# Who do you think killed JFK? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238 "2004-06-19T22:27:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![saluki\_fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@saluki\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saluki_fan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/1 "2004-06-19T22:27:43Z")
I am sure that there are millions of posts regarding this question, but who do you think killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy? ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/2 "2004-06-19T22:35:10Z")
Cigarette Smoking Man. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/3 "2004-06-19T22:38:22Z")
Directly or indirectly? ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/4 "2004-06-19T22:56:57Z")
It was a conspiracy: Lee Harvey Oswald told Lee Harvey Oswald to buy Lee Harvey Oswald a M91/38 rifle with a Ordnance Optics 4 x 18 scope and a box or two of Western Cartridge 160 grain cartridges. Lee Harvey Oswald then tricked Lee Harvey Oswald into going into shooting JFK that fateful day. Lee Harvey Oswald then shot a cop while getting away. I suspect Cuban dissidents! ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/5 "2004-06-19T23:02:21Z")
Lee Harvey Oswald. With the rifle. In the School Book Depository. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/6 "2004-06-19T23:08:30Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > It was a conspiracy: > > Lee Harvey Oswald told Lee Harvey Oswald to buy Lee Harvey Oswald a M91/38 rifle with a Ordnance Optics 4 x 18 scope and a box or two of Western Cartridge 160 grain cartridges. Lee Harvey Oswald then tricked Lee Harvey Oswald into going into shooting JFK that fateful day. Lee Harvey Oswald then shot a cop while getting away. > > I suspect Cuban dissidents! You forgot the bit where Lee Harvey Oswald joined the marines to learn how to shoot (this was before Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the USSR). ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/7 "2004-06-19T23:17:00Z")
JFK is dead??? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/8 "2004-06-19T23:31:49Z")
I wish that every single conspiracy enthusiast would pick a random unsolved murder & devote 10% of the time he puts into Kennedy into solving the local murder. Probably a thousand killings get cleared up… ---
**Author:** ![deadeyesdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@deadeyesdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deadeyesdad)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/9 "2004-06-19T23:31:56Z")
In the last few months I have been reading and looking at the JFK assassination. After all this time and 1000’s of pages of research. Lee Harvey Oswald, with the rifle, in the Book Depository. ---
**Author:** ![saluki\_fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@saluki\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saluki_fan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/10 "2004-06-19T23:37:01Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > Directly or indirectly? Indirectly ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/11 "2004-06-19T23:40:49Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > I wish that every single conspiracy enthusiast would pick a random unsolved murder & devote 10% of the time he puts into Kennedy into solving the local murder. > > Probably a thousand killings get cleared up… Heh, I’d love to see what they come up with. Headline in NYT: **Trilateral Commission thought to be behind thousands of murders around the nation; Nazi scientists and UFO technology involved. CIA declines to comment.** 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/12 "2004-06-19T23:50:01Z")
Bigfoot. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/13 "2004-06-19T23:51:34Z")
Lee Harvey Oswald _did_ have big feet - you could be onto something 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/14 "2004-06-20T00:02:53Z")
> [@saluki\_fan](#): > > Indirectly So, basically, you’re asking - KGB or CIA. Neither. The Soviets may well have talked to him ,but I don’t think they had the audacity to take out a US pres, and Krusch wouldn’t have let them. The CIA theories are just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/15 "2004-06-20T00:20:35Z")
My favorite theory is the Mafia – they helped JFK get elected, and then he returned the favor by letting his brother, as attorney general, investigate organized crime and crime-union links. They also resented his failure to unseat Castro and recover their casinos in Cuba. Jack Ruby had known mob ties. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/16 "2004-06-20T00:23:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > My favorite theory is the Mafia – they helped JFK get elected, and then he returned the favor by letting his brother, as attorney general, investigate organized crime and crime-union links. They also resented his failure to unseat Castro and recover their casinos in Cuba. Jack Ruby had known mob ties. Let us not forget Oswald had mafia ties too. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/17 "2004-06-20T00:44:05Z")
No one has suggested suicide yet. You never know. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/18 "2004-06-20T01:22:23Z")
I don’t know who ordered it, but I don’t think for a second it was Oswald. It’s obvious from the autopsy photographs that Kennedy was hit in the back just above his shoulder blades and the exit wound was straight through to the front of his neck at about the Adam’s apple. The Zapruder film clearly shows Kennedy sitting up in the back seat at the time he was hit. He was not leaning forward and turning in his seat as the Oswald proponents suggest as an explanation for this wound. Next, he was hit from in front of the limo and to his right and down low. His head clearly was driven upward and back, with his left shoulder almost cresting the boot of the convertible top. It is obvious from the Zapruder film that he was subject to a force that drove his head and body in this direction and not, as the Oswald proponent claim, because of a reflexive action after being hit from above and behind. The vast majority of blood and bone fragments and brain matter also exploded in the same direction, which would not have been the case had he been hit from above and behind. He was clearly hit by a bullet that was aimed at the middle of his forehead but which struck the side of his head instead due to his movement toward the left after he was hit in the neck. I’ve often thought the head shot came from the area of the grassy knoll. That’s where all the spectators on the ground seemed to be looking and I remember at least one motorcycle cop charging up it looking for the shooter. This didn’t quite jive however with what must have been the trajectory of the bullet that hit Kennedy in the head as I just described, because the bullet would have to have come from above his position. Recently there has been speculation about about a shooter hiding in a manhole near the curb in front of the limosine, hidden until the last moment by the manhole cover, with a clear shot at Kennedy as the limo followed the curve of the street. This would jive perfectly with the obvious path of the fatal bullet. Therefore, my opinion is he was hit by two street-level shooters: the first firing from the ground floor of the building across the street from the school book depository, and the second firing at street level from inside the manhole. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/19 "2004-06-20T01:30:42Z")
I agree in large measure with **Starving Artist**. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238/20 "2004-06-20T01:36:53Z")
I’d offer a few cents, but I fail to see the point if \*\*saluki\_fan \*\* is going to pull another disappearing act like he did in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262253&page=2) thread. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-think-killed-jfk/251238.md?page=2)