John Fitzgerald Kennedy was President of the United States for less than three years, yet in that time he had a major impact on the country and on foreign and domestic policy lasting for a decade or more. Some of his actions produced effects that were beneficial, and others can be seen now as less effective, notably his enmeshing the country in the Vietnam War. Kennedy's presidency began in a spirit of glamour and change and ended in the assassination of an American president. The country shifted from a period of hope to a period of tension, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and a growing distrust of government. In some degree, none of these things was new, but the Cold War era increased world tensions and made Americans less trustful both of other nations and of other Americans. The era of conspiracy theories really begins with the Kennedy assassination, an event so terrible and damaging to the country that many had to believe there was something more to the assassination than the action of one disaffected man. The idea of conspiracies all around us has become a staple in popular fiction, film, and television as well as emerging in news reports of actual events.
Conspiracy theories have actually been a staple throughout the modern period, as Julian Swann notes:
For the general public, Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder plot, the 'Man in the Iron Mask' and the Devils of Loudun offer some of the most compelling images of the early modern period. The cloak and dagger world of plots and conspiracies can, however, appear to be dangerous terrain for historians, fearful of being associated with those obsessively pondering the fate of John F. Kennedy, or the fantasy world of the X Files. Yet conspiracies, real or imagined, were an essential feature of early modern life, offering a seemingly rational and convincing explanation for patterns of political and social behavior (Swann 5).
Clive Foss points out that we should remember th...