Responsible For The Assassination Lee Harvey Oswald example essay topic

A nation was shocked on November 22 1963, by the assassination of their President John F. Kennedy. History books tell us that Kennedy was shot by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, but for over thirty years there have been claims of conspiracies and hints of a possible government cover-up. Oliver Stone is one of the proponents of this theory. As the amount of evidence has grown rapidly over time, it is becoming apparent that the lone assassin "fairy tale" is falling apart and most of its supporters have fallen silent.

The Warren Commission's Report, is a summary of events related to the assassination of Kennedy, came to the conclusion that "a single lone assassin was responsible for the assassination - Lee Harvey Oswald - he fired only three shots in 5.6 seconds... first bullet missed... second was the 'Magic Bullet' it caused seven wounds... and the final bullet strikes Kennedy in the head... ". . The Warren Commission noted witnesses who saw shots coming from the sixth floor in the Texas Book Depository Store. Witnesses said the bullets looked like "firecrackers" coming from the window. James Jarman, Jr., Bonnie Ray Williams, and Harold Norman were three employees from the building, and decided to watch the parade during the lunch hour from the fifth-floor windows.

As the shots were fired, they claimed they could hear something that sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle. Jarman explained, "I really did not pay any attention to the first shot" and "The second shot, it sounded like it was right in the building, the second and third shot. And it even shook the building, the side we were on. Cement fell on my head". Eyewitnesses testified that they saw a man fire a weapon from the sixth-floor window. Howard L. Brennan, watched the parade from a concrete retaining wall, where he had a clear view of the south side of the Depository Building.

Brennan's presence was seen on the video of the motorcade taken by photographer Abraham Zap ruder. While waiting about seven minutes for the President to arrive, he observed the crowd on the street and the people at the windows of the Depository Building. He noticed a man at the south-east corner window of the sixth floor, and observed him leave the window "a couple of times". He also told: "Well, then something, just right after this explosion, made me think that it was a firecracker being thrown from the Texas Book Store. And I glanced up. And this man that I saw previously was aiming for his last shot.

Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he hit his mark, and then he disappeared". This gives great evidence to the Warren's report of the lone gunman. Many people believed this theory as for the evidence and there was no other conclusion to be made at the time. Americans also wanted to believe that it was a lone gunman and not their government who killed their President.

Arguments to oppose the Warren Commission are the other theories propounded by many people who looked into the assassination. Oliver Stone is a historian and a director. His theory is that the Government of the United States of America planned and carried out a conspiracy to kill President John F Kennedy and that Oswald was not the assassin. There are many people who can also back up this and much evidence to support this theory. Oliver Stone's film -JFK- is one of the most controversial and most debated films of all time.

JFK mocks the doubtful truth of the Warren Commission's findings on the Kennedy assassination and summarises some of the endless theories that have been proposed instead. Investigated by district attorney Jim Garrison, he focuses on the activities of the FBI and other government agencies as well as their attempted cover-ups. Stone demonstrates many conspiracies that took place with the evidence for the assassination of Kennedy. Many topics were debated about his film, as it mixed facts with opinion, making it difficult for people to tell the difference. This also crosses paths with Jim Garrison's theory. Garrison is a district attorney, who investigated the Governments acts and cover-ups.

He went into great depth of research and now he has his own beliefs and theories. Jim Garrison believes that what happened to Kennedy was a "coup d'etat". He believes that it was planned long in advance by anticommunists in the United States intelligence community, and was carried out by individuals in the C.I. A, and other government groups such as the F.B.I., the Secret Service, Dallas police, and the military. Garrison concludes in his book "On the trial of the Assassins": that they did this to stop Kennedy from following a connection with the Soviet Union and Cuba and also ending the Cold War. Kennedy was most demanding for equal rights for blacks and this became the major domestic issue during the Kennedy administration. Kennedy asked the Congress to pass legislation requiring hotels, motels, and restaurants to admit customers regardless of race.

Just who did the organisation of the assassination is unknown. However, Guy Banister was involved in questioning. Representatives of his organisation were the ones who tried to impersonate Lee Harvey Oswald and tried to buy ten pick-up trucks for the Bay of Pigs invasion in January 1961. Banister was working for the C.I.A. at a time where he tried to make Oswald appear communist.

He provided him with a room in the Newman Building and met him from time to time. This evidence shows that Oswald was not actually included. Another significant impersonation of Lee Harvey Oswald occurred in Mexico City in October 1963 when Oswald apparently contacted the Soviet Embassy and Cuba to arrange a trip to the Soviet Union. The reason for this to stand out is that all the documentation was provided by the C.I.A., including a photograph of a man holding a gun which was obviously not Oswald, and tapes of phone calls that were not of Oswald's voice. It seems that Oswald was manipulated by the C.I.A. for a long time before the assassination and that he was probably working for the government. This brings in the suspicion of the involvement of the C.I.A. Also Kennedy refused to bomb or invade Cuba, even though a number of his military and intelligence advisers urged him to do.

This decision deeply disturbed the C.I.A. Additional indications are about the Praetorian Guard, the secret police of the intelligence community. It has the capability of dismissing the protection leader to leave at a crucial moment. Thus brings the casual removal of President Kennedy in less than six seconds, and leaving Lyndon Johnson as the new President. There are many major clues for this. One is that there was a warning of an attempt to assassinate Kennedy sent to every F.B.I. across the country and was ignored. The protection roof for the President's car had been left off by the Secret Service.

The windows and doors of the buildings along the parade route had not been secured. The parade route was changed at the last minute so it would have to slow down to make a sharp turn making it easier to shoot at. Also the removal of the President's protection guard made him vulnerable to gun shots coming from the grassy knoll in front of him, and at least two locations behind him. This suggests that the Government was behind the assassination and Oswald was not involved.

Garrison quotes, "I am quite sure that Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire at anyone on November 22, 1963. His difficult record in the Marines, unaggressive personality, poor quality shooting, and lack of evidence all confirm that he killed no one, and that he was merely as he claimed, 'a patsy'". All of this tells Jim Garrison's beliefs of the Government's reports and how Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been a part of the assassination of Kennedy... An additional theory that brought much disbelief to Americans was the Single Bullet theory. The theory says that a bullet, struck Kennedy in the back, struck his neck without leaving any metal fragments, exited his neck, hit Governor John Connally near his right armpit, tore through his chest, smashing rib bone, exited through his chest, struck his right wrist and shattered a tough bone in the wrist, exited the wrist, and then stuck itself halfway into Connally's left thigh.

Yet, amazingly, after supposedly doing all this damage, the bullet emerged with its lands and grooves intact, with no damage whatsoever. The only damage to the bullet is at its base, where there is disinformation that is not even visible unless viewed from certain angles. It is no wonder critics have dubbed this bullet the "magic bullet". Arlen Specter, a staff attorney for the Warren Commission, formulated the theory, namely, to avoid having to conclude that more than one shooter was involved in the assassination. Consequently, this gives evidence for and against the theory of Lee Harvey Oswald being a lone assassin and how the American people were brainwashed with disinformation by the Government. There are, however, arguments and theories that are yet to be resolved and the answer to who and why the person killed a man of such inspiration to the American people is forever unknown.