Jfk Essay Topic Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

length: 2152 words 6.1 double spaced pages rating: red free conspiracy: the killing of a president in 1976, the us senate ordered a fresh inquiry into the assassination of president john f. Kennedy, who was murdered in 1963 during a motorcade in dallas, texas while campaigning for re election. People who had been involved in the original warren commission investigations were asked to make fresh statements. New lines of inquiry were opened and individuals who had not previously given evidence were persuaded to come forward. Most important of all, pieces of evidence such as photos and sound recordings were subjected to scientific analysis using the most up to date methods and equipment. The house select committee on assassinations hsca completed their investigation in 1979 and they finally came to a discrete verdict that lee harvey oswald fired three shots at kennedy, one of which killed the president. A fourth shot was fired from the grassy knoll, which was contradictory to the statement printed by the warren commission 16 years earlier.

The investigation was ordered directly after the assassinations of two other major political figures the civil rights leader dr. Naturally these incidents aroused immense suspicion and the american public started questioning why so many key us figures had been assassinated in the space of just four years, when previously this type of incident had been rare. The hcsa was interested in looking into the possibility that the assassinations were related.

All But Dissertation Transfer

At the time there was also an increasing awareness of corruption and scandal within the government. The watergate scandal in 1974 involving president nixon had clearly shown that american government was not entirely free of foul play. As a result of this, people started questioning the behavior of the government, and how much it was holding back from its people.

This is most likely why americans became more receptive and attracted to the idea of a conspiracy behind kennedy's death. The public became even more interested in the kennedy assassination after books such as rush to judgment, by mark lane and inquest, by edward jay epstein began to come off the press. They immediately became best sellers and played a large role in raising awareness regarding the assassination. As a result people started to inquire more and theories arose that other people or organizations had been involved in kennedy's assassination than had been previously thought. As people became more and more aware about the events surrounding the assassination, many blamed the dallas police as being incompetent in handling the whole investigation.

They had proven to be extremely unorganized in their efforts to document and investigate the presidents murder. The fact that interviews hadn't been recorded was one of the reasons why there was so much confusion during the trial, yet the only excuse the dallas police could come up with was that they couldn't find a tape recorder! the questions that were asked by the officers proved to be worthless and what little records were kept are said to be inadequate. Also more seriously, the dallas police were wildly believed to be at fault for oswald's death and the worldwide doubt about his guilt. Even though a previous attempt had been made to kill oswald, no further security precautions had been taken to prevent a second attempt. Considering that they were holding the alleged assassin of the president in custody, the security was appalling. At the hands of jack ruby, one bullet had proved sufficient enough to kill oswald. The fact that reporters were allowed to mingle around oswald as he was escorted out of court probably gave jack ruby the freedom to access oswald and so caused his death.

Oswald was murdered in front of news cameras, and video footage of the incident shows that the police hardly made any attempts to prevent the murder, but literally just stood there. Some believe that jack ruby killed oswald to silence him and the police were ordered to let it happen. However, no evidence has been found that might suggest who would give such an order. For many years the american public had to be content with the warren commissions verdict that lee harvey oswald had been the sole assassin in the murder of john f. However, after the report was published on september 24, 1964, fresh evidence continued to surface, as did inconsistencies with the findings of the warren commission. There was a general feeling that they had disregarded evidence if it contradicted their conclusion. They had been under immense pressure to reach a verdict and, had no doubt been influenced by public opinion.

12Th Mp Board Model Paper English Medium

Johnson received a memo saying the public must be satisfied that oswald was the assassin, and that he did not have confederates. By the 1970's, many americans were alarmed that the warren commission had been so single minded and did not make any attempt to investigate other possible theories and promising leads. It was also brought to light that none of the commission members had any investigative experiences and completely relied on hoover and the fbi for their evidence.

However, the commissions biggest mistake was in disregarding key eyewitnesses whose testimonies they considered to be incompatible, inconsistent, or were contrary to their lone psychotic assassin theory. Nobody on the commission heard any of the witness' testimonies as they appeared before the counsel. Credible testimonies from literally dozens of witnesses such as these were ignored. This indicated that their report was based on appallingly selective reading of evidence, and reflected the effort that was put into determining its accuracy. Supposedly such eyewitness testimonies remained inconclusive to the warren commission at the time, as they just didn't make sense. It was hoped at the time that they would reveal the angles at which the bullets had entered kennedy's body, hopefully pointing to where the gunman or gunmen were situated.