JFK conspiracy theories won’t die

One of the most controversial things that can happen at any American table is to start talking about the JFK assassination and then say: ‘I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.’

Thanks to decades of theories, counter-theories and Hollywood movies, a majority of the American public have for many years believed that there was a conspiracy to kill the 35th president. In their view, even if Lee Harvey Oswald was the gunman (which some dispute) then he must have been acting as part of a larger plot involving the CIA, FBI, LBJ, KGB, KKK or KFC. OK, I threw in the last one to check you were still with me.

This thinking emerges from the need to find patterns and reason in a universe which may have neither

President Donald Trump’s decision to release the remaining classified US government files on the 1963 killing was always going to cause interest. But the results of the publication have so far been a lesson for conspiracy theorists everywhere – although it’s a lesson they are unlikely to take.

Because conspiracy theories never fully go away. Even now there are claims of redactions, withheld documents and more. Trump’s data-dump appears to have been slightly hasty, because some of the details which were redacted in previous releases (such as people’s social security numbers) have unwisely been released to the public. Lawsuits against the government by some of those affected will inevitably follow.

Most popular

Niko Vorobyov

The Golden Triangle’s Sin City is a nightmarish place

Mark Galeotti

Zelensky may regret wishing for Putin’s death

Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes

Can German cars survive Donald Trump?

Even this unredacted document dump does not include anything you might call ‘a smoking gun’. Unless it relates to the gun that was known about within minutes of its being fired in November 1963: that is, the gun which belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald, was fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, and which Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife noticed was missing that morning.