Trump’s JFK Files release: The conspiracy theories that surround the president’s assassination

Many are hoping the documents will shed more light on the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mr Kennedy’s assassin

22nd November 1963: US statesman John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US, and his wife Jackie Kennedy travelling in the presidential motorcade at Dallas, before his assassination.

(Getty)

Conspiracy theorists everywhere can rejoice over Donald Trump’s decision to release tens of thousands of never-before-seen documents left in the files on the John F Kennedy assassination.

The 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act required that the millions of pages – many of them contained in CIA and FBI documents – all be published by October 26, 2017. The National Archives has released most of the documents already, either in full or partially redacted.

While experts told the Washington Post they don’t think the last batch of papers contains any major bombshells, many are hoping the information will shed more light on the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mr Kennedy’s assassin.

Mr Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby two days after the JFK assassination and therefore never stood trial, leaving many questions unanswered.

Mr Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, struck by two bullets – one in the head, one in the neck – while riding in an open-topped limo through downtown Dallas, Texas.

A year after the president’s death, a presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that Mr Kennedy was killed by a single gunman, Mr Oswald, who acted alone and not part of a conspiracy.

In 1978, however, another government committee, the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations, found that in addition to Mr Oswald, there likely was a second gunman who fired at the president’s motorcade.

The committee found that the gunmen were part of a “conspiracy” without determining exactly who was behind it, opening the door to a series of theories – some more realistic than others – about what happened.

Even to this day, more than five decades after his assassination, a large percentage of Americans continue to believe that Mr Kennedy’s death was the result of a larger plot.

In November 2013, as the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination approached, 61 per cent of Americans still believed others besides Lee Harvey Oswald were involved, according to a Gallup poll.

Could the Soviets have done it?

At the time Mr Kennedy was killed, the US and the Soviet Union were engaged in a bitter cold war. Conspiracy theorists claim that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was so embarrassed by what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis that he ordered the hit on Mr Kennedy.

Mr Oswald also had ties to the Soviet Union and had twice visited the country with his Russian-born wife, Marina. Experts hope the papers Mr Trump has decided to release will provide more details about the activities of Mr Oswald while he was travelling in Mexico City in late September 1963, and courting Cuban and Soviet spies, according to the Post.

The Warren Commission and the House Committee on Assassinations found little evidence to support the theory that the Soviets backed the operation to kill JFK. However, one former KGB agent later said the Russians did play a role.

Could the Mafia have done it?

The Mafia had made lucrative investments in Cuba prior to Fidel Castro’s communist revolution, according to one iteration of the theory.

The mob is said to have been enraged after Mr Kennedy botched the Bay of Pigs military invasion – which was aimed at overthrowing Mr Castro – because the results of the failed mission ended their chances of returning to Cuba.

The mob also reportedly did not like Mr Kennedy’s younger brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and hoped he would lose influence if the elder Kennedy brother was killed.

The Warren Commission cleared the mafia from involvement in any plot to assassinate the President. While the House Committee on Assassinations found that the Mafia was not involved in a conspiracy, it didn’t rule out the possibility that individuals connected to the mob were part of the plot.

Could the Cubans have done it?

Since US agents tried to assassinate Mr Castro several times, it is only fair that Mr Castro would have tried to get Mr Kennedy killed, conspiracy theorists say.

“Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first,” President Lyndon B Johnson, famously told ABC News in 1968.

Both the Warren Commission and the House Committee on Assassinations cleared the Cubans of any involvement in the plot.

In an interview with Bill Moyers in 1977, Mr Castro called the theory that Cubans were involved “absolute insanity”.

Could Lyndon Johnson have done it?

Mr Johnson, Mr Kennedy’s Vice President, was sworn in as President almost immediately following the death of Mr Kennedy.

Conspiracy theorists assert that Mr Johnson had the most to gain if the President was killed, and therefore could have been the mastermind behind the plot.

One theory even says that Mr Johnson was aided by George HW Bush, a burgeoning CIA official at the time who happened to be in Dallas on the day of the assassination. Mr Bush would later become the 41st President of the US.