak on foreign policy. Nixon is not as tough as he’s telling you. And Nixon was absolutely horrified and put in an put in an impossible position.

But as JFK would soon find out, talking tough on the campaign trail was very different to sitting in the Oval Office, actually calling the shots. >> CIA director had come to the president with a desperate lastminute appeal. He knew that the president had said there would be no intervention. >> At this moment in Washington, the president is under heavy pressure.

He is being [music] pressed to okay the invasion plan. A major source of this pressure is CIA reports on what [music] is happening inside Cuba. question is does he cancel it or does he go ahead with it? He’s not seen as being experienced in American foreign policy or [music] military matters and he’s concerned that if he decides not to go through with it, [music] the military chiefs that he’s going to have to work with are going to [music] lose respect.

>> The president’s experts have told him to go ahead. His staff has not argued against them. The decision is now his alone. Operation Pluto, the invasion of Cuba is approved. >> Kennedy had a major dilemma. The CIA’s invasion plan had been conceived under his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower. It wasn’t his plan, yet he had to give it his blessing.

At the same time, however, he had pledged not to officially commit US troops to it. It had to be Cuban exiles actually on the ground and then only supported by the CIA. It was doomed to fail before it even began. >> At this moment in Guatemala, a Cuban exile army is being created by the CIA. A Cuban exile air force with B-26 bombers. >> We were called up to the General Dosters’s office and asked if we wanted to participate.

And u I think there was a group of about 12 or 15 of us. land. We were not the first people down there. >> The intention then was to use Guatemala as a base to train a group of exiles to become the invading force in Cuba. The CIA trained the exiles in Guatemala as their support for the invasion was illegal under international law.

And the offshore location of the training allowed them to claim plausible deniability. But JFK was increasingly doubtful. And it took a persuasive argument by Alan Dallas to convince him that just because it worked in Guatemala, it was bound to work in Cuba. The CIA is riding high. The CIA has had good success, good covert action success in Italy in 48 throughout the 1950s in keeping the communists out of power.

The CIA has had good success in Iran in 53. It’s had good success in Guatemala in 54. It’s doing well in the cultural cold war, radio free Europe, radio free liberty, all this kind of stuff. It’s confident. It’s riding high. It’s riding tall in the in the saddle. Arguably, it’s overconfident. >> On April the 15th, 1961, eight B-26s flew to bomb airfields in Havana.

2 days later, the exiles dropped into Cuba, and it all started to go wrong. >> So many things go wrong. Just one thing. It’s a catalog of of disasters. the Cuban forces overrun the the exiles who who go in really quickly and it’s a big public embarrassment. >> The CIA had assumed that once the invasion began, Kennedy would have to use further forces to back it up if it all began to fail. He did not.

Kennedy canled further air strikes and the Bay of Pigs land invasion presented easy pickings for a largely intact Cuban air force. >> It was a failure of United States policy which led to a failure of United States power. Clearly, the United States had the naked power to destroy Castro, but it could not ignore world opinion and use this power.

This was probably the low point, the worst moment for John F. Kennedy in the White House. >> And then the blame game starts. Who was responsible for the the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs? Was it JFK or was it the CIA? So, we get this huge blame game taking place. [music] friends of the CIA and the American press start pushing the narrative that Kennedy had lost his nerve.

Kennedy uh refused to give the invading force American [music] air cover. >> There’s an old saying that uh victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. And uh I wouldn’t be surprised if uh information is poured into you in regard to uh all the recent activities. Kennedy’s acolytes, Kennedy’s friends, Kennedy’s all allies in the media start fighting back and pointing the finger of blame at the CIA.

Dulles is he’s not fired as such, but he is diplomatically politely asked to resign. So Dulles loses what for him was the job of a lifetime. However angry that Alan Dulles almost certainly was over the Bay of Pigs and losing his job, Dulles himself refrained from publicly attacking President Kennedy in a single stroke by his actions over the Bay of Pigs.

JFK had alienated the CIA, the mob, his own military, and his entire national security infrastructure. He had committed the unforgivable sin of projecting American weakness abroad rather than American strength. His enemies would be emboldened and will be looking for an opportunity to strike back. We know that the CIA were becoming increasingly interested in Oswald’s movements.

>> Lee Harvey Oswald, of course, go spends a bit of time in Moscow. He actually tries to speak with the Soviets who who [music] are unconvinced and sort of turn him away. Leh Harvey Oswald returns to the United States where the FBI is then in charge of sort of monitoring him, which they do.

In fact, one of the declassified documents is a release that [music] transcribes a message given by Jay Gahoover of the FBI just two days after the assassination. What it states is that the FBI were intercepting Oswald’s mail prior to the 22nd of November. Further, the FBI knew that Oswald had contacted both the Cuban and the Russian embassies [music] in the weeks leading up to the event.

he would go into uh town on his own and come back with his Russian newspapers uh that he would then sit around with a Russian [music] dictionary and try to translate out of this newspaper and apparently taught himself to be semi-proficient. Anyway, >> the issue and this is one that would continue all the way into the 21st century is that the CIA and the FBI don’t [music] collaborate that much.

You have these international threats who also become a domestic one. the FBI are monitoring him. Um, but the FBI are monitoring a lot of people at the time. They’re probably spending more time uh surveying and trying to find dirt on civil rights leaders. Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing and we can find uh individuals documents that can back up arguments ideas but at the time Lee Harve was somebody who was who was known to the security services um but he was one of many needles in a very big haststack having just emerged from the Bay of Pigs

fiasco in 1961. JFK then went headlong into the Cuban missile crisis [music] of 1962. >> All ships of any kind bound to Cuba from whatever nation or port where they found to contain cargos of offensive weapons be turned back. The cold war was still developing a pace and Kennedy attained the strategic decision to install ballistic missile capability in both Italy and Turkey.

In response, the Soviets had done a range of negotiations with the Cubans to install their own launchpad facilities so they could locate their own ballistic missiles right on the doorstep of US soil. The Americans had some sense that this was happening earlier, but it’s finally confirmed with uh YouTube spy plane footage, which shows that they’re almost operational.

>> It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launch from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States. >> Well, I was sitting at work on a Saturday morning. Uh, we were preparing one of our ICBMs, our Titan 1 missiles, and I got a call from the command post, the the bombwing command post at Mountain Home Air Force Base, saying, “Lieutenant, you need to put the missile back on alert right now.

We can’t tell you why, but SAC says do it.” We weren’t told yet what it was about. We didn’t find out until President Kennedy made his speech. >> This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.

>> The United States Security Council then [music] recommended to Kennedy that they should fire their own missiles and take out or effectively the developing launch pads in Cuba. But rather than that, Kennedy took a very, very different approach. He decided to sit down and negotiate.

We got uh Friday night got a message from uh Cruchev which uh said that uh he would uh withdraw these missiles and technicians and so on providing we not plan to invade Cuba. [music] >> Where Kennedy cut the deal. The deal being Kushchoff Soviets get your missiles out of Cuba and in return [music] 6 months down the line we remove our uh missiles from from Turkey.

The Americans and Kennedy agreed publicly or state publicly [music] that they will not attempt to invade Cuba. >> Whilst one could argue that this was a masterclass in negotiation skills, [music] averting world catastrophe with full nuclear war, it did little to support either Crochev or Kennedy in [music] their own countries.

In Russia, Crochev was seen to have backed down against the might of the United States and Kennedy in turn was seen to soften on the position of communism [music] on the doorstep. Whilst the Cuban missile crisis did much to restore Kennedy’s reputation as a statesman, [music] capable of holding his own on the world stage, it further alienated the US military and the likes of General Curtis Lame, who had wanted to use the crisis to take out the Soviet’s nuclear arsenal.

It also alienated the hawks at the CIA [music] who were incensed by the president’s use of his brother Bobby’s back channel to the Soviets via military intelligence officer Georgie Bolchikov to negotiate his deal directly with Crochev rather than using their intelligence capability. As far as they were concerned, Kennedy’s days were numbered.

Having returned to the United States, Lee Harvey Oswald led an unusual lifestyle. There are reports that he had attempted to shoot and kill former Army General Edwin A. Walker in Dallas in April 1963 [music] before then returning to his birthplace, New Orleans, and establishing [music] an independent chapter of the Procastro Fair Play for Cuba Committee of which he was the sole member.

While passing [music] out Procastro literature alongside unknown compatriots, Oswald was arrested after scuffling with anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Oswald was apparently leading an increasingly dissolute existence. Heavy drinking, arguing with Marina, and then in September 1963, he headed down to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico.

On the face of it, he was offering his services to see if he could either [music] go back to Moscow or to Havana. The CIA’s chief of psychological warfare in Miami was bankrolling a Cuban exark group called the Student Revolutionary Directorate. And we know that that directorate was in contact with Oswald at the time he visited Mexico, which hints at a potential connection between Oswald and the CIA.

>> Remarkable treatment that Oswald received in Russia. He was allowed, for example, to join a rifle club within Russia. He returned to this country with favors that, as far as we know, were granted to no other person. the remarkable statement of the chief justice that some of the evidence given would never be brought out in our lifetime.

This of course makes one wonder whether very serious matters of state are involved. Since my son had defected to Russia, he should have been on the savannah. [music] Several thousand enthusiastic Texans are on hand to give the president and Mrs. Kennedy a [music] warm welcome. >> The Kennedys arrive at um Lovefield in Dallas.

It’s part of a a tour of [music] Texas that Kennedy is undertaking. >> Kennedy was convinced that he’d win the 1964 election, but there was a problem with his running mate, Lyndon Johnson’s home state of Texas. So, he planned a two-day, five city tour of the state to shore up support. There were so many people around and so few Dallas police officers.

This is one of the first things I noticed was the lack of Dallas police officers. It seems crystal clear that [snorts] sufficient precautions were simply not taken in Dallas. The Secret Service certainly appeared to have let the president down. >> They asked the the agents were instructed to back off as much as possible.

[music] We tried to stay as far away as we as we could to [music] make them uh feel like the that they were just among [music] their friends and people along the side of the street. and wanted the people inside the street to feel like there was no barrier between them and the [music] president. Mrs. Kennedy, >> I was on Simmons Freeway earlier and even the freeway was jam-packed with spectators waiting their chance to see the president as he made his way towards the trademark >> and there was an overpass we were going

to have to go under and I was looking at that and I noticed there was some police on top and that was good enough for me. And windows were open on buildings and people were on fire escapes on top of buildings. any place they could be to get a better view of the motorcade. >> Governor and Mrs.

Connelly ride in the presidential limousine. >> And the same was true of the building we passed on the corner of Houston and Elm Street. It’s called the Texas School Depository. President’s car is now turning on to Elm Street and it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the trademark. It It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route. The preparation of the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Force must surely be called into question. They should have been on high alert. And yet, simply because of the fine weather, they declined to insist that the president used the bubble top on his vehicle, which would afforded some form of protection.

They also failed to insist on using a couple of Secret Service agents on the back of the car. Could this have simply been CIA incompetence? Or does it hint at something more sinister? [music] Some sort of coordinated activity between some complex mix of the intelligence agencies and the mob. >> So many stakeholders >> when it comes to the Kennedy assassination, isn’t there? There’s the Dallas police, there’s the White House, there’s the CIA, there’s the FBI, there’s the Cubans, there’s anti-Castro Cubans, there’s Castro Cuba. I mean,

it’s just there’s the Russians, there’s the mafia. Uh it it’s absolutely endless. And all of this needs to be considered in the tangled web of crises involving the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, and the CIA involvement in sequential covert assassination plots through the executive action committee. >> For years, this has played into [music] the conspiracy theory that somebody in the inside knew what was what had been planned, what was going on.

70 minutes after the the shots are fired, the Dallas police arrest Lee Jav Oswald. Officer Macdonald started to grapple with the man as he reached for a gun which was concealed under his shirt. >> I didn’t shoot anybody, sir. I haven’t been told what I’m here for. >> President, >> the fact we could not interrogate him and find out his motive and exactly why he did this has created all the uh room for conspiracies of all kinds and there’s a new one every day.

It’s a man with a gun. It’s absolute panic. Oswald had been shot. >> We had turned down on Elm Street, maybe 150 ft. And as I was scanning to my left, I heard this explosive noise from the rear over my right shoulder. >> It It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route. Something I repeat has happened in the motorcade route.

>> In the aftermath of the assassination of JFK, there are some key questions that need to be asked. >> And I you’ll excuse me if I am out of breath. A bulletin. This is from the United Press from Dallas. President Kennedy and Governor John Colony have been cut down by assassin’s bullets in downtown [music] Dallas.

>> There’s shock. There’s horror. They need to show that the country is in safe hands. >> The Dallas police immediately turned their attention [music] to the book depository. Oswald was left free to wander out of the front door of the book depository where apparently he was stopped by a secret service agent.

>> At the at the entrance of the building, he was stopped by a police officer. Told the police officer, “Well, he’s all right. He works for you. He can uh you need to hold him.” >> 70 minutes [music] after the the shots are fired. The Dallas police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald. >> And some [music] extra news which has come in since we started.

A 24 year old man, Lee H. Oswald was arrested by Dallas police in connection with the murder of the policeman. >> Officer Macdonald started to grapple with the man as he reached for a gun which was concealed under his shirt. >> I didn’t shoot anybody, sir. I haven’t been told what I’m here for. >> President, >> the fact you could not interrogate him [music] and find out his motive and exactly why he did this has created all the uh room for conspiracies of all kinds.

And there’s a [music] new one every day. It’s a man with a gun. It’s absolute panic. Oswald has been shot. >> Man who shot Lee Oswald has been identified as Jack Ruby. R U B Y. He runs a place in Dallas called the Carousel Club. >> Questions have to be asked. Who was Jack Ruby and why did he shoot Lee Harvey Oswald? We need to go back and truly discover who Jack Ruby was and why he was involved.

You have to start with uh JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy. He’s the one who [music] built up the family’s wealth. Um, he speculated in the the unregulated stock market before the 1929 Wall Street crash, cashed out of that before that that happened and invested in things like real estate and in the film industry and and in many other places.

>> Robert Kennedy, his brother, who had been his campaign manager, so he he was sort of visible there >> with John F. Kennedy’s presidency, there emerged something of a split in the family. His father, Joseph, was outwardly a respected businessman and former ambassador. However, it’s long been thought that he was heavily involved with the mob and had been since the 1920s.

His relationship with Jimmy Hoffer and the Teamsters came under particular strain when after what some would call a bought election result in Illinois that put JFK in the White House, John and in particular Bobby continued to pursue Hoffer and his associates. The Kennedy brothers not only failed to restore the mob interests in Cuba, they also continued to play rough with them on the home front.

And to Hoffer’s view, this was a betrayal, a double cross. Was this a reason for revenge? Well, I think the only important thing really is whether we get legislation to deal with the problems. I think we’ve uncovered the fact that there are many difficulties that there has been misuse of union funds, misappropriation of union funds, that there have been gangsters and [music] hoodlams that have taken over unions.

>> The dominant element of the mafia in the Midwest was the Chicago outfit who rose to power in the 1920s through the prohibition years under Al Capone and Johnny Torino. in Chicago. Unlike New York over the years, the Chicago was in the outfit um in organized crime, [music] they were getting away from the the um violence in Chicago, unlike New York. Chicago was more underground.

>> Their influence spread from both California and Nevada through to Florida. Three of the most influential heads were Sam Gianana of the Chicago Mob, Santo Traficante in Florida and Cuba, and Carlos Marcelo based in New Orleans. The Kennedy family grew up around that. They knew these people. This wasn’t just sort of a political connection for the sake of an election.

His links with the film industry bought him into connection with celebrities, which then sort of feeds into JFK’s later career. I’m sure in in campaign headquarters behind the scenes, they’re saying, “Well, you know, get Frank Soninatra, you know, play that play that up. He’s really well well known.” Frank Soninatra introduced Judith Exner to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

It’s >> Mr. John Fitzgerald Kennedy >> and it was the beginning of a longunning affair between the two of them. >> Well, I think a tremendous amount is being revealed right now that many journalists turn their uh turn their heads against um or about face I should say. Uh they had no intention of writing anything about Jack Kennedy and his private life.

At the same time, Exner was having an affair with Sam Gian Car and was acquainted with Johnny Reli who worked for Gian Car. And it was Johnny Reli that was absolutely instrumental in wiping clean [music] any record of JFK’s earlier marriage in 1947. Jury Malcolm was a palmbeat socialite who had dated JFK’s older brother, Joe Kennedy Jr.

After Joe Junior’s death in World War II, JFK took up with her and astonishingly documents from the time seemed to show that they eloped and were married in 1947. This didn’t suit the Kennedy family plan [music] and the marriage was quietly enulled while a more suitable candidate was groomed for Joseph’s eldest surviving son.

This was not great politics because it gave the mafia a hold over the future president. Supposedly, Joseph Kennedy had actually struck a deal with Gian Car on the basis that if he could secure the union vote for the presidency, then he’d get the then president to lay off the mafia in the future. >> No one wants to admit the truth.

Um, they somehow [music] think I’m destroying Jack Kennedy. He used to make sarcastic remarks to me that that your boyfriend wouldn’t be president if it wasn’t for me. [music] We’re also aware that Jay Gahoover, head of the FBI, actually sat down with Kennedy and told him that both he and Robert Kennedy were aware of the affair and suggested that he back off.

Immediately after his inauguration as president of the United States, John Kennedy appointed his brother Robert Kennedy as the attorney general. He then made it a priority to clamp down on organized crime. >> Robert Kennedy is trying to convince Hoover that the FBI needs [music] to refocus, right? that actually organized crime is one of the biggest threats to the [music] the nation >> went after Sam Gian Carer implicating Judith Exner within the process.

Gian Carer then felt betrayed. He was [music] insensed having done a deal with Joseph Kennedy to secure the votes using the unions and then in return getting the presidency to back off putting pressure on the mafia to then find out that Robert Kennedy was focused on organized crime was a major problem for him. Whatever the reason and believing that they were protected by their high office, John and Bobby were willing to renegade on their father’s promises to the mob and continued to crack down on organized crime.

>> [bell] >> Jack Ruby is clearly a major character in the assassination story. >> Jack is a very emotional [music] person like people know all the people that know him know him as an emotional person. He was born Jacob Rubenstein in Chicago, dropped out of school [music] running errands for Al Capone and became an agent for the Refuge Collectors Union, which was later to become part of the Teamsters and eventually becoming owner of the Members Only Sovereign Club, which later changed names to the Carousel Club, becoming what was

effectively a public strip joint. He had ties to Gian Cara, Traficante, and Marcelo families. >> What kinds of man was Jack Ruby, or is Jack Ruby? Well, I I believe he was he was a nice employer to me. Uh I believe he’s a highly nervous person. I don’t really like to give my own opinion. >> The clubs were frequented by the police, organizing prostitutes, free drinks, and the like.

An ideal situation for developing close links with the police and the FBI as an informant. It has also been suggested because of Ruby’s links with the Chicago outfit that the Carousel Club was also a major hub for organized crime. One of the things that the CIA starts exploring [music] is the possibility of using the mob to do something about >> [music] >> uh Castro and Cuba.

So it starts to have conversations with [music] mobsters like Sam Gian Reli and it says to them what can you do [music] down there in Cuba? We know you’re angry. The relationship between the United States and [music] Cuba deteriorated rapidly. >> The CIA had made numerous assassination attempts on [music] Castro, and since Cuba was the one place where there and the mob’s interest coincided, there was no reason not to use mob hitmen to carry them out.

>> We’ve certainly been aware of the information that Mr. Roselli was testifying before a Senate committee in Washington that he had assisted the apparently assisted the CIA in setting up alleged assassination plots of Castro by his influence with organized crime. >> And if you’re the mob uh and you’re in the business of having dirt on people, dirt that you can weaponize and leverage for your own purposes, uh it’s quite advantageous, isn’t it? uh doing something for pre President Kennedy that President Kennedy doesn’t

want the world to know about. That’s quite useful political dirt to have [music] on such a powerful individual. Castro shut down organized crime on Cuba, seizing the assets of Trafficante and having imprisoned [music] him for a period, eventually deported him and declaring him as an undesirable alien. >> Before Castro came along, you [music] had all these lucrative casinos and restaurants and other scurless mob type stuff going on down there.

prostitution rings, [music] you name it. We know you’re angry cuz since Castro’s come in, all those illgotten canes that that have been coming up padding your bank balances have been taken away. There is little doubt that Jack Ruby visited Havana in the summer of 1959. That time, Santo Trafficante was being held in prison.

He’d been arrested suspected of expanding his narcotics activity in Cuba. There’s evidence to suggest that Jack Ruby visited traffic ante in prison and actually brokered a deal with Castro to enable his release. We have to remember that Jack Ruby had strong ties into the Chicago outfit. Kennedy at first is unaware that the CIA is having these conversations with people like um Rosselli uh uh and and and [music] Jim Carer.

And eventually when Kennedy discovers that these conversations had taken place, he was absolutely horrified. >> Just before the assassination, we know that Jack Ruby met with two mafia bosses. They were Carlos Marcelo and Santos Traficante. We know that Ruby visited New Orleans that summer, as did Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin.

[music] There are reports that Oswald spent time at the Carousel Club and had [music] conversations with Jack Ruby. To my knowledge, if I recollect correctly, I saw him in the audience last week. >> Lee Oswald in the audience at the club at the Carousel Club which is owned by Jack Rubenstein. >> Given Ruby’s connections with Gian Car and the mob and [music] the fact that his clubs were commonly frequented by the local police with Ruby as an informant, it’s clear that his clubs were becoming a melting pot [music] for

conspiracy theories. What is also clear is that Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald were moving in the same circles and mixing with the same people in the days and weeks leading [music] up to Dallas 63. The Dallas police immediately turned their attention to the book depository. I seen everybody and was converging on the school book depository.

>> Although no one was ever positively identified as the shooter at the sixth floor window of the book depository, the police were apparently totally confident that the book depository was the position for the assassin. Somewhere in the confusion, they chased someone over the railway siding with eyewitnesses reporting a number of official secret service types in the car park.

This gave rise over time to reference to the grassy null shooter. sounded like a loud firecracker or gunshot and it sounded like it came from the left and in front of us towards the wooden fence. We all three seen four seen about the same thing as the shots. The smoke came from behind the hedge. >> They claimed that they’d found a sniper nest on the sixth floor, the book depository with three cartridges but no gun.

They quickly concluded that he must have taken the shot and headed down the stairwell to make his escape. However, a number of eyewitnesses claimed to have used the same stairwell directly after the shooting and had seen no one making their escape. The area being completely roped off by Dallas police, the K9 units here at the scene.

I don’t know what far, but a fire truck is standing by. Mostly officers, literally hundreds of them, armed with thoughtout shotguns, shotguns, pump shotguns, automatic shotguns, and submachine guns. found Lee Harvey Oswald in the breakroom with a soda. They immediately grabbed him, but the manager of the depository told them to let him go because he works here.

>> He looked probably a little startled like anybody else would if you just put a gun in his stomach all at once. >> I turned around asked him if the man worked for him and if he knew him and he said yes, if he works for me and I I know him. Oswald was left free to wander out of the front door of the book depository where apparently he was stopped by a secret service agent but only to ask where the nearest telephone was and Oswald directed him back into the book depository where a phone sat in the ground floor

>> at the at the entrance of the building. He was stopped [music] by a police officer and some work some manager in the building told the police officer, “Well, he’s all right. He works safe. He can uh he needn’t hold him.” [music] So, they let him go. That’s how he got out. But the question has to be asked.

Surely it was standard practice to lock down the crime scene for forensic investigation. Why was that not the case? Oswald caught one of the most unlikely getaway vehicles, a public transport bus, traveled back to his lodgings, got changed, had a conversation with his landlady before setting off for the cinema. >> And the door opened.

He come in in a hurry. I threw you in a hurry. He never parted his lips. went to his room, got a short coat put on and went out and to the bus stop, and that’s the last I saw of it. >> And all within half an hour of the assassination just before 1:00. It is believed that Ruby was not in De Plaza at the time of the assassination.

And according to those closest to him, he was utterly distraught by it. >> Never thought I’d see Jack cry. And tears did come from Jack eyes. [music] And he said, “It’s something that’s unbelievable. How could a man shoot the president of our country? >> Even paying a visit to his local rabbi to seek spiritual guidance.

He apparently disappears from view until after Oswald’s arrest and his impromptu press conference at the Dallas police station at which Ruby is seen loitering. How could this happen? You know, to me, it kind of adds to this whole conspiracy. >> For years, this has played into the conspiracy theory that somebody in the inside knew what was what had been planned, what was going on, and they were looking to to get rid of all trace.

>> And Dallas police say that they have found the remains of fried chicken and paper on the fifth floor. They say the sniper apparently had been there for some time. The Secret Service said the assassin apparently used a high-owered army or Japanese rifle. It is only later that they found the gun hidden behind boxes near a stairway away from the sixth floor window.

>> The police found a 303 British rifle, three empty cartridge cases, and a wedge of paper that had apparently been used as a gun rest. >> But the Dallas police reported a moment ago that a foreignade rifle believed to have been used in the shooting of the president had no fingerprints on it. >> The deputy sheriff that found the gun identified it initially, but with a high degree of certainty as a 7.

65 65 mm mouser, but this was later changed to a 6.4 mm Manla Carano. Exactly the same as evidence later provided by police would suggest Oswald had purchased by mail order, although he apparently used the name Alec Hadell as an alias. JFK was shot on Elm Street at 129. He was then rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, arriving at around 12:34, where physicians worked to save his life.

I remember running home, getting home, and there’s my mom and um and she’s watching live newscast of uh with the Walter Kronite from Dallas, Texas. The Flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 100 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 [music] Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. The president of the United States is dead.

I have just talked to Father Oscar Hubert of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church. He and another priest tell me that the pair of men have just administered the last rights of the Catholic Church to President Kennedy. >> John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 Central Standard Time today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.

>> You expect that these leaders are protected and [music] things are are planned. >> I was quite shocked because actually I’m not from England. I’m from Australia and generally he was very wellliked there and he had great support everywhere. I was very shocked. I still can’t believe it that he’s not there anymore.

>> I think the person who ever shot him must have been a nutcase. There’s no other word for him. I think it’s it’s terrible what happened. >> The mafia were seemingly overjoyed at the news [music] with a number of informants coming forward and tapped telephone conversations with members of the mafia over the coming days and weeks.

One mafia informant recalls celebrating with Florida mafia boss [music] Santos Traficante, remembering him saying, “Our problems are over. I hope Jimmy is happy now.” Hoffer was apparently delighted. Have you heard the good news? They got the son of a [ __ ] Apparently, Louisiana mafia boss [music] Carlos Marcelo said, “Jimmy owes me.

He owes me big.” >> Does [music] this for you prove that that the mob did the assassination? The southern mobsters killed the president using [music] Lee Harvey Oswald. >> The southern mob wanted him killed. >> New Orleans, Tampa [music] specifically. >> No, both Santo Trafocante in Tampa in Florida and Carlos Marello [music] in Louisiana.

Carlos Marcel Marello in Louisiana. One of his [music] bookmaking rings was run by Dut Malay. Dut Malay was Lee Harvey Oswald’s uncle. And Lee Harvey Oswald spent the [music] summer of 63 in New Orleans and he was close to Dutch Malay. So I mean what what conclusion you can draw from that? We haven’t got the smoking gun. Just a few minutes before this report, we heard from one of our newsmen in Dallas on the scene, James Kerr, who said that a Dallas policeman, JD Tippet, was shot to death by an unknown man in a car. The officer was shot about 2 miles

from the scene of the presidential assassination. Tippet was a veteran officer of the Dallas police and had received a radio call to take him way off his beat and he reported to be in position at 1254. Already by that time there had been a number of broadcasts describing a suspect in the assassination in Di Plaza.

Tippet was seen apparently stopping someone who resembled the description and he’d wound down his window. The individual lent through and [music] had a conversation with officer Tippet. Three witnesses tell police how officer Tippet pulled over to the curb, then got from his patrol car to talk to his asalant. >> At some point, Tippet then stepped out of the car and as he was walking around the front [music] of the car, the individual drew a gun and killed Tippet, shooting him three times in the stomach and once to the right temple.

>> Hello, police operator. >> Go ahead. It says news. >> We shooting out here. >> Where is it at? The killing, which had all the hallmarks of a mob shooting, was reported in by a bystander at just before 1:15. >> And just as he got even with the front wheel on that on the driver’s side, this man shot him three times in the wink of your eye.

A wallet was apparently found [music] discarded next to the body in the name of Alec Hadell, which happened to [music] be the name that Oswald had reportedly used when ordering his rifle by mail order. But there was no firm and absolute link to Oswald in the shooting. It is also generally believed to be highly unlikely that Oswwell would have had [music] time to have shot the president to have caught the bus back to his lodgings to have got changed and had a conversation with his landlady before then making his way to the cinema being

intercepted by and [music] then killing Tippet all within a 45minute period. A number of key questions need to be asked now, not least of which is who killed Officer Tippet? If Tippet was stopping a suspect of that assassination, why on earth was he so casual to wind down the window and allow them to lean through and have a conversation? And was it a complete coincidence that the entire incident took place very close to the location where Jack [music] Ruby actually lived, an individual that know an awful lot about mob shootings. It has

been alleged by some that Tippet may have been dispatched to take care of Oswald, but he failed, leaving Ruby to clear up the mess. I have heard Jack talk about the Kennedys and I’ve been trying to think and it’s so confusing today, but I believe he disliked Bobby Kennedy. >> Within all this, we have to add that there were witness reports of various combinations of Ruby Oswald and Tippet together at the Carousel Club.

>> 70 minutes after the the shots are fired, the Dallas police [music] arrest Lee Harvey Oswald. He is then charged with the murder of a Dallas police officer, Officer Tippet. >> One suspect has been apprehended, according to Dallas police, a young man who denies anything to do with the shooting. >> If [music] we can, we will try to clear up this arrest which is taking place in Dallas.

>> In a near empty theater, he chose a seat directly next to another individual. At the interval, he went out and purchased some popcorn, so he clearly had some money, [music] and then went back into the film and sat directly next to someone else. most unusual behavior unless he was potentially [music] meeting someone there.

>> The suspect had entered the Texas theater some five blocks away. >> And some extra news [music] which has come in since we started. A 24 year old man, Lee H. Oswald, was arrested by Dallas police in connection with the murder of the policeman. He was taken screaming from a cinema. Police are questioning him to find out whether he’s any connection with the murder of the president.

>> When he was arrested, he apparently got into a scuffle with the police and drew a gun. Officer Macdonald started to grapple with the man as he reached for a gun which was concealed under his shirt and uh the gun was fired one time by the suspect but luckily it misfired. >> However, the recently declassified note from Jay Gahoo states that Oswald was handcuffed without being armed.

Someone is clearly wrong. >> No, they’ve taken me in because of the fact that I live in the Soviet Time to leave. >> I’m just a >> president. When we got permission to remove the body and took the casket out to the the ambulance that we had there, uh, Admiral Berkeley got in the back of the ambulance with the casket.

I [music] suggested to Mrs. Kennedy that we ride in a car and she said, “No, I’m going to ride in the back with the president.” >> Kennedy’s body is then taken from the the hospital, [music] um placed back on Air Force One. >> And the president’s body with the police motorcycle escort is now pulling away from the hospital.

>> There were three of us [music] in the with the casket in the back of the horse all the way to Love Field. >> It is about 1 and a half hours since he was shot. >> [music] >> The nature of the American Constitution means that you have to transfer the presidency [music] to the the new president. It has to be done formally to to be legal before the plane takes off about hour and a half or so after Kennedy is is shot.

Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of office on Air Force One. I do solemnly swear >> this swear >> that I will faithfully execute >> I will faithfully execute >> the president of the United States >> office of president of the United States >> President Johnson wanted the press on that airplane.

He wanted a the press to be aboard to witness the swearing in which is probably a very wise decision to have witnesses to this thing. I heard the president asked Marie Famer, his secretary, to go and ask Mrs. Kennedy, if she would like to stand with him for the swearing in. And she sent word that she did, but she needed a few minutes to compose herself.

And after a few minutes, Mrs. Kennedy appeared into the conference room. And then at that point, I saw the gravity of the situation. I saw what she had witnessed on her clothing. There is little doubt that the CIA were aware of plots against Kennedy’s life. Jackie Kennedy herself was invited to get changed out of her pink Chanel suit.

She [music] absolutely refused, saying she wanted them to see what they had done to her husband. Pieces of the president’s [music] skull, flesh, blood on her clothing splattered. The right stalking was heavily congealed [music] with blood where she had cradled his head in her lap. At some point on the flight when asked [music] by a an aid of hers, “Mrs.

Kennedy, would you like to clean up while we’re on route back to Washington?” And Mrs. Kennedy said, “No, I want [music] them to see what they have done.” And those words have reverberated throughout the history of the assassination. Does her language perhaps suggest that she also knew who might be behind the assassination plot? >> 25 years after the assassination, a deathbed confession provided further crucial evidence.

The deathbed [music] confession by Trafocante. I think Carlos meaning Marcelo screwed up. We should have killed Bobby [music] and not Jack. I think that is an important piece in the puzzle. The other is that he was with Santa Trafocante [music] the night President Kennedy was murdered >> and he was celebrating >> and he can describe the euphoria of Santo Trafocante.

[music] And I knew from writing a book about Robert Kennedy how much Bobby wanted to get rid of prosecutotorily both Marcelo [music] and Trafocante and already had Hafa. The CIA’s chief priority after the assassination was limiting the parameters, [music] limiting the scope of inquiry that would inevitably follow the the the Kennedy assassination.

Um, the CIA did not want something like the Warren Commission coming along and investigating everything to do with US national security. Having been arrested for the killing of officer Tippet with no real evidence that would hold up in any court, Oswald still hadn’t been charged for the assassination of the president. >> In Dallas police headquarters, Lee Oswald is booked for the slaying of Officer Tippet.

Tight lipped, bruised from his battle with his capttors, he is led through a gauntlet of newsmen and the world gets its first look at Lee Harvey Oswald. And yet the media was in an absolute frenzy. Jay Gahoover in one of the more recently declassified notes is quoted as saying that he wished that the police would stop doing so much damn talking on television.

Oswald was taken here, there, and everywhere in the public eye and constantly being asked whether or not he’d kill the president. Did you kill the president? >> No, I’ve not been charged with that. In fact, nobody had said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about was when the newspaper reporters in the hall uh asked me that question.

>> Was this simply incompetence on behalf of law enforcement in the Secret Service? Or was he being paraded intentionally? We have to remind ourselves that there was no positive evidence that linked Oswell with the assassination. There were no eyewitnesses that could identify Oswald. There were no usable fingerprints on the rifle that was located at the book depository.

And even Hoover himself acknowledged that there was no evidence against him that would stand up in court. But what we do know is that from the moment Oswald was arrested, Jack Ruby was dogging his every move, attending his every appearance, waiting for his moment to strike. Lee Oswald is being moved from police headquarters to the county jail.

>> There is Lee Oswald. >> He’s been shot. He’s been shot. Lee Oswald has been shot. Hoover states clearly that the FBI had told Dallas police on two separate occasions in the short period after [music] the assassination that there was a plan to kill Oswald and he considered it inexcusable that they had left him so open to an approach from the front.

>> There’s the man with a gun. It’s absolute panic. Absolute panic here in the basement of Dallas police headquarters. Detectives have their guns drawn. Oswald has been shot. Oswald is also assassinated publicly in front of the [music] cameras by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Again, it it’s shocking, you know, two public murders in such a short [music] space of of time.

>> How on earth was this allowed to happen? Ruby presented himself as an independent lone assassin in shock, traumatized by JFK’s killing. the the idea that maybe Oswald has been silenced [music] because he he said, “I’m just a psy um has also then played into conspiracy theories that have come since [music] Jack Ruby has never never really offered up um a convincing explanation [music] for for why he did what he did.

” >> Have you got any uh any relationship between the two? Yeah. >> Between Rubenstein? >> No. At the present time, we have not. There was a story down there that was ever in his bar and stuff like that. >> There was a story that this fellow [music] had been in this nightclub that he this strip tease joint that he has, but that has not been able to be confirmed.

Now, this fellow Rubenstein is a is a very shady character, has a bad record, street brawler, fighter, and that sort of thing. He is what I would put in the category one of the egoomaniacs. [music] He likes to be in the limelight. He knew all the police. If the mob were implicated in the assassination of JFK, it was important to have Leo Harvey Oswald silenced.

It suited them that the whole nation believed that he was the lone gunman. If it was revealed that the mob had had a hand in the assassination, the consequences for all would have been huge. This aligns perfectly with what the authorities wanted with Hoover saying just 2 days after the assassination that the public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin.

[music] Questions are being asked of the Secret Service. Did they do something wrong? Was there error? If there was, can that be put [music] right? But there’s also a public sort of message that’s being sent here, which is we’re going to look at it and make sure it can’t [music] happen again. It doesn’t happen again.

We’re going to get to the truth. My friends, their [music] families, they’re on, you know, in front of the television. You didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything. We just sat there and watched this. Um, and I mean I’ we I’d never done anything [music] like that before. >> Sad. Um, I I remember my mom uh, you know, tearing up. Um, which that that was rare.

You are watching an official reenactment of the murder of President John F. Kennedy film from the window where the alleged assassin crouched November 22nd and the Warren report. So the one commission was set up by President Johnson to investigate the events around uh Kennedy’s assassination. >> It was empowered to mandate the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence.

This bizarre sequence of double killings raised great questions. Who actually fired the shots that killed Kennedy? Why did Ruby shoot Oswald? Was there a conspiracy? Were right-wingers involved? Was it a Russian plot? a human plot. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, ordered these questions answered. >> As Walter Konite rightly speculated at the time, conspiracy theories were running wild as the Warren Commission set to work.

Subsequent investigations have shown though the board assembled from those loyal to Johnson was only ever really pointed to one conclusion. The lone gunman. This committee labored 10 months, took testimony from hundreds of witnesses, then brought forth a document close to a thousand pages. Its final report was presented to President [music] Johnson on September the 24th, 1964 and made public 3 days later.

>> They found that it was in all likelihood that Kennedy had been assassinated by a lone gunman um and that that lone gunman was most likely Lee Harvey Oswalt. It also concluded that Jack Ruby operated alone when he killed Oswald two days later. >> I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections.

>> To say the least, the findings of the commission have proved controversial with concerns that the commission had acted to cover up the incompetence of the authorities. In my personal judgment, there is more than evidence. There is proof that the Warren Commission distorted the truth in their report, interfering with the autopsy reports, selectively altering the facts to align with their lone shooter theory, with their magic bullet theory, fabricating forensic stories that simply defy the laws of physics and carefully

selecting testimony that aligns with their desired [music] outcome. >> Well, that would seem to indicate that you uh don’t have [music] full confidence in the Warren Commission report. You know, I think the Warren Commission’s study and I think first of all [music] is composed of the ablest, most judicious, bipartisan men in this country.

Second, I think they had only one objective and that was the truth. >> Johnson’s focus never seemed to be on getting to the truth and the commission reflected that. They ran with the official story and the matter was put to bed. Or at least that’s what the Warren Commission and presumably the Johnson White House were keen to believe. Jack Ruby’s trial presents a situation as extraordinary as his actions.

His mother testified that he was distraught after JFK’s assassination, having what seemed to be some sort of breakdown, leading him to avenge the president’s death. His lawyer claimed the nightclub owner was mentally unwell, and the trial dragged on as witnesses, including Ruby’s rabbi, were called on in his defense.

Ultimately, the jury were having none of it, and he was [music] sentenced to death. However, an appeal was lodged, overturning his verbal confession, and a retrial was ordered in February 1967. Ruby never had his day in court, though. Already riddled with cancer, he was killed by a blood clot, passing away just before Christmas at Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy and Oswald had preceded him.

>> [music] >> Bobby, of course, was wholly expected to step into his brother’s shoes. Snubbed by Lyndon Johnson and racked with guilt that his tenure as attorney general may have prompted the assassination, he stood for the presidency himself, convinced that the mob killed JFK and that he would pursue them from the White House.

His campaign though came to a grim end in a hotel kitchen on the campaign trail when he was shot dead by Zahan Sahan on June the 5th, 1968. >> This is a time of tragedy and loss. Senator Robert Kennedy is dead. The United States House [music] of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations was established in 1976. >> The House Select Committee looks into these very high-profile assassinations that happened in the the 1960s >> and charged with the investigations of both the JFK assassination and the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King. in

part because it’s just so unusual to have so many very high-profile figures assassinated in such a public [music] way. So you you’ve got that the conspiracy theory is a rife. There are lots of people who’ve never believed support of the Warren Commission [music] who think that it was a cover up despite all the attempts that they’d made to try to make sure that it was seen as a neutral commission.

The final report was issued in 1979 in which they concluded [music] that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. >> That then feeds more conspiracy [music] theories further and further. >> But at the same time, they ruled out any involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, organized crime, or CIA, FBI, or the Secret Service.

However, they did not rule out the possibility that individual mob members or Cuban exiles could have been involved. >> It appears that with a probability of 95% or better, there was indeed a shot fired from the grass null. >> In my opinion, there are two significant schools of thought. One is that Oswald operated independently as the lone shooter, but he was surrounded by an environment in which the authorities were incompetent on a serial basis.

>> There was a lot of criticism of particularly the Secret Service after Kennedy’s assassination. I mean, the job is to protect the president and the the people who were in that car, right? And Kennedy died and Governor Connelly of Texas was was injured. The other is that some combination of the CIA, the FBI, the police force, the Secret Service, and the mafia were totally complicit in the assassination.

>> So on one hand, yeah, they failed at a a basic level, but I think it it played into the conspiracy theories. >> Probably never know. I’d put to you that even if a smoking gun came out tomorrow that said that it was James Jesus Angleton or Alan Dulles or Edward Lansdale on on on the on the grassy null and I’m not suggesting it was even if a smoking gun document came out that proved that tomorrow would anyone believe it? Precisely how many mistakes can be made before we start to question the defense of what we

could call plausible incompetence. Why was the bubble top not on the the car? Was the the route not checked? Why were the windows in the school book depository open? >> Taking Oswald off the stop or flashed listing by both the FBI and CIA just 6 weeks before the assassination. And all of this needs to be considered in the tangled web of crises involving the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the involvement of the Chicago outfit, [music] and the CIA involvement in sequential covert assassination plots through the executive action committee.

And the details of the assassination are simply straight out of the CIA’s executive action committee playbook. So, [music] you need to decide. And there’s inevitably an amount of judgment required here. But the key question is at what point does serial incompetence become a coordinated conspiracy? Who knows? Perhaps the declassification of the remaining batch of files will finally put the JFK mystery to rest.