He was there, and then he wasn't. It’s been over sixty years since that November day in Dallas, but the JFK conspiracy remains the ultimate American ghost story. You’d think by 2026, with every document finally dragged out of the National Archives, we’d have a tidy answer.
We don't.
Honestly, the more we learn, the weirder it gets. Most people still don't buy the "lone nut" story. A 2023 Gallup poll showed 65% of Americans think Lee Harvey Oswald had help. That’s a lot of skeptical people.
The Magic Bullet and the Grassy Knoll
The Warren Commission basically told the world that one guy, with one crappy mail-order rifle, pulled off the most impossible feat in marksmanship history. They called it the "Single Bullet Theory." Skeptics call it the "Magic Bullet."
It supposedly went through Kennedy’s neck, hit Governor Connally’s back, came out his chest, smashed his wrist, and ended up in his thigh. All while staying nearly pristine.
You’ve seen the Zapruder film. Kennedy’s head goes back and to the left. Physics says that’s a shot from the front. The "Grassy Knoll."
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Wait, though. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) actually agreed there was a "probable conspiracy." They used acoustic evidence from a Dallas police motorcycle mic that supposedly picked up a fourth shot. Science has fought over that recording for decades. Some say it’s just static; others say it’s the smoking gun.
Did the CIA Do It?
If you want to talk about the JFK conspiracy, you eventually have to talk about the "spooks." Kennedy was at war with his own intelligence agencies after the Bay of Pigs disaster. He famously said he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."
That’s a hell of a motive.
New documents released under the Trump administration’s 2025 executive order (EO 14176) confirmed things we already suspected. The CIA was definitely tracking Oswald. They knew he’d visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City just weeks before the hit.
Why didn’t they stop him?
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Some researchers, like Jefferson Morley, argue the CIA was running a "bone-deep" operation involving Oswald. They weren't necessarily the ones pulling the trigger, but they were certainly watching the guy who did. Or, perhaps, they were using him as a dangled asset that went rogue.
The Mafia and the Robert Kennedy Connection
Then there’s the Mob. Robert Kennedy, the President's brother and Attorney General, was kicking the hornet's nest of organized crime. He went after guys like Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana with a vengeance.
The theory is simple: The Mafia helped JFK get elected (especially in Illinois) and felt betrayed. "If you want to kill the dog, you don't cut off the tail (Bobby), you cut off the head (Jack)."
Jack Ruby, the guy who shot Oswald on live TV, had deep ties to the Chicago outfit. He claimed he did it to "spare Jackie a trial," but it looks a lot more like a professional silencing. Dead men tell no tales.
The 2025 Document Dump: What Changed?
Last year, the National Archives released the final tranches of redacted files. We got 63,000 pages of Cold War grit.
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Did we find a "Confession of the Century"? No.
What we found was a pattern of incompetence and cover-ups. The FBI and CIA were so embarrassed by how badly they’d tracked Oswald—a known defector—that they spent the next two decades scrubbing the record. Historians like Marc Selverstone note that while these files don't name a second shooter, they prove the government was terrified of what the public would think if they knew the truth about their own surveillance failures.
Why It Still Matters
This isn't just about a dead president. It's about trust. When the government spends 60 years hiding 2025's "final" documents, people start to wonder what else is behind the curtain.
The JFK conspiracy is the grandfather of all modern distrust. It’s why people question everything from moon landings to election results. It’s the original sin of American transparency.
If you're looking to dig deeper into the actual evidence, don't just watch movies. Do these three things:
- Read the HSCA Final Report (1979): It’s the only official government document that admits a conspiracy was likely. It’s far more nuanced than the Warren Commission.
- Examine the 3D Ballistic Scans: The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) recently released microscopic 3D clones of the "stretcher bullet" and fragments. You can see the rifling marks yourself.
- Follow the Mexico City Trail: Research Oswald’s "lost week" in Mexico. That is where the intelligence agencies have the most to hide.
The truth might never be one clean sentence. It’s probably a messy mix of a lone gunman, a failed security state, and a lot of powerful people who were happy to see a transition of power.
You can now access the full, unredacted 2025 digital collection at the National Archives website (archives.gov/jfk). Every memo, every grainy photo, and every surveillance report is finally there for the public to scrutinize. Seeing the actual documents, rather than just reading summaries, is the only way to truly understand how deep the rabbit hole goes.