Days after the government released thousands of pages related to the investigation of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a surprising number of Americans still believe that he was the victim of a conspiracy, according to a new Rasmussen survey released Monday.
At a time when the nation has just seen a former Donald Trump campaign manager indicted, there is growing concern over North Korea and Hollywood seems to be falling apart at the seams with an avalanche of bad news about sexual harassment, the public still wonders about that fateful day in Dallas on Nov. 22.
According to Rasmussen, a poll taken Oct. 26 and 29 revealed that while 43 percent of American adults “accept the government’s conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman,” 33 percent think his slaying was a conspiracy. Twenty-four percent aren’t sure one way or the other.
However, among Americans age 65 and older who were alive at the time JFK was killed in Dallas, 40 percent think he was a conspiracy victim.
The Kennedy family has been the subject of films and documentaries almost to the point of Hollywood obsession.
Next month, America will observe the 54th anniversary of the assassination that ended what the adoring press regarded as “Camelot.” It marked the beginning of what some now see as a media obsession with gun control. Five years later, following the slaying of JFK’s brother, Robert during his presidential campaign and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed. Since that time, Democrats have come to be known as “The party of gun control.” Some might suggest it’s because guns were the weapon of choice in killing their president and their presidential hopeful.
This raises an interesting question, however. If JFK ran today as a Democrat, would he get his party’s nomination? The man was something of a war hero, he brought the country closer to nuclear war with the Cuba embargo than the Trump administration has so far done with North Korea and – possibly the most damning problem of all – he was a Life Member of the National Rifle Association.
Lee Harvey Oswald, former U.S. Marine who turned to communism, is blamed for the assassination though he was never put on trial, and the murder of Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippet. Two days after Kennedy was slain, Oswald was gunned down on live television as Texas lawmen were transferring him to the county jail. The conspiracy theories were born.
What really happened? The ultimate answer may be lost to history, and speculation more than a half-century later is still alive and well.
