60 Years of John F Kennedy's Assassination
"60 Years of John F Kennedy's Assassination", recalls how dark events were at that time. When the first shots were fired at the motorcade passing through Dallas on November 22, 1963, U.S. President John F Kennedy grabbed him by the throat.
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| Secret Service agent Clint Hill rides on the back of the presidential limousine moments after President John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963. (Photo: Justin Newman/AP) |
Seconds later, his head swayed backward as he received the fatal shot.
As it turns out, Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F Kennedy, did not act alone
Kennedy's shocking assassination was captured on an 8mm color film by amateur filmmaker Abraham Zapruder.
Once filmed from a prime position on the motorcade route, Zapruder's graphic footage of Kennedy receiving two separate shots adorns endless books, documentaries, and movies about his assassination.
The footage also amused some with the idea that the suspected killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine, did not act alone.
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The Warren Commission, the body that investigated the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's death, determined that Oswald fired three shots from the nearby Texas School Book Depository and the second and third shots hit Kennedy in the neck and head.
Now, 60 years since that world-shaking day, many continue to question the origins of the gunfire that defined history.
For example, the upcoming film "Assassination," directed by Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino, John Travolta, Viggo Mortensen, Shia LaBeouf, and Courtney Love, will explore theories of Chicago's mass ties to the Kennedy assassination.
Written by two-time Oscar nominee and Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, "Assassination" tells the story of how Chicago mobster Sam Giancana ordered the assassination of President John F Kennedy for trying to bring down organized crime after a mob helped bring down JFK at the White House.
Perhaps the most famous theory was explored in Oliver Stone's 1994 film, "JFK."
Kevin Costner stars as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who discovers that there was more to Kennedy's assassination than the Warren Commission concluded.
Garrison and his team theorize Oswald was a CIA agent and framed for the assassination.
Oswald spent his time in the Soviet Union, causing many to speculate about Moscow's influence.
Several books speculated about Cuban influence, and Kennedy wanted to remove Fidel Castro, a communist revolutionary, from power.
"The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ" is a book written by Roger Stone, an associate of Donald Trump, which states that Kennedy's successors had worked with the US mafia and intelligence to assassinate the president.
Many of these speculative books and movies have been released on or near the important anniversary of Kennedy's death, including Stone's book, published 50 years after the assassination in 2013.
The last witness spoke after decades of silence.
In September of this year, The New York Times investigated the story of Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents who was just feet away from Kennedy when he was shot.
Landis' statement, included in his forthcoming memoir, challenged the Warren Commission's "single-bullet theory" that one of the three bullets pierced Kennedy's neck before hitting Texas Governor John B. Connally while sitting in the front seat, injuring his back, chest, wrists, and thighs.
Landis was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, a surprising fact given his proximity to the event.
The 88-year-old has remained tight-lipped on the issue for 60 years. Hitherto.
He wrote in his book, "The Final Witness," released last month, that he did not want to promote conspiracy theories related to Kennedy's death.
However, if he refutes the claim that a single bullet can cause so much damage, it means Oswald was not the only shooter.