Do you know where the term “conspiracy theory” comes from? It was a term concocted by the CIA in the mid-60s to ward off those who were beginning to raise questions about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A murder that is suddenly back in the news.

Kennedy’s body wasn’t even cold before the verdict was set in concrete: A Marxist loner named Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing JFK. Our newly sworn-in president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, formed the Warren Commission, and tasked it with convincing America and the world that Oswald did it and did it alone. At first its efforts worked. According to History.com, before the Warren Report was issued, only 29% of Americans thought Oswald had acted alone. Afterwards, that figure jumped to 87%.

But then people began looking closer at the report. New evidence emerged that had been hidden from the American people. And that original instinct that something stunk in Camelot reasserted itself, even as the CIA sought to paint Americans who questioned it as “conspiracy theorists.”

Why would the CIA feel the need to besmirch those curious about the killing of their president?

Today, according to Statista, 43% believe Oswald did not act alone. Only 20% believe he did. Count me among those who consider the official story unbelievable.

If The Odd Little Boy Thought It Peculiar …

When most kids my age were reading Tom Sawyer or Robinson Caruso, I was reading the Warren Commission report. Images from the Zapruder film had been released and a few books questioning the official story had come out.

I remember three things about the Warren Report — even at that young age — that screamed, “This can’t be right.”

1. “The Magic Bullet” — For Oswald to have been a lone assassin he would have had to have fired 3 shots in six seconds with the third shot being the most deadly. Most crucially, the first shot would have had to have hit both JFK and Texas Gov. John Connolly. This never made sense, since Connolly clearly was reacting to JFK’s being hit in the neck before he himself was hit. Plus Connolly, who survived, was himself convinced he was hit by a second shot. If Connolly was hit by a separate bullet, then there were at least two gunmen in Dealy Plaza.
2. The Drawings Were Wrong — The drawings in the Warren Commission report of wounds and body positions simply did not match the photos that had become available. They made the drawings fit the narrative, not the evidence.
3. The Killing of Oswald by Mob Guy Jack Ruby — Two days after the assassination and while in police custody, Oswald was shot and killed by a mob-connected business owner named Jack Ruby. According to the Warren Commission, Ruby shot Oswald because he wanted to spare Jackie Kennedy the burden of a trial. I remember thinking, “That is a stupid reason to kill somebody.” A couple years later, I learned about the Mafia and mob hits, and all became clear. Oswald was deliberately taken out. Silenced.

If I could smell a rat at 10 years old, it’s no wonder so few Americans are buying the official story now. Even as we still tend to accept the language of that official story. Take the phrase “JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.”

Oswald did not confess to the murder. In fact, he insisted he was a “patsy.” A guy who had never been shy about his political views commits a political assassination and doesn’t tell the world why or leave behind a manifesto? Just a shouted, “I’m a patsy!” His statements to police and the FBI were not recorded. He was never tried and convicted in a court of law by a jury of his peers.

Lee Harvey Oswald is, at best, the accused assassin of John F. Kennedy.

But even conceding his involvement, did Oswald act at the behest of others?

The CIA Was In on It? Tucker Source Says ‘Yes’

Here’s where we return to the CIA … and why we’re talking about the assassination again. The CIA had a massive file on Oswald going back three years before the murder. They did not share that full file with the Warren Commission. What’s more, 60 years later the CIA is still refusing to release all its files … despite what was required in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. We were supposed to have it all by 2017.

Last week, the National Archives did release about 12,000 remaining documents. Some heavily and ridiculously redacted or unreadable. Thousands are still locked away. Why?

On Thursday night, Tucker Carlson made a startling claim. Tucker said he spoke with someone who has intimate knowledge of the files still being held. He asked a simple question: “Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy?” The answer was direct. “The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK’s nephew, called Tucker’s report “the most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”

Why would the CIA want to kill its own president? Whole books have been written. Heck, Oliver Stone did a remarkable, game-changing movie about it, JFK.

The general idea is that the CIA (and military brass) loathed Kennedy. He had double-crossed the CIA by backing off support of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He was also “going soft” on the Soviet Union and was against getting more deeply involved in Vietnam. Oh, and he also had vowed to shatter the CIA into a million pieces.

And let’s be blunt. It’s not like the CIA wasn’t already in the business of knocking off leaders that were in its way. Or at least trying, as in the case of Fidel Castro.

Was Lyndon Johnson Involved?

Vice President Lyndon Johnson also hated Kennedy. He was also much more hawkish. And oh, was Johnson brutally ambitious. Oliver Stone puts LBJ at the top of the scheme to kill Kennedy, though he did so subtly, visually, in the film’s editing. LBJ’s long-time mistress claimed LBJ told her the night before the assassination that the Kennedys wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. Now, maybe you’re thinking, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” but then there’s this shocking pronouncement by longtime GOP operative Roger Stone over the weekend.

Roger Stone worked for Richard Nixon. He also wrote a 2013 book called The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.” He told Human Events he was inspired to look into the case after a conversation with former President Richard Nixon. Stone says he asked Nixon, “point blank, who killed John F. Kennedy?” Nixon hesitated, then told Stone, “Let me put it this way; Lyndon and I both wanted to be president. The difference was I wasn’t willing to kill for it.”

We Need to Know

By law, we need to know everything the CIA knows about the killing of JFK.

By right, we must know — as painful as it might be — whether we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Or have we been, since November 1963, a government of a secret select few who decides who wins and who loses?

The new reports of possible CIA involvement in the killing of JFK come in the middle of revelations that the intelligence community and FBI actively worked to remove Donald Trump from office. This time they did not use bullets. This time they used Big Tech and the media.

This time, we’re the patsies.

… Unless we keep pressing for answers. No matter how often we’re called “conspiracy theorists.”

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, chief barista for The Brew and co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl at GETTR, Gab, Parler, and now at TRUTH Social.