History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time

by Meltzer, Brad

  Remember, just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

  I want to believe that we’re not the only life out there. Ronald Reagan says he saw a UFO with his own eyes. So did Jimmy Carter. And Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest physicists of our time, thinks it’s a mathematical impossibility to say there’s no other life. But listen to what Hawking says, because he also gives us a warning.

  The great scientist reminded us that “we only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.” He continued: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

  So for as much as I want to believe, we need to always remember one thing: Be very careful what you wish for.

  The Kennedy Assassination: The Truth Is Out There

  Let’s be very clear. When you’re counting down history’s top conspiracies, there’s only one that everyone agrees should be on the list. In fact, when it comes to decoding mysteries, the #1 request I get via email and Facebook messages is simply this: Tell us about the assassination of JFK.

  So let me be even more clear: We can’t do justice to the JFK assassination in a single chapter. Indeed, as we tried to lay it out, we realized it was so packed with craziness, it needed its very own top ten list.

  So in honor of the 50th anniversary of Lee Harvey Oswald’s gruesome act, here are the top ten conspiracies within history’s #1 conspiracy: the Kennedy assassination.

  What if I told you that no matter how much evidence there is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, it’ll never stop us from thinking that JFK’s death was the result of a massive conspiracy?

  It’s amazing just how many conspiracy theories surround the assassination—though the number isn’t surprising, especially when you consider that there’s probably no single event in modern history that’s been as relentlessly investigated. The investigations, in fact, may be the biggest part of the problem.

  Put together all the official investigative commissions, reports, official reinvestigations, independent reviews of the evidence, journalistic inquiries, reenactments, documentaries, movies, literally thousands of books (fiction and nonfiction), not to mention countless off-the-wall and over-the-top websites, and you’ve got a situation that’s a perfect breeding ground for confusion, differing interpretations, allegations, and refutations.

  November 22, 1963

  President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, arrived at Dallas’s Love Field on a beautiful Friday morning. The roses were a gift from the crowd.

  #10 Oswald Himself

  Arriving at Love Field in Dallas, President and Mrs. Kennedy left the plane and headed for a fence by the airfield, where a group of fans and supporters were waiting. For several minutes, the 46-year-old president and the First Lady shook hands, thanking them.

  Someone handed the First Lady a bouquet of red roses, which she brought into the limousine. Texas governor John Connally and his wife were already sitting inside. The president and the First Lady sat behind them. And since the rain had stopped, the Secret Service didn’t need the plastic protective bubble that could be put onto the car. Metal armor, bulletproof glass, and other countermeasures weren’t even thought about until after this fateful day.

  The trip to downtown Dallas was about ten miles. Not far at all.

  As the motorcade arrived, crowds packed both sides of the street, waving flags and craning necks, eager to spot the young president and his beautiful wife, dressed in that stylish pink suit.

  At 12:30 p.m., the presidential limo turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza, making its way past the seven-story, redbrick building on the corner of Houston and Elm Streets: the Texas School Book Depository. It was going 11.25 mph.

  Within six seconds, from the sixth-floor window, at least three shots rang out.

  The president’s hands moved to his neck. The bullet entered his neck to the right of his spine. The final shot struck JFK in his head, which exploded. The nation was changed forever.

  “If somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”

  —P>resident John F. Kennedy, the morning of his death

  Dealey Plaza

  The president’s motorcade entered Dallas’s Dealey Plaza at 12:30 p.m. CST. Within moments, the world would never look the same again.

  Throughout the course of history, there have been more than two dozen assassination attempts on the president of the United States. Four have been successful: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.

  But only Kennedy’s death took place in the age of modern communications as millions watched the events on nationwide TV. The networks almost immediately turned their attention to Dallas, coming on the air with live reports while there was still hope that the young president himself still lived.

  Think about just that. Days after Lincoln was murdered, there was still a substantial portion of the population who thought that Lincoln was still alive. In the case of JFK, the whole world knew the moment the doctors pronounced him dead.

  The only thing to compare it to would be the hours immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. We all know where we were. We can recall it in a heartbeat. And like 9/11, as fast as the news swirled was as fast as the conspiracy theories began to proliferate.

  It was the same in 1963. This was at the height of the Cold War. Suspicion turned toward the Soviet Union—or its puppet state Cuba. The military was put on alert. For all we knew, the United States was about to be attacked. Nuclear war seemed imminent.

  Within 80 minutes of the assassination, an arrest had been made: Lee Harvey Oswald, a young 24-year-old high school dropout who worked at the book depository.

  Lee Harvey Oswald

  Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and booked approximately 80 minutes after the assassination. That day, he left his money and wedding ring in the room where his wife was staying.

  Oswald had worked at the book depository for just a month, since mid-October. On the morning of the shooting, he was seen carrying a long, wrapped package, which he claimed contained “curtain rods.” After the shooting, on the sixth floor of the book depository, three bullet casings were found on the ground, as well as a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

  Less than two minutes after the shooting, police officer Marrion Baker ran into the depository and, with the building superintendent, ran upstairs. On the second-story landing, Baker ordered a man who was 20 feet away to stop and walk toward him. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. But when building superintendent Roy Truly identified him as a fellow employee, Oswald was allowed to leave.

  No question, Oswald matched the description of a “slender man, five foot ten” who aimed a rifle at the president from an upper window of the depository. That description was quickly transmitted to Dallas police, which is why 45 minutes after the shooting, police officer J. D. Tippit had words with a man matching that description. The man fired three shots across the hood of Tippit’s police car, then came around back and fired a fourth shot into Tippit’s head, killing him instantly.

  Within an hour and 20 minutes after the assassination, and less than 30 minutes after Officer Tippit was killed, Oswald was seen at the Hardy Shoe Store, where store manager Johnny C. Brewer noticed him acting suspicious and nervous. Brewer followed him to a local Dallas movie theater, which—on this day, considering what happened—was itself a suspicious place to be. As Dallas police entered the theater, Lee Harvey Oswald pulled his revolver. But police prevented him from firing, taking Oswald into custody on suspicion of the murder of a police officer . . . and, many quickly assumed, the death of President John F. Kennedy.

  Assassin’s View

 
The view from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, from which Oswald is believed to have fired the fatal shots.

  At 2:02 p.m., Oswald arrived at Dallas police headquarters. At 2:38 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.

  By 3 p.m., the police were at Oswald’s house. They asked Oswald’s wife, who at the time was staying at a friend’s house in Irving, Texas, if her husband owned a gun. She said yes. But when she went to show the officers where it was, it was gone.

  In addition, Oswald left his money—$170—on the dresser in the room where his wife was staying, along with his wedding ring. For some reason, on that day, he didn’t want either of those on him.

  Today, after shootings in schools and movie theaters, we’ve almost become accustomed to young twentysomething sociopaths who’re delusional in their self-importance and need to prove their cause through violence. But as the details of Oswald’s life were revealed, this didn’t smell like another lone wolf.

  Texas School Book Depository

  Lee Harvey Oswald had worked at the depository for only a month. After the shooting, three shell casings were found on the sixth floor, along with a rifle.

  Tragic Headlines

  At 2:02 p.m., Oswald arrived at Dallas Police Headquarters. At 2:38 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.

  First, he was a Marine sharpshooter. Second, back in 1959, after leaving the Marines, he moved to the Soviet Union and tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship (see Exhibit 1A for a State Department telegram regarding his efforts). When the Soviets denied him, he attempted suicide. But he didn’t return to the United States until 1961, which means he spent two years in the Soviet Union. Two years to meet people, make friends, and become part of America’s greatest enemy. How could you not ask the question: Was he part of the KGB? A scripted assassin? Or even a CIA double agent?

  It didn’t help when, right after the shooting, as the press was shouting questions at Oswald and he was being taken from the jail elevator to the homicide and robbery office of police headquarters, Oswald replied, “I’m just a patsy.”

  And of course, there was the photo. In the court of public opinion, this famous Life cover article sealed Oswald’s fate. He’s not only holding a rifle and wearing a pistol, he’s holding two Marxist newspapers—proof he could be working for someone else (which proves a conspiracy). Others said the picture was doctored (and c’mon . . . that proves a conspiracy even more). In fact, in Oliver Stone’s JFK, a government agent is shown doctoring the photograph, and Jim Garrison is heard to say that the shadow on the face doesn’t match the shadow on the body.

  Man With A Gun

  This notorious Life magazine cover showed Oswald holding a rifle and Marxist newspapers. For many, this confirmed his guilt. For others, the image appeared to be doctored. Check the shadows yourself.

  Yet more conspiracy, right? Except for the fact that government experts said that duplicating photographs causes barely perceptible changes that account for such differences—and concluded that no forgery was involved. Plus, when the full-frame photo was examined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, it was determined to have been taken with Oswald’s Imperial Reflex camera, to the exclusion of all other cameras. But c’mon—this is JFK—why trust the government?

  How about the fact that Oswald sent a copy of the photo to his friend George de Mohrenschildt and wrote a message on it?

  But handwriting can be faked, too, right? Then maybe it’s worth listening to Oswald’s wife, Marina, who repeatedly testified that she took the photographs at his request. But wait . . . she hated him, didn’t she?

  You starting to see the pattern? No matter how much proof you bring, there’s always another argument to make. And in many ways—whether you see Oswald as master assassin or complete patsy—his biggest problem will always be this: He was murdered, too.

  There would be no trial for Lee Harvey Oswald.

  On Sunday morning, two days after JFK was killed, just after 10 a.m., Lee Harvey Oswald was set to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Before the transfer, he was to receive a third interrogation, this time by the Secret Service, the FBI, and Captain John Will Fritz, head of Dallas’s homicide section.

  According to David W. Belin, who was counsel to the Warren Commission, “If no one else had joined the group, Oswald would have been transferred long before Jack Ruby ever got downtown. But at the last minute, Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes—who had helped trace the money order Oswald used to purchase the rifle with which he killed President Kennedy—joined the group. Holmes’s inclusion extended the interrogation by at least half an hour.” In addition, Oswald requested to wear a sweater, which delayed the transfer as well.

  As a result, that allowed enough time for a local nightclub owner named Jack Ruby to arrive at the station. During the transfer, Ruby stepped from the crowd, shoved a revolver at Oswald’s abdomen, and pulled the trigger.

  Again, just reimagine the moment. You’ve got your hands on the most wanted man in America. Security should be tighter than anything the Dallas police had ever seen. And yet, a stranger steps in out of nowhere—walks right past the cops—and guns down America’s most wanted assassin. You think there were conspiracy theories following JFK’s death? Now you’ve got a situation that seems almost designed to create an atmosphere of distrust, paranoia, and suspicion. Which is exactly what greeted the official government investigations.

  The Weapon

  The Weapon

  The three shell casings found on the sixth floor of the book depository came from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. His palm print was found on the gun—on a part of the rifle that could only be touched when the gun wasn’t assembled. The gun was ordered from a mail-order house in Chicago and shipped to someone named “A. Hidell” in Dallas. When he was arrested, Oswald was carrying a fake ID with the name “Alek James Hidell.”

  This was Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. The three shell casings found on the sixth floor of the book depository came from this gun. All bullet fragments from the victims and the presidential limousine were matched to the same rifle, as well as the bullet fragments found at the attempted murder of General Edwin Walker (who Oswald had tried to kill months earlier on April 10, 1963).

  The gun was ordered from a mail-order house in Chicago and shipped to someone named “A. Hidell” at P.O. Box 2915 in Dallas. (See Exhibit 1B.)

  When he was arrested, Oswald was carrying a fake ID—a Selective Service card—with the name “Alek James Hidell” on it (Exhibit 1C). The documentation used to order the gun and to rent the P.O. box matched Oswald’s handwriting. And the other person who was authorized to pick up mail at the P.O. box? Oswald’s Russian-born wife, Marina. (Oh, and the name Alek? That’s what Marina called Lee, since there was no equivalent of the name Lee in Russian.)

  Yet to me, of all the gun evidence, the most damning is this: Oswald’s palm print was found on the gun—on a part of the rifle that could only be touched when the gun wasn’t assembled.

  Where’s the Window?

  Six years after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his famous shots from the sixth-floor window, General D. Harold Byrd, the wealthy Texas oilman who owned the book depository, made a slight modification to the building: He had the actual window removed, saying he didn’t want vandals to steal it. Where’d he put it? This was Texas. He framed it and hung it in his mansion. Naturally.

  But in 1970, another Southern eccentric (and Kennedy memorabilia collector), Aubrey Mayhew, bought the building. According to Mayhew, Byrd’s handyman actually removed the wrong window. Mayhew says he has the right window (which, yes, he also removed). Where’d both windows eventually wind up? On eBay. Naturally.

  Who’s right? I don’t even care. (FYI, Mayhew was right.) I
just love that there are two southern hotshots still fighting over it.

  #9 Dueling Commissions

  Six days after the assassination, President Lyndon Johnson, aware of the rumors and suspicions, authorized a commission to examine the tragic event. He appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren to head the committee, which quickly became known as the Warren Commission.

  The blue-ribbon commission, made up of senators and congressmen from both major parties, as well as a former CIA director, spent ten months going through evidence, eyewitness accounts, and testimony from experts. They wanted to know:

  How many shooters were involved?

  Did the assassin(s) serve a larger goal than murdering the president?

  If so, was there a conspiracy behind the killing of JFK?

  When completed, the commission’s 888-page report reached a stark conclusion:

  Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing the shots that killed President John F. Kennedy and wounding Texas governor John Connally. Oswald was not part of a larger conspiracy.

  Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald in the Dallas police headquarters, also acted alone, and was not part of any larger conspiracy.

  With the release of the Warren Commission Report, the commission itself became the centerpiece of the rapidly multiplying conspiracy scenarios.

  In 1976, the U.S. House of Representatives appointed a Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) to review the killing of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and the shooting of George Wallace. Their findings, released in 1979, were “that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” and “a high probability [exists] that two gunmen were firing at the president.”