COMMENTARY: 54 years later: Who killed JFK?

Today is the 54th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Last month we thought maybe we’d actually find out who killed Kennedy with the release, finally, of the long classified JFK files.

But according to the Washington Post on Oct. 26, U.S. President Trump bowed to pressure from the CIA, FBI and other agencies to continue withholding some of the documents. There are apparently over 30,000 documents regarding the assassination in some way, shape or form, but the government released only 2,800 of them. Some still redacted but not as redacted as before.

We did find out the CIA was tossing around different ideas on how to kill Fidel Castro. This has been bandied about as rumour for many years but the documents released last month confirm it was at least being talked about. We also found out U.S. intelligence believed the Soviets weren’t very happy with Kennedy’s death. According to CBS News one document lays out the “great shock” of the Soviet people and leadership, and their fears that JFK’s death could lead to war with the U.S.

Still nothing new about the actual assassination of the President.

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Apparently the rest of the documents could be coming out in the next six months or so. Some still contain highly sensitive information that intelligence agencies are not comfortable releasing based upon national security and foreign relations concerns.

READ MORE: JFK files release causes latest friction between Donald Trump, U.S. spy agencies

Really? After 54 years?

In a memo, Trump directed agencies that requested redactions to re-review their reasons for keeping the records secret within 180 days.

And so we’re left with the official story that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and of course, all of the conspiracy theories that have come along as well.

READ MORE: JFK files: Documents say link between Lee Harvey Oswald and CIA ‘totally unfounded’

We’ve all heard the stories about the mafia killing JFK or perhaps the Cubans or a movement by the radical right but here are a couple of new ones I scraped up online this morning. Let me tell you, when you first read them you’ll probably shake your head and say “No way.” Then when you take the time to read the hypotheses behind these theories you might start to think these things actually make sense. Please take these with several grains of salt.

1. Johnson had Kennedy killed:

Even though the released documents contain no actual proof of anything, they do contain theories and hearsay. A U.S. intelligence source in the Soviet Union claimed the KGB were in possession of data surmising that President Lyndon B Johnson was responsible for the plot to assassinate Kennedy. At this point no actual verification of that plot has been made public. There are rumours that Jackie Kennedy herself believed Johnson was involved in the plot to kill her husband with a cabal of Texas oil men but that’s never been proven.

This one’s way out there:

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2. Jackie Kennedy killed JFK:

See what I mean? Did your jaw just drop? Mine did. This new conspiracy theory suggests that you can see something metallic in Jackie’s hands in the Zapruder film. The theory is that she shot her husband in the face or throat (explaining how his head snapped back and to the left).

Moments after that Jackie climbs in behind the President to drop her gun behind the car seat before coming back to check on him. I watched the video in slow motion and it looks like that could be possible at least, but I never could spot any metallic object in her hands.

The big question is, will the other yet to be released documents contain any earth shattering revelations? I seriously doubt it. Even if they do, Napolean Bonaparte said something interesting two hundred years ago: “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”

The actual truth could be revealed, but will anybody believe it?