There is a moment in my novel, The Secret History, when one of the characters says to the other: “I once worked with a guy who was Agency back in the day. Those people knew what…it’s all about. They killed a…president, for Chrissake.” And that’s the subject of today’s Newsletter: Was the CIA really involved in the assassination of President Kennedy? The Warren Commission, which issued its report in 1964, famously concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating JFK. But the Commission’s work was so incomplete and riddled with blank spaces that it’s given rise to many conspiracy theories. In particular, many of these revolve around the Central Intelligence Agency and its alleged connections to, among others, the Mafia, right-wing extremists and embittered Cuban exiles. The Warren Commission Report had, at first, seemed to resolve the matter of whether there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. But then in 1966 Jim Garrison, the district attorney in New Orleans, began an investigation of the assassination and concluded that certain (rogue?) elements of the CIA allied with right-wing extremists and anti-Castro Cuban exiles were responsible. Garrison’s reasoning was that the assassination was carried out in order to maintain tensions with the Soviet Union and Cuba and to prevent any withdrawal from Vietnam. The next year he ordered the arrest of local businessman Clay Shaw and charged him with being part of the conspiracy, resulting in a great deal of coverage and speculation in the media. In 1969 Shaw was finally tried. A jury found him not guilty. But that didn’t stop the speculation and the formulation of new conspiracy theories. (Perhaps you recall Oliver Stone’s 1991 move JFK.) There’s the Three Tramps reportedly seen and photographed under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired the fatal shots. There’s E. Howard Hunt’s alleged death-bed confession that he was in on the conspiracy. (Hunt also allegedly was one of the Three Tramps.) There’s Oswald’s own comment that he had nothing to do with the assassination and was “a patsy." (He was later shot by Jack Ruby, allegedly at the behest of the Mafia.) And speaking of Oswald, there’s the notion that a body-double (but not a very good one) was planted in Mexico City and seen going into the Soviet embassy. And, of course, there’s the idea that Lyndon Johnson, the vice-president who became president, was involved. A number of writers have examined the issue and come down on the side of conspiracy (and, of course, there are a number of writers who have disavowed any conspiracy.) But for my money, the best of the books is a novel by Don DeLillo, Libra. In it, a group of anti-Castro former and current CIA agents concoct a conspiracy. But their idea, which goes wrong, is to stage an assassination of JFK…and miss, thus drawing attention to the Cuba situation and JFK’s role in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Read it and see what you think. Speaking of which, what do you think of the notion that the CIA was somehow involved? (Personally, I have a hard time believing that Oswald was the only shooter, or that he was even involved. The Magic Bullet, anyone?)
