What is the Enduring Question?

[Jon G. Tidd]

The enduring question is why was JFK killed? Not how he was killed.

I've asked it. It's fallen off.

It's simple. JFK was killed for reason X. Why?

You dodge the answer unless you tell why.

[Greg Parker]

The enduring question is why was JFK killed? Not how he was killed.

I've asked it. It's fallen off.

It's simple. JFK was killed for reason X. Why?

You dodge the answer unless you tell why.

The answer will be in a later volume of my book.

[Chris Newton]

You dodge the answer unless you tell why.

I don't think that's an absolute that's answerable because different players in the plots had wildly different motivations.

I'm a great believer in history "repeating itself" though, so I believe the infancy of this conspiracy was the 1934 coup attempt. It was the money, Wall Street, that was threatened then. It was the money that was threatened again.

The main difference between these two conspiracies was that there was no true "Super-Patriot" in 1963. There was no one like Smedley Butler who would put allegiance to the Constitution above personal interests.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Chris Newton

[David Andrews]

I would say that the prime motivator was to prevent another term in office that would stall on Vietnam, and to do it while a V-P who would advance the conflict into war was available (given LBJ's impending legal challenges).

Death was preferable to political or moral dishonoring with sex scandals, et al., because it would neutralize RFK and the Kennedy family for the short-term future, which was as much as needed doing until RFK ran for president. Merely discrediting JFK would also invite Kennedy retaliation.

Assassination also carried an air of punishment to motivate co-conspirators who held Cuba and domestic issues against JFK - his record on these issues, and other foreign issues, predicted to the major conspirators JFK's intractability and "indecisiveness" on Vietnam. That war was the pending business for the major conspirators, and the impediment had to be removed.

One of the long-term goals may have been a Nixon presidency, though, as we see through Nixon's early second term comeuppance, no president was inexpendible, and the Vietnam war could not be prolonged indefinitely.

How do you feel about this answer, Jon? If there's a better one I would like to know it.

Edited September 19, 2015 by David Andrews

[Gene Kelly]

Jon:

I go back to basics when thinking of JFK's death. The term “assassin” was first coined about 1090. Assassins were Muslim warriors from Persia and Syria whose chief objective was to assassinate Crusaders. In JFK's case, the warriors killed a crusader.

I point you to an interesting paper by LTC Victor D. Irvin (April 2002) “Political Assassination, The Strategic Precision Weapon of Choice” U.S. Army War College that condones this act in the aftermath of September 11th. The author states that "The strategic application of assassination to cause political or social change, or strike emotional, if not physical fear, in the target or enemy force so as to steer behavior in the direction of the desired political or social outcome ...". He further states that such killing is justified as the person singled out must be a "belligerent". Parks calls this “lawful targeting (as opposed to assassination).”

I believe the roots of JFK's demise are partly in revenge (the whole thing just feels like an eye-for-an eye act) for Bay of Pigs and Dulles' ouster, and also militaristic in its overtones. JFK was on a path for peace as James Douglas points out, and this was in contrast to the cold war policy of the nation at the time. His overtures towards Russia and third world communists, as appeasement, were unacceptable to the policy makers. Making an analogy to Clausewitz that war is a “continuation of political activity by other means", some have termed assassination as "politics by other means'.

What always strikes me (at a 1,000-foot level) is that the Dealey Plaza ambush was open but covert in its nature; much more than a killing, but rather a bold statement. He could've been taken out by many means. This was broad daylight, high noon, sitting next to his wife. CIA (and US military) was obsessed with the use of assassination in the 1950-1970 era. In 1975, the Church Committee revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency had indirect, if not direct roles, in numerous assassination plots around the world that spanned several presidencies including those of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. Such acts and thinking swirled around JFK's time in office. Richard Helms later defended the Agency's position, stating that the CIA was “the agency of the President precisely to provide a policy option midway between persuasion and military conduct; the point of covert activity is that it be covert.”

JFK was viewed as a threat to national interests. The author of the Army war College paper states that assassination is an acceptable form of governmental response to foreign threats that would endanger the nation... he offers it as the 'strategic precision weapon of choice'. I believe that it was this form of warrior thinking that resulted in the assassination of an inspirational crusader for peace ... a president who advocated a different type of American democracy and foreign policy.

Gene

[Martin Blank]

The enduring question is why was JFK killed? Not how he was killed.

I've asked it. It's fallen off.

It's simple. JFK was killed for reason X. Why?

You dodge the answer unless you tell why.

one word: money

why did it happen when it did? let this cloud formation metaphor suffice for an answer

A metaphor for JFK’s assassination

Cloud formation occurs as gaseous water molecules coalesce and collect on particles of dust, sea salt and other cloud condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. If you were to sit long enough outside, you could actually see a cloud forming, but the results might be a bit boring if you are looking at a clear sky waiting for a cloud. In other words, the weather conditions must be conducive to cloud formation.

[Guest Doug Campbell]

"John Kennedy was murdered because he wanted to *end* the Cold War, as opposed to *win* it."

~Douglas Horne

That, IMHO, sums it up.

Peace

D.

[Jon G. Tidd]

David Andrews,

The enduring fact is that the U.S. Government's continuing cover-up of the JFK murder tells me something's still at stake. What's at stake can't be Johnson's or Nixon's reputation. Or the behavior of some CIA officials who committed treason. The country today could handle that revelation easily, as could the world at large.

What couldn't be handled today, what couldn't be tolerated, is revelation that powerful interests still seeking to wield power were behind the murder.

I ask you, David, do you know of powerful interests extant in both 1963 and today that would have rejoiced at JFK's murder?

[David Andrews]

David Andrews,

The enduring fact is that the U.S. Government's continuing cover-up of the JFK murder tells me something's still at stake. What's at stake can't be Johnson's or Nixon's reputation. Or the behavior of some CIA officials who committed treason. The country today could handle that revelation easily, as could the world at large.

What couldn't be handled today, what couldn't be tolerated, is revelation that powerful interests still seeking to wield power were behind the murder.

I ask you, David, do you know of powerful interests extant in both 1963 and today that would have rejoiced at JFK's murder?

I was writing about period motives, enduring through the ten years or so alotted for the Vietnam war.

Your point is well taken. Certainly the political, media, corporate, and intelligence communities have interests to protect, as well as the nexus they share. One would have to look above them to the monied and powerful families that profited from war, oil and narcotics; that advanced through access to political power, and actual possession of political office.

We need not limit ourselves to American families, but the suspects there are well known. Every family once in business with Averell Harriman is a candidate.

When Allen Dulles - whom Gene Kelly rightly cites above as a facilitator and instigator of Kennedy's murder - accused Kennedy posthumously of believing he was a god, he upbraided Kennedy, and his father, for imagining the family was among the actual godhead that Dulles served.

As earthly gods go, Kennedy - mortal flaws and all - was a political and social Prometheus. Which is why an example had to be made, as was done to the mythical Prometheus. Kennedy's strivings challenged the Rockefeller-made image of Prometheus lodged above that skating rink for J. D. Salinger characters in Manhattan.

Edited September 21, 2015 by David Andrews

[Paul Brancato]

I completely agree with this apparent consensus that it was an act of state, and that the continued government secrecy suggests that the benefactors are still with us.

[David Andrews]

I completely agree with this apparent consensus that it was an act of state, and that the continued government secrecy suggests that the benefactors are still with us.

It's true, given the longevity of the families and interests involved. But can the facts ever be revealed without eroding faith in, and acceptance of, government, law, media, the military, corporations...even forensic science? Opening the books on JFK invites question of too many 20th- and 21st-century events. RFK, MLK, and 9/11 are just the spikes in the long graph.

Edited September 20, 2015 by David Andrews

[Gene Kelly]

I'm not sure I agree that certain revelations about limited rogues or a few treasonous intelligence officials could be endured by the country today. I once had an amazing discussion with a gentleman who was a part of the HSCA investigations. He related how incredibly difficult it was to get any information from CIA, although he was certain they were involved with the operation. I asked him the typical question of why, after 35 years, they (the government) couldn't just come out with the larger truths about Kennedy's murder. His answer gave me pause, and I still think about it to this day. He said: "What makes you think that was the worst thing they ever did?"

[Don Jeffries]

The reason I chose to write a book about all the important events that have happened since November 22, 1963 is because I believe they're all connected. We can't look at the JFK assassination in a vacuum. To try and determine why he was killed, we need to look at what changed, and what didn't change, after his death.

If Castro was the impetus for the assassination of JFK, then the plotters failed miserably. Castro wasn't overthrown, the attempts on his life stopped, and in fact Cuba itself basically disappeared as a political issue, even for the far right-wing. If JFK's efforts to obtain Civil Rights for black Americans was a deciding factor, again the plotters failed miserably, because LBJ was able to get that legislation passed.

Our involvement in Vietnam, however, most decidedly did change after the events of November 22, 1963. NSAM 263 detailed JFK's plans to begin an immediate withdrawal, with all Americans out by 1965. NSAM 273, written by probable plotter McGeorge Bundy before the assassination, when he had to have known JFK would never have approved it, totally contradicted JFK's new policy directive and paved the way for the rest of the tumultuous 1960s.

While JFK and RFK became sworn enemies of both the CIA and FBI Director Hoover, after the assassination the power of the intelligence agencies continued to grow, even after the revelations of the Church Committee in the mid-1970s. Remember, even at the height of seeming opposition to our clandestine activities, Jimmy Carter was unable to get Ted Sorensen approved as CIA Director, because of his Kennedy ties and his perceived animosity towards the agency.

JFK was locked in a battle behind the scenes with David Ben-Gurion and Israel over their development of nuclear weapons. Certainly, upon his death, our foreign policy became increasingly entangled with Israeli interests, especially with the election of Reagan and the birth of the neo-cons. There are also indications that, inspired by his father's distrust of the banking system, that JFK distrusted the Federal Reserve and might very well have audited or abolished it.

Lyndon Johnson's behavior after the assassination rightly earned him the enmity of RFK and most of Kennedy's advisers. He couldn't hide his happiness. I don't believe he was the primary force behind the assassination, but there is little doubt that he knew in advance and certainly approved. We also know from the slew of bodies accumulated during his political career that LBJ would not have hesitated to order a hit on anyone.

In a nutshell, JFK had discarded his Cold War mindset by 1963, as is evident by his American University speech, which is probably the most dangerous speech ever delivered by an American president. The Military Industrial Complex must have despised him at that point, as did J. Edgar Hoover and the most powerful people in the CIA. if Abraham Bolden is correct, then some of those Secret Service agents sworn to protect him hated JFK. We all know how miserably JFK's Secret Service detail performed in Dallas that day. If there had been an honest investigation of the assassination, then every one of those men would have been grilled mercilessly and their behavior considered suspect.

We can't name the gunmen at this point, but it should be pretty obvious just who had the power and motivation to kill JFK. It wasn't anti-Castro or pro-Castro Cubans, and it wasn't the Mafia. It obviously wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald. It was an aggregation of very powerful forces that conspired together to remove a common enemy. The fact that the crime continues to be covered up by an ensuing generation demonstrates that all these crimes remain important to those who misrule us.

In Hidden History, I delineated this pattern; an uninterrupted timeline of corruption on the part of our leaders, starting with the assassination of President Kennedy. Conspiracies and cover-ups are standard operating procedure for our leaders. The JFK assassination remains especially important because it heralded a new era, new extremes of crime and corruption.

[Cliff Varnell]

I'm not sure I agree that certain revelations about limited rogues or a few treasonous intelligence officials could be endured by the country today. I once had an amazing discussion with a gentleman who was a part of the HSCA investigations. He related how incredibly difficult it was to get any information from CIA, although he was certain they were involved with the operation. I asked him the typical question of why, after 35 years, they (the government) couldn't just come out with the larger truths about Kennedy's murder. His answer gave me pause, and I still think about it to this day. He said: "What makes you think that was the worst thing they ever did?"

Bingo!

[Cliff Varnell]

The enduring question is why was JFK killed? Not how he was killed.

I've asked it. It's fallen off.

It's simple. JFK was killed for reason X. Why?

You dodge the answer unless you tell why.

The answer will be in a later volume of my book.

Ah, to be in the throes of love!

It's okay to love a pet theory but marrying any one of them is a big mistake, imo.

When speculation no matter how well informed is presented as fact -- as "the answer" -- it's a dis-service to your cause especially if you're dead right.