R. Emmett Tyrrell: Why the Prevalence of JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories?

WASHINGTON — I am engaged in reading a very fine book by my colleague, Paul Kengor. You can still read it six years after its publication. You still have time.

It is also known as “A Pope and a President.” It includes the lives of John Paul 2 and Ronald Reagan. I only just finished reading the section on the assassination and murder of President John Kennedy. This will be my third time reading about JFK’s assassination. I didn’t learn much more than I had in previous accounts. Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assailant that killed JFK. Another president was also shot by a single assailant. Pope John Paul and Ronald Reagan, in fact, were assassinated by one man and survived. JFK’s assassination is unique for some reason. This event sparked a multitude of conspiracy theories that have attracted millions of people worldwide.

Why does JFK’s death inspire so many conspiracy theorists Even Abraham Lincoln was not as controversial as Kennedy. He had one assailant. His death inspired only a handful conspiracy theories. As I recall, all of these conspiracy theories were quite farfetched. JFK was assassinated 60 years ago. Documents relating the tragedy are still being published. Last month, more Kennedy documents were released by the government, which will undoubtedly lead to more conspiracy theories.

My conclusion is that JFK’s murder inspired conspiracy theorists due to the failure of the Warren Commission, and the general incompetence of liberals across the country. Liberals dominated both the Commission and the news coverage. Chief Justice Earl Warren and James Reston, The New York Times columnist, have always been suspicious about Americans living in the South or the Midwest. These East Coast popinjays were further alarmist by the fact that the event was held in Dallas. They feared that once red-blooded Americans focused on Lee Harvey Oswald’s links with the Soviet Union they would not be able to stop these ruffians from heading towards war against Russia. Even the Russians were afraid of it. It created a lot of confusion for people like Warren, Reston, and, of course the Russians.

Kengor in the book “A Pope and a President,” It is claimed that “With a more-than-receptive audience on the American left, the Soviets wasted no time doing what they did best: concocting disinformation. If the American left was looking for conservative culprits in the Kennedy killing, the Kremlin was more than willing to conjure them up.” Kengor quotes Oleg Kalugin from the KGB years later. The long list is filled with lies about the assassination, which ends with Kalugin saying “In the end, our campaign succeeded.”

But the American left was also a factor in the confusion. Earl Warren, eventual eponym for the Warren Report, blamed Kennedy’s killing on the very same afternoon as the assassination. “the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots.” Don’t forget Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield, who attended the funeral of President Obama and attributed the shooting to “bigotry, hatred and prejudice.” The media played an important role in this confusion. The New York Times page one featured Reston’s wailing. “violent streak” And “strain of madness” America is being plagued, and he put it at the feet “the extremists on the right.” He did not mention Oswald as a communist in any of his columns.

The Soviets and American liberals ultimately achieved the same goal. They wanted to confuse the American public. Neither the Soviets nor American liberals wanted the American public to know the real nature of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a communist. Both stand with Kalugin in declaring, “In the end, our campaign succeeded.”

Ukraine: Glory!

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., founder and editor in chief at The American Spectator, is also the author. He is a Senior Fellow of the London Center for Policy Research, and most recently the author of “The Death of Liberalism,” Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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