The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a turning point in modern American history, marking the end of the optimism and high trust of the post-war society and the beginning of decades of division and conspiracy theories.
The official story is that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at JFK from the Texas School Book Depository, 265 feet away from where the president's motorcade was rolling through Dallas with Jackie Kennedy, Governor John Connally, and his wife Nellie Connally.
But over the decades and the ensuing congressional investigations into the fourth assassination of a sitting president, a great deal of doubt has been placed on this explanation, with acoustic analysis and eyewitness testimony from that terrible day in November, 1963, suggesting that something else took place.
Newly uncovered documents from JFK's personal secretary claim that what what had actually happened, rather than an improbable act of violence from a military veteran, was in fact a 'political' hit by enemies inside his own government.
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This unpublished account of the most high-profile and unexplained murder in US history comes from Evelyn Lincoln, who was the White House's gatekeeper, a confidante of the president who was traveling in the third vehicle of the motorcade when at least three deadly shots rang out.
Lincoln's account was unearthed by the editor of JFK Facts, veteran investigator of the assassination Jefferson Morley, who told the Daily Mail, that her testimony holds additional weight because of her close relationship with the president.
Morley said: "She was a very loyal person. She had turned her mind and her work to him, she served him. And so, yes, I think this thinking does reflect how he would think about this event himself.
"She wrote this at the end of her life and never published it, it's not quite clear why, so I think it's valuable testimony from somebody who was very close to JFK.'"
Although the White House's gatekeeper died in 1995 at the age of 85, without ever publicly sharing her views on her boss' death, Morley uncovered in the JFK Library a revealing 11-page addendum to her unpublished memoir.
According to insider Lincoln, President Kennedy fell victim to a complex conspiracy that originated from inside the depths of the US government. An argument made by several later serious investigations into his death.
That includes the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations that looked into the killings of JFK, MLK, and RFK in the span of a few short years, which found that the president 'was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy,'
Lincoln said in her unpublished account: "From the catbird seat that I had during my 12 years as John F. Kennedy’s Personal Secretary I would have to say that, in my opinion, President Kennedy’s death in Dallas, Texas, was a deliberate professional political murder, planned by a group in government who wanted him removed from office."
While Lincoln did not hold an elected office, she was one of the few people that were truly close to the president, with a direct line to JFK that made her the first port of call for anyone trying to get in touch with him.
"It, therefore, became very important that I know his whereabouts. I always had the telephone number where he could be reached, and he had a telephone number in case he wanted to call me," she wrote.
That included telling her that he was toying with the idea of replacing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson at the next election, as detailed in one of her two published memoirs - which crucially did not contain her view on the assassination.
The 11-page addendum freshly uncovered by JFK Facts was attached to a third, unpublished, memoir called 'I Was There' that promised to get into the weeds on one of the most infamous events of the 20th century.
In that third book she promised to 'try to answer, to the best of my knowledge' the question of who killed JFK, with the confidante exploring the groups variously blamed for the president's death, from the Ku Klux Klan and far-right extremists to the South Vietnamese government, the mob, and FBI boss J Edgar Hoover.
But while she said the 'time was ripe' for someone to take a shot at JKF, ultimately, she pointed her finger at the growing criminal undercurrent in American society, and its long-known links to the intelligence services.
She wrote: "The underlying current that ran through all the Mob activity was their inability to regain their massive operations in Cuba after Castro had overthrown the Batista regime.
"The Mob and extreme right-wing elements, with the assistance of the CIA, together with the Cuban exiles were constantly conspiring to overthrow Castro."
The animosity of the CIA and the Italian-American mafia towards JFK originated in 1961's failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, with the mob having vested interests in hotels and casinos on the island, while the deep state was eager to remove a communist thorn from the side of the US.
Lincoln explained in her memoir: "He antagonized the Cuban exiles and the CIA by his refusal to go along with the plan, and the CIA was likewise infuriated when the President said he would like to blow the CIA to pieces because of their mishandling of the plan.
"Thus a linkage grew between the Mob, the CIA and right-wing extremists over what they felt was the President’s moderation toward Castro, his civil rights proposals, his drive for peace and the Kennedys’ crusade against organized crime."
She added: "Therefore, it is logical to conjecture that these elements could have formed a conspiracy to assassinate the President."
Topics: John F. Kennedy, History
William Morgan