Original subtitles

Tonight, the assassination that shook our country to its core.

It was just a shock that caused everybody to stop and think for a moment

how the world had changed.

Police quickly catch the culprit, but many believe there's more to the story.

The first question any good theorist asks is, who wants Kennedy dead?

Now, we'll explore the top theories surrounding one of America's most

events.

So he was convinced that Kennedy was killed by enemies high in his own

government. He believed that Fidel Castro orchestrated the assassination of

F. Kennedy.

Is there a conspiracy behind John F. Kennedy's assassination?

And if so, who is really responsible for his death?

Dallas, Texas, November 22nd, 1963.

At 1125 a .m., President John F. Kennedy arrives on Air Force One.

President Kennedy goes to Dallas to give a lunchtime speech at a convention

center known as the Trademark.

Between his arrival at Love Field and his speech, he's to lead a motorcade

through the center of downtown Dallas.

The motorcade has over 12 cars.

Kennedy is riding in a three -road Lincoln Continental convertible

with the top down.

President Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy are in the back seat. President Kennedy on

the right side, Mrs. Kennedy on the left.

Ahead of them are Texas Governor John Connolly and his wife Nellie, and ahead

them are two Secret Service agents. One of them is driving.

There's very sort of warm reception for Kennedy. There are something like 200

,000 people lining the route, so it is no small turnout.

And at one point, Mrs.

Connolly in the car says, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you, can you? And

President Kennedy replies, no, you certainly can't.

Those are his last words.

The motorcade comes down Main Street to the end of Main Street, where it hits

Dealey Plaza, takes a sharp right turn on Commerce Street, and then a sharp

turn in front of the Texas School Book Depository. And it's at that moment that

the first gunshots are heard.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

A gunshot ringed out, and then two more. Both President Kennedy and Governor

Connolly are hit.

Two shots hit Kennedy. The first enters his upper back and comes out through his

throat, and then the second enters the back of his skull.

He is rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

That's where he would soon be declared dead at the age of 46.

Connolly is also gravely injured but survives.

One hour after the shooting, Kennedy's death is officially announced to the

media. As word spreads of this, everybody stops where they are. People

crying. There's a lot of screaming, there's chaos, and just a lot of fear

confusion. It was just a shock that caused everybody to stop and think for a

moment about how the world had changed.

Any divisiveness or any fractions within the country, everybody just comes

together in this moment to grieve.

As the world stops to mourn, a manhunt begins.

As soon as it's clear that President Kennedy's been hit and the motorcade

out of Dili Planta, the police go interview eyewitnesses. And perhaps the

important witness of that day was a steam fitter, a Dallas man named Howard

Brennan, who says that he saw a man with a rifle on the sixth floor of the Texas

School Book Depository.

Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman and Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone rush inside

the book depository.

And there, they find quite literally a smoking gun.

They find a Mannlicher Carcano rifle, an Italian -made rifle. And they also find

three spent cartridges, suggesting that somebody had just fired three bullets

from the sixth floor.

They find the books have been moved around to create sort of a sniper's

They also find a 38 -inch brown paper bag.

The shooter escapes.

But building staff identify a prime suspect.

An employee at the Texas School Book Depository, Bill Wesley Grazier, offers

colleague a trip into downtown Dallas on the morning of the assassination. And

the colleague is carrying a long brown paper bag in which he says he has

rods. A manager in the building, Roy Truly, looks around and he sees that one

his employees is actually missing.

It's the same man who brought in that suspicious brown paper bag that morning.

It's Lee Harvey Oswald.

Police radio his description to all city units.

So it's been less than an hour since President Kennedy was shot.

And thanks to the quick work of the Dallas PD, they actually have a

lead. Three shots fired, three spent shell casing. Found next to a rifle that

they believe was brought in by Lee Harvey Oswald, who is the only person

fled that book depository.

Every other employee, they're still actually talking to investigators.

It appears that Oswald is the man responsible for the assassination.

The Dallas Police Department sends out a message to be on the lookout for

somebody who looks like Lee Harvey Oswald.

And Officer J .D. Tippett is in a patrol car about three miles away. He sees a

man on the side of the road.

who appears to fit the description of the man who's been identified in Dealey

Plaza as the president's assassin.

The police officer tries to stop this man and is gunned down by him. And this

man, according to many witnesses, is Lee Harvey Oswald.

If police had any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy,

that doubt is gone the moment he killed Officer Tippett.

A local merchant named Johnny Brewer has seen this man duck into the local movie

theater. A little bit before 2 p .m., police officers find Oswald seated

He's armed. He puts up a struggle before he's arrested.

One of the arresting officers, Nick McDonald, testifies that as they reach

Oswald raises his pistol and pulls the trigger.

But McDonald grabs the gun just as the hammer falls, hitting the webbing

his thumb and index finger, probably saving his life.

Oswald is brought to the police and courts building in downtown Dallas and

charged for both murders.

Subsequent investigation uncovers a lot more evidence that actually implicates

Oswald. They find a photo of Oswald that was taken by his wife.

where he's holding a rifle that matches the murder weapon. Oswald had made a

fake ID in the name of Alec Heidel.

The rifle that was found in the school book depository had been ordered in the

name of Alec Heidel and sent to a post office box in that name.

Virtually all of the ballistics evidence points to Oswald as the gunman in Daly

Plaza. His palm prints are found on the weapons, and the bullets fired in Daly

Plaza almost certainly came out of the rifle that's found on the sixth floor.

But none of this evidence is ever presented in court.

So Oswald is held in custody downtown.

He's interrogated by the FBI, the Secret Service, the Dallas Police Department,

the Dallas District Attorney's Office.

He goes through rounds of questioning. What we know from those interrogations

that he lies again and again and again, and he insists he had nothing to do with

the president's murder.

Then something absolutely crazy happens.

Sunday morning, November 24th, police are actually ready to transfer Oswald to

the county jail. They have an armored car ready in the basement of the

And as he's being brought out in front of the TV cameras, Jack Ruby, owner of a

local nightclub, steps out of the crowd with a .45 and shoots Oswald once in the

stomach on national TV.

Ruby is arrested, and Oswald is taken to the same hospital as Kennedy, where,

less than 48 hours after the president, he's declared dead as well.

Oswald's death on November 24th means that there will never be a trial, never

opportunity to resolve an awful lot of the evidence that points to Oswald as

gunman in Dealey Plaza.

New president Lyndon Johnson establishes a commission to investigate the

assassination. It becomes known as the Warren Commission.

It's sort of the ultimate blue ribbon commission among the other members of

former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Alan Dulles, as

young congressman from Michigan by the name of Gerald Ford.

The Warren Commission works for nearly a year, compiling evidence, gathering

information. And on September 24th, 1964, they present an 888

-page report to President Johnson.

The Warren Commission expresses no doubt.

They state that Lee Harvey Oswald is the only man responsible for JFK's death.

They also find that Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. But over the

a lot of people have questioned these findings, saying that they might appear

be a little too neat.

Making this report far from the last word on JFK.

When the Warren Commission releases its findings in 1964, it marks the end of

the official investigation into the JFK assassination.

They find that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President John F.

Kennedy. But that answer doesn't satisfy the public for long.

Skeptics read books. First a trickle of books and then a flood of books

questioning... the findings of the report and leading to a larger distrust

in the commission itself and in the sort of firmament of the American

government. After 12 years of scrutiny, the U .S. government takes action.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations was created in 1976.

The committee takes a closer look at the Warren Commission report.

They agree with most of what the Warren Commission said.

particularly regarding the evidence against Oswald.

They're confident that Oswald did shoot Kennedy from the sixth floor of the book

depository. But they uncover a new piece of evidence.

Assassination researchers in Dallas came to the committee and said it may be

that the sound of the gunshots was captured on this policeman's radio

So the committee has multiple acoustic experts go over this recording.

And upon first listen, they think, actually, there weren't three shots, as

previously thought, but four.

Three shots did, in fact, come from the Texas School Book Depository, but that

one shot came from a grassy knoll in front of the motorcade.

In other words, Oswald didn't act alone.

And if he didn't act alone, someone planned this killing with him. And if

who was it?

The House committee uses a word that will become connected to the Kennedy

assassination from then on. The word they use is conspiracy.

So the audio evidence that seems to point to a conspiracy is later disputed.

in many minds, it is found to be completely in error. But it's almost too

to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

that the idea of conspiracy is now even further cemented in the minds of

millions of Americans.

If the JFK assassination is a conspiracy, who's behind it?

Almost immediately after the shooting, one conspiracy theory rises to the top.

So while there's only circumstantial evidence to prove it, there's a lot of

circumstantial evidence.

Even Lyndon Johnson did at some point make an aside to an ABC News reporter

he believed that Fidel Castro orchestrated the assassination of John

Why is Fidel Castro a suspect?

Let's start with motive.

At the time of the assassination, there is no foreign power with a bigger grudge

against Kennedy than Castro.

President Kennedy is so determined to get rid of Castro that he tells the CIA

go forward with an invasion of Cuba that becomes known as the Bay of Pigs

operation. They send Cuban exiles into Cuba with the CIA support to oust

It's a debacle.

And afterwards, certainly Castro knows that President Kennedy is so determined

to remove him from power that he had actually ordered an invasion of his

country.

Documents that are later declassified reveal more evidence.

After the Bay of Pigs invasion fails, the Kennedy administration, through the

CIA, tried to kill Castro in the most exotic of ways. Everything from poisoned

cigars to poisoned skin -diving suits to exploding seashells. But yes, certainly

Castro knew the presidency was plotting against him.

So we know that Fidel Castro has reason.

to want to see President Kennedy dead.

And the question in all the years since is, what role did Lee Harvey Oswald play

in whatever plot was developed to try to kill the president?

During their investigation, the Warren Commission conducts a thorough

check on Oswald.

Even when he's serving in the Marine Corps for three years, Lee Harvey Oswald

not shy about the fact that he's a Marxist, so much so his colleagues in

Marine Corps used to refer to him as Osvaldovich.

In 1959, he defects to the Soviet Union and marries 19 -year -old Soviet citizen

Marina Prusakova, and they have a child.

They live there until 1962, in an apartment just a few blocks away from

the Soviets are training Cuban spies and soldiers.

Back in the U .S., in April of 1963, Oswald goes down to New Orleans.

There, he tries to start up a pro -Castro activist group.

It's clear that Oswald liked communism.

But the biggest revelation for investigators is that it turns out that

went to Mexico City in September of 1963, which, of course, is just two

before JFK's assassination, and while there, had contact with officials at the

Cuban embassy.

According to author Gus Russo, during these meetings, Oswald makes a chilling

offer. Russo talked to various sources, including an FBI case officer who has

two high -level informants within the Communist Party. And these two

are two brothers by the names of Morris and Jack Child.

The Child's brothers meet with Fidel Castro after the Kennedy assassination

learn just how much Fidel Castro knew about Lee Harvey Oswald in the weeks

before the assassination.

According to Russo's research, Oswald tells embassy officials, I'll kill that

bastard Kennedy when he goes to Dallas.

Castro is immediately informed about this. The embassy staff calls him up and

they ask him, what do we do?

Castro denies taking Oswald up on his offer.

I don't think there's any credible evidence that Fidel Castro played any

ordering President Kennedy's assassination.

But I think it's clear that he was well aware before the assassination.

Lee Harvey Oswald had marched into a Cuban embassy in Mexico City and made

statement that he was going to kill Kennedy.

Russo, keep digging.

Russo speaks to some former Cuban spies that tell him that when Oswald makes

this offer, they actually encourage him. One officer tells Russo.

that they offer Oswald money and then tell him that they'll help him evacuate

he's successful doing this.

Oswald's end goal is to get a visa to get either to Cuba or to the Soviet

or both. And eventually the Cubans do give him some form of temporary visa in

October of 1963.

But according to Rousseau's findings, they don't actually intend to bring

to Cuba. They plan to pick him up and kill him and then dump his body in the

Gulf of Mexico.

According to Gus Russo, there's more evidence to support this claim.

Russo finds reports of a private plane sitting on an airfield in Dallas on

November 22nd.

And that plane takes off for Havana after the assassination.

As we know, Oswald is not on that plane.

But that might be where he's headed when he encounters Officer Tippett. And the

entire Cuban plan changes after that. So that's the theory. The Warren

Commission and also the later House Committee on Assassinations dismissed

idea that Castro or the Cuban government could have been responsible for the

killing of JFK.

And today, Oswald, Castro, Johnson, they're all dead.

So I'd say any hopes of proving this theory are gone.

When Lee Harvey Oswald visits Mexico City in the fall of 1963, investigators

desperate to know what he's up to.

He makes several visits to the Cuban embassy.

What happens there? Are the Cubans involved?

You have to ask, right?

But the Cuban embassy isn't the only place Oswald visits in Mexico.

While in Mexico City, he also goes to the Soviet embassy in his quest for a

visa, and he ends up kind of bouncing back and forth between the Cuban embassy

and the Soviet embassy.

So Oswald, in visiting the Soviet embassy, is taken to meet with a Valery

Kostikov.

Oswald has one meeting on September 28th with Kostikov, and they have a

subsequent telephone conversation on October 1st.

Authorities dig into Kostikov's background.

And they make a chilling discovery.

Valery Kostikov is actually a KGB agent and a KGB assassinations expert.

Doesn't that suggest that this man Lee Harvey Oswald is up to no good?

So that leads us to the next big question, which is, is the Soviet Union,

Premier Nikita Khrushchev, involved in JK's assassination?

Khrushchev may have a motive to kill Kennedy that's just as strong as Fidel

Castro. As we know, Kennedy is on a crusade against communism. And communism

represented on the world stage by its biggest superpower, the USSR.

Premier Khrushchev is trying to promote revolution and communism around the

world. And JFK is trying to do the exact opposite.

So these two are pitted against each other at a geopolitical level.

And unfortunately for JFK, 90 miles from the Florida coastline, the Soviets have

a communist nation in the form of Cuba.

Communist Cuba would not have happened without the Soviets.

They give the Cubans training, financial, and military support.

Castro's victory is also a victory for Khrushchev.

Then in 1962, Khrushchev experiences a very public defeat, thanks to President

Kennedy.

A year before Kennedy's death, the United States and the Soviet Union had

gone to war. And the Soviet Union attempts to set up missile launch pads

that can be used for nuclear weapons.

Kennedy isn't okay with Soviet nukes 90 miles away. And this begins what's known

as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Which ultimately, after a lot of back and forth political posturing, Kennedy

wins.

Two years later, in 1964, Khrushchev is removed from office.

But before he's removed in 1963, Khrushchev is still clinging to power,

for a way to redeem himself among the communists.

That would certainly add some logic to the idea that maybe Khrushchev wanted to

see Kennedy dead.

If Oswald walks right into the embassy and offers to kill Kennedy in Dallas,

maybe the Soviets go for it. Otherwise, why is he meeting with a KGB

assassinations expert?

There is an even further out theory, which is that Khrushchev started

to kill Kennedy even before the Mexico City machinations.

Author and attorney Michael Eddowes shares details of his investigation in

1977 book, The Oswald File.

Michael Eddowes comes up with this theory that Khrushchev conceives of this

to kill Kennedy when Oswald is still living in the Soviet Union beginning in

1959.

Khrushchev realizes he's got a golden opportunity on his hands.

Here he's got an American citizen, a former Marine, an avowed communist who

speaks Russian.

And everybody knows he's there in the USSR. The Associated Press had reported

his defection.

Eddowes believes that Khrushchev detains and kills Oswald while in the USSR,

then replaces him with a KGB agent, someone who looks very similar.

So it's not Lee Harvey Oswald who lands back in the United States in 1962.

It's an imposter whose mission it is to kill John F. Kennedy.

Eddowes believes he has definitive proof that Oswald was replaced.

On his Marine records, Oswald is listed as being 5 '11".

but that the person who killed Kennedy is actually 5 '9". The original Oswald

also had a cranial operation as a child, leaving him with an indentation behind

his ear and a dime -sized hole in his skull.

But according to Eddowes, the autopsy on the Kennedy assassin shows no such

features. It does, however, show that the assassin has a large scar on his

wrist, which Eddowes notes the original Oswald did not have.

His argument persuades the Texas courts.

and Oswald's widow, Marina, to have his body exhumed. So this is huge news.

Eddowes has managed to convince authorities and Lee Harvey Oswald's

there's something to this theory.

So in 1981, they dig up the body, and it's in an advanced state of

decomposition.

Eddowes and widow Marina Oswald agree to have the Dallas County medical

examiner, Linda Norton, do the examination.

Dr. Norton is able to match dental records and also identify the evidence

childhood cranial surgery, which together show that actually the body in

grave really is that of Lee Harvey Oswald.

So Khrushchev didn't replace Lee Harvey Oswald with another killer. That much we

know. But the Soviet conspiracy theory is still alive and well, because it

doesn't prove that Oswald himself didn't work with the USSR to plan and execute

the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

But that's not what the Huck Committee said.

In their 1976 report, they find that neither the Cubans nor the Soviets are

behind the assassination.

But they do think that somebody else could be involved.

For almost 60 years, one detail in the JFK investigation remains undisputed.

Lee Harvey Oswald's Communist Ties.

But in 2017, thanks to newly declassified documents, fresh evidence

light that could change everything we think we know about Oswald.

Recently declassified intelligence reports reveal that the KGB does their

investigation into Oswald. They have him under very tight surveillance from the

moment he enters the USSR, so they have a lot of intelligence on him.

And according to the KGB report, contrary to what we've all been led to

Oswald stops being a communist sympathizer.

The KGB reports that over his time in the Soviet Union, Oswald actually

disillusioned with the cause.

And by the time he leaves in 1962, he is not a communist anymore.

This goes against decades of conventional thinking about Oswald and

assassination. If he's not a communist, then who killed JFK?

So the KGB does believe that Oswald killed Kennedy.

They do say that they think he's part of a conspiracy. It's just not the

conspiracy you think. So instead, the KGB theory is that Oswald is part of a

militant anti -communist conspiracy group whose intent is to poison

between the Soviet Union and the United States by killing Kennedy and framing

the communists for it.

Khrushchev will say in an interview in 1964 that in fact Oswald was working

extremist anti -communist forces in the United States.

Many wonder if this theory is simply Soviet propaganda.

Of course, Khrushchev wants to take suspicion off himself.

But independently of the KGB, a U .S. investigator also looks into this

Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans, comes to believe that a

murky conspiracy involving business leaders and Lee Harvey Oswald has

together all these right -wing anti -communist elements to kill JFK.

To prove his theory, Garrison spends six years interviewing witnesses.

Through the 1960s, Jim Garrison's investigations lead to a man by the name

David Ferry.

Back in the 1950s, David Ferry serves in the Civil Air Patrol, which also has as

a member Lee Harvey Oswald.

Dave Ferry was rabidly anti -communist and heavily involved in the anti -Castro

movement in New Orleans.

So you might be thinking, now wait a minute, someone who's anti -Castro

like Kennedy.

But David Ferry was disappointed in Kennedy for not being staunch enough in

their opposition to Castro.

He thinks that Kennedy's attempts at a peaceful outcome are weak, that he's

essentially handed Cuba to the communists. In fact, he gives a fiery

1961 where he says that Kennedy should be shot.

According to Garrison, Ferry follows through with that threat.

In September of 1963, a few weeks before the assassination of JFK, insurance

agent named Perry Russo would state that he was at a party with a businessman

from New Orleans named Clay Shaw, Lee Harvey Oswald, and David Ferry, where

assassination of JFK would be discussed.

Russo testifies that he remembers them saying that they were going to kill

Kennedy and that they were going to use something called a triangulation of

shooters. They also discussed alibis for the people involved in this conspiracy.

By February of 1967, Garrison is ready to reveal his finding.

Newspapers in New Orleans break Garrison's story.

He's convinced that David Ferry and Lee Harvey Oswald are longtime friends.

since their days together in the Civil Air Patrol.

He believes they want to take out Kennedy and frame the communists.

David Ferry and Lee Harvey Oswald worked together to plan the assassination with

the support of Clay Shaw and the help of another man behind the scenes named Guy

Bannister. Ferry and Bannister were both adamant supporters of the anti -Castro

movement, which included arming people to go stage attacks in Cuba.

And Ferry, as a pilot, was moving the weapons, and Bannister was supplying

So these men did have a hard -right background that involved guns.

Garrison was certainly correct about that.

Garrison's theory has Bannister and Ferry as the brains behind this

Quay Shaw would be handling logistics and financial backing.

And then in this scenario, there are two shooters involved in a crossfire.

Oswald, as we know, in the book depository, and then another.

unnamed shooter on the grassy knoll armed with the evidence garrison's ready

his day in court oswald is already dead and then banisher has died of a heart

attack by 1964 so there are already two alleged conspirators gone then something

more unusual happens less than a week after the garrison investigation goes

public dave ferry is found dead

David Ferry is found in his apartment with two typed -up suicide notes, but

autopsy finds no evidence either of suicide or of murder, and that David

has died of a brain hemorrhage.

Garrison is flummoxed.

He says, I suppose it could be just a weird coincidence that the night Ferry

penned two suicide notes, he dies of natural causes.

On March 1, 1967, the last alleged co -conspirator alive is arrested.

Clay Shaw is finally tried in 1969, and it remains the only trial in American

history associated with the assassination of JFK. But Garrison is

with few witnesses remaining alive and others deemed unreliable. Shaw is

acquitted in 45 minutes.

Ten years later in 1979, the House Select Committee wonders publicly if

was served.

The House Committee's final report states that they believe the Louisiana

witnesses were both, quote, credible and significant, and that they were telling

the truth about Ferry and Oswald's meetings in 1963.

So Garrison's theories caused for a lot of sensational reporting and a lot of

excitement on the part of the public and, you know, maybe swayed some people

the court of public opinion.

In actual court, where evidence is required, they were found to fall apart

pretty quickly.

After decades of pressure from the American public, Congress passes the JFK

Records Act in 1992.

The act mandates the release of all files relating to the case.

So even all these decades later, people still want answers and are now hopeful

that maybe we'll start to get them.

These documents aren't released all at once, but during the 1990s, millions and

millions of pages of documents are made public.

The law had a deadline. It said that everything in the government's files had

be made public in 2017.

Well, guess what? That does not happen.

But by 2017, tens of thousands of records have been released. And one of

gets a lot of attention.

Because it appears to confirm a long -standing theory that the mafia was

involved in the assassination of JFK.

From the moment Kennedy dies, conspiracy theorists... are asking the right

question, which is, who wants him dead?

The communists, in a lot of minds, feature really high on that list.

But there's another group who might want Kennedy dead even more, and that is the

Cosa Nostra, the American mafia.

In 1962, JFK, along with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, are

on a crusade to wipe out organized crime in America.

One of the biggest revenue streams the mob had, obviously, were the casinos in

Cuba. The mob was kicked out of Cuba by Castro. So they were angry with

President Kennedy for not having done more.

So they wanted to see Castro overthrown so they could get back into Cuba, reopen

their casinos and their liquor operations and get going again.

And one way of doing that might be by killing President Kennedy.

In the minds of some mobsters, Kennedy took billions of dollars out of their

pockets and they have killed for a lot less.

And wouldn't you know it, right in the middle of the Kennedy case.

There's a man who could be the key to a mafia connection.

That man is Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby.

Jack Ruby was a tough guy from Chicago. Jack Rubenstein, originally a thug, a

pimp, moves to Dallas, opens up his nightclub there, and quickly becomes a

of fixture among organized crime figures.

He was what you would call a wannabe.

He gets these nightclubs up and running, and they become a conduit for all the

things we know the mafia for. Gambling, running narcotic, and eventually, sex

work.

Theorists long speculated that Jack Ruby and the mafia worked together to kill

Kennedy. They say by 1963, Jack Ruby is heavily indebted to the mafia, and they

force them to find a patsy to assassinate the president.

And afterwards, they make him kill that fall guy so that he can't talk.

A lot more evidence came out in the 1970s with the House Select Committee

investigation, and that strengthened the notion that there was an organized

crime connection to the assassination.

Did Ruby hire Oswald on behalf of the mafia?

Dallas police have two witnesses report that on October 4th, 1963, seven weeks

before the assassination, they see Ruby and Oswald meet in Ruby's Carousel Club

on Commerce Street in Dallas.

There, they argue over a large sum of money for an undisclosed job that Oswald

will be doing for Ruby.

But the Warren Commission fails to interview these witnesses.

After he's arrested, Ruby denies ever having known Oswald and that he didn't

know beforehand that the assassination was going to happen.

Ruby says that he was several blocks away, busy placing some newspaper ads,

killed Oswald because of grief, because of patriotism, and because he felt for

the First Lady and wanted to keep her from having to suffer through a

trial.

For over 50 years, no one can prove otherwise.

But then in 2017, as part of another large dump of declassified Kennedy

we see document 321 -492 -67.

It's a report from the FBI's Intelligence Division about Jack Ruby.

In it, an informant named Bob Vanderslice says that Ruby called him up

day of the assassination.

He asks if he, quote, would like to watch the fireworks.

Vanderslice goes with Ruby to a location right across from the Texas School Book

Depository, and together they watch the president get shot.

When it happens, Ruby says nothing. He just turns calmly and walks.

south, towards the newspaper office, where he places the ads and thereby

an alibi.

If this is true, then Jack Ruby knew they were going to be, quote, firework,

he knew exactly where and when the assassination was going to happen.

In other words, Ruby lied, and he knew about the whole thing.

After months in custody, Ruby himself claims there's more to his story.

At first, Ruby sticks to his alibi, but then...

He changes his tune. He writes letters, he makes statements to police, and then

even testifies to the Warren Commission that he knows some things he's not

saying. But he believes that his life is in danger. He wants to tell the whole

truth, but he can't, unless he can get some protection from the government.

But he never gets that protection, and he dies in 1967, taking with him to the

grave any potential secrets about a mafia assassination plot.

Some believe that members of the mafia work quickly to cover their tracks.

after JFK's death.

Over a dozen witnesses and participants die mysteriously in the aftermath of the

shooting. Oswald, Ruby, Dorothy Kilgallen. She's the only reporter to

Jack Ruby at his trial.

She then openly questions the Warren Commission and then dies of a mysterious

overdose in 1965.

So following this trail of murders, it reaches its apex in 1968 when Robert F.

Kennedy, who also could be seen as an enemy of the mafia, is killed in Los

Angeles. What kind of organization would be willing to leave behind such a long

string of bodies to keep hold of their power and their secrets?

The mafia. That's who. And if they did, then it worked because there is no one

left to confirm this theory.

On December 20th, 1991, Oliver Stone's film about the Kennedy assassination,

JFK, is released in theaters.

Almost immediately, it causes an uproar. The film combines a number of

conspiracy theories, including the alleged New Orleans plot and the second

shooter on the grafting hole. But more important than the film's plot is the

impact it has on this country.

After the film was released, we see a tidal wave of other publications

associated with the JFK assassination.

Including one from a man who says he was directly involved.

Robert Morrow claimed to be a former CIA operative active in the anti -Castro

movement in the 1960s. And he alleged in a book that he was asked by Tracy

Barnes, a senior CIA official, to buy guns that he said were later used in the

assassination.

Morrow's cast of characters in the alleged CIA plot might sound familiar.

Morrow actually names the same co -conspirators that are in the movie JFK

also those that were pursued by Jim Garrison in his New Orleans case.

He claims that Clay Shaw, Guy Bannister, and Dave Ferry were helping in the

operations against Castro in Cuba before the assassination.

Moro says they also enlisted the help of the mafia through Jack Ruby.

On November 22nd in Dallas, they placed four shooters.

Oswald in the book depository, another on the grassy knoll, and two more, all

with Moro's rifles.

The month prior, they laid some groundwork. They sent Oswald to Mexico

with the Cubans.

Their goal is to frame Castro for the crime and therefore bring about a full

-scale invasion of Cuba.

According to Morrow, the CIA wants redemption from their failed Bay of Pigs

operation, and the mafia has hopes of being able to return to reopen their

casinos in Cuba.

It's quite a story, a complicated CIA plot with dozens of participants. And

with all those people, including government agents and known criminals

under surveillance, the Warren Commission finds no evidence that any of

actually happened.

Morrow offers a potential explanation for that as well.

Many have speculated that the Warren Commission never adequately looked into

Cuban connection or the CIA.

Morrow believes that that's due to the presence on the commission of the former

CIA director, Alan Dulles. When the commission is formed, they don't put the

current CIA director on it or anyone from the FBI. The only one on the

commission with intelligence experience is Alan Dulles.

who just happens to be the man that Kennedy fired from his position after

Bay of Pigs failed.

At the time of the warrant permission, CIA involvement in the Bay of Pigs is

classified. The government didn't want that getting out. They also didn't want

any information getting out related to Operation Mongoose, which at the time

top secret, but we now know was a Kennedy -sanctioned CIA operation to

assassinate Castro, led by Alan Dulles.

As more documents have been declassified, more information has been

about the CIA.

It is clear that they were withholding information from the Warren Commission,

information that Alan Dulles knew and kept hidden.

Some theorists believe that information could have even saved Kennedy's life.

In 2013 and 2014, some very damaging records are released about the CIA as

the JFK Records Act. They reveal that the CIA actually knew about Oswald's

to Mexico City before the assassination.

The agency claimed to the Warren Commission that they only found out

But that was a lie.

They had an eye on Oswald since his defection to the U .S .S .R. They were

reading his mail, tracking his movements.

The CIA field office in Mexico City reported Oswald's meeting with the

almost immediately.

And the CIA had Soviet agent Valery Kostikov under surveillance during the

he was meeting with Oswald.

Does that mean the CIA killed Kennedy?

No, absolutely not.

But should the CIA have known that Oswald was a threat?

Yes, they probably should have.

And could an earlier intervention have prevented Oswald from killing the

president? Again, I would say the answer is yes.

In a now declassified 2013 report, CIA historian David Robars finds that the

agency is complicit in keeping incendiary information from the Warren

Commission. He says they intended to keep the commission focused on, quote,

What the agency believed was the best truth, that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted

alone in killing John Kennedy.

I think all of the most credible evidence suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald

the bullets that killed President Kennedy, that he probably is the only

But whether or not other people knew, whether or not other people helped him,

those are mysteries that will probably linger forever.

The National Archives recently released thousands of newly declassified

documents. Now almost all of these nearly five million pages are available

the public.

Perhaps they will provide some closure to this enduring mystery.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mystery.