The Secret Service is supposed to protect the President, but on November 22nd, 1963, they may have done the opposite. Although according to the Secret Service's records all agents in Dallas were with President JFK when the assassination occurred, many witnesses believe otherwise.

After the shots were fired Dallas policeman Joe Marshall Smith went to a place called the Grassy Knoll that was located to the front/right of JFK's car expecting to see the assassin fleeing. He smelled gunpowder, but saw nothing but an empty parking lot and a lone man who claimed to be a Secret Service Agent. The man was never identified (Waggoner 91).

Another man, Lee Bowers, also believed the assassin was located in the Grassy Knoll. He worked for the Union Terminal Co. and was stationed in a 14 foot tower directly behind the Grassy Knoll. He saw three cars cruising around the parking lot about 35 minutes before the assassination. Two of them left after a few minutes. One of the drivers "was holding something up to his mouth with one hand and he was driving with the other (qtd. in Penn)." The third car had "out-of-state license plates," "mud up to the windows," and "probed all around the parking area." Bowers last saw the car about eight minutes before the assassination, pausing "just above the assassination site (qtd. in Penn)."

He also observed two men standing on top of the Knoll at the edge of the parking lot, facing the direction that the President's car was to come through. When the shots were fired, Bowers' attention was drawn to the area where he had seen both men. His attention was caught by "some commotion at that spot...something out of the ordinary." Bowers later testified that the what had caught his eye may have been a "flash of light (qtd. in Penn)."

Jean Hill, another witness to the assassination, saw a man running from the Grassy Knoll after hearing the shots. Believing he was the assassin, she took off after him but was turned back by the police. In March of 1964, while being questioned about what she had seen, she noticed that some of the men in the room with her appeared to be Secret Service agents (Hearings and Exhibits 10).

Research David Lifton thinks that the Secret Service were involved in the assassination and altered the appearance of Kennedy's wounds after the assassination. He came to this conclusion by comparing what the doctors at Dallas had seen only 8 minutes after JFK's assassination with what Navy doctors in Maryland reported seeing approximately six and a half hours later. The Dallas doctors said the shot appeared to come from in front of and to the right of Kennedy; the direction of the Grassy Knoll. They wanted to perform an autopsy on him, but were told by Secret Service agents that only government officials could determine the President's official cause of death. His body was flown to the U.S. Navel Medical Hospital in Betheda, Maryland, while under the supervision the Secret Service. The results of the official autopsy showed that the shots had come from behind JFK (Waggoner 92). Could the Secret Service have been trying to cover something up?

The Secret Service was not the only government organization thought to have been involved with the assassination. Many belived both the CIA and FBI could have had a part in it. Both agencies have several thousand pages of information on the assassination that have yet to be declassified. They wasted no time in saying that Oswald was the lone assassin, yet they also say that declassifying the papers would endanger national security. Some researchers wonder what sensitive information could possible be revealed if Oswald carried out the killing himself and there was no one else involved (Waggoner 33).

To add to the mystery, both agencies said they knew nothing about Oswald before the assassination. Then, just after Oswald's own death, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was overheard saying to the new President Lyndon B. Johnson that "The thing I am most concerned about . . . is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin (qtd. in Waggoner 88)." If the FBI knew nothing about Oswald prior to JFK's death, then how could Hoover have possibly uncovered enough information in the two days that elapsed between Kennedy and Oswald's death to come to the conclusion that Oswald did it?

The assassination of John F. Kennedy has made many Americans paranoid, especially those who have dedicated their time to research the events surrounding JFK's death in an effort to find out the truth. There have been too many strange occurrences for them all to be coincidences, and there are too many pieces of evidence linking organized groups such as the Mafia and different branches of the United States government for anyone to know what really happened. The strange behavior shown by the US government has been the main thing that has disturbed United States citizens. Many do not trust the government at all, and the mystery surrounding Kennedy's death only adds to the distrust.

What really happened on November 22nd, 1963? Was the President's death the result of an intricately woven conspiracy conducted by the mafia or the Secret Service? Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone and out of hate because he was a "loner" with a "deep-rooted resentment of all authority"? Was Jack Ruby contacted by someone and told to 'silence' Lee Harvey Oswald because they were afraid Oswald would leak out some kind of important, incriminating information? Many other theories than the ones that have been presented exist. However, the different theories that have been discussed- the Lone Assassin theory, the Mafia theory, and the various theories involving the US government- are the most credible. Despite all of the information that has been uncovered since the day Kennedy was killed, there is only one thing that really matters. The Lone Assassin theory is still thought of as the official explanation of Present John Fitzgerald Kennedy's untimely end, even though there is evidence that something much more complicated was going on behind the scenes.

Andrew Mann

Works Cited

ary Sources:

Hampton, Wilborn. Kennedy Assassinated! The World Mourns. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 1997.

U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations: Findings and Recommendations. 95th Congress, 2nd Session. House Report No. 95-1828, part 2.

U.S. President's Commission on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Hearings and Exhibits. 26 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.

U.S. President's Commission on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.

Secondary Sources:

Jones, Penn Jr. "Disappearing Witnesses ." Rat Haus Reality, Ratical Branch. 17 Mar. 1992. 18 Feb. 2002
.

Waggoner, Jeffrey. The Assassination of President Kenndedy: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, Inc, 1989.

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