If you’ve spent any time down the rabbit hole of American political history, you know the name Roger Stone. He’s the ultimate provocateur. Long before he was a household name in the 2016 election cycle, he dropped a massive bombshell in the form of a book that basically tried to rewrite everything we thought we knew about November 22, 1963. I’m talking about The Man Who Killed Kennedy, a work that doesn't just nudge the official narrative—it tries to blow it up with a sledgehammer.
Honestly, the JFK assassination is the "Big Bang" of modern conspiracy theories. Everyone has a take. Was it the CIA? The Mafia? Castro? But Stone’s book took a sharp, aggressive turn toward one specific man: Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Stone isn't a historian in the traditional sense. He’s a political operative. That’s why his book feels different. It doesn't read like a dry academic paper. It reads like a prosecution. He isn't just suggesting LBJ was involved; he’s claiming LBJ was the mastermind. It’s a bold, messy, and deeply controversial claim that still generates heated debates in 2026.
The Core Thesis of The Man Who Killed Kennedy
The central argument is pretty straightforward, yet incredibly complex. Stone argues that LBJ was a man on the brink of political ruin. In 1963, Johnson was facing multiple scandals, specifically the Bobby Baker influence-peddling investigation and the Billie Sol Estes affair. According to the book, Kennedy was planning to drop LBJ from the 1964 ticket.
He was going to be finished. Or worse—imprisoned.
Stone posits that LBJ used his deep connections in Texas and his influence over the Dallas power structure to facilitate the hit. He brings in figures like Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, a long-time LBJ associate. He points to fingerprint evidence—which, to be fair, has been fiercely disputed by forensic experts—linking Wallace to the "sniper’s nest" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
It’s a lot to take in.
The book isn't just about one guy with a gun. It’s about a "Deep State" of the 1960s. Stone weaves a web involving the CIA, the Mob, and Texas oil barons like Clint Murchison. He claims they all had a shared interest in getting JFK out of the way. Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War, he wanted to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces, and he was looking at ending the oil depletion allowance.
Basically, he had too many enemies. And Stone argues LBJ was the only one with the motive, the means, and the proximity to power to pull it all together.
Why People Keep Buying Into the LBJ Theory
There is a psychological weight to the LBJ-did-it theory. It makes "sense" in a Shakespearean way. The ambitious Vice President, lurking in the shadows, taking the crown by force.
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You’ve probably seen the famous "wink" photo. It’s a grainy shot of Congressman Albert Thomas winking at a somber-looking LBJ on Air Force One during the swearing-in ceremony. To conspiracy theorists, that wink is the "smoking gun" of a coup. To skeptics, it’s just a politician acknowledging a colleague in a high-stress moment.
Stone leans heavily into the "wink" energy. He portrays LBJ as a sociopath. He quotes people like Madeleine Brown, who claimed to be Johnson’s longtime mistress. She famously alleged that LBJ told her the night before the assassination, "After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That’s no threat. That’s a promise."
Is it true?
Historians like Robert Caro, who has written the definitive multi-volume biography of LBJ, have found zero evidence of a murder plot. Caro depicts Johnson as a man of immense complexity and ruthlessness, yes, but not a murderer of presidents. But Stone argues that mainstream historians are part of the cover-up. He suggests they are "court historians" protecting the legacy of the American government.
The Malcolm Wallace Fingerprint Mystery
One of the most specific "facts" in The Man Who Killed Kennedy involves a fingerprint found on a box in the sniper's nest. For years, this print was unidentified. In 1998, a fingerprint expert named Nathan Darby claimed it matched Malcolm Wallace.
This was huge.
Wallace was a convicted killer who had a direct line to LBJ. If his print was on that box, the theory moves from "crazy talk" to "courtroom evidence." However, the FBI and several independent researchers have since debunked this match. They say the points of identification don't hold up under modern digital scrutiny.
Stone sticks by it, though. He argues the debunking was just more "damage control." This is the tricky part of the JFK world—whenever evidence is discredited, the theorists claim the discrediting itself is a conspiracy. It’s a closed loop.
Examining the Political Fallout
What makes the book interesting from a "news" perspective is how it reflects our current era of distrust. Stone wrote this book decades after the event, but its popularity peaked when people were already primed to believe the worst about their leaders.
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He doesn't just stop at the assassination. He dives into the aftermath. He talks about how LBJ supposedly handled the Warren Commission. He claims the commission was a sham designed to protect the "Official Narrative" of the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald is a ghost in this book. He’s the "patsy" that he claimed to be. Stone doesn't spend as much time on Oswald’s psychology because, in his view, Oswald was just a tool used by much bigger players.
A Quick Look at the Main Players in Stone's Narrative
- Lyndon B. Johnson: The mastermind. Driven by a desire for power and fear of prison.
- Malcolm Wallace: The "hitman." An LBJ loyalist with a dark history.
- Edward Clark: A powerful Texas lawyer and LBJ's "secret fixer" who Stone claims coordinated the logistics.
- The CIA/Military-Industrial Complex: The silent partners who provided the "clearance" for the event.
Critical Reception and Controversy
You can't talk about this book without talking about the backlash. Professional historians generally loathe it. They point out that Stone relies on sources that have been widely discredited. For example, the Madeleine Brown story has been picked apart by researchers who found she wasn't where she said she was on the night of the supposed "party" at Murchison’s house.
But here’s the thing: Stone doesn't care.
He’s writing for an audience that already feels lied to. To his readers, the inconsistencies in the official story—the "magic bullet," the Zapruder film's physics, the odd behavior of the Secret Service—are enough to justify looking for an alternative.
The book is a bestseller for a reason. It taps into a fundamental American skepticism. It’s also incredibly well-paced. Stone knows how to tell a story. He uses short, punchy chapters that make the conspiracy feel like a high-stakes political thriller rather than a dense history book.
What Most People Get Wrong About the LBJ Theory
People often think this theory started with Stone. It didn't.
Books like A Texan Looks at Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley (published in 1964) were laying the groundwork for this stuff almost immediately after the shots rang out. What Stone did was modernize it. He added the "insider" flair. Because Stone worked in the Nixon administration, he plays up the idea that he knows how the "sausage is made."
He famously points out that Richard Nixon once said, "Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but I wasn't willing to kill for it."
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That’s a heavy quote. If Nixon actually said it, it’s a terrifying window into the mindset of the era's elite. If he didn't, it’s a brilliant piece of narrative framing by Stone.
The Legacy of the Book in 2026
We are now over 60 years past the assassination. Most of the primary players are dead. The "Secret" files have mostly been released—though the National Archives still holds onto some scraps that keep the fire burning.
The Man Who Killed Kennedy remains a staple of the genre because it provides a "villain" we can understand. Human beings hate randomness. We hate the idea that a lone, disturbed man with a cheap rifle could change the course of history. We prefer a plot. We prefer to believe that something so massive must have had a massive cause.
LBJ is the perfect villain for that story. He was a larger-than-life Texan who took the presidency in the most dramatic way possible.
Whether you believe Stone or not, the book is a masterclass in how to build a counter-narrative. It challenges you to look at the power structures of the 1960s and ask: "Who actually benefited?"
Actionable Steps for the Curious Reader
If you’re going to dive into this, don't do it blindly. Conspiracy theories are addictive. You need a balanced approach.
- Read the book with a critical eye. Notice where Stone uses "must have" or "it is likely that" instead of hard evidence.
- Compare it to the Warren Commission Report. Yes, it's long and boring. But you have to know what the "official" story actually says before you can decide it’s a lie.
- Check the sources on Malcolm Wallace. Look up the 1998 fingerprint controversy and read the counter-arguments from the forensic community.
- Watch the Zapruder film yourself. Don't rely on someone else's "breakdown." Look at the movement of the head and the timing of the shots.
- Look into the Bobby Baker scandal. This part of Stone's book is actually grounded in real history. The pressure LBJ was under in late 1963 was very real.
The JFK assassination isn't just a cold case. It’s a mirror. What you believe about it says a lot about how you view power, government, and the nature of truth itself. Stone’s book is just one of many lenses, but it’s certainly one of the most provocative ones ever polished.
If you want to understand the modern "Deep State" discourse, you have to understand the arguments made in this book. It’s the blueprint. It’s the origin story of modern American distrust. Whether it's "true" or not is almost secondary to the impact it has had on the American psyche.
The mystery of Dealey Plaza isn't going away. And as long as people feel that the "official" version of events is missing a piece of the puzzle, books like Stone’s will continue to sit on best-seller lists. They offer a version of history that is dark, cynical, and—to many—uncomfortably plausible.