Talbot is right. The JFK assassination was an obvious CIA hit. To kill JFK, the Kennedy-haters in the CIA used the same formula that they used against Castro. They employed Mafia and anti-Castro assassins to do their dirty work, in an effort to achieve plausible deniabilty. In 1963, the CIA was confident that it had enough allies in the Johnson administration, the media, and the military-industrial complex to pull off the assassination and cover it up. Had the operation not gone so badly (Oswald being taken alive), the CIA's cover story and coverup would probably have been more successful. However, when mob-connected Jack Ruby was employed by the conspirators to kill Oswald, even America's most trusting citizens would suspect a conspiracy. Propagandists, Gerand Posner and Vincent Bugliosi are nothing more than CIA assets (whores) doing the work of their paymaster, the CIA.

As Jim Garrison said is his book, "On the Trail of the Assassins":

"In retrospect, the reason for the assassination is hardly a mystery. It is now abundantly clear ... why the C.I.A.'s covert operations element wanted John Kennedy out of the Oval Office and Lyndon Johnson in it. The new President elevated by rifle fire to control of our foreign policy had been one of the most enthusiastic American cold warriors.... Johnson had originally risen to power on the crest of the fulminating anti-communist crusade which marked American politics after World War II. Shortly after the end of that war, he declaimed that atomic power had become "ours to use, either to Christianize the world or pulverize it" -- a Christian benediction if ever there was one. Johnson's demonstrated enthusiasm for American military intervention abroad ... earned him the sobriquet "the senator from the Pentagon...."

Reinforcing Garrison's conclusion was an unexpected comment by Jack Ruby, who had this to say to reporters while being transferred to his prison cell (Note: you can watch the tape on "You Tube"):

"When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson, if he was vice-president there would never have been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy." When asked to explain what he meant, Ruby (Oswald's killer and a probable conspirator in the JFK assassination) replied, "Well the answer is the man in office now [Lyndon Johnson]." Note: Adlai Stevenson advocated a concilatory approach to international affairs in stark contrast to Democratic Party hawks like Lyndon Johnson. Johnson assumed the presidency following JFK's murder and escalated the Vietnam War exponentially. With his comment, it seems that Ruby was hinting at the motive behind the assassination -- that the JFK conspirators could not have achieved their goal of putting a hawk in the White House had Stevenson been Kennedy's vice-president instead of Johnson.

Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel (1977-79), U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, who had originally implicated the Mafia in a JFK conspiracy, now voices his suspicions of the CIA. Here is his statement from 2003:

"I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation.... We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp."

Good points all.

And if I may add JFK opposed the oil companies and just maybe that is why he was shot in the state of Texass. Them thar oil guys just never quit doing what they do.

"Kennedy authorized America's most embarrassing foreign policy debacle of the last century with the failed invasion of Cuba, [and] began the escalation of the our involvement in SE Asia. Kennedy's legacy is a triumph of image over substance." -- ikuiku

1. The Bay of Pigs was set up by the CIA under Ike, and handed off to JFK. Criticize JFK for not standing up to the CIA in his first few days in office if you must; but don't you dare try to tell me how 9/11, eight months into Bush-Cheney, was Bill Clinton's fault.

2. JFK continued, but did not begin, the escalation of American involvement in Southeast Asia. That, too, began under Ike, and specifically under Dulles (the diplomat, not the spy), who backed the Bao Dai govt in Saigon, following the partition of Vietnam into North and South at Geneva in '54. The American military presence grew steadily through the 50's and early 60's until JFK, fed up with Diem, decided to pull the plug on U.S. involvement-- a decision the fact of which was incidentally confirmed by McNamara in the documentary "The Fog of War." Instead, Diem and JFK were both assassinated in November '63.

In the August following JFK's assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" was fabricated; the Senate voted 98-2 to authorize retaliation; and in early '65 the Marines stormed the beach at Da Nang and the Vietnam War As We Know It began. (The Marines incidentally were greeted on the beach by pretty girls dressed in ao-dais with Hawaii-style flower leis, much to the embarassment of their officers.)

"Kennedy was a hawk whose presidency reeled from calamity to predicament, including the Cuban missile crisis," read the magazine's clueless caption.

And just exactly what of this caption is "clueless"? In less than four years, Kennedy authorized America's most embarrassing foreign policy debacle of the last century with the failed invasion of Cuba, began the escalation of the our involvement in SE Asia, carried on affairs with at least three woman, and was photographed with known crime figures.

Even now with most of the sordid details known, Kennedy's legacy is a triumph of image over substance that somehow remains sacrosanct.