The mafia

This theory requires a deeper look into the policies of Kennedy and his Attorney General and brother, Robert. The Kennedys took a much more aggressive stance against organized crime than previous presidents. Robert Kennedy had earned the enmity of Teamster's Union boss Jimmy Hoffa, as well as other mafia members, during his probes and racketeering prosecutions.

The mob also had a Cuban connection. Before the Castro revolution, U.S. mobsters had a lucrative stake in the Havana casinos and were doing whatever they could to get it back. Mafia families funnelled money to the Cuban exiles, knowing their payback would come with Castro deposed. It's rumoured that the CIA employed mob hit-men to do away with Castro. La Cosa Nostra was understandably irritated at the shabby treatment they received in return from the Kennedys. If rumours that JFK shared a mistress with mobster Sam Giancana are true, perhaps jealousy had something to do with Kennedy's death.

Whatever the facts, it's clear that the mafia had the desire and the resources to fell Kennedy, and with him, his troublesome Attorney General. And in Jack Ruby, the Dallas strip-joint owner with ties to the mob in Chicago, New Orleans and Dallas, they even had means to cover up their involvement. Partially. It's doubtful the mob could have influenced the Warren Commission and its F.B.I. investigators. And how did they get Lee Harvey Oswald to participate in the first place? Even if they duped Oswald and silenced him thereafter, it's hard to imagine that a group as corrupt as the organized crime syndicate could have kept this secret for 30 years without a rapid wholesale slaughter of everyone connected to the killing, including Ruby. The consequences of discovery would surely give the lowest mob thug pause to think, much less the top men, who still had things easy in those days and, like the Russians, much more to lose than to gain.

The zero game

It's a curious fact of American history that, since 1840, every President elected in a year ending in zero has died in office. The sole exception is Ronald Reagan, and John Hinckley certainly made a credible effort in his case. Suppose these deaths aren't coincidence. That's the view of Lyndon Larouche and some writers of the right-wing fringe, people who write letters to the editor of the Spotlight and believe the John Birch Society is moderate. The usual argument is that the deaths are arranged, for mystic numerological reasons, or simply to toy with the people of the last free country on earth. The culprits might be the forces of Freemasonry, Zionist bankers, the Vatican, the British crown, whoever the individual writer fears most. The eccentricities of the far right are a subject for further research. Those who would like to know more can pick up a copy of Spotlight, available at a machine outside the Franklin St. post office in Chapel Hill. And take out an insurance policy on the President in eight years.

More than one oswald

Claims that Oswald was impersonated by a political decoy appeared very early in the assassination controversy. Professor Richard H. Popkin's 1966 work The Second Oswald set out a case for an impersonation of the alleged assassin. Much of this was based on eyewitness testimony, but Popkin did have a "star witness" in the person of FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who wrote a memo predating the assassination in which he warned that an impostor could be using Oswald's personal details.

More recently, the work of John Armstrong has purportedly identified the "two Oswalds" as part of an intelligence operation which originally had no connection to the assassination. However, expert analysis by the House Select Committee on Assassinations found that both "Oswalds" had identical handwriting. Furthermore, the House Select Committee on Assassinations had forensic anthropologists examine photos of Oswald (included in the set were photos that purportedly showed two different "Oswalds"), and all were consistent with a single individual.

Finally, in October 1981 Oswald's body was exhumed at the behest of British writer Michael Eddowes, with a view towards proving a thesis developed in a 1975 book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy (re-published in 1976, in Britain as November 22: How They Killed Kennedy and in America a year later as The Oswald File). The examination positively identified Oswald's corpse through dental records, and also detected a mastoid scar from a childhood operation.[49] Contrary to reports, the skull of Oswald had been autopsied and this was confirmed at the exhumation.