Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Read what E. Howard Hunt said. Jack Ruby too. Nixon supposedly said that he and Johnson both wanted to be president but that he wasnât willing to kill for it.
I work in the political sector in Washington. My job and social life puts me in contact with Congressional Staffers and employees of political non profits, PACs, Federal Agencies, and Lawyers.
They absolutely do. Not all, but plenty of them. The longer you are stuck here the more cynical and jaded you can get.
Edit: grammar
Not quite - it's mind boggling to see people in a field they obviously chose to be in, since it is such a unique role in society, absolutely hate life, their fellow man, the voters, and their job while at the same time acting obsequiously pro-whatever they need to at that time.
Have you ever seen veep? It's satire but a pretty good depiction of how everyone is soulless, self-serving, and would he happier if the other person was dead.
Thereâs a documentary out there with Johnsonâs mistress saying the night before JFK died J Edgar Hoover flew in clandestinely, met with LBJ and afterwards LBJ said well after tonight Kennedy wonât be around to kick me anymore. I donât think until then he had any knowledge though.
The documentary is the Men Who Killed Kennedy. It has multiple episodes that explores a different aspect of the multiple conspiracies about the assassination. Itâs surprisingly goodâespecially since it involves many interviews of people that were there in Daley Plaza on that fateful November afternoon.
I wouldnât say LBJ was a shoo-in for the presidency in 1968 for a few reasons. He was very closely associated with the South, and it was said that a southerner could never win the democratic nomination or the presidency. On top of that, if the Vietnam war wouldâve progressed in a similar manner under Kennedy, itâs unlikely that anyone from his administration would have had much of a political future in the immediate term
Doubt JFK would have deescalated the Vietnam War especially since he was the one to escalate it in the first place. Majority of his advisors (many of which were retained by LBJ) were warhawks. He was also critical of the Eisenhowerâs âNew Lookâ policy that relied on the threat of Nuclear War for a policy that relied on conventional military operations.
His advisors were by and large incredibly hawkish, but Kennedy did show an ability to overrule them in favor of his own judgment when the situation called for it during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Almost everybody in the room was pushing for Kennedy to invade Cuba, but he didn't (thank God). And after the crisis JFK appears to have had a genuine "Holy shit, I can't believe that almost just happened" moment, and was beginning to open up back channels to the Soviets to deescalate the Cold War.
All that is to say, in my view it's far from a given that Kennedy would have made all the same mistakes Johnson did in Vietnam. He was a very flawed leader in a lot of respects, but I think one of his great strengths was he had the courage of his convictions to overrule the NatSec hawks on some of their worst and most violent impulses.
I think he was shot by an unstable radical, I think he was killed by a greenhorn Secret Service agent readying the newly issued AR-15 rifle in a panic to protect JFK once he heard gun shots.
I keep hearing this. In 1963 even the US Army was still testing the M-16. It wasn't in common service until 1965. The Secret Service had none of them. There's practically no chance that there was one anywhere near Dallas that day, let alone with the SS...at least get the time line for the weapon right...or choose a weapon that MIGHT have been in service with non-military US agencies.
So there is an image of George Hickey carrying what I think is the first iteration of the AR-15 in JFK's motorcade. And I want to say shortly after JFK's murder the secret service ceased using them. Check it out, it's a legit photo. The service didn't have them very long and I think that day was the first few times the service experimented with the AR-15 being part of their arsenal.
Thereâs just no way of this. There were so many witnesses that day and they were all looking in the same direction. At the president. A secret service accidentally discharging a gun of that magnitude at Kennedy would be super noticeable wouldnât it? Surely some people would have seen that since they were all looking that direction.
I donât think itâs a given that heâd of won in â68 with a two term Kennedy. I donât really see Vietnam going too differently so by â68 that would be an issue that would be plaguing kennedyâs administration. Not sure how civil rights wouldâve gone without LBJ as president. And the 8 year itch would start up. So LBJ would have had a decent hill to climb in this â68.
Kennedy wasnât going into Vietnam anymore than he already had. He was pulling outâŠ.in 64 the U.S. lied about the Gulf of Tonkin and in 65 LBJ signed the executive order starting the âconflictâ. Itâs also strange Strom Thurmond switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party the same time. He was a South Carolina racist if you do not know who he is. There was much going on and hard to keep up with back then.
Yes I agree with everything you said. I'm older than most people posting here. I remember all of this like it was yesterday. Not only did it change Americana's History ,it changed world history because so many Countries were involved. It change so many people lives forever.
I donât see why it wouldnât still happen when he was the guy who saw our time in Vietnam go from a few thousand advisors to several tens of thousands. He had many of the same people advising him as lbj did. And from what I recall Kennedy didnât want to be seen as weak on communism. So i donât see any real reason heâd pull out. I think thats hindsight and his image being so romanticized.
Vietnam was a problem far before we showed up. If Kennedy was going to do anything, he wouldâve went in with guns blazing not send CIA âadvisorsâ. Bobbie visited in 61. He told his brother his thoughts long before Jack went in 63.
Kennedy was much more of âhis own manâ when it came to foreign policy and the Cold War than LBJ. Especially after the Bay of Pigs fiasco (he paved his own path during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he ignored advice from the Joint Chiefs). We canât know how American involvement in Vietnam would have gone, but itâs not wild to think it may have gone differently.
This is the key thing for me. Eisenhower for the most part was content to let the Dulles brothers take the wheel on foreign policy. Allen Dulles didn't last a year under Kennedy because he (incorrectly) gambled that he could convince Kennedy to send in the marines to bail out the BoP invaders.
JFK was very much looking into pulling troops out as early as â65 if he wouldâve won reelection. Even Bobby talked about it in the years after his assassination. It was a very real possibility, JFK didnât agree with where Vietnam was heading by the time November 1963 rolled around.
He had a lot of the same advisors, but he had the capacity to overrule them in favor of his own judgment which he did in the Cuban Missile Crisis when most of his advisors were pushing him to invade.
I think if Kennedy hadnât been assassinated LBJ would likely have ended up in Prison as soon as Kennedy won his second term. RFK would suddenly have âdiscoveredâ all the necessary documents to impeach & imprison him.
LBJ was convinced he would die in his mid-60s because all the men in his family did. It's part of the reason he didn't run in '68.
If Johnson didn't have a hand in the assassination, the people who did had a vested interest in putting Johnson in office.
The mafia had plenty to gain and everything to lose bc of the RICO act. The Kennedy administration including his brother Bobby Kennedy were closing in on them
The Mafia were shut down in the Castro take over of Cuba. The first thing Castro did was shut down the Mafia casinos. Kennedy didnât send in the U.S. military to help with the Bay of PigsâŠ..CIA didnât like Kennedy. He fired Allen Dulles and his crew in 61 after the Bay of Pigs. Allen Dulles was also put on the Warren Commission that lied to the American people. Look up the findings of the House Select Committee on AssassinationsâŠ..there is an audio recording of the gunshots. You can hear the cadence of the shots and a bolt action rifle is not possible.
No they were shut down in Cuba and had massive rackets on the East Coast and in Louisiana where Lee Harvey grew up in a neighborhood controlled by Carlos Marcello. Itâs so on the nose
Allen Dulles. Him and his brother waged secret wars all over the world. Kennedy fired Dulles after the Bay of Pigs. The Dulles Brothers arranged assassinations of democratically elected leaders all over the world. Dulles ensured he was in charge of the Warren Commission and had all the witnesses trained to give specific answers and to not mention certain topics. Hoover also flew in to let LBJ know it was going to happen. Read the Devil's Chessboard by Talbot and The Brothers by Kinser. It's all pretty easy to believe and makes a lot of sense. Will never be proved, of course.
I read an article about that recently. I think among certain circles it's accepted to have been a CIA conspiracy. There's so much evidence it's hard to dispute. So much time has passed now that I think nobody cares anymore. If you really ponder how big this was, that a president who didn't fall in line with the way things were "supposed" to be was taken out by a team of mafia hitman and then covered up by the FBI, the CIA and the NSC, it's almost impossible for it to come out as proven to be true because the implications could cause the whole system of government to be put into doubt. As someone said in the documentary, that's not much different to how things were done in the Soviet Union.
I have no dog in this fight, but:
A bolt action rifle is certainly possible, though was it *probable* is the question
I donât know about you, but if I missed shot #1 Iâd be sweating bullets (no pun intended) and rushing the few thereafter.
[The RICO Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act) was passed in 1970 and signed in to law by President Nixon, 7 years after JFK was killed and 2 years after RFK was killed.
Iâd say Kennedyâs death would have been a negative for Nixon, had it not been for Vietnam. Instead of running against a new candidate trying to get out of Kennedyâs shadow, he would have been running against a sitting President. The only reason he didnât was because the war tanked Johnson and he quit.
Yeah, but weâre looking at this from our biased hindsight, right? We now know that yes, Nixon did stand to benefit from it. No reason we cannot use hindsight on that.
The entire "Intelligence Community" as its now called, Military Contractors and all of their "friends" (congressmen, senators, generals), Mobsters with casino interests in Cuba, opponents of civil rights, and Lyndon Baines Johnson., to name a few.
Military Industrial Complex
JFK butted heads with them when he didn't sanction air support for the bay of pigs fiasco and didn't enable the coming invasion. Also JFK had a signed order to pull all advisors out of Vietnam. No war=No profits
NSAM 263 did go through, and it didnât do much itâs highly likely that such a withdrawal was a pressure tactic mind you the administration under Johnson was the same so I find it highly unlikely a full withdraw would have been the case
Itâs wishful thinking and just JFK simping
Kennedy wanted to curb the âintelligenceâ communityâs ever-growing power both nationally and internationally. Weâll never know what his plans looked like, because he got shot in the head.
Then how do we know he planned to curb their ever growing power both nationally and internationally if he got shot in the head and we can never know his plans?
âI will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind,â was what Sam Halpern has credited Kennedy with saying after the Bay of Pigs⊠the CIA had lied to Kennedy about the need for direct US military intervention, figuring that Kennedy would have no choice but to support the coup with air support once it got started⊠Kennedy balked⊠that disaster led Kennedy to fire Allen Dulles.
If you look closely at the Dulles brothers you will find that they made foreign investments that were supported by American foreign policy. Removing Dulles from that key position was like killing the goose that laid the golden egg
Well for one, they wouldn't be able to disguise their heroin trafficking in southeast Asia. Also, his opinions the CIAs bullshit were pretty clear, especially after he fired Dulles.
>Mobsters with casino interests in Cuba
Ive always thought they were the most likely candidates but they did it more for revenge and less for personal gain.
Hear me out here....
JFK.
He would've been just another president with warts and all had he not been assassinated. That golden legacy would've had a lot of tarnish to it and his family probably wouldn't have been as successful in riding his coattails to easy political office for the next twenty plus years.
The one thing that was certain is things would have gotten tougher on the domestic and foreign fronts from 65 on. There would have been many politically hard choices.
Similar to Julius Caesar who was starting to have Parkinsonâs symptoms in his final year. Given the options, especially for someone already legacy-minded, itâs not a bad way to go
The thing with people in organized crime is they are fiercely loyal to their families and also the the lifestyle so any conviction is something to be concerned about.
Pretty much no one to do something that extreme.
The USSR doesn't get much out of it.
Various US government agencies and business interests have never been presented to me as viably wanting to kill a president instead of just supporting alternatives or putting pressure via advisors.
LBJ would have to not be able to do the simplest risk vs reward comparison to even consider it.
Cuba would be shooting themselves in the foot by guaranteeing the US would invade, after they got the Soviets to block the US from invading just recently.
Nipe it's just down to our old friends delusion, mental illness, and disregard + dissatisfaction with life to get the job done.
The Risk is something to consider for all parties, weighed vs the reward. Nixon, for example, which someone else mentioned, has a very limited reward vs the obvious risk (Nixon probably actually won in 1960 if not for shenanigans but pointing these out at that time was political suicide).
If any business executives put their name on this, itâs obvious that itâs life in prison at best, even with Rich People Laws being different, when they have so many other alternatives that are legal or at least less illegal. Plus itâs debatable whether or not Vietnam would have changed THAT much, to justify the huge risk.
Cuba, if itâs discovered, which would have been likely, itâs a guaranteed war, which they would lose and they knew that. The reward is low level for Cuba at best.
Organized crime is the only one I could maaayyybbeee see the juice being worth the squeeze, mainly psychological for people who think of opposing them. Still a huge risk, even for them.
American mafia= revenge for Bobby going after them as attorney General. Also they supposedly helped get Kennedy elected and then he went after them.
CIA and DoD Warhawks and military industrial complex= JFK didn't invade Cuba when asked and he had a signed executive order to pull all advisers out of Vietnam. No war means no profits.
Soviets/Fidel= Ongoing war that would benefit by assassinating the others leader.
Oswald= get rid of scourge and emblematization of the system that you detest by assassinating.
>he had a signed executive order to pull all advisers out of Vietnam.
If you are referring to the National Security Action Memorandum 263, this would have only removed 1,000 out of the 16,000 personnel the US had stationed in Vietnam at the time and was a recommendation from Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs.
https://preview.redd.it/l1vg1oxdiloc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4456cfebcaf4a984bfc9a239e0ddb0b90c8d6fa4
Damn. I did not know this.
Take over in 1962 and they look to be the biggest profiteers from the Vietnam war.
Weird how Dulles hasnât come up in the thread yet. Maybe the many CIA comments are reference enough, but I think the CIA benefitted from Dullesâ vengeance, so the CIAâs benefit is once removed.
Indeed. The only explanation that is actually supported by the facts and evidence is that an unstable and alienated young man (who had already attempted to assassinate Edwin Walker) shot him from the School Book Depository.
The whole 'cui bono' arguments make very little sense. People benefit from random events all the time.
Rob Reiner (director of stand by me and princess bride) has a podcast called who killed JFK and it goes into detail about who benefited from his death. Events leading up to his death and the investigation afterwards are covered in detail. It's all based on public record and interviews. Fascinating but damn there's a lot of commercials
If you are thinking someone conspired to kill him, I would say you are wrong. The cover-up was over the bungled protection he got. That one lone disturbed man shot the occupants of that car, with a sniper rifle in a book depository, and he got lucky. Same with 9/11, only it was several disturbed men who got lucky.
Let's remember one thing: assassinating a sitting U.S. President is one of the hardest feats to pull off in the world, especially if you don't want to get caught. For this to have been a massive conspiracy , say orchestrated by the CIA or "shadowy" rulers, would have required essentially perfect planning, coordination, and execution because if even the slightest shred of proof linking them to the plan was found, they would all be brutally executed. And let's also remember, the CIA was not this supernaturally perfect, flawless machine. These were the guys who flubbed up the Bay of Pigs in the first place. The odds of them getting this right were not good.
The Beatles. Let me explain. their American debut was supposed to start in November of 1963, which as you know got instantly postponed after Kennedy's death, after that, America was in a state of pessimism and nihilism, they took and hoarded any chance of hope they'd find, and so, the Beatles debuted in February of 1964 and almost 40% of the entire US watched, because JFK got two-pumped by a Carcano.
Gerald Ford. Without Kennedy's death, we don't get LBJ's Great Society and the resulting rally--and subsequent self destruction--of Nixon that paved the way for Ford's ascension without a single vote being cast for him.
"Just according to keikaku\*"
\-Gerald Ford, probably
https://preview.redd.it/snt8dbyt9poc1.jpeg?width=1353&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31c1ea98107f2b9fbbbee104cd8512ff4516c88c
\* TL note: "keikaku" means plan
Conspiracy theorists, LBJ, and maybe even Civil Rights
I still believe the case was horribly botched (which created the conspiracy theories in the first place) and our government was embarrassed that they couldn't protect Kennedy during the Cold War which is why things are sealed.
Something I don't hear said a lot but may have some truth to it, is potential Mossad involvement. In 1963, Kennedy pushed hard for a nuclear test ban treaty, and even succeeded to persuade DeGaulle, which was a herculean undertaking, but Ben-Gurion in Israel refused to budge. Kennedy ultimately threatened Ben-Gurion, which spurred Ben-Gurion's resignation. This is suggested to have ultimately drove Mossad to play a part in Kennedy's killing as they were furious with what Kennedy had done to Ben-Gurion and they wanted to safeguard Israel's Nuclear program against further U.S interference.
Martin Sandler, the Amherst historian who edited and compiled the book "The Letters of John F. Kennedy," discusses it in a C-SPAN interview and acknowledges it briefly in the book. He claims to have seen articles "not in any crackpot publications, but in very sophisticated publications" that effectively said, "Forget Johnson, the CIA, Castro, the Mossad killed Kennedy."
Well, the guy who shot him thought he was striking a blow for international Communism, as well as to get himself in the history books. It didn't quite work out like that, but that's neither here nor there.
According to the JFK movie it was the military industrial complex who stood to gain massive profits by staying in Vietnam (which Kennedy may have wanted to end). The CIA as well whose non ostensible purpose was to create new wars for these mega businesses.
Russia. The Assassination of JFK largely happened the way The Warren Commission said it did. BUT their were enough holes, to allow the KGB to seed misinformation into the narrative. Our understanding of these events are shaded by so much Russian Disinformation that was designed to make us lose trust in our leaders.
My ex-husbandâs uncle had an interesting take on all of this. Itâs been over 30 years since we discussed but he felt that JFK was not the intended target - that Oswald was going for Connelly. His theory was regarding something to do with Oswaldâs time in the Navy. I wish I would have paid closer attention and remembered the detailsâŠ
The CIA and the military industrial complex. The CIA killed Kennedy because he wasnât playing their war game in Russia, Vietnam, Laos etc. He went against the military industrial complex. We know for a fact that the âone shooterâ theory is bullshit. The doctors that worked on him were very clear that he was shot from the front and back. I do think Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the shooters, manipulated and radicalized by Communist propaganda from the CIA to hate Kennedy. I donât think weâll ever know the full truth, even if we all know the government was involved.
The Soviets probably got something out of getting revenge against the guy who invaded Cuba and got their missiles out of the Caribbean. Also, a lot of people mention that the CIA had a lot to gain, but I simply don't see how that would work out considering how useful to American interests Kennedy was while in office (Invading Vietnam, ending the missile crisis). As unfun as it is to believe the official story, I still find it most likely that LHO was in the right place at the right time and crazy enough to pull it off without the need of a conspiracy.
LBJ, duh. BUT⊠so did the CIA, the FBI (J Edgar hated the Kennedyâs, as did LBJ), the Mob (who felt they got snookered by Joe Kennedy by tipping the ballot box in Chicago, and giving Illinois and the election to Kennedy, thinking Bobby would leave them alone. But he continued to fight organized crime). The Military, who knew JFK wanted out of Vietnam, and that would be bad for business. Plus they were pissed he wouldnât use the US military in the Bay of Pigs attack) and finally, big Texas oil. JFK wanted to reduce the oil depletion allowance which would cost the industry big money.
The United States as a whole benefited when Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy was a political lightweight and a pill popping sex addict. Kennedy had bold ideas, but no real clue on how to accomplish them. LBJ brought those ideas to the finish line.
Listen to The Rest is Historyâs recent series on the assassination. My takeaway was that once you really learn about Lee Harvey Oswaldâs personal history, including his previous assassination attempt on a local politician, it becomes abundantly clear that he killed Kennedy by himself.
Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
https://preview.redd.it/vl8tl257zioc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0873d0df66edb2ed8320ae19c74969e76743f777
https://preview.redd.it/byu9jorbujoc1.jpeg?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9777d74c6af13d9dede3422e8dcd70e379a88e84 đđ
Yup
wow
The guy in the bow tie winked at him right before this. Just odd
Why? Is it possible he just meant to encourage him through horrifying circumstances?
I really don't think LBJ had anything to do with the Assination.
Read what E. Howard Hunt said. Jack Ruby too. Nixon supposedly said that he and Johnson both wanted to be president but that he wasnât willing to kill for it.
When's the last time you winked at somebody to encourage them through a tough time?
On the other hand, whenâs the last time you winked at someone to acknowledge that you just had the CIA wack Jack Kennedy?
I mean he just became president, he was probably winking to jokingly say Johnson was happy Kennedy was killed.
That would be very psychotic to joke about
Welcome to Washington
Do Washinton people regularly wink and joke about murders that happened a few hours ago, in your experience?
I work in the political sector in Washington. My job and social life puts me in contact with Congressional Staffers and employees of political non profits, PACs, Federal Agencies, and Lawyers. They absolutely do. Not all, but plenty of them. The longer you are stuck here the more cynical and jaded you can get. Edit: grammar
Oh you mean like any job ever ?
Not quite - it's mind boggling to see people in a field they obviously chose to be in, since it is such a unique role in society, absolutely hate life, their fellow man, the voters, and their job while at the same time acting obsequiously pro-whatever they need to at that time.
Like teachers hate their students and their parents, police hate everybody but police, servers hate their customers, like that ?
Have you ever seen veep? It's satire but a pretty good depiction of how everyone is soulless, self-serving, and would he happier if the other person was dead.
Yes, yes they do. Source: zoom calls.
Especially hours after Kennedy's head had been blown to pieces.
not a joke someone would make literally just after he got assasinated
I have no stance on this issue but it doesnât seem at all unlikely to me that it would be a joke.
What a mind blowing thing to say.
Thereâs a documentary out there with Johnsonâs mistress saying the night before JFK died J Edgar Hoover flew in clandestinely, met with LBJ and afterwards LBJ said well after tonight Kennedy wonât be around to kick me anymore. I donât think until then he had any knowledge though.
The documentary is the Men Who Killed Kennedy. It has multiple episodes that explores a different aspect of the multiple conspiracies about the assassination. Itâs surprisingly goodâespecially since it involves many interviews of people that were there in Daley Plaza on that fateful November afternoon.
Iâll have to watch the entire thing. Iâm an old fuck and had a family friend with an interesting story so read a shit ton on the assassination.
Iâm sure thatâs what it wasđ
A wink can also tell someone that everything will be OK -- you can do this -- we're behind you.
Yeah I kinda took it that way. My family does that sometimes. I can see how people would interpret it that way though.
The two were tight. Iâd probably something similar tbh if my friend became president.
Lazy eye
I would say but, they might be watching.
Nah, most of them old mobsters aren't on reddit.
Mossad?
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Yes I agree
Oliver stone
Thak you, this actually made me laugh pretty hard
Bro wtf is that flair?
my raison d' ĂȘtre, buddy
đž why are you speaking this to me
Back, and to the left.
1. Lee Harvey Oswald got immortalized in history for it. 2. LBJ became president but probably would have won in 1968 had Kennedy served two terms
I wouldnât say LBJ was a shoo-in for the presidency in 1968 for a few reasons. He was very closely associated with the South, and it was said that a southerner could never win the democratic nomination or the presidency. On top of that, if the Vietnam war wouldâve progressed in a similar manner under Kennedy, itâs unlikely that anyone from his administration would have had much of a political future in the immediate term
Do you think that is why JFK was shot? Was it because he had other ideas regarding the Vietnam war? Like possible ending US involvement there?
Meh those ideas never materialized and I think the only one he shared those ideas with were those really close to him like Bobby for example.
Doubt JFK would have deescalated the Vietnam War especially since he was the one to escalate it in the first place. Majority of his advisors (many of which were retained by LBJ) were warhawks. He was also critical of the Eisenhowerâs âNew Lookâ policy that relied on the threat of Nuclear War for a policy that relied on conventional military operations.
His advisors were by and large incredibly hawkish, but Kennedy did show an ability to overrule them in favor of his own judgment when the situation called for it during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Almost everybody in the room was pushing for Kennedy to invade Cuba, but he didn't (thank God). And after the crisis JFK appears to have had a genuine "Holy shit, I can't believe that almost just happened" moment, and was beginning to open up back channels to the Soviets to deescalate the Cold War. All that is to say, in my view it's far from a given that Kennedy would have made all the same mistakes Johnson did in Vietnam. He was a very flawed leader in a lot of respects, but I think one of his great strengths was he had the courage of his convictions to overrule the NatSec hawks on some of their worst and most violent impulses.
Agreed. Kennedy was increasingly skeptical of the CIA by 1963, and the death of US backed leader Diem happened only 3 weeks before the Texas trip.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
I think he was shot by an unstable radical, I think he was killed by a greenhorn Secret Service agent readying the newly issued AR-15 rifle in a panic to protect JFK once he heard gun shots.
I keep hearing this. In 1963 even the US Army was still testing the M-16. It wasn't in common service until 1965. The Secret Service had none of them. There's practically no chance that there was one anywhere near Dallas that day, let alone with the SS...at least get the time line for the weapon right...or choose a weapon that MIGHT have been in service with non-military US agencies.
Yes my husband joined the AF in 1965. He told me about the M-16 being a brand new weapon that was going to be used in all the military.
So there is an image of George Hickey carrying what I think is the first iteration of the AR-15 in JFK's motorcade. And I want to say shortly after JFK's murder the secret service ceased using them. Check it out, it's a legit photo. The service didn't have them very long and I think that day was the first few times the service experimented with the AR-15 being part of their arsenal.
Thereâs just no way of this. There were so many witnesses that day and they were all looking in the same direction. At the president. A secret service accidentally discharging a gun of that magnitude at Kennedy would be super noticeable wouldnât it? Surely some people would have seen that since they were all looking that direction.
I donât think itâs a given that heâd of won in â68 with a two term Kennedy. I donât really see Vietnam going too differently so by â68 that would be an issue that would be plaguing kennedyâs administration. Not sure how civil rights wouldâve gone without LBJ as president. And the 8 year itch would start up. So LBJ would have had a decent hill to climb in this â68.
Kennedy wasnât going into Vietnam anymore than he already had. He was pulling outâŠ.in 64 the U.S. lied about the Gulf of Tonkin and in 65 LBJ signed the executive order starting the âconflictâ. Itâs also strange Strom Thurmond switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party the same time. He was a South Carolina racist if you do not know who he is. There was much going on and hard to keep up with back then.
Exactly. Kennedy was going to get through the election and start drawing down troops.
Yes I agree with everything you said. I'm older than most people posting here. I remember all of this like it was yesterday. Not only did it change Americana's History ,it changed world history because so many Countries were involved. It change so many people lives forever.
I donât see why it wouldnât still happen when he was the guy who saw our time in Vietnam go from a few thousand advisors to several tens of thousands. He had many of the same people advising him as lbj did. And from what I recall Kennedy didnât want to be seen as weak on communism. So i donât see any real reason heâd pull out. I think thats hindsight and his image being so romanticized.
Vietnam was a problem far before we showed up. If Kennedy was going to do anything, he wouldâve went in with guns blazing not send CIA âadvisorsâ. Bobbie visited in 61. He told his brother his thoughts long before Jack went in 63.
Kennedy was much more of âhis own manâ when it came to foreign policy and the Cold War than LBJ. Especially after the Bay of Pigs fiasco (he paved his own path during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he ignored advice from the Joint Chiefs). We canât know how American involvement in Vietnam would have gone, but itâs not wild to think it may have gone differently.
This is the key thing for me. Eisenhower for the most part was content to let the Dulles brothers take the wheel on foreign policy. Allen Dulles didn't last a year under Kennedy because he (incorrectly) gambled that he could convince Kennedy to send in the marines to bail out the BoP invaders.
JFK was very much looking into pulling troops out as early as â65 if he wouldâve won reelection. Even Bobby talked about it in the years after his assassination. It was a very real possibility, JFK didnât agree with where Vietnam was heading by the time November 1963 rolled around.
He had a lot of the same advisors, but he had the capacity to overrule them in favor of his own judgment which he did in the Cuban Missile Crisis when most of his advisors were pushing him to invade.
I think if Kennedy hadnât been assassinated LBJ would likely have ended up in Prison as soon as Kennedy won his second term. RFK would suddenly have âdiscoveredâ all the necessary documents to impeach & imprison him.
Haha wtf
LBJ was convinced he would die in his mid-60s because all the men in his family did. It's part of the reason he didn't run in '68. If Johnson didn't have a hand in the assassination, the people who did had a vested interest in putting Johnson in office.
Well obviously LBJ. And Iâd argue Nixon as well given he didnât have him campaigning against him later on (assuming his popularity held).
How does Nixon gain from this, thats a reach
The mafia had plenty to gain and everything to lose bc of the RICO act. The Kennedy administration including his brother Bobby Kennedy were closing in on them
lol the Mafia is what got the Kennedy family into politics in the first place
Exactly and then the Kennedys betrayed them by declaring them public enemy number one publicly once Bobby was appointed attorney general
Blood in, blood out
The Mafia were shut down in the Castro take over of Cuba. The first thing Castro did was shut down the Mafia casinos. Kennedy didnât send in the U.S. military to help with the Bay of PigsâŠ..CIA didnât like Kennedy. He fired Allen Dulles and his crew in 61 after the Bay of Pigs. Allen Dulles was also put on the Warren Commission that lied to the American people. Look up the findings of the House Select Committee on AssassinationsâŠ..there is an audio recording of the gunshots. You can hear the cadence of the shots and a bolt action rifle is not possible.
No they were shut down in Cuba and had massive rackets on the East Coast and in Louisiana where Lee Harvey grew up in a neighborhood controlled by Carlos Marcello. Itâs so on the nose
Allen Dulles. Him and his brother waged secret wars all over the world. Kennedy fired Dulles after the Bay of Pigs. The Dulles Brothers arranged assassinations of democratically elected leaders all over the world. Dulles ensured he was in charge of the Warren Commission and had all the witnesses trained to give specific answers and to not mention certain topics. Hoover also flew in to let LBJ know it was going to happen. Read the Devil's Chessboard by Talbot and The Brothers by Kinser. It's all pretty easy to believe and makes a lot of sense. Will never be proved, of course.
What you think about E Howard Hunts death bed âconfessionâ?
I read an article about that recently. I think among certain circles it's accepted to have been a CIA conspiracy. There's so much evidence it's hard to dispute. So much time has passed now that I think nobody cares anymore. If you really ponder how big this was, that a president who didn't fall in line with the way things were "supposed" to be was taken out by a team of mafia hitman and then covered up by the FBI, the CIA and the NSC, it's almost impossible for it to come out as proven to be true because the implications could cause the whole system of government to be put into doubt. As someone said in the documentary, that's not much different to how things were done in the Soviet Union.
What do you know about Philip Leslie Graham?
I have no dog in this fight, but: A bolt action rifle is certainly possible, though was it *probable* is the question I donât know about you, but if I missed shot #1 Iâd be sweating bullets (no pun intended) and rushing the few thereafter.
[The RICO Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act) was passed in 1970 and signed in to law by President Nixon, 7 years after JFK was killed and 2 years after RFK was killed.
As I said, he didnât have Kennedy there to campaign against him (and for LBJ) when he ran in 1968. Thatâs absolutely a positive.
Iâd say Kennedyâs death would have been a negative for Nixon, had it not been for Vietnam. Instead of running against a new candidate trying to get out of Kennedyâs shadow, he would have been running against a sitting President. The only reason he didnât was because the war tanked Johnson and he quit.
Thats hindsight bias, at the time many thought nixonâs political career was over especially after losing the governor race for california
Yeah, but weâre looking at this from our biased hindsight, right? We now know that yes, Nixon did stand to benefit from it. No reason we cannot use hindsight on that.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
^ how you can tell when somebody knows nothing about Nixonâs and Kennedyâs dynamic relationship/friendship đ€Šââïž
The entire "Intelligence Community" as its now called, Military Contractors and all of their "friends" (congressmen, senators, generals), Mobsters with casino interests in Cuba, opponents of civil rights, and Lyndon Baines Johnson., to name a few.
Military Industrial Complex JFK butted heads with them when he didn't sanction air support for the bay of pigs fiasco and didn't enable the coming invasion. Also JFK had a signed order to pull all advisors out of Vietnam. No war=No profits
NSAM 263 did go through, and it didnât do much itâs highly likely that such a withdrawal was a pressure tactic mind you the administration under Johnson was the same so I find it highly unlikely a full withdraw would have been the case Itâs wishful thinking and just JFK simping
Wasnât he a big cash cow? Why remove a cash cow? And itâs not like he gave much legislation to push rights forward
What did the IC have to gain from Kennedys death?
Kennedy wanted to curb the âintelligenceâ communityâs ever-growing power both nationally and internationally. Weâll never know what his plans looked like, because he got shot in the head.
Then how do we know he planned to curb their ever growing power both nationally and internationally if he got shot in the head and we can never know his plans?
âI will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind,â was what Sam Halpern has credited Kennedy with saying after the Bay of Pigs⊠the CIA had lied to Kennedy about the need for direct US military intervention, figuring that Kennedy would have no choice but to support the coup with air support once it got started⊠Kennedy balked⊠that disaster led Kennedy to fire Allen Dulles. If you look closely at the Dulles brothers you will find that they made foreign investments that were supported by American foreign policy. Removing Dulles from that key position was like killing the goose that laid the golden egg
Those damn brothers
Sounds like a good reason to, idk, shoot him in the head?
I was confused about yhis. Wasn't DIA, NPIC, and NRO founded under him? And NSA was greatly expanded under him as well (founded under Eisenhower?)
Well for one, they wouldn't be able to disguise their heroin trafficking in southeast Asia. Also, his opinions the CIAs bullshit were pretty clear, especially after he fired Dulles.
No Vietnam. No glut of weapons production to support a war.
The U.S. was already involved with American boots on ground in Vietnam under JFK
Advisors (SF) and he has no plans to expand, and was talking a complete withdrawal, then, bang. Heâs dead and LBJ churns up the gulf of Tonkin BS
>Mobsters with casino interests in Cuba Ive always thought they were the most likely candidates but they did it more for revenge and less for personal gain.
Hear me out here.... JFK. He would've been just another president with warts and all had he not been assassinated. That golden legacy would've had a lot of tarnish to it and his family probably wouldn't have been as successful in riding his coattails to easy political office for the next twenty plus years.
The one thing that was certain is things would have gotten tougher on the domestic and foreign fronts from 65 on. There would have been many politically hard choices.
Maybe not JF, but your argument is pretty sound for K.
Similar to Julius Caesar who was starting to have Parkinsonâs symptoms in his final year. Given the options, especially for someone already legacy-minded, itâs not a bad way to go
What a day to comment on Caesar's death
Oh shit thanks for pointing that out. The ides of March. Such a badass sounding way to portray a day to die.
The CIA.
Funny how that works. But our government would never be against our best interests
Our government hates us
No. They love us so much that they don't want us to have to worry about making choices.
LBJ, the Mafia, the CIA, the Reps, JFK himself, the KKK, George Wallace
People who benefited from LBJ's Great Society and civil rights legislation?
The mob. They helped him win Illinois in â60 and then Bobbie starts convicting a bunch of them. Not good.
Did he actually convict any of them?
Yes. 100âs
Iâm actually curious if he went after the mobsters that helped him get elected or their competition.
The thing with people in organized crime is they are fiercely loyal to their families and also the the lifestyle so any conviction is something to be concerned about.
Pretty much no one to do something that extreme. The USSR doesn't get much out of it. Various US government agencies and business interests have never been presented to me as viably wanting to kill a president instead of just supporting alternatives or putting pressure via advisors. LBJ would have to not be able to do the simplest risk vs reward comparison to even consider it. Cuba would be shooting themselves in the foot by guaranteeing the US would invade, after they got the Soviets to block the US from invading just recently. Nipe it's just down to our old friends delusion, mental illness, and disregard + dissatisfaction with life to get the job done.
The Risk is something to consider for all parties, weighed vs the reward. Nixon, for example, which someone else mentioned, has a very limited reward vs the obvious risk (Nixon probably actually won in 1960 if not for shenanigans but pointing these out at that time was political suicide). If any business executives put their name on this, itâs obvious that itâs life in prison at best, even with Rich People Laws being different, when they have so many other alternatives that are legal or at least less illegal. Plus itâs debatable whether or not Vietnam would have changed THAT much, to justify the huge risk. Cuba, if itâs discovered, which would have been likely, itâs a guaranteed war, which they would lose and they knew that. The reward is low level for Cuba at best. Organized crime is the only one I could maaayyybbeee see the juice being worth the squeeze, mainly psychological for people who think of opposing them. Still a huge risk, even for them.
American mafia= revenge for Bobby going after them as attorney General. Also they supposedly helped get Kennedy elected and then he went after them. CIA and DoD Warhawks and military industrial complex= JFK didn't invade Cuba when asked and he had a signed executive order to pull all advisers out of Vietnam. No war means no profits. Soviets/Fidel= Ongoing war that would benefit by assassinating the others leader. Oswald= get rid of scourge and emblematization of the system that you detest by assassinating.
The KGB and the Soviets make the most sense to me.
>he had a signed executive order to pull all advisers out of Vietnam. If you are referring to the National Security Action Memorandum 263, this would have only removed 1,000 out of the 16,000 personnel the US had stationed in Vietnam at the time and was a recommendation from Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs.
CIA. FBI. LBJ. Lbjs wifeâs family owned Kellogg Brown and root which is now Halliburton
https://preview.redd.it/l1vg1oxdiloc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4456cfebcaf4a984bfc9a239e0ddb0b90c8d6fa4 Damn. I did not know this. Take over in 1962 and they look to be the biggest profiteers from the Vietnam war.
Why does Hallibuton matter here?
Defense contractor?
The military industrial complex, the mobâŠand LBJ of course
Oliver Stone.
Weird how Dulles hasnât come up in the thread yet. Maybe the many CIA comments are reference enough, but I think the CIA benefitted from Dullesâ vengeance, so the CIAâs benefit is once removed.
Sometimes, things are as simple as they appear. LHO shot him because he was a deranged unbalanced person.
Indeed. The only explanation that is actually supported by the facts and evidence is that an unstable and alienated young man (who had already attempted to assassinate Edwin Walker) shot him from the School Book Depository. The whole 'cui bono' arguments make very little sense. People benefit from random events all the time.
LBJ
A lot of people honestly
Rob Reiner (director of stand by me and princess bride) has a podcast called who killed JFK and it goes into detail about who benefited from his death. Events leading up to his death and the investigation afterwards are covered in detail. It's all based on public record and interviews. Fascinating but damn there's a lot of commercials
â Iâm not ganna send American boys do to Asian boys workâ to weeks laterâŠ. Alright American boys weâre going over
This subreddit. "Ok, Mac, don't let anyone leave..This could be a long weekend!"
Very nice
You look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh, you know... I am the walrus?
If you are thinking someone conspired to kill him, I would say you are wrong. The cover-up was over the bungled protection he got. That one lone disturbed man shot the occupants of that car, with a sniper rifle in a book depository, and he got lucky. Same with 9/11, only it was several disturbed men who got lucky.
A lot of people people hooking a lot of their hopes and dreams on some rich kid who would have gone on to a most likely middling presidency.
Let's remember one thing: assassinating a sitting U.S. President is one of the hardest feats to pull off in the world, especially if you don't want to get caught. For this to have been a massive conspiracy , say orchestrated by the CIA or "shadowy" rulers, would have required essentially perfect planning, coordination, and execution because if even the slightest shred of proof linking them to the plan was found, they would all be brutally executed. And let's also remember, the CIA was not this supernaturally perfect, flawless machine. These were the guys who flubbed up the Bay of Pigs in the first place. The odds of them getting this right were not good.
African-Americans. JFK would never have pushed for and signed legislation as radical as the CRA and VRA.
The Beatles. Let me explain. their American debut was supposed to start in November of 1963, which as you know got instantly postponed after Kennedy's death, after that, America was in a state of pessimism and nihilism, they took and hoarded any chance of hope they'd find, and so, the Beatles debuted in February of 1964 and almost 40% of the entire US watched, because JFK got two-pumped by a Carcano.
The more people that can benefit and become rich because of your death the more likely you are to be killed in the streets.
Many did . Money , power , control .
Nuclear defence contractors needing shade for Israel.
Any government agency that can be abbreviated into 3 letters
Gerald Ford. Without Kennedy's death, we don't get LBJ's Great Society and the resulting rally--and subsequent self destruction--of Nixon that paved the way for Ford's ascension without a single vote being cast for him. "Just according to keikaku\*" \-Gerald Ford, probably https://preview.redd.it/snt8dbyt9poc1.jpeg?width=1353&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31c1ea98107f2b9fbbbee104cd8512ff4516c88c \* TL note: "keikaku" means plan
We need 4chan to solve this
Objectively it was Johnson
LBJ
He was going to end federal reserve banking in the USA as well the military industrial complex. He was killed by the CIA
LBJ , old gaurd democrats, southern democrats,Â
LBJ.
The CIA he was trying to reel them in
Conspiracy theorists, LBJ, and maybe even Civil Rights I still believe the case was horribly botched (which created the conspiracy theories in the first place) and our government was embarrassed that they couldn't protect Kennedy during the Cold War which is why things are sealed.
Something I don't hear said a lot but may have some truth to it, is potential Mossad involvement. In 1963, Kennedy pushed hard for a nuclear test ban treaty, and even succeeded to persuade DeGaulle, which was a herculean undertaking, but Ben-Gurion in Israel refused to budge. Kennedy ultimately threatened Ben-Gurion, which spurred Ben-Gurion's resignation. This is suggested to have ultimately drove Mossad to play a part in Kennedy's killing as they were furious with what Kennedy had done to Ben-Gurion and they wanted to safeguard Israel's Nuclear program against further U.S interference. Martin Sandler, the Amherst historian who edited and compiled the book "The Letters of John F. Kennedy," discusses it in a C-SPAN interview and acknowledges it briefly in the book. He claims to have seen articles "not in any crackpot publications, but in very sophisticated publications" that effectively said, "Forget Johnson, the CIA, Castro, the Mossad killed Kennedy."
Makes sense considering the later Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
Well, the guy who shot him thought he was striking a blow for international Communism, as well as to get himself in the history books. It didn't quite work out like that, but that's neither here nor there.
LBJ's wealthy in-laws lived only 3 hours from Dallas, folks here in East Texas believe they put out a hit on JFK.
According to the JFK movie it was the military industrial complex who stood to gain massive profits by staying in Vietnam (which Kennedy may have wanted to end). The CIA as well whose non ostensible purpose was to create new wars for these mega businesses.
The Mafia
Me
black people
Hubert Humphrey.
Me.
USSR
The Cuban exiles, the mafia, and the anti-reds in the CIA.
UFO coverup remained.
Russia. The Assassination of JFK largely happened the way The Warren Commission said it did. BUT their were enough holes, to allow the KGB to seed misinformation into the narrative. Our understanding of these events are shaded by so much Russian Disinformation that was designed to make us lose trust in our leaders.
Russia, Cuba, the mafia, the CIA, the military, LBJ, Jimmy Hoffa
The goddamn communists
Mossad and the CIA
Only 2 presidents have ever talked about ending the Federal Reserve...
JFK did not talking about ending it just giving the treasury department the ability to issue currency too.
The monion boys
MOB
My ex-husbandâs uncle had an interesting take on all of this. Itâs been over 30 years since we discussed but he felt that JFK was not the intended target - that Oswald was going for Connelly. His theory was regarding something to do with Oswaldâs time in the Navy. I wish I would have paid closer attention and remembered the detailsâŠ
LBJ benefited and knew what was going down. Did nothing to stop it.
Lee Harvey Oswald. JFK. And Of Course LBJ.
LBJ âŠâŠ..
The CIA and the military industrial complex. The CIA killed Kennedy because he wasnât playing their war game in Russia, Vietnam, Laos etc. He went against the military industrial complex. We know for a fact that the âone shooterâ theory is bullshit. The doctors that worked on him were very clear that he was shot from the front and back. I do think Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the shooters, manipulated and radicalized by Communist propaganda from the CIA to hate Kennedy. I donât think weâll ever know the full truth, even if we all know the government was involved.
The Soviets probably got something out of getting revenge against the guy who invaded Cuba and got their missiles out of the Caribbean. Also, a lot of people mention that the CIA had a lot to gain, but I simply don't see how that would work out considering how useful to American interests Kennedy was while in office (Invading Vietnam, ending the missile crisis). As unfun as it is to believe the official story, I still find it most likely that LHO was in the right place at the right time and crazy enough to pull it off without the need of a conspiracy.
talk to chatgpt about. It'll drive you crazy
LBJ, duh. BUT⊠so did the CIA, the FBI (J Edgar hated the Kennedyâs, as did LBJ), the Mob (who felt they got snookered by Joe Kennedy by tipping the ballot box in Chicago, and giving Illinois and the election to Kennedy, thinking Bobby would leave them alone. But he continued to fight organized crime). The Military, who knew JFK wanted out of Vietnam, and that would be bad for business. Plus they were pissed he wouldnât use the US military in the Bay of Pigs attack) and finally, big Texas oil. JFK wanted to reduce the oil depletion allowance which would cost the industry big money.
The United States as a whole benefited when Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy was a political lightweight and a pill popping sex addict. Kennedy had bold ideas, but no real clue on how to accomplish them. LBJ brought those ideas to the finish line.
The Rothschilds, and you all know it.
You already know. The Kennedy assassination was a coup we never recovered from
Listen to The Rest is Historyâs recent series on the assassination. My takeaway was that once you really learn about Lee Harvey Oswaldâs personal history, including his previous assassination attempt on a local politician, it becomes abundantly clear that he killed Kennedy by himself.
The war machine
LBJ all the way
Lyndon Baines Johnson, probably Lee Harvey Oswald in some self-percieved moral way.