Asked to declassify all remaining government documents related to the JFK assassination, President Donald Trump ordered that the government take three more years to redact documents that compromise U.S. national security. Since JFK’s assassination Nov. 22, 1963, numerous theories emerged about multiple assassins and various motives for killing the 35th president. Various conspiracy theories identified the CIA, Mafia, Kremlin, Havana and President Lyndon Johnson playing a role in the assassination. In the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992, it was the intent to declassify all documents held by the U.S. government. Information has come out since 1992 in dribs-and-drabs, not pointing to a single theory for JFK’s death in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963. New York Times reporter and author Philip Shenon focused on Oswald’s Mexico trip to get more clues about the assassination.
Whatever isn’t known about alternative shooters, the government-backed Warren Commission Report concluded that 24-year-old former U.S. marine Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman that shot Kennedy from his perch at sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. In 1959, at age 20, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, staying in Minsk, Belarus three years until returning to Dallas with his wife Marina in 1962. What Oswald did in Russia is unknown but what’s known for sure is that Oswald was considered a marksman in the Marines and traveled to Mexico City about a month before he killed Kennedy. Kremlin officials denied any ties with Oswald, despite spending three years in Russia, with someone covering his expenses during his stay. Oswald’s trip to Mexico City four weeks before the assassination draws intense interest and speculation.
When the Warren Commission finished its final report Sept. 24, 1964, there was plenty written about Oswald’s time in Russia but nothing about his buss trip from Dallas to Mexico City four weeks before the assassination, arriving Sept. 27, 1963 and leaving Oct. 2, 1963. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon interviewed Oscar Contreras who confirmed that as a 28-year-old reporter for the El Sol de Tampico newspaper, confirmed that he met Oswald in 1963 while he was a law student at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. What’s significant is that Shenon’s 2013 book, through interviews with Contreras, placed Oswald in Mexico City visiting both the Russian and Cuban embassies. It only makes sense that Oswald returns to Dallas Oct. 2, 1963, spending the next six weeks preparing for the assassination, something requiring plenty of advanced coordination and planning.
Whatever the details of the meetings between Oswald and the Cuban and Russia embassies in Mexico city, there’s good reason to believe it involved orders and payment to assassinate JFK in Dallas Nov. 22, 1963. Oswald reportedly acted erratically while visiting the Russian and Cuban embassies, allegedly attempting to get visas to escape to Cuba or Russia after the assassination. Oswald, of course, killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tibbit 45-minutes after he fled the Texas School Book Depository, eventually arrested in a Texas theater watching movie. Oswald was shot Nov. 24, 1963 in the basement of the Dallas Police Department by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby, who eventually died in prison Jan. 3, 1967 from a “pulmonary embolism.” One thing’s for sure, Oswald was silenced, leading the public to reject of the 888-page Final Warren Commission Report, concluding Oswald was the lone assassin.
Fueling the wild conspiracy theories was the U.S. government sealing Dallas Police, FBI and CIA records connected with the assassination for 100 years. While the 1992 JFK Records Collection Act declassified thousands of documents, many were still redacted, others still not released. Debating how many shots Oswald fired most agree that three shots were fired, including he kill shot and wounding Texas Gov. John Connally. Many conspiracy theorists think the third shot was fired from the so-called Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza. Most ballistic experts, and that of the Warren Commission Report, found that the three shots were fired by Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. What’s more important is who set Oswald up to assassinate JFK. While the Warren Commission concluded Oswald acted as a lone wolf, the public believes it was a wider conspiracy.
All the best evidence points to obvious facts completely ignored by the Warren Commission, holding Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman who operated by himself without any links to foreign governments. But it’s undeniable that Oswald defected to the Soviet Union for at least three years, then traveled about four weeks before the assassination to Mexico City visiting the Russian and Cuban embassies. It’s no accident that the Soviet Union implicated President Lyndon Johnson of conspiring to kill JFK out of jealousy or pure spite. Other conspiracy theorists blame former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover of former CIA Director Allen Dulles, both blame JFK for the failed April 17, 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion and Oct. 16, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Oswald’s Soviet defection and trip Sept. 27, 1963 to Oct. 2, 1963 to Mexico visiting the Russian and Cuban embassies tells the real story.
