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The Kennedy Curse, Part 14 - The Weird Things That Created Conspiracies
2 Plays3 seconds ago
Let's talk about the incredible amount of reasons JFK's murder has so many conspiracy theories. What is the truth? Can we ever know?
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, RFK Jr.: The Rise and Fall by Vincent Isabel, Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
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Transcript
Introduction: Hosts and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I have ADHD. Joy is autistic and we are letting our hyperfixations
Episode Topic: The Kennedy Curse
00:00:07
Speaker
fly. Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
Personal Updates and Recap of Previous Episode
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome back everybody. Thanks for joining us again. Hello. So before we get too far started, like last time, it's too hot where I live to not have the air conditioning on. So I'm in a pillow bunker again and ambient noise is going to happen. And sorry, I don't know how to fix it.
00:00:40
Speaker
We have to deal with it till it gets cold there. And then we have to hear the heat Once it's cold, it's great. The heater's not as loud. Okay. Okay. So last time we missed a week ah due to my mother had surgery. Now I have sick kids. Joy's traveling. There's just a whole bunch of things happened all at once that made us not able to record.
00:01:01
Speaker
But if you remember to our last episode, we had wrapped up talking about the assassination. We discussed, finished Lee Harvey Oswald. um We talked a little bit about the conspiracies solely around him. And I believe it's just kind of like his motives, the Jack Ruby stuff.
00:01:20
Speaker
So we, yeah, I think we wrapped all of that stuff up.
Conspiracy Theory Deep Dive: JFK Assassination
00:01:24
Speaker
So for the next couple of episodes, we are only talking conspiracy theories about the assassination. And as you can imagine, i dove deep, deep, deep.
00:01:39
Speaker
Joy's entire worldview has changed. And that is not an exaggeration. So I basically, i was on a long road trip and I just audited an online class focused on critical thinking through the lens of...
00:02:00
Speaker
JFK assassination conspiracy theory and by like a Harvard professor. Yep. So, and and I listened to the entire thing. Sorry, have too much time on me but I was in the car. You were in the car. So, um, yeah, we'll start off maybe with the basics of like the things that people yeah talk about with, um, with the, you know, generally conspiracy theory, but it, I'm just going to warn everyone. And I know we're podcast about,
00:02:30
Speaker
JFK or we're doing the Kennedy family curse. This is going to get deeper than, than it needs to be, but
Societal Views on Conspiracy Theories
00:02:37
Speaker
I don't care. It's not, but that's why we have a podcast. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. It's our podcast. Plus I've never heard of a single podcast that covered JFK assassination and not gotten into this stuff and like gone deeper than they meant to. So they so we're in good company. so much So as always, our sources are listed in the show notes because there are simply too many. So let's start talking about why there are conspiracy theories at all about the assassination. We've talked a lot about it in the last episodes, but I think it's a good kind of overview about about why specifically this assassination has garnered so much sometimes very out there ideas, sometimes believable ideas, but why this?
00:03:21
Speaker
Well, and I know as part of that, I kind of wanted to look up like the definition of what is a conspiracy theory because, again, part of my process made me rethink what that even means, right? So, I mean, you have a basic conspiracy, and I'm goingnna kind of just do definitions, a secret plan by a group to do something awful or harmful. But then when you get into conspiracy theory,
00:03:46
Speaker
um you get into a belief that some influential or controlling organization or group secretly responsible for a notable event or phenomenon. And and I think, um again, after everything I learned that that term, that something influential or a controlling organization or group affected it. Mm-hmm.
00:04:10
Speaker
That is what really stuck with me and um and just how large that could be. And that's, I think, what we're looking at here is just yeah how large that could be. so Yeah. And I think it's important to remember some conspiracy theories are just called that because there can't be facts hammered down 100%.
00:04:37
Speaker
If you get a situation where a fact can be like completely hammered down, like 10 years ago, everything with Jeffrey Epstein was a conspiracy theory. Now I would move it to the conspiracy.
00:04:49
Speaker
It's not a theory. You know what
Beneficiaries of JFK's Assassination?
00:04:51
Speaker
I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, and I would also say... That facts, it can ah um also not even necessarily be a matter of hammering down the facts, but of weeding through so many facts. There can be so many facts. And those facts can be presented in so in a myriad of different ways.
00:05:16
Speaker
And that in and of itself can... create the conspiracy. Yeah. And I agree with you a hundred percent. Um, I actually, interestingly enough, this class that I kind of went through this college course, um, was 11 years ago and, um, recorded 11 years ago. Oh wow. So it's so, it was so interesting that between then and now how much, how much things have changed and how much, I think honestly, even,
00:05:48
Speaker
society and ah at least a big segment of our society kind of sees that, that like what we would always call conspiracy theories are maybe a little closer to conspiracies than 100% theories.
00:06:05
Speaker
also though I learned. i don't think there's ever getting to a bottom of things.
Misinformation and Investigations
00:06:11
Speaker
No. I don't think we, there's things in life that they can't be answered because they're not on a level um that is, that I think our human brains can understand in a way.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. Ooh, that's getting really, all right. That was getting really deep there. All right. Well, let's talk about why happened. So first, of the people who could be considered an enemy of JFK or the Kennedy family even, they all benefited in this death.
00:06:44
Speaker
Castro benefited. LBJ, who's, I wouldn't put necessarily enemy, but he benefited. Like there weren't a lot of people who didn't benefit in some way. from the president being moved out of the way. And and I don't, yeah, benefit, because I was kind of trying to write my list. um And i mean, of course, there's just Lee Harvey Oswald, like crazy lone wolf. And then, yeah, you have the mafia, you have the Cuban exiles that we learned about from like Bay of Pigs that were really pissed off. um You just have Cuba and Russia and Russia.
00:07:19
Speaker
if we can even say like communism a, as a, an enemy or ah ah force, then you have the CIA, the FBI, right.
00:07:30
Speaker
Then it gets up to, it gets up to like, like Linda B. Johnson, yeah you know? And, and then there's also this level of, ah you know, the entire world order um of, it in of extremely influential, like individuals that are like a above government if that makes sense and i you know and that's and that's something i think we've only ever even really thought of now or we like some people call it now nowadays the epstein class or i don't know maybe even the billionaires but um but yeah so yeah i think there's so many levels of and and and you know what it's not even i don't think it's even just enemies i think everyone yeah
00:08:11
Speaker
I think it's any, that yeah, there's benefits. Even if not an enemy, there's people who can benefit. And there's so many benefits that could be derived. Yeah. Yeah. Spun, even.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. So in addition to that, um almost immediately after the assassination, broadcasters and newscasters started reporting that it was a right-wing murder plot. So, like, misinformation is already stirred up immediately.
00:08:38
Speaker
Couple that with Jack Ruby's murder of Leave Harvey Oswald just days later, which left no real resolution for the public. So basically, yeah. I mean, a narrative was created from the get-go so quickly.
00:08:54
Speaker
I think a big part of figuring this all out is why it was so important to put that narrative out, create it. And if it was for, if it if maybe even yeah in a weird way, that was a good thing. So yeah. Well, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had written a memo saying that the Dallas police didn't have enough evidence against Oswald without the information that the FBI had provided. Dallas PD said, quote, the thing I'm concerned about is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. like There is a document that says that. So it just... convinced Convince the public. Yeah. And whether that means...
00:09:34
Speaker
They just needed to present the information they had very quickly, or that means they needed to do some trickery with what really happened.
The Warren Commission: Investigation and Public Distrust
00:09:44
Speaker
little damage control. Another just adding reasons why this is so confusing.
00:09:51
Speaker
um Allegedly, there was a rumor that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls and visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in the weeks before the assassination. So we talked about how Oswald had tried like gone to those embassies in Mexico.
00:10:07
Speaker
So this like this knowledge of... whether somebody was pretending to be Oswald, whether it was FBI getting involved to frame Oswald, whatever it was, the link between Oswald, Soviet, and Cuban embassies led Johnson to be concerned that Castro and Khrushchev could be implicated, thus making Cuban missiles, like all of the the Cold War of it all, even more tense.
00:10:34
Speaker
It was in their best interest to make Oswald the sole perpetrator. Yeah, in other words, ah who was trying to prevent World War III. Yeah. um yeah A lot of times, know if you've... One of the conspiracy theories that they talked about they talked about is like there being multiple Lee Harvey Oswald and like duplicates or whatever. And even when i in in the book, I always refer to um Marina says like, of course, I would know if somebody wasn't my husband. But I don't think that that's what it was meant. What what was meant is like kind of what you're talking about was somebody in...
00:11:11
Speaker
the the embassy in Mexico City pretending to be right Lee Harvey Oswald. And I will say there is some evidence, you know, some pictures and some recordings that do – I don't want to say the word verify because – they bring They raise questions. As with anything in this case, I don't know if we can... Nothing is verifiable.
00:11:35
Speaker
Verifiable? Nothing can be... There you go. But I don't think it's also completely fringe. Right. um Now, when you talk about there being doubles of him and stuff like that, and you... That, okay, depending on how you interpret that, that's fringe. But I do think there is some legitimate tapes and stuff that that have been analyzed since that the voices or whatever... Yeah. Do not match up with it. So ah Chief Justice Earl Warren and Senator Richard Russell Jr. were appointed to lead an investigative commission into the assassination that became known as the Warren Commission.
00:12:09
Speaker
So at the same time the Warren Commission was going on, the CIA and FBI were allowed to investigate independently, which just to the public is like, OK, why are all of these organizations investigating. It just, it just led to public distrust all around. Which is ironic because the Warren commission was created to calm public distrust, right? it's Since there were all these questions that weren't going to be answered. And i think we can all agree that quite obviously the U S government wanted to create a narrative to put basically in the history books. Yeah.
00:12:46
Speaker
The Warren commission was supposed to be the way to do that. But ironically, yeah it did the opposite. Yeah. Well, and and the public saw the commission relying on the CIA and FBI's own investigation to do its investigating. And it's like everybody already doesn't trust them. Why are you listening to them?
00:13:07
Speaker
Right. But which what's the end there's no answer to that. Right. Exactly. There's no way our government can get to the point of being above our government in investigation. If that makes sense. Right. Right. It's the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Yeah. So if you have when if you have corruption at that level, how do you uncover it? What do you do next? Yeah. Nowadays, they do try to to ensure that these type of investigations are more independent and outside the political realm. And of course, by I think there's lots of people that would still argue um that that's even impossible. You know, thinking Monica Lewinsky, the Mueller investigation, recently Jack Smith, you know, with ah Trump. There's so many that, you know, we try to become more independent and we're aware of that, but I don't think even that. Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
And back in this day, they weren't even really trying to avoid the... Well, while we're talking about it, let's talk a little bit about the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission was an investigation to give American people clarity on how the president ended up dead.
00:14:17
Speaker
President Johnson appointed the commission because Oswald's murder meant that there would be no trial to give the public answers that would dispel the rumors going around. Chief Justice Earl Warren was charged with overseeing the commission. However, he still had to perform his duties as a Supreme Court judge.
00:14:36
Speaker
So he was basically given a second full-time job. That's amazing. Three senators were selected for the commission, Richard Russell, Hale Boggs, and John Cooper. and they did span the um political parties. Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Gerald Ford was selected, and he also went on to become president a decade after the assassination, despite not being elected. So this adds to conspiracy stuff. um He became president after Agnew and then Nixon resigned.
00:15:07
Speaker
Could this have worked like this to reward him for his complicity in the Warren Commission? Yeah, there's a but but a possible benefit for him, obviously. International lawyer and former president of the World Bank, John J. McCloy, was also selected for the commission.
00:15:24
Speaker
This brings us to the the historical conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and the World Bank that I truly don't know enough to speak on. But anytime you hear like Illuminati, it's like the World Bank is involved And honestly, this is where, this is where conspiracy minded joy. Yes. When you throw in the world. Exactly. When you use those terms, it seems yeah crazy, but there's different ways of identifying really a, a,
00:15:58
Speaker
a world order or, or elites that run the world in a different way than we can conceive of that I think are what we're trying to get at when we say Illuminati. um Yeah, I think so too. But, but it's hard to put that in words.
00:16:15
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's hard to, to explain that. Yeah. um but Yeah. I, I'm going be, I'll be fully transparent. I don't, I don't fully dismiss that. Mm-hmm.
00:16:28
Speaker
And I mean, as we continue to talk, i don't. So anyways, if you think I'm crazy. Well, and you know what's interesting is I wrote this before Epstein files were released.
00:16:43
Speaker
So keep that in mind. Like I wrote this, like I was been working on this for like over a year, this whole Kennedy series. So I definitely wrote this before ah Epstein files were released. So even like going back through my notes, i was like, yeah, that kind of makes sense now. Or, you know, like yes there have been things that have been demonstrated to be accurate.
00:17:04
Speaker
that and like nothing's out of the realm of possibility, I guess. Yeah. I mean, like i we could create an entire podcast that just talks about like compare and contrast, um, like JFK with Epstein, like what we know and, and what I think, what I was thinking about this, you know, they talk about releasing the JFK files and that's been, you know, part of the whole thing. um that's maybe to be a distraction or maybe not. And, and then it seems like then, you know, they've released some of the JFK files. They haven't really gotten it anyone anywhere.
00:17:38
Speaker
I think the most progress that's been made in the change of thinking about the JFK assassination has actually been understanding the Epstein, like the,
00:17:51
Speaker
files and what we see there more so than the actual physical information that is in the JFK files. Um, that's my, that's how I feel about it. That's the biggest change.
00:18:03
Speaker
So also on the Warren commission, and this is the biggest red flag for me, the former CIA director and Jack Kennedy hater, Alan Dulles was selected for the Warren commission.
00:18:14
Speaker
We talked about him quite a bit in the last few episodes and If you'll remember, Dulles had been fired from the administration after the Bay of Pigs failure. He had also been involved in Operation Paperclip, which was a U.S. intelligence program in which former Nazi scientists, technicians, and engineers were brought to the U.S. from Germany after the end of the war.
00:18:40
Speaker
And one thing I have learned even more about Dulles, right, is that although he was fired and not in his official position any longer... he was still known to be, he had those deep relationships inside the government and the CIA and was still still thought of as pulling the strings behind everything. A lot of people were, don't know, it was almost like a shadow CIA that was working with him and he still had a lot of influence over everything going on.
00:19:15
Speaker
Also, you know, he, the Dulles family goes back decades um in their influence, you know, back to the Versailles Treaty, ah which becomes relevant, I think. So, yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. i I mean, I wrote almost that exact thing. I said Dulles comes from a long line of people who controlled the government. So I think it's absolutely right. Even like just the fact that he was able to bring former Nazis who were confirmed member, members of Hitler's military organizations, and then have a position, an official governmental position in the, the what, 15, 20 years later. Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
Says how much power he has had. And so I think you're absolutely right. Despite him being fired and then, and then not only is he fired, but then has a vendetta. He's so central to this, potentially, that, again, i i i think I think things may revolve, a lot may revolve around Dulles. I think he was, like...
00:20:21
Speaker
like ah and As I've under understood, like kind of a liaison maybe of sorts between if we talk about the world order, the greater world order. um Everything I've learned is kind of like Dulles was maybe like kind of the liaison between those two worlds.
00:20:39
Speaker
so Yeah. And every time I think of him, I just think of like flying into the Dulles airport and, you know. The architecture. Yeah, right. The architecture. That's probably the best way to think about him as to not like spin out of control with how evil the world is. Every time. Yeah. The architecture of Dulles Airport.
00:21:00
Speaker
Look it up. if
00:21:04
Speaker
um Also appointed former Solicitor General j Lee Rankin. He was general counsel appointed by Warren. The goal of the Warren Commission ultimately was to make sure everything pointed to Oswald as the lone gunman and plotter.
00:21:21
Speaker
ah You can even see in the commission itself, there were definite attempts to ignore or bury anything that pointed away from this narrative. People have since come forward saying like their information was ignored.
00:21:33
Speaker
so What they would do is tell people unrelated to the investigation, who told a friend, who told a friend, and et cetera. Things get spun and crazy. Entire books have been written on these like ignored bits of information that were heard.
00:21:48
Speaker
you know My friend who works with this guy who works with this guy said this thing about. Which helps and hinders, right? and Right, right. It may not have been that the FBI or CIA did not do a thorough or even did a corrupt investigation.
00:22:03
Speaker
it's ah like It's about the selective information that is used to draw the conclusions, right? um That could have been on the level of the main conspiracy and how it how it worked without truly ever being dishonest curbed right or any of those individuals perjuring themselves. Mm-hmm.
00:22:26
Speaker
It's not lies. it's It's... It's willful ignorance.
Witness Intimidation and Evidence Tampering
00:22:30
Speaker
Exactly. To kind of spring off of that, the report was muddled with phrases like probably and assumed to be, which to the public is not definitive.
00:22:41
Speaker
LBJ set an eight-month time limit to the investigation, which... as in all government things, ended up taking longer. It took a year. The commission was given a small workforce, including six members of a senior council and six members of a junior council.
00:22:58
Speaker
The senior members, however, still had to do their jobs, their elected government jobs. So it was the junior members who did most of the legwork. um And again, if you're trying to keep something...
00:23:11
Speaker
secret or trying to limit the information, the smaller, the better, right? Like the smaller, the better the group that's doing, that's doing the investigation and pulling together the data. Right. Well, and, and kind of in addition to that, if the council you put together of six senior and six junior don't know that a narrative is attempting to be created,
00:23:36
Speaker
Limiting the their time and not giving them the resources to appropriately investigate is also incredibly beneficial. If you are also trying to create a narrative and you have even one or two of those senior officials. Yeah.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah. working toward that narrative and it can just be the they can set a tone a direction um that trickles down and then you know you have the six junior members who are probably just doing the grunt work writing things up but all it takes is one or two at the top to to really steer the direction yeah the investigation, especially when they have a preconceived notion of what right the findings are going to ultimately result in before they even start.
00:24:25
Speaker
The workforce was given six areas of investigation, with a senior and junior member being assigned to each. One area was the basic facts of the and of the assassination.
00:24:37
Speaker
The second was the identity of the assassin. The third was the background of the assassin. Four was the possibility the assassin worked with others or outside groups during the planning and or execution of the assassination.
00:24:54
Speaker
Five, what Jack Ruby's possible connection was to Oswald. And six, the failures of the FBI and the Secret Service. So even in the wording of those, right? We already just talked about the identity of the single assassin, right? We've already closed that off. And, you know, in what Jack Ruby's possible connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, we've already then presumed those truths.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah. Or those to be true. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 20,000 pages of information was divvied up amongst the group that had to be read through before the investigation could even begin.
00:25:34
Speaker
you think they read You think they read all that? In an eight-month time period that they were given to do this and investigate?
00:25:43
Speaker
It was alleged that the FBI intentionally flooded the commission with information. And because of this, important facts were certainly overlooked simply because they were given such a tight timeframe to do this all. Yeah. And just think about the Epstein files right now.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah. We have, with the internet, with with journalists all over the world weeding through them, when there's that much information, um that becomes its own hindrance and its own limiting factor is too much information.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah. In March 1964, a list of witnesses was presented to be called during the field investigations, along with clarifying questions that were submitted to the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service.
00:26:29
Speaker
So basically those organizations were vetting what witnesses were going to be asked. And there had there had to have been, i mean, thousands and thousands of witnesses out there, right? So this is just a handful of them that are that are picked. Yeah.
00:26:45
Speaker
Basically, there were two separate investigations happening at the same time that were not working together. Okay. Can you explain that a little bit more to, i mean. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a group of people traveling to Washington, being called to travel to Washington to give closed testimony to members of the commission. And at the same time, there were field investigators speaking to people on the ground, like going to the people and speaking to them. So that was continuing. Yep.
00:27:15
Speaker
But not necessarily under the direction of the people in Washington? no it it was, but it was like, A group of witnesses were going to D.C.
00:27:26
Speaker
to give testimony, and a group of witnesses had officials going to them. And the two groups managing those weren't communicating. Yeah. So a huge game of telephone where there's a block in the line. Or even if they were somehow communicating, a field investigator is going to get a piece of information that might not back up what somebody just gave testimony to.
00:27:53
Speaker
But because they're happening at the same time, there's no way to like cross-reference or be like, okay, this guy said this. Let me go back that up with what this guy said. They're happening at the same time. And so when they can't back it up, I'm assuming a lot just gets dropped. Yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
The commission ended up hiring others to finish incomplete chapters or even rewrite entire chapters of the commission itself without, or I'm sorry, of the report without the knowledge of the investigators that okay So it was like people were being hired to to just finish their report.
00:28:27
Speaker
Without the firsthand knowledge or without even consulting. And it was because the impossible July 15th deadline was looming. Investigators were working 18-hour days, seven days a week.
00:28:40
Speaker
The Warren Report was published on September 27th, 1964.
00:28:45
Speaker
ah Justice Warren had not wanted to release it publicly because it was too expensive to print the 888-page report. Fiscal responsibility to the end.
00:28:57
Speaker
You know, ink is expensive. can you only And then you have to bind them and, you know, the paper, the paper. yeah Yeah. They always make it very fancy. yeah yeah I mean, it's just ah it was it was an environmental thing.
00:29:11
Speaker
yeah That's it. They cared deeply about the environment on that day. Conspiracy theories came out almost immediately due to the glaring inconsistencies in the report.
00:29:24
Speaker
So the report did not help. calm the American public. It just made everything a little bit wilder. And there what happened to be a few people out there who did read it, which my guess is that part of making it so extensive was just so people did not start weeding through.
00:29:43
Speaker
Right. It's the same thing. It's too much information. I just imagine, like because it feels very Epstein files, and I think so much, at to what you were just saying, so much of the Epstein files have been able to be read and, and studied because the internet, and it feels like this actually like cool thing of like a group of people on the internet have the same goal for good. And it's like, everybody's helping each other. And it's such a weird thing for the internet.
00:30:14
Speaker
Think about this. There was no control F. Yeah. Right. Side note, side note is, am I using the right term? I think so. Control. Yeah. Yeah. control F, right? yeah Like where you can search by a certain term. Right.
00:30:27
Speaker
You're reading this. you are sitting You are sitting down and reading this thing in your hand. Yeah. Yeah. You're not zooming in on I'm trying to find this person's name somewhere in these 888 pages. want to see how many times this name was repeated.
00:30:41
Speaker
Like you're going through and highlighting the name and then counting. That's funny. That's a kind of a big overview of the issues with the Warren commission, but let's talk about, where let's get to some more reasons why there are conspiracy theories that, I want to talk about just some of like the weird things that have led to more and more questions. We'll eventually get to like the specific conspiracy theories. But I want to talk more about like building to why there are those conspiracy theories.
00:31:12
Speaker
So moving on from the Warren report, let's talk about witness harassment and deaths. Witnesses have come forward saying that their statements had been ignored or they had been somehow intimidated. Witness Gene Hill reported being humiliated, intimidated, abused, harassed, and even receiving death threats from people claiming to be government officials.
00:31:37
Speaker
There were reports that the Warren Commission stifled comments about Oswald working with others and not on his own. A witness who claimed that he saw and chased a shooter...
00:31:48
Speaker
Warren Reynolds was shot in the head in January 1964. He actually survived this shooting, but someone attempted to kidnap his 10-year-old daughter two days after he spoke to the FBI a month after the shooting.
00:32:04
Speaker
i I wrote that in a confusing way that I even stopped for a minute. But so like this mom guy had a lot of stuff happened. There are allegations of suspicious deaths associated with witnesses,
00:32:16
Speaker
of the assassination that have been revealed that were revealed three years after the assassination. And we're talking like many, many, not just a few here and there, but in books, again, books have been written about all how many individuals have lost their lives in questionable ways.
The 'Magic Bullet' Theory
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah. There was a report that six men met in Jack Ruby's apartment the night after Oswald was shot by Ruby, and three of the men that had been there had died in those three years since the assassination.
00:32:51
Speaker
Seven others were reported to have died in mysterious ways. In 1989, a list of 103 people who had died under mysterious circumstances was reported, and these people were grouped around various investigations into the assassination.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I love that. I want to read this book um because it's by Richard Belzer, who I love. Oh, Richard Belzer played ah Detective Munch on Law & Order SVU, where he's partnered with Ice-T. Wow. Was he like, ah was this like his only book or did he...
00:33:24
Speaker
as he did He wrote a lot. He was a big conspiracy guy. um and he was just like, he was very, very smart. was comedian before he became Detective Munch on Homicide and Law and Order. But just like, he's a super interesting guy. That's funny. Okay. So no, I'm thinking of, there a new book that just came out, The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer.
00:33:52
Speaker
Oh, that's funny. That's what I was thinking of. That's funny. Well, in 2013, actor and conspiracy theorist Richard Belzer published Hit List, an in-depth investigation into the mysterious deaths of witnesses to the JFK assassination.
00:34:10
Speaker
It's a look at 50 people linked to the crime who may have been murdered as part of a cover-up. A number of mafia figures may have also been murdered to prevent revealing information.
00:34:22
Speaker
That's gotta to be a hard one to prove. Yeah, right. Because I feel like mafia mafia figures may have been ah murdered for several different reasons. Yes, exactly.
00:34:33
Speaker
right, so let's move on to evidence. Suppressed, tampered, or even fabricated evidence. Back in the day, i mean I know we have like our, mean there's questions, I mean, there's problems even with our trail of evidence documentation these days, right?
00:34:49
Speaker
ah You can only imagine. Back in the 60s, you know, the documentation process of who's touched what, where, what's gone where, and ah a lot of information, a lot of evidence went missing, which could have been just simple human error, or could have been more nefarious. Mm-hmm.
00:35:10
Speaker
There was alleged ignored testimony about witnesses seeing smoke near the grassy knoll. This includes claims that more hitmen could be seen on the Zapruder film in the grassy knoll area. There were reports of a man in a bulletproof vest who sent a paralyzing dart so the bullets could hit Jack from all sides. Okay, that one seems a little nutty to me. a little bit.
00:35:36
Speaker
One man said he had sent a picture of himself with bleached hair in Mexico claiming to be Oswald to confuse investigators. This is the Oswald had a body double theory you were talking about. Allegedly, he was seen at the grassy knoll.
00:35:52
Speaker
Witness Julia and Mercer claim to have seen a green van parked at the plaza. She said she saw Jack Ruby get out with a wrapped package and walked to the grassy knoll.
00:36:05
Speaker
She saw a later report that said she had told the reporter she couldn't identify the man. Like somebody quoted that in her name when she didn't said she didn't say that.
00:36:19
Speaker
That was always struck me as a weird piece of information that has stuck out in the public domain. That one just seems like very specific. Yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yet at the same time, general. um It is. And sometimes I do wonder them in the movie JFK that that they do, ah they do show that. Yeah. And so sometimes I wonder if pieces of what have stuck to the narrative also have to do with things like ah like being in the movies and. Agreed. Yeah. Sticking in people's minds that way.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah. A witness named Ed Hoffman, who was dead and mute, but had incredibly sharp eyesight, watched the motorcade from the freeway. He said he saw a suspicious man in a suit and a man dressed as a railroad worker by the grassy knoll.
00:37:13
Speaker
He said he saw a puff of smoke near the man in the suit who quickly turned away with a rifle that he passed to the railroad worker who broke the rifle down and hid in a toolbox and walked away. And apparently he went home and right after the event and repeated this information to his family um immediately. so So there was corroboration with members of his family that yeah that He said exactly that directly after the event. He was, I did look it up and I mean, he was a little farther away.
00:37:49
Speaker
um If you look at a map of where he was standing on a highway. I did the same. Yeah. It's not quite as close as, as it would seem or as maybe they make it out to be. It's a little far, but definitely would have a view. And it was ah like an elevated position looking over the area.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So Hoffman said that no one listened to him, so he stayed quiet about it for the next three years. When he did come forward, he said that that an FBI agent he spoke with tried to pay him $500 to stay quiet.
00:38:22
Speaker
Hoffman would go on to make his living as a conspiracy theory talking head in documentaries and things like that. Which right then and there, I think discredits him, whether it justified or not. it raises questions.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah, that he was trying to make a, you know, was he just meant trying to make um a profit from the accusations or inserting himself into it? After the fact. I
Unidentified Witnesses and Conspiracy Theories
00:38:49
Speaker
don't know. Yeah. There was because there was also a gentleman, Lee Bowers. I don't know if we talk about it. You have talked about him, but he was he was in the railroad tower that was also kind of right behind the grassy knoll. And he he reported to me similar, but it was slightly different in the details, which is understandable. Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah. And so depending on how you look at it, could be corroboration of the proof saying the same thing. um or it could be, you know, you could look at it as ah saying that the information was incorrect because the stories didn't quite add up. yeah Of note, he actually died in a mysterious car accident. One person car accident three three years later. Interesting. Well, witnesses also reported that they had their media that they had created, like filming or photographs, confiscated.
00:39:39
Speaker
In 1978, a witness named Gordon Arnold said he gave his film to a policeman who was waving his gun at him. This man claimed that he felt a bullet pass by his ear from the grassy knoll. Immediately, a police officer kicked him down.
00:39:56
Speaker
He says that another officer was there clutching a rifle and crying. I'm not quite understanding what that, what's the implication of that? No, I don't know. Okay. The crying police officer? Yeah. that that That police officer did it. Oh, okay. thought was just a really sentimental person.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yep, right. all A photo was discovered in the 1980s that had been taken by Mary Mormon at the exact moment of Jack's death. The photo shows Gordon Arnold and possibly Badge Man, who was the same man Arnold claimed was crying and shaking and clutching the rifle.
00:40:35
Speaker
He goes on to be known as Badge Man. Beverly Oliver came forward in 1970 claiming to be the babushka lady from the Zapruder film. We will talk about the these cleverly named characters in a little bit.
00:40:49
Speaker
She said she was contacted by two men who took her film and never returned it or, to her knowledge, printed any of the images. Various documents were reported to be withheld, including autopsy reports, tax and income information, as well as portions of documents that were redacted. There are allegations that four autopsy images have been doctored to show evidence either of one or two gunmen.
00:41:18
Speaker
Some believe the Zapruder film itself is a forgery or was somehow tampered with or changed. A few witnesses claim to have watched it twice and it had been different between the first time and the second time they had watched it. Now, I find what it found out that like when you dig down regarding like the logistics of the accusation ah accusations, they don't really make sense technically based on the type of film that was used at the time. Yeah.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah. There were also claims that Jack's body had been altered between the hospital and autopsy locations to alter the direction of the shots. I don't know how that would, yeah, whatever. I don't know about how that would work. You know, thought, again, as much as I'm open to different thoughts and conspiracy, that one, I don't know. The whole autopsy thing gets really complicated.
00:42:09
Speaker
And actually, i didn't even continue to dig into that because yeah it's hard to say. There's pictures. Some say this isn't the picture. Some say that this isn't the body. Some say that the you know the the doctors were pressured. So I i do think that um when it comes to the autopsy, I'm not quite sure what to make of that. And and for that reason, i i didn't really even get into that.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think that like just the short time between the hospital and the autopsy, even though there was travel involved, it wasn't like they went up the street to get an autopsy done, but it was still a short turnaround time. That's a big plan to have thought of to have time to execute in like that trip.
00:42:54
Speaker
Very much. You know what i mean? Yes. To be like, okay, we need to consider the angle of the shots. Like in the middle of the chaos of like what's going on, like there's people thinking that level just doesn't seem. Yeah. Because again, and when we talk about conspiracy, we're talking about such a high level that to filter down to that point in that moment of time with that much confusion Yeah. ah Like that, and not knowing, right? And then in in even if if there was a plan, not knowing beforehand what angle, you know, these shots would actually. I mean, nobody could have predicted exactly where those shots would go. I don't care how good of a marksman or an assassin you have. um
00:43:36
Speaker
I don't, it's just hard to believe. There are also questions about the murder weapon. The shots fired were from an Italian 6.5 milliliter. I'm so sorry. I don't know how to say this.
00:43:49
Speaker
Man Leicher Carcano rifle that Oswald owns. But the weapons deputies... found at the Texas School Book Depository, was identified as a 7.6 German Mauser.
00:44:05
Speaker
So i guess in the aftermath, what i because I did look that up, the police officer who who said that misidentified it. made a mistake. Yeah.
00:44:16
Speaker
And the FBI later corrected after examining the rifle in the crime lab, which I mean, in and of itself is sort of crazy. but Right.
00:44:27
Speaker
Just adds to the confusion. Right. at all Right. Even an honest mistake looks like it was planned. Exactly. Or, yeah, leaves the question of it could have been Over and over, that particular rifle at the time was found famously known for its an an inaccuracy. Like this was not high level assassin's rifle. This was something that was, as I said, i said earlier was ordered online. And my husband's like, it was ordered online. Order from the back of a magazine, but online. Yes.
00:45:01
Speaker
ah That's right funny like a $15 rifle that was ordered, I guess. Yeah. From the back of a magazine. So I, wait, Which is always to me, but that is one of the pieces of this.
00:45:13
Speaker
i I just can't believe that this particular rifle in this could have made such accurate shots, but I think that's a big deal. I think that's a really key piece of information right there.
00:45:26
Speaker
Yeah. There are also discrepancies with the number of bullets and cartridges found. The Warren Commission ruled that three bullets had been fired. One missed, one hit Jack, and one passed through Jack's body and hit Governor Connolly.
00:45:41
Speaker
The bullet that passed through Jack was called by, put doubters in my notes, but I think like more skeptics is the word I should have used. It was called the magic bullet. Okay, this now we need to talk a little bit about the magic bullet.
00:45:56
Speaker
First of all, the three shots. So, and again, look this is looking through the lens of like our 2026 eyes. that one The main reason that they've always used that there was three shots taken was that like right in the quote unquote sniper's nest built of book boxes, there was three spent bullet casings.
00:46:20
Speaker
don't know. It's just, it just seems really ah preconceived to me. i Or at least, at least not a reason for the full, to draw the conclusions on the level they should have. At the time, there was reports of hearing three shots, but maybe hearing four shots. And, you know, there just wasn't as much recording material. um You know, like the film recorded, they didn't record sound. Yeah. Um, later, which I think we'll get to there was more evidence. Um, they did find some old audio evidence from one of the like police scanners that there were definitely four shots. Um, but yes, three has always been what they, they have identified from the beginning.
00:47:07
Speaker
Now the magic bullet again, for years, I've heard about this magic bullet for years. I had never looked into this case at all. Had no idea what this meant. So just like in case people don't fully get the whole magic bullet, what they're saying is that one bullet entered Jack's neck through the, it's like three inches below his spinal, the top, like the top of his spinal cord.
00:47:35
Speaker
Yeah. So it was kind of neck, kind of a little bit lower in his back left, exited through his throat. Then it entered Connelly's back and,
00:47:46
Speaker
exited through his chest, shattered his right wrist, and then entered and left a deep wound in his thigh.
00:47:58
Speaker
But the bullet wasn't recovered from his thigh. it was actually found on a stretcher in the hallway at the hospital. intact and with minimal damage. So skeptics find it would be nearly impossible that this could have passed through two bodies, shattered a bone, and still been found alive.
00:48:25
Speaker
almost entirely intact. And this is another piece of those, in of the information that I'm just like, ding, ding. Like I cannot, I can't accept that.
00:48:37
Speaker
ah but It's just nuts. There's just no way um in my mind that, that, that is even a remote possibility. Well, and in addition to like, the logistics of it like the mass of the bullet itself wasn't equivalent to the amount of bullet fragments recovered and it very well could be like fragments and stuff like that but i that lends itself to it um i actually just texted you the ah magic loogie scene from seinfeld that Okay, see, I don't know these things. It's ah Newman and Kramer think that baseball players spit on them.
00:49:13
Speaker
And Jerry like plays it out and explains it like JFK, the magic bullet scene where he's like red stringing, like how the magic bullet happened. And Jerry's doing it. It's like the loogie had to bounce off of your shoulder, fly through the air.
00:49:30
Speaker
So that's what I think of every time i think of magic bullet scenes. That's funny. I never understand such references, but that does sound hilarious. I sent you the full scene so you could watch. Okay, so I can watch it. And maybe our amazing editor can... Maybe put a little bit of it in.
00:49:47
Speaker
Cut in a little bit of it. Maybe. Allow me to reconstruct this, if I may, for Miss Venice, as I've heard this story a number of times. Newman, Kramer, if you'll indulge me.
00:49:58
Speaker
According to your story, Hernandez passes you and starts walking up the ramp. Then you say you were struck on the right temple. The spit then proceeds to ricochet off the temple, striking Newman between the third and the fourth rib.
00:50:19
Speaker
The spit then came off the rib, made a right turn, hitting Newman in the right wrist,
00:50:26
Speaker
causing him to drop his baseball cap. The spit then splashed off the wrist pauses in midair, mind you. Makes a left turn and lands on Newman's left thigh.
00:50:43
Speaker
That is one magic loogie.
00:50:48
Speaker
Because the reason that this bullet, this magic bullet that that would have had to have made i don seven entry root wounds is is really what that is and come out intact. But it's because we do know that one shot, the first shot, the first of the the Fully missed the car by like 270 feet. Like fully missed it, hit a curb.
00:51:15
Speaker
Hit a tree, I think, too. Ended up in a tree, maybe. went and And then fragments um flew up and hit a gentleman, creating you know some blood on his face. So we know that. And then obviously we know that that one of the shots was the headshot to jfk So...
00:51:32
Speaker
this other one shot would have had to have made all those wounds if this were to happen. And that's without even talking about angles and direction and all that. so Yeah.
00:51:45
Speaker
um Okay. Let's move on to some of the unidentified witnesses. I alluded to a couple of them earlier, but there are some Witnesses who came forward or who were seen or could have information that nobody's been able to accurately identify, therefore speak to.
00:52:01
Speaker
So the first and I think probably most well-known is the babushka lady. Okay, hold on, hold on. We got to talk about babushka. This is a regression. But babushka, I can't even say it, is like the little um scarf, right? When you tie it, is tie it like you fold it yeah in a triangle and you tie it under the bottom. I think they need to make a comeback.
00:52:25
Speaker
ah They're really cute. They're cute. And I think they really serve a practical purpose. And I'm just i'm here to say on the record that if I was more confident. Let's bring them back. I was more confident myself, I think I would bring it back. Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:39
Speaker
So anyway, yeah, they're super cute. You know, you can get some different suits. Well, and I have my hair right now in pigtail braids and like a little like almost like a head handkerchief type of thing would be really cute with that. I'd like, you could pull it off. I really want you to try. I am too old to pull off and I would look like an old lady, like literally trying to keep my hair from being blown. I would probably not tie it under my chin. i'd go under like the hair line and the back. want to take Like a new, more modern take on Yeah. yeah
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah. But. Well, the babushka lady is a woman who was seen holding a camera and wearing a headscarf that was similar to the ones worn by Russian women.
00:53:24
Speaker
she was seen by onlooker She was seen with onlookers in front of the Dallas County building. She can be seen as well on the Zapruder film as well in others' photographs.
00:53:37
Speaker
She was seen with yellow paint on her shoes, which could point to her stepping in wet paint that had been used on the street as a marker for the assassin to fire when the car passed. Okay, I did look into this further.
00:53:51
Speaker
This did not, yeah I did not get what the heck they were talking about. No, because also the Zapruder film is in black and white. And how would you see yellow paint? I think they colorized it.
00:54:02
Speaker
Oh, I was like, I swear I've seen it in color. Okay. I think they colorized it. Okay. Let me explain this like paint. I could be fully lying. I could have completely made that up and I'm adding to the conspiracy theories. This is how it happens.
00:54:15
Speaker
Because you know people listen to our podcast for you know for the official word on this. I know. Tens of you listen. And are going to spread this information. on But, but, here we go. But you will know about these markings on the intervals. So along that stretch of Elm Street...
00:54:38
Speaker
And apparently only along that stretch. There were these, um like the curb was painted in maybe three feet, like sections of yellow markings. And they were like at at regular intervals.
00:54:53
Speaker
And only on left hand of the street. And so the theory was headshot was always planned, that that there had to be a headshot. And there was a point at which that headshot was so when the car hit a certain area, should have been fired.
00:55:13
Speaker
And then if it didn't get fired, right? Like if it if it didn't happen by then, then there was a second place where that identified if there was multiple shooters. Now it's time for you to take that shot. And a third point. So that's what the yellow paint was. I don't think it was ever actually seen, um like, painting the yellow paint. I don't know if it is pictured. Yeah.
00:55:42
Speaker
yeah But, yeah, that's exactly what it was. And I've never seen It it be... easy enough to verify. So ah unless it was so kind of mundane that it was able to be cleared up in the confusion of like, even like the days following that nobody would think to look at that Yeah. ground I mean, I think it was. Yeah. I think it sort of like didn't stand out as something completely. ah i mean, unusual. I mean, think about like just painting on streets, you know, you kind of just sort of overlook. Well, and especially when like a presidential motorcade is coming through. It's like maybe there were like I would have been like, yeah, there's probably markings of like maybe stop here and greet people. You know, that's I would have I would have thought something. Yeah. Yeah. They could have been chalked up to a dip Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:31
Speaker
different reason. But yeah, it was supposed to, you know, supposedly it was fresh paint. It was done like the night before. Hence the reason she may have had paint on the bottom of her shoes. I mean, I did see some images like out there on the internet that did seem to show something that looked like yellow paint a little bit on the bottom of some yeah cute vintage now looking shoes. that's like, it's such...
00:56:59
Speaker
it's a leap, right? To go from like, this woman has something on the bottom of her shoe like, this is the markings on the street. And it's like, not impossible. Yeah. And it's, and also it's like in all of this, right? Like in this whole thing where we don't even like, we didn't recover all the bullets or whatever, yet we know this little thing about this lady's paint on her shoe. and right Is that, oh you know, it and it's out there, zero in on it?
00:57:29
Speaker
i don't know. I'm not sure what if that means it was set out to confuse people, if it was conspiracy theorists just really, really searching for something.
00:57:41
Speaker
but yes, that that I think that that is what is interesting, is that there's these huge questions that can't be answered and seem like they should have been, and yet we have these tiny details that stick out Um, and you know, in retrospect, haven't been talked about for years.
Conclusion and Future Teasers
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah. so Yep. Well, another witness is known as umbrella man. He was one of the closest bystanders. There is footage of him holding an open umbrella as the motorcade passes.
00:58:12
Speaker
The theory is that this man fired a dart with a paralyzing agent that disabled Jack. I think Even I'm calling, you know, potential BS on this one um one. Come on. Yep. In 1975, a CIA weapons developer confirmed that such weapons were being used in 1963.
00:58:32
Speaker
However, another theory, if we're talking umbrella man, I think this is a bit more likely, is that the umbrella was used to signal to the gunmen. I think it also had been raining in the days or so before. i don't i you know. What? No. So in 1978, Louis Stephen Witt came forward and said he was the umbrella man. He said the umbrella was meant to be used to heckle the president in protest of Joe Kennedy's appeasement policies. Okay. I'm going again call like BS. Like, come on. Come on. I know. I know.
00:59:08
Speaker
This man said, quote, I think if the Guinness Book of World Records had a category for people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing, I would be number one in that position without even a close runner up.
00:59:20
Speaker
yeah You know, maybe I'm thinking there might be. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe that's not quite. Maybe there was people who have been in the wrong. Maybe we're a worse spot. Yeah. And yeah researchers have discovered inconsistencies in this man's story.
00:59:35
Speaker
um The next witness is known as Dark-Complected Man. He's a man in several photos taken in the moments after the assassination. He was sitting on the sidewalk next to Umbrella Man.
00:59:51
Speaker
take with this what you want. Louis Stephen Witt wasn't able to identify him. The man's complexion has v led theorists to speculate that this person could be a Cuban exile or involved with the Cuban government.
01:00:03
Speaker
Next, we have Badge Man and Tin Hat Man. These are, again, men in photographs on the grassy knoll. One of the photos was taken on, was taken one sixth of a second after the fatal shot hit Jack.
01:00:20
Speaker
So the If there are questions of could this could they be Dallas PD officers or men disguised as officers? And if if you've ever looked at these pictures, they are extremely grainy and extremely hard to make out that it would even be a person. ah There was a rumor that it was a Corsican hitman named Lucian Sarti in a police uniform.
01:00:45
Speaker
So our final unidentified witness is known as Black Dog Man. he is seen in images at the corner of a retaining wall.
01:00:56
Speaker
It's unclear to see if he was in front of in front of like a set of bushes, like just watching things happen, or if he was hiding behind bushes. So I don't even remember the importance of black dog man besides that he's never been identified. All right.
01:01:10
Speaker
Again, maybe, maybe that, maybe, maybe that makes him not all that ah important. Yeah. Right. I think one key here is that there were not that many people at this point in the parade. If you look at the parade earlier in the parade, there was tons of people, thousands of people on the side of the road.
01:01:27
Speaker
By the time the motor came, came to this point, it was pretty sparse, sparse enough that these people did stand out. Yeah. Again, what that means, don't know. Also, what would it feel like to be one of those? What if it was like there was fat lady, you know, and you were there and you're like, what?
01:01:47
Speaker
Yeah. like And when we get to ah RFK, there's the girl in the polka dot dress. And I'm always like, well, that's cute. I'd be her. I mean, it wasn't okay. but You know what? ah you put it You put a babushka with that. Oh, so cute.
01:02:01
Speaker
put it. All right. Well, we're going to wrap up here. Next episode, we'll get into the actual conspiracy theories. So get excited for that. All right, guys.
01:02:12
Speaker
Talk to you soon. Bye.