CIA Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory

{{Main|Assassination of John F. Kennedy}}

John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the killings of Kennedy and Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit but was murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days later.

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald killed Kennedy and Tippit, and that there was no evidence that Oswald was part of a conspiracy. However, the discrepancies between the official investigations and the extraordinary nature of the assassination have led to a variety of theories about how and why Kennedy was assassinated, as well as the possibility of a conspiracy. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed that Oswald killed Kennedy, but concluded that a second gunman probably also fired at Kennedy and that a conspiracy was probable.{{cite book |title=Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/ |year=1979 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |page=3 |chapter=Summary of Findings and Recommendations |chapter-url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html}}[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0048a.htm House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report], pp. 65–75. The committee's conclusion of a conspiracy was based almost entirely on the results of a forensic analysis of a police dictabelt recording, which was later disputed.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=377}}

In 1966, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison began an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. Garrison's investigation led him to conclude that a group of right-wing extremists were involved with elements of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.[http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html Jim Garrison Interview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191022181453/http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html |date=2019-10-22 }}, Playboy magazine, Eric Norden, October 1967.Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 12–13, 43, 176–178, 277, 293. {{ISBN|0-941781-02-X}} Garrison also came to believe that businessman Clay Shaw, head of the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, was part of the conspiracy.Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 85–86. {{ISBN|0-941781-02-X}} On March 1, 1967, Garrison arrested and charged Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.{{cite journal|last=Holland|first=Max|title=The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination|journal=Studies in Intelligence|year=2001|issue=Fall-Winter 2001; 11|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article02.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613111756/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article02.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 13, 2007|access-date=December 9, 2014|author-link=Max Holland|publisher=Central Intelligence Agency: Center for the Study of Intelligence|location=Washington, D.C.}}{{cite news |title=New Orleans Civic Leader Accused. Quizzed for Five Hour's About Conspiracy in Assassination |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 2, 1967 | first=Nicholas C | last=Chriss}}

Three days after Shaw's arrest, the Italian left-wing newspaper Paese Sera published an article alleging that Shaw was linked to the CIA through his involvement in the Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC), a subsidiary of the trade organization Permindex in which Shaw was a board member.{{cite book |author-link=Jim Marrs |last=Marrs |first=Jim |title=Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |date=1989 |pages=498–499 |isbn=0-88184-648-1}} According to Paese Sera, the CMC had been a front organization developed by the CIA for transferring funds to Italy for "illegal political-espionage activities." Paese Sera also reported that the CMC had attempted to depose French President Charles de Gaulle in the early 1960s. The newspaper printed other allegations about individuals it said were connected to Permindex, including Louis Bloomfield whom it described as "an American agent who now plays the role of a businessman from Canada [who] established secret ties in Rome with Deputies of the Christian Democrats and neo-Fascist parties."{{cite journal|last=Dorril|first=Steve|author-link=Stephen Dorril|title=PERMINDEX: The International Trade in Disinformation|journal=Lobster|year=1983|issue=2|url=http://www.8bitmode.com/rogerdog/lobster/lobster02.pdf|access-date=December 9, 2014}}Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 87–90. {{ISBN|0-941781-02-X}}

The allegations were reprinted in various newspapers associated with the Communist parties in Italy (l'Unità), France (L'Humanité), and the Soviet Union (Pravda), as well as leftist newspapers in Canada and Greece, prior to reaching the American press eight weeks later. American journalist Max Holland wrote that the KGB planted the original story in Paese Sera, citing archives released by Vasili Mitrokhin, thereby influencing both Garrison's subsequent accusations against the CIA and Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.{{cite web|author-link=Max Holland|last=Holland|first=Max|url=https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/03/how_moscow_unde_1.html|title=How Moscow Undermined the Warren Commission|work=Washington Decoded|date=March 30, 2007|accessdate=March 22, 2022}} Originally published in The Washington Post on [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/11/22/how-moscow-undermined-the-warren-commission/4e30c89b-40c4-4f31-8a0d-32d3a76c8af9/ November 22, 2003.] In 1969, Shaw was brought to trial on charges of conspiring to assassinate Kennedy, and the jury found him not guilty.

The CIA has rejected allegations of involvement and has sought to counter these allegations. A declassified CIA cable sent to CIA overseas stations and bases in 1967 encourages agents to not discuss the assassination unless such a discussion is already occurring. It further suggests agents should “discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts, especially politicians and editors” and “employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics”. It highlights book reviews and feature articles as one method and encourages claiming that “parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists”.{{cite news |title=Cable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/cable-sought-to-discredit-critics-of-warren-report.html |work=The New York Times |date=26 December 1977}}

Jim Garrison alleged that anti-Communist and anti-Castro extremists in the CIA plotted the assassination of Kennedy to maintain tension with the Soviet Union and Cuba, and to prevent a United States withdrawal from Vietnam.{{cite news |last=Lambert |first=Bruce |date=October 22, 1992 |title=Jim Garrison, 70, Theorist on Kennedy Death, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/22/obituaries/jim-garrison-70-theorist-on-kennedy-death-dies.html |newspaper=The New York Times |location=New York |access-date=December 9, 2014}}Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 12-13, 43, 176-178, 277, 293. {{ISBN|0-941781-02-X}} James Douglass wrote in JFK and the Unspeakable that the CIA, acting upon the orders of conspirators with the "military industrial complex", killed Kennedy and in the process set up Lee Harvey Oswald as a fall guy.{{cite news |last=Amidon |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Amidon |date=December 17, 2008 |title=The Unsolved Mystery |url=http://observer.com/2008/12/the-unsolved-mystery/ |newspaper=New York Observer |access-date=April 20, 2017}} Like Garrison, Douglass stated that Kennedy was killed because he was turning away from the Cold War and pursuing paths of nuclear disarmament, rapprochement with Fidel Castro, and withdrawal from the war in Vietnam.{{cite web|url=https://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11206&comments=1 |author=George M. Anderson |title=Unmasking the Truth |publisher=America Magazine |date=November 17, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110512005751/https://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11206&comments=1 |archive-date=May 12, 2011 }}

Mark Lane — author of Rush to Judgment and Plausible Denial and the attorney who defended Liberty Lobby against a defamation suit brought by former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt — has been described as a leading proponent of the theory that the CIA was responsible for the assassination of Kennedy.{{cite news |last=Payne |first=Karen |date=January 29, 1985 |title=Hunt says he was in D.C. that fatal day in Dallas |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19850129&id=AZMmAAAAIBAJ&pg=2892,3880591 |newspaper=The Miami News |location=Miami, Florida |page=6A |access-date=December 8, 2014 }}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite news |last1=Colloff |first1=Pamela |last2=Hall |first2=Michael |date=November 1998 |title=Plausible Deniability |url=http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/plausible-deniability |newspaper=Texas Monthly |access-date=December 14, 2014}} Others who believe the CIA was involved include authors Anthony Summers and John M. Newman.

In 1977, the FBI released 40,000 files pertaining to the assassination of Kennedy, including an April 3, 1967, memorandum from Deputy Director Cartha DeLoach to Associate Director Clyde Tolson that was written less than a month after President Johnson learned from J. Edgar Hoover about CIA plots to kill Fidel Castro.{{cite news |author= |title=LBJ Reportedly Suspected CIA Link in JFK's Death |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington, D.C. |date=December 13, 1977 |page=A10 }}{{cite news |last=Kantor |first=Seth |date=November 16, 1988 |title=Connally didn't believe Warren Commission verdict |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19881116&id=SXBPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6660,3698532 |newspaper=Times-News |volume=113 |issue=322 |location=Henderson, North Carolina |agency=Cox News Service |page=23 |access-date=January 3, 2015}} According to DeLoach, LBJ aide Marvin Watson "stated that the President had told him, in an off moment, that he was now convinced there was a plot in connection with the assassination [of President Kennedy]. Watson stated the President felt that [the] CIA had had something to do with this plot."[http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/J%20Disk/Johnson%20Lyndon%20Baines%20President/Item%2038.pdf DeLoach to Tolson], FBI document 62-1090060-5075, April 4, 1967, p. 3.{{cite book|first=Arthur |last=Schlesinger|author-link = Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.|title=Robert Kennedy and His Times|url=https://archive.org/details/robertkenn00schl |url-access=registration |publisher= Houghton Mifflin Harcour|date= 1978|page= [https://archive.org/details/robertkenn00schl/page/616 616]|isbn=0618219285}} When questioned in 1975, during the Church Committee hearings, DeLoach told Senator Richard Schweiker that he "felt [that Watson's statement was] sheer speculation."[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol6/html/ChurchV6_0096b.htm Testimony of Courtney Evans and Cartha DeLoach], Church Committee Reports, vol. 6, Federal Bureau of Investigation, p. 182.{{efn|1=According to Kathryn S. Olmsted in Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11: "For his part, Lyndon Johnson was convinced that the Castro plots had led to Kennedy's assassination. Before his death in 1973, he told many people — his friends, his publisher, and at least four reporters — that he believed that Castro had organized a successful conspiracy to kill Kennedy."{{cite book |last=Olmsted |first=Kathryn S. |year=2011 |chapter=The Dealey Plaza Irregulars: The JFK Assassination and the Collapse of Trust in the 1960s |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&pg=PA126 |title=Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC |page=126 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=9780199753956 |access-date=January 3, 2015}}}}

Gaeton Fonzi was hired as a researcher in 1975 by the Church Committee and by the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1977. At the HSCA, Fonzi focused on the anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, and the links that these groups had with the CIA and the Mafia. Fonzi obtained testimony from Cuban exile Antonio Veciana that Veciana had once witnessed his CIA contact, who Fonzi would later come to believe was David Atlee Phillips, conferring with Lee Harvey Oswald.{{cite book |author-link=Gaeton Fonzi |last=Fonzi |first=Gaeton |title=The Last Investigation |publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press |date=1993 |pages=126, 141–145}}Michael Carlson, The Independent, September 17, 2012, [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/gaeton-fonzi-journalist-who-investigated-the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy-8142920.html Gaeton Fonzi: Journalist who investigated the assassination of John F Kennedy][http://aarclibrary.org/antonio-veciana-admissions-and-revelations The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: Five Decades of Significant Disclosures], {{cite AV media | people=Antonio Veciana | date=September 26, 2014 | title=Antonio Veciana - Admissions and Revelations | medium=Conference | location=Bethesda Hyatt Regency, Bethesda, Maryland| publisher=Assassination Archives and Research Center}}[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/john-f-kennedy-assasination-cuba-cia-lee-harvey-oswald-antonio-veciana-a7957481.html JFK files: As Donald Trump looks to release classified documents, last living link to assassination drops bombshell], The Independent, 23 October 2017. Through his research, Fonzi became convinced that Phillips had played a key role in the assassination of President Kennedy.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=409}} Fonzi also concluded that, as part of the assassination plot, Phillips had actively worked to embellish Oswald's image as a communist sympathizer.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=292}} He further concluded that the presence of a possible Oswald impersonator in Mexico City, during the period that Oswald himself was in Mexico City, may have been orchestrated by Phillips{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=266, 284, 295}}[http://aarclibrary.org/antonio-veciana-admissions-and-revelations The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: Five Decades of Significant Disclosures]{{cite AV media | people=Antonio Veciana | date=September 26, 2014 | title=Antonio Veciana - Admissions and Revelations | medium=Conference | location=Bethesda Hyatt Regency, Bethesda, Maryland| publisher=Assassination Archives and Research Center}}

This evidence first surfaced in testimony given to the HSCA in 1978, and through the investigative work of independent journalist Anthony Summers in 1979.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=289}} Summers spoke with a man named Oscar Contreras, a law student at National University in Mexico City, who said that someone calling himself Lee Harvey Oswald struck up a conversation with him inside a university cafeteria, in the fall of 1963.{{cite book |author-link=Anthony Summers |last=Summers |first=Anthony |title=Not in Your Lifetime |location=New York |publisher=Marlowe & Company |date=1998 |pages=268–269 |isbn=1-56924-739-0}}{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=289-290}} The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had taken a bus trip from Houston to Mexico City and back during September–October 1963.Warren Commission Report, Appendix 13, pp. 732-735, [https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0378b.htm Mexico City]Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 11, pp. 214–215, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh11/html/WC_Vol11_0112b.htm Affidavit of John Bryan McFarland and Meryl McFarland]. Contreras described "Oswald" as "over thirty, light-haired and fairly short" — a description that did not fit the real Oswald{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=290}} To Fonzi, it seemed improbable that the real Oswald would at random start a conversation regarding his difficulties in obtaining a Cuban visa with Contreras, a man who belonged to a pro-Castro student group and had contacts in the Cuban embassy in Mexico City.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=290}}

Fonzi theorized that there was an Oswald impersonator in Mexico City, directed by Phillips, during the period that the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald himself had visited the city. Fonzi's belief was strengthened by statements from other witnesses. On September 27, 1963, and again a week later, a man identifying himself as Oswald visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. Consular Eusebio Azcue told Anthony Summers that the real Oswald "in no way resembled" the "Oswald" to whom he had spoken to at length.{{sfn|Summers|1998|pp=266, 440}}House Select Committee on Assassinations Hearings, Volume 3, pp. 136-139, [https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol3/html/HSCA_Vol3_0070b.htm Testimony of Eusebio Azcue Lopez]. Embassy employee Sylvia Duran also told Summers that the real Oswald she eventually saw on film "is not like the man I saw here in Mexico City."{{sfn|Summers|1998|pp=266-269}}

On October 1, the CIA recorded two tapped telephone calls to the Soviet embassy by a man identified as Oswald. The CIA transcriber noted that "Oswald" spoke in "broken Russian".[http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/pdf/LopezRpt_2003_4_Reconstruction.pdf AARC Library, Lopez Report], p. 136.{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=275}} The real Oswald was quite fluent in Russian.Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 9, p. 226, [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh9/html/WC_Vol9_0117b.htm Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt]. On October 10, 1963, the CIA issued a teletype to the FBI, the State Department and the Navy, regarding Oswald's visits to Mexico City. The teletype was accompanied by a photo of a man identified as Oswald who in fact looked nothing like him.[http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/pdf/LopezRpt_2003_4_Reconstruction.pdf AARC Library, Lopez Report], pp. 143-144.{{sfn|Summers|1998|pp=270-271}}

On November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination of President Kennedy, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's preliminary analysis of the assassination included the following:

The Central Intelligence Agency advised that on October 1st, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identifying himself as Lee Oswald contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.[https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/html/LopezRpt_0011a.htm Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City ("Lopez Report")], 1996 Release.{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=276}}

That same day, Hoover had this conversation with the new president, Lyndon Johnson:

{{quote|

JOHNSON: "Have you established any more about the [Oswald] visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico in September?"

HOOVER: "No, there's one angle that's very confusing for this reason. We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man at the Soviet Embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there was a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy."[https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0030a.htm Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, November 23, 1963], Declassified October 26, 1993.{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=276}}}}

Fonzi concluded it was unlikely that the CIA would legitimately not be able to produce a single photograph of the real Oswald as part of the documentation of his trip to Mexico City, given that Oswald had made five separate visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies (according to the Warren Commission) where the CIA maintained surveillance cameras.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=290-291}}Warren Commission Report, Appendix 13, pp. 734-735, [https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0379b.htm Mexico City]

{{Main|Three tramps}}

File:The Tree Tramps.jpg

The "three tramps" are three men photographed by several Dallas newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy. The men were detained and questioned briefly by the Dallas police. They have been the subject of various conspiracy theories, including some that allege the three men to be known CIA agents. Some of these allegations are listed below.

E. Howard Hunt is alleged by some to be the oldest of the tramps. Hunt was a CIA station chief in Mexico City and was involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Hunt later worked as one of President Richard Nixon's White House Plumbers.{{cite book |last=Bugliosi |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bugliosi |title=Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy |year=2007 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-04525-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/931 931] |url=https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/931 }} Others believe that the oldest tramp is Chauncey Holt. Holt claimed to have been a double agent for the CIA and the Mafia, and claimed that his assignment in Dallas was to provide fake Secret Service credentials to people in the vicinity.Video interview with Chauncey Holt by John Craig, Phillip Rogers, and Gary Shaw 10/19/91. Witness reports state that there were one or more unidentified men in the area claiming to be Secret Service agents. Both Dallas police officer Joe Smith and Army veteran Gordon Arnold have claimed to have met a man on or near the grassy knoll who showed them credentials identifying him as a Secret Service agent.{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=37}}

File:Frank Sturgis Three Tramps JFK.jpg Frank Sturgis is thought by some to be the tall tramp. Like E. Howard Hunt, Sturgis was involved both in the Bay of Pigs invasion and in the Watergate burglary. In 1959, Sturgis became involved with Marita Lorenz. Lorenz would later claim that Sturgis told her that he had participated in a JFK assassination plot.Lane, Mark. Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK? Thunder's Mouth Press 1992. {{ISBN|1-56025-048-8}}. In response to her allegations, Sturgis denied being involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.{{cite news|last=Meskil|first=Paul|title=Ex-Spy Says She Drove To Dallas With Oswald & Kennedy 'Assassin Squad'|url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/L%20Disk/Lorenz%20Marita/Item%2011.pdf|access-date=March 7, 2013|newspaper=New York Daily News|date=September 20, 1977|location=New York|page=5}} In an interview with Steve Dunleavy of the New York Post, Sturgis said that he believed communist agents had pressured Lorenz into making the accusations against him.{{cite news|last=Dunleavy|first=Steve|title=Sturgis' Exclusive Story; Marita Pressured By Reds|url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Sturgis%20Frank%20Fiorini/Item%2011.pdf|access-date=March 7, 2013|newspaper=New York Post|date=November 3, 1977|author-link=Steve Dunleavy|location=New York|pages=3, 14}}

File:DanCarswellDealeyPlazaThreeTramps.jpgThe House Select Committee on Assassinations had forensic anthropologists study the photographic evidence. The committee claimed that its analysis ruled out E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Dan Carswell, Fred Lee Chapman, and other suspects.{{cite web |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/tramps_hsca.htm |title=Three Tramps Photos Examined by Experts |publisher=Mcadams.posc.mu.edu |access-date=2010-09-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616073502/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/tramps_hsca.htm |archive-date=2012-06-16 |url-status=dead }} The Rockefeller Commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Frank Sturgis were in Dallas on the day of the assassination.{{cite web|url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt_sturgis.htm |title=Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins? |publisher=Mcadams.posc.mu.edu |access-date=2010-09-17}} Records released by the Dallas Police Department in 1989 identified the three men as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=933}}

Several conspiracy theorists have named former CIA agent and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt as a possible participant in the Kennedy assassination and some, as noted before, have alleged that Hunt is one of the three tramps. Hunt has taken various magazines to court over accusations with regard to the assassination. File:E. Howard Hunt & One of the Three Tramps Arrested after JFK Assassination.jpg

In 1975, Hunt testified before the United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States that he was in Washington, D.C., on the day of the assassination. This testimony was confirmed by Hunt's family and a home employee of the Hunts."Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins?" Knuth, M. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt_sturgis.htm.

In 1976, a magazine called The Spotlight ran an article accusing Hunt of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and of having a role in the assassination. Hunt won a libel judgment against the magazine in 1981, but this verdict was overturned on appeal. The magazine was found not liable when the case was retried in 1985. In 1985, Hunt was in court again in a libel suit against Liberty Lobby. During the trial, defense attorney Mark Lane was successful in creating doubt among the jury as to Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination through depositions from David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, G. Gordon Liddy, Stansfield Turner, and Marita Lorenz, as well as through his cross examination of Hunt.Lane, Mark, Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK? Thunder's Mouth Press 1992, pp. 258-284. {{ISBN|1-56025-048-8}}.

In August 2003, while in failing health, Hunt allegedly confessed to his son of his knowledge of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. However, Hunt's health improved and he went on to live four more years. Shortly before Hunt's death in 2007, he authored an autobiography which implicated Lyndon B. Johnson in the assassination, suggesting that Johnson had orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions as president.Hunt, E. Howard, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond, Wiley, 2007. {{ISBN|0-471-78982-8}} After Hunt's death, his sons, Saint John Hunt and David Hunt, stated that their father had recorded several claims about himself and others being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.{{cite magazine|last=Hedegaard |first=Erik |title=The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=April 5, 2007 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt/1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618150441/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt/1 |archive-date=June 18, 2008 }}{{cite news|last=Williams|first=Carol J.|title=Watergate plotter may have a last tale|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-mar-20-na-hunt20-story.html|access-date=December 30, 2012|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=March 20, 2007|location=Los Angeles}}

In the April 5, 2007, issue of Rolling Stone, Saint John Hunt detailed a number of individuals purported to be implicated by his father, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Cord Meyer, David Phillips, Frank Sturgis, David Morales, Antonio Veciana, William Harvey, and an assassin he termed "French gunman grassy knoll" who some presume was Lucien Sarti.{{cite book|last=McAdams|first=John|title=JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy|year=2011|publisher=Potomac Books|location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=9781597974899|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2OJeNytAOZkC|author-link=John C. McAdams|access-date=December 30, 2012|page=189|chapter=Too Much Evidence of Conspiracy}} The two sons alleged that their father cut the information from his memoirs to avoid possible perjury charges. According to Hunt's widow and other children, the two sons took advantage of Hunt's loss of lucidity by coaching and exploiting him for financial gain. The Los Angeles Times said they examined the materials offered by the sons to support the story and found them to be "inconclusive".

Some researchers—among them Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, Noel Twyman, and John Simkin—believe that CIA operative David Morales was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Morales' friend, Ruben Carbajal, claimed that in 1973 Morales opened up about his involvement with the Bay of Pigs Invasion operation, and stated that "Kennedy had been responsible for him having to watch all the men he recruited and trained get wiped out." Carbajal claimed that Morales said, "Well, we took care of that SOB, didn't we?"{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=383-390}}

Morales is alleged to have once told friends, "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch, and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard",{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=383-390}}{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/6169006.stm |work=BBC News | title=CIA role claim in Kennedy killing | date=November 21, 2006}} presumably referring to the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, and to the later assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 1968.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Bxt1a2N6E4gC&pg=PA438 Who Killed Bobby?: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy], O'Sullivan, Shane. (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2008) {{ISBN|1-4027-5444-2}} Morales is alleged to have expressed deep anger toward the Kennedys for what he saw as their betrayal during the Bay of Pigs Invasion.{{cite news |title=Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy? |newspaper=The Guardian |date=2006-11-20 |url= https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,,1952379,00.html |last=O'Sullivan |first=Shane |access-date=2006-11-21}}

File:Frank Sturgis (various).jpg

In an article published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel on December 4, 1963, James Buchanan, a former reporter for the Sun-Sentinel, claimed that Frank Sturgis had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Miami, Florida, shortly before Kennedy's assassination. Buchanan claimed that Oswald had tried to infiltrate the International Anti-Communist Brigade. When he was questioned by the FBI about this story, Sturgis claimed that Buchanan had misquoted him regarding his comments about Oswald.

According to a memo sent by L. Patrick Gray, acting FBI Director, to H. R. Haldeman on June 19, 1972, "[s]ources in Miami say he [Sturgis] is now associated with organized crime activities".[https://archive.org/stream/louispatrickgray00unit/louispatrickgray00unit_djvu.txt, Louis Patrick Gray: Confirmation Hearings], Ninety-Third Congress, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate. In his book, Assassination of JFK, published in 1977, Bernard Fensterwald claims that Sturgis was heavily involved with the Mafia, particularly with Santo Trafficante's and Meyer Lansky's activities in Florida.

After returning from the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald became friends with Dallas resident and petroleum geologist George de Mohrenschildt. Mohrenschildt would later write an extensive memoir in which he discussed his friendship with Oswald.{{cite web|url=http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol12/pdf/HSCA_Vol12_deMohren.pdf |title=HSCA Volume XII: George de Mohrenschildt - Appendix |access-date=2014-05-19}}{{cite web|url=https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2013-5.html|title=Lee Harvey Oswald as I Knew Him |access-date=2014-05-19}} Mohrenschildt's wife would later give the House Select Committee on Assassinations a photograph that showed Oswald in his Dallas backyard, holding two Marxist newspapers and a Carcano rifle, with a pistol on his hip. Thirteen years after the JFK assassination, in September 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate Mohrenschildt, in response to a letter Mohrenschildt had written to his friend, CIA Director George H. W. Bush, appealing to Bush to stop the agency from taking action against him.CIA MFR Raymond M. Reardon SAG 9.20.76.{{cite book|last=Baker|first=Russ|author-link=Russ Baker|title=Family of Secrets|url=https://archive.org/details/familyofsecretsb0000bake|url-access=registration|year=2009|publisher=Bloomsbury Press|location=New York|isbn=978-1-59691-557-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/familyofsecretsb0000bake/page/268 268]}}CIA Message Reference Number 915341.

Several Warren Commission critics, including Jesse Ventura, have alleged that Mohrenschildt was one of Oswald's CIA handlers but have offered little evidence. Jim Garrison referred to Mohrenschildt as one of Oswald's unwitting "baby-sitters ... assigned to protect or otherwise see to the general welfare of Oswald".Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 55-56. {{ISBN|0-941781-02-X}} On March 29, 1977, Mohrenschildt stated during an interview with author Edward Jay Epstein that he had been asked by CIA operative J. Walton Moore to meet with Oswald, something Mohrenschildt had also told the Warren Commission thirteen years earlier.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 235, [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh9/html/WC_Vol9_0122a.htm Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt] When interviewed in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore said that while he "had 'periodic' contact with Mohrenschildt", he had no recollection of any conversation with him concerning Oswald.{{cite web|url=https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol12/html/HSCA_Vol12_0029b.htm|title=History Matters Archive—HSCA Appendix to Hearings—Volume 12, pg 54}}{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=156}}{{cite book|last1=Bugliosi|first1=Vincent|last2=Haines|first2=Fred|title=Final Verdict: The True Account of the Murder of John F. Kennedy|year=1998|publisher=Norton|location=New York|isbn=0393045250|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl}}

Mohrenschildt told Epstein that he would not have contacted Oswald had he not been asked to do so.Epstein, Edward Jay. The Assassination Chronicles: Inquest, Counterplot, and Legend (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), p. 559. {{ISBN|978-0-88184-909-7}} (Mohrenschildt met with Oswald several times, from the summer of 1962 to April 1963.)Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 224, [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh9/html/WC_Vol9_0116b.htm Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt][http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh9/html/WC_Vol9_0161b.htm Testimony of Jeanne de Mohrenschildt], Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 9, p. 314.{{sfn|Summers|1998|p=172}} The same day that Mohrenschildt was interviewed by Epstein, Mohrenschildt was informed by his daughter that a representative of the House Select Committee on Assassinations had stopped by and left his calling card, intending to return that evening. Mohrenschildt then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head shortly thereafter.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|pp=189-192}}{{sfn|Summers|1998|pp=368-369}} Mohrenschildt's wife later told sheriff's office investigators that her husband had been hospitalized for depression and paranoia in late 1976 and had tried to kill himself four times that year.[http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/death2.txt Palm Beach Sheriff's Office, Death investigation of George de Mohrenschildt].

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald killed Kennedy and Tippit and that Oswald acted alone,{{cite web|title= Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Chapter 1: Summary and Conclusions|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1.html#conclusions|date=August 15, 2016}} and that "there is no evidence that [Oswald] was involved in any conspiracy directed to the assassination of the President."{{cite web|title= Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Chapter 7: Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives|date=15 August 2016|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html}} The Commission came to this conclusion after examining Oswald's Marxist and pro-Communist background, including his defection to Russia, the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee he had organized, and the various public and private statements made by him espousing Marxism.

Some conspiracy theorists have argued that Oswald's pro-Communist behavior may have been a carefully planned ruse — a part of an effort by U.S. intelligence agencies to infiltrate left-wing organizations in the United States and to conduct counterintelligence operations. Others have speculated that Oswald was an agent or informant of the U.S. government, and was manipulated by his U.S. intelligence handlers to incriminate himself while being set up as a scapegoat.{{cite book |last1=Broderick |first1=James F.|last2=Miller |first2=Darren W. |title=Web of Conspiracy: A Guide to Conspiracy Theory Sites on the Internet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hOLDnJM91bkC |year=2008 |publisher=Information Today, Inc./CyberAge Books |location=Medford, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-910965-81-1 |pages=206–207 |chapter=Chapter 16: The JFK Assassination}}{{sfn|Marrs|1989|pp=189–196, 226–235}}Douglass, James. JFK and the Unspeakable, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), pp. 222-223, 226-228, 332-337. {{ISBN|978-1-4391-9388-4}}{{cite news | url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Magazines%20And%20Articles/Newsweek%2004-28-75/Item%2001.pdf | title=Dallas: New Questions and Answers | date=April 28, 1975 | access-date=January 3, 2013 | author=Peter Goldman | author2=John J. Lindsay | newspaper=Newsweek | location=New York | page=37}}

Sean Murphy theorised that a man who was filmed by Dave Wiegman, Jr., of NBC, and James Darnell of WBAP-TV, standing on the Depository front steps during the assassination, dubbed the "prayer man", was Oswald.Dane, Stan. Prayer Man: The Exoneration of Lee Harvey Oswald (Martian Publishing, 2015), p. 322. {{ISBN|1944205012}}

Some researchers have suggested that Oswald was an active agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, pointing to the fact that Oswald attempted to defect to Russia but was nonetheless able to return without difficulty (even receiving a repatriation loan from the State DepartmentThe Warren Report, Appendix 8, p. 712, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0368b.htm Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald][http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JA/DR/.dr19.html Investigation of Assassination of President John F. Kennedy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813044440/http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JA/DR/.dr19.html |date=2012-08-13 }}, Federal Bureau of Investigation) as evidence of such. Oswald's mother, Marguerite, often insisted that her son was recruited by an agency of the U.S. Government and sent to Russia.[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0342b.htm Speculations and Rumors: Oswald and U.S. Government Agencies], Warren Commission Report, Appendix XII, p. 660. New Orleans District Attorney, and later judge, Jim Garrison, who in 1967 brought Clay Shaw to trial for the assassination of President Kennedy also held the opinion that Oswald was most likely a CIA agent who had been drawn into the plot to be used as a scapegoat, even going as far as to say that Oswald "genuinely was probably a hero".Turner, Nigel. The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Part 4, "The Patsy", 1991.

Senator Richard Schweiker, a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence remarked that "everywhere you look with [Oswald], there're fingerprints of intelligence".The Village Voice, December 15, 1975. Schweiker also told author David Talbot that Oswald "was the product of a fake defector program run by the CIA."{{cite book|last=Talbot|first=David|title=Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years|year=2007|publisher=Free Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0743269186|page=[https://archive.org/details/brothershiddenhi00talb/page/381 381]|url=https://archive.org/details/brothershiddenhi00talb/page/381}} Richard Sprague, interim staff director and chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, stated that if he "had to do it over again", he would have investigated the Kennedy assassination by probing Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.{{sfn|Fonzi|1993|p=195}}

In 1978, James Wilcott, a former CIA finance officer, testified before the HSCA{{efn|see {{cite web |url=http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/pdf/Wilcott_3-22-78.pdf |date=March 22, 1978 |work=HSCA hearings |title=Testimony of James B. Wilcott, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency}}}} that shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy he was advised by fellow employees at a CIA post abroad that Oswald was a CIA agent who had received financial disbursements under an assigned cryptonym.{{sfn|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section C|1979|pp=198-200}} Wilcott was unable to identify the specific case officer who had initially informed him of Oswald's agency relationship, nor was he able to recall the name of the cryptonym, but he named several employees of the post abroad with whom he believed he had subsequently discussed the allegations.{{sfn|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section C|1979|pp=198-200}} Later that year Wilcott and his wife, Elsie, also a former employee of the CIA, repeated those claims in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle."Couple Talks about Oswald and the CIA", interview of James and Elsie Wilcott, former husband and wife employees of the Tokyo CIA Station, San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 1978. The HSCA investigated Wilcott's claims- including interviews with the chief and deputy chief of station, as well as officers in finance, registry, the Soviet Branch and counterintelligence - and concluded in their 1979 report they were "not worthy of belief".{{sfn|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section C|1979|pp=198-200}}

Despite its official policy of neither confirming nor denying the status of agents, both the CIA itself and many officers working in the region at the time (including David Atlee Phillips) have "unofficially" dismissed the plausibility of any CIA ties to Oswald. Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations supported that assessment in his conclusions as well.{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/interviews/blakey.html|title=PBS Frontline "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?—Interview: G. Robert Blakey—2003 Addendum"|work=Frontline}} The House Select Committee on Assassinations found no evidence of any relationship between Oswald and the CIA.{{sfn|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section C|1979|p=225}}

Some conspiracy theorists have alleged a plot involving elements of the Mafia, the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans, including author Anthony SummersInvestigative Reports, cable TV program, interview by Bill Curtis, September 1991. and journalist Ruben Castaneda. They cite U.S. government documents which show that, beginning in 1960, these groups had worked together in assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.[http://www.udel.edu/leipzig/texts2/cnn03077.htm CIA offered money to Mafia]. Retrieved December 3, 2006.{{Cite web|url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/24/fidel-castro-cia-mafia-plot-216977|title=Inside the CIA's Plot to Kill Fidel Castro—With Mafia Help|last=Maier|first=Thomas|website=Politico Magazine|language=en|date=February 24, 2018}}[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/familyjewels/20070626_ciaandmob.pdf Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: Roselli, Johnny], November 19, 1970. Ruben Castaneda wrote: "Based on the evidence, it is likely that JFK was killed by a coalition of anti-Castro Cubans, the Mob, and elements of the CIA."Castaneda, Ruben, "Nixon, Watergate, and the JFK Assassination", Baltimore Post-Examiner, July 2, 2012. In his book, They Killed Our President, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura also concluded: "John F. Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy involving disgruntled CIA agents, anti-Castro Cubans, and members of the Mafia, all of whom were extremely angry at what they viewed as Kennedy's appeasement policies toward Communist Cuba and the Soviet Union."Ventura, Jessie. They Killed Our President, (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), xii. {{ISBN|1626361398}}

Jack Van Lanningham, a prison cellmate of Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, claimed that Marcello confessed to him in 1985 to having organized Kennedy's assassination. Lanningham also claimed that the FBI covered up the taped confession which he said the FBI had in its possession.{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2438955.htm |title=A Legacy of Secrecy: The Assassination of JFK – RN Book Show – 9 December 2008 |publisher=Abc.net.au |date=2008-12-09 |access-date=2010-09-17}} Robert Blakey, who was chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded in his book, The Plot to Kill the President, that Marcello was likely part of a Mafia conspiracy behind the assassination, and that the Mafia had the means, motive, and opportunity required to carry it out.Blakey, Robert (1981). The Plot to Kill the President. New York: Times Books. {{ISBN|0812909291}}[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/biographies/oswald/interview-g-robert-blakey/ PBS Frontline "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald"], Interview: G. Robert Blakey, November 19, 2013.

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