The purpose of this research is to discuss and support the theory of conspiracy, which must have existed in order to success-fully assassinate President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
There are people in the United States who believe that there was not a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Yet, those who do not believe in the conspiracy theory are clearly in a minority. As early as 1966, Gallup and Harris polls showed that 66 percent of the American people did not believe in the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin. Another poll, taken in 1975, found that four out of five Americans did not accept the Warren Commission's version of the assassination (Blumenthal and Yazijian, 1976, p.ix).
Counter arguments for those who choose to disbelieve in the conspiracy theory are flimsy indeed. Three counter arguments may be presented. These are the following: (1) the integrity of the Warren Commission, the FBI, the CIA, the American media, and the very foundations of American society cannot be questioned; (2) the questionable behavior of some of the Warren Commission critics such as Mark Lane and Jim Garrison; and (3) the evidence cited by the Warren Commission in placing Lee Harvey Oswald and his rifle in the Texas School Book Depository. Let us examine these counter arguments briefly.
First, recent events have cast considerable doubt upon integrity in government. The Watergate scandal and all its ramifications has shown that the assumption of integrity in high government officials or the respected agencies of government is at times implausible. "The revelations of Watergate and Chile and the disclosures of CIA, FBI, and IRS involvement in massive secret domestic espionage operations against organized dissent have (led) to an understanding of the conspiratorial actions" (Blumenthal and Yazijian, 1976, p. 254).
Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, c...