The JFK Episode, Part One: The 'Official' Story

Almost 60 years have passed since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A 1992 law mandated all records of the assassination be made public. In 2017, many documents were released — but not all of them. What doesn’t the government want us to know about JFK’s death?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is They call me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission controlled decans. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Strap in, folks, this is gonna be a
wild ride. We're going back to something that is considered

(00:47):
sometimes a third rail in the world of conspiracy lore,
the idea that sinister forces insert your favorite here, folks,
assassinated President John F. Kennedy and possibly later his brother
Robert Kennedy. This conspiracy looms large, and it's a question
people still ask themselves in one We know this because

(01:13):
on personal social media and on the show's social platforms
and emails and phone calls, we get this question a lot.
Who really killed President JFK? Is the first part of
a two part episode, and don't worry, both parts of
this series are chock full of conspiracies, both imagined and
get this rarely get to say this at the top

(01:34):
of the show, Conspiracies Imagined and Real. So before we
jump into the facts here, um, you know, Matt Noel,
we all listened back to some of our earlier episodes
on this. We did one in seventeen, we did one
a few years before, and in each case we were
working with the facts, uh, with the facts we had

(01:56):
at hand, but we didn't go quite as deep as
we're going this time. So I wanted to ask you, guys,
what what stood out to you? What do you what
do you recollect about our previous explorations. The first thing
is that we were all excited that in seventeen documents
would be released. Yeah, and the disclosure all over again. Right,

(02:18):
It's like, oh goody, a treasure trove of truths coming
from the government, the benevolent government, to shed some light
on this mystery. Well yeah, and we also noted that
numerous documents had been released over you know, since the assassination,
since in the nineteen seventies when some of these rules
came into place, the laws were put in a place

(02:38):
that these documents would be released. Then again, to listen
in twenty seventeen, which feels like a lifetime ago. You guys,
we were excited that many documents have been released, but
there were still some that were being held onto right
and man, and unlike some other shows, uh, we actually
read these documents, right, not just think pieces about them.

(03:01):
So you can if you listen to those shows and
some of the other mentions we do and things like
in RFK episode or some of the YouTube stuff we've done.
I what I thought was just kind of delightful and
all SHUXI was the slow decline and optimism because it's
very much a jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, never ever jam today.

(03:23):
And it's been that way since that law that you're
alluding to, Matt, where the CIA was charged with eventually
caveat et cetera declassifying some of these things. I think
my favorite part of the episode two is are we
kind of like bemoan the plight of like professional redactors,

(03:44):
you know, who have to go through with like the
black highlighter pen, which is honestly the opposite of a
highlighter was a lowlighter. It shouldn't be called a redacting
pen because it's just like a big black, you know,
thick marker. Uh, and is go into town on those
bad boys and and Matt you made the excellent point
that while this is obviously a very tedious task that

(04:06):
probably wouldn't wish on our worst enemy, it's incredibly important
and these people have to be working with a pretty
high level of precision um otherwise, you know, things could
could get through that could be very bad for the government,
and they do they very much. Well. Imagine the cross
fence referencing that has to occur in that process, right,
Like the number of other documents, You've got to make

(04:29):
sure that this one sentence or this one word doesn't
infringe or infract something that's going on over here. I
can't remember what it was. There was something I was reading.
It's it's uh, it's tough to look back through the
years here, but there was something I was reading and
I came across the page that was so heavily redacted.

(04:52):
I you not. There were two unredacted words on there,
and I one of them was the word to stay.
That's it. Somebody went through with that highlighter and again
painstakingly cross referenced everything. And they were like, I think
we can say it's Tuesday. I think we can. I mean,
at that point, why did you redact the whole thing?

(05:13):
And why it seems like almost like a troll. You know, well,
give them Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes there are government
mandates that say you have to release the documents, right, so,
but they don't say you have to release them in full.
They don't say, uh, you know how they must be
released in a lot of ways, unless they say, unless

(05:35):
they impose restrictions such as, uh, not creating an identifiable threat.
That was that was the most recent one. This is uh,
we're going to get into it. This conspiracy theory is
a political You're gonna find people of all ideologies who
believe some version of it, and they all agree, maybe

(05:58):
not on the specifics, but they all agree that there's
something fishy about the official story, something fishy about the
official story. Whatever, leave it in. We're gonna leave it in.
There's something a fishy about the about this story. How
about that? So here here are the facts, and we
need to set this up because it's gonna be important
to the conspiracies that are afoot as we speak. Someone

(06:21):
have you believe? First? JFK thirty five, President of the
United States in office from nine one nineteen sixty three,
He's only forty three years old when he gets elected,
which we know for some conspiracy realist in the crowd,
that sounds very very old. But you'll get there probably
sooner than you think. And uh yeah, and he um.

(06:44):
He was set up for success. This is something that
is unfortunately, very very very common in American politics. He
was the son of privilege. This was not a guy
who was staying up at night worried about the light
or worried about his next meal. He's an old Massachusetts
money kind of a silver spoon, firmly implanted in mouth situation. Yes,

(07:10):
but I only had the wat Oh wait, wait, no,
I'm going I'm going Stephen King. That's too main. That
was gonna be. You know what, I liked it. I
like the hybrid King Kennedy vibes there um as as
is befitting of of of the silver spoon situation. Um.
Kennedy graduated from Hallwood in and then he joined the

(07:32):
navy UM and he did make quite a name for
himself as a leader during wartime UM. Specifically, in three
his boat was attacked and actually sunk by a Japanese destroyer,
and he was able to lead the survivors to safety
and that that is the thing, like, you know, you
can you can say what you will about coming from
a place of privilege like that. He did not have

(07:52):
to join the navy. I mean, so many people join
the military or joined the navy because they don't have privilege,
because they need you know, the uh, the funds that
that comes with that are like, you know, the ability
to pay for college like that. He did it presumably
because he's a patriot and uh, and he became a
war hero, which is a really really great way and

(08:13):
paired with the privilege to politics. Well, I'd be interested
to know what some of our fellow conspiracy realists have
to think of I have to say about that, just
you know, joining up going officer school or what you know,
the training to be an officer immediately upon getting into
said military service, and like what that would look like
in this case. The fact that he was serving on

(08:35):
you know about during wartime and was able to physically
lead people to safety totally, that's that's that's up there, right. Okay,
here's the thing though, And call me a cynic if
we must, but uh, it's easy to imagine that this
was part of a longer play. He all, his family

(08:56):
was well established in politics. So I don't think it's
unreasonable to imagine a conversation between John and his father,
Joseph Kennedy, Sr. Where Joseph was saying, you know, one
day you gotta be president. Uh ask not what you
can do for the Navy, but what the Navy can

(09:16):
do for your political career. And I'll be damned if
any of Prescott Bush's kids get that before you, you know,
like baby. Clearly it certainly plays into that trajectory. But
you know, we also know some presidents that you know,
got out of military service due to uh spurious let's say,

(09:37):
does the conditions? Yeah, and so he's still he's still
relatively young at this time. I wouldn't make sure we
mentioned he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in nineteen seventeen
or May twenty nine. But whatever his aims were, and
it's difficult to ascribe motive, of course, but whatever his
aims were, if we take the patriotism at face value,

(10:01):
he quickly used that. He quickly leveraged that experience as
a war hero into the world of politics. First, he
was a congressman. He was repped in the Boston area
and by nineteen fifty three he was in the Senate.
This guy was very much a rising star in the
halls of power, and those folks who were already established

(10:22):
in the halls of power, whether they liked him, whether
they feared him, they had a very close eye on
his future ambitions. Uh. And you know, things are going
pretty well for him outside the world of politics too.
He met Jackie on Nassis a k a. Jacqueline Beauvais

(10:43):
b O. N. Bouvier. Oh yes, um, and and that
was the same year that he was elected to the Senate.
Soe and uh, he was dude, this guy. Sometimes we
forget we hear speeches from JF. K. He made many,
many of them over his short time in office, Uh,

(11:05):
as well as as a senator. But I kind of forget.
He was a Pulitzerprise winning author, which means he was
good with the word and he or he at least
had a lot of people around him who were excellent
with words to help him do that. He wrote a
nineteen fifty five book it's called Profiles Encourage And he
wrote this while he was recovering from an operation that

(11:26):
he had on his back. And um, this is part
of the lure of JFK that we kind of learned
more recently. I would say I learned it much more
recently with things like drunk history, which is silly to
think about, but in other places where stories of JFK's
back pain, uh, like how his back pain and his

(11:48):
surgery and everything kind of led to maybe some drug
use over the years, maybe a back brace that wouldn't
let him duck when the first shot missed. We'll get there,
We'll get there, but you're you're right, And we have
to point out to this a side note for any
uh current or former presidents tuning into the podcast, Uh,

(12:12):
be careful, folks, because presidents have a surprisingly dark history
of substance abuse and and people don't talk about it
super often. But as you as you looked, you know
a lot of early American presidents were wasted pretty frequently
on the job. And then if your life is so stressful,
you know you've got heavy medical monitoring, but you also

(12:35):
have to be able to seem uh fit, lucid and
capable in your many public appearances and perhaps more importantly,
in your non public appearances or conversations with foreign powers.
So sometimes uh, these individuals do get put up on drugs,
you know, on medications of one sort or another, as

(12:57):
messed up as it is, the appearance, as you said, Ben,
of being lucid is oftentimes more important than your actual
health as a sitting president, oh a hundred percent. And
that is a really sad thing because it's almost like
who really cares about me? You know? And no, it's
just about like how how much of a front can

(13:17):
you put up? You know? Like, Uh, for example, like
when Hillary Clinton, you know, I think she did a
stutter step or something in public, and all of a sudden,
there was all this conversation around, oh, she's definitely dying.
She's clearly got some sort of like life threatening condition.
And I think a lot of that was also probably
wrapped up in the fact that she's a woman. Uh,
And the media tends to go after women in that

(13:38):
way more so than men. But it's the same with Biden,
I mean, tending time you catch him, like, you know,
dozing off in a meeting, it makes like front page news. Yeah,
and they're I mean, there are hit pieces like that
for every president, especially now in the age of ubiquitous
media coverage. You know, you'll see like you'll see those
clips of and thinking of a more recent example, you'll

(14:02):
see those clips of like nine eighties peak businessman Trump, right,
and then you'll see you'll see it contrasted and usually
a short YouTube video and it's like, oh, look at
them now, you know, and regardless of your feelings you have,
being a president is super damaging to people on a
physical emotional if a soul exists on a soul full level,

(14:25):
but people still want the job. So now JFK has
checked all the boxes. Is he for money? Yes? Is
he from a political dynasty, Yes? Did he write a
patriotic book? Check? Is he married to a powerful socialite? Check? Uh?
Is he has he quickly progressed from Congress to the

(14:46):
Senate check check. So he makes a run first as
the Democratic vice president in ninety six. It doesn't work
out fast forward four years. He doesn't get a give up.
Now he is the Democratic presidential candidate in nineteen sixty.
And there's something so weird in the study of media

(15:09):
that plays a huge role in this. Kennedy had a
series of debates with the Republican candidate of the time,
a guy named Richard M. Nixon, who may be familiar
to some people. Through a street name Tricky Dick. So
before they were calling him tricky Dick, and they just
called him, you know, Richard at that time. Uh, millions
of people, millions tuned into this debate in some way,

(15:32):
and it was aired on television, it was aired on radio.
Something weird happened. People who listened on the radio thought
Nixon won the debates. They thought he made better points,
they thought he was more articulate, they thought he was
more on mission and on brand. But people who saw
it on TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner. Right.

(15:53):
And it's all because of body language, right, Like Nixon
looked a little sweaty and kind of disheveled and and
maybe a little you know, fidgety kind of and uh
and Kennedy it's basic dreamboat, you know, just coming off
like a champ, like looking completely calm as a cucumber. Uh,
those that those dashing good looks, great hair, I mean,

(16:15):
just excellent hair, hair for days, and then just kind
of this calm demeanor. Um. So that that goes to
show why, you know, TV makes a huge difference. Yeah,
at least a few people watched that televised debate and thought,
which of these guys, would I sleep with definitely, voted accordingly,
and then eventually slept with him. Yes. Yes. Shout out

(16:37):
to Neelie Comics for giving us the most important part
of any JFK research, which is the music video by
the Professor Brothers about JFK. Stop what you're doing, pause
this episode, truly watch that video now pull over, pull
over safely and watched that video now, uh okay, in
your back. So see we didn't lead you astray. It's

(17:01):
worth it. So whatever role media had to play here,
history tells us Kennedy one. He didn't win by an
overwhelming majority. He had a pretty narrow margin in the
popular vote, and at least part of that was due
to his youth, but I would advance a a bigger
part of it was due to lingering prejudice against people

(17:25):
of the Catholic faith. I don't think it's as popular
prevalent in the US today, but back then and for
a long time, there were there were fears motivated by
religious prejudice that caused many people to think any Catholic
in a position of authority would not be obeying the Constitution,

(17:48):
they would be obeying the word of the Pope. Whomever
that pope happened to be, so he overcame in that
regard a lot of prejudice to become president. And nowadays,
as so often happens with the dead, his time on
earth is romanticized. It doesn't matter if you're if you're
personally a fan of Kennedy or the administration or the

(18:11):
you know, like the soap operatic story of Camelot. The
truth is that, uh, partially due to the tragic way
his life ended, people tend to look with some rose
colored glasses. You know, they tend to airbrush some stuff,
you know what I mean, and forget that no one's perfect.
But still it's easy to see some big wins for

(18:32):
his administration at the time, you know, called from war
progress in the world of civil rights. Did something that
not every president really does, which he championed the arts
despite the fact that the arts aren't inherently profitable and
unquantifiable way. Uh, and then you put out a lot
of economic programs that I think people forget about. This

(18:54):
put the US on a path of expansion in the
in the commercial world. It's an expansion that hadn't occurred
since World War Two. And he didn't use the catchphrase.
I wish he did, but he didn't use this catchphrase.
But he was very interested in eliminating pockets of deep poverty.

(19:17):
Just didn't call it a war on poverty because using
the W word was a little bit sensitive in the sixties.
M it's a call to action that was shared by
somebody who got assassinated five years later. That's true. Dr
King interesting, It's very much true. And Coentel pro never ended.

(19:38):
Just gonna slip that one in there. We're gonna pause
for a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.
Because nothing happens in a vacuum. We've returned, so giving
us some highlights, rough and dirty biography, but we have

(20:00):
to admit the Kennedy administration was anything but perfect. In fact,
the world came the closest it has been uh to
nuclear war since World War Two during Kennedy's short tenure
as president. Yeah. Um, the Cold War absolutely reached a

(20:21):
crisis level During the Cuban Missile Crisis UM as it
was known, Kennedy, possibly against better judgment, allowed some trained
armed Cuban exiles to invade Cuba, which was another one
of the laundry list of plays made to attempt to

(20:43):
overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. We talked in the
last episode about everything from like poison, like what there's
something about a wet suit poison, wetsuit poison, wet suit,
poisoned cigar. Yeah, yes, that's a hallucinogens piped in uh
in the studio where he recorded stuff, just to discredit him,

(21:06):
even to make him lose his beard. That fits in
when we were just talking about, too, right, the idea
of if he came off not seeming lucid, or seeming
in some way dottery or like he didn't have his together,
that would be enough to topple him, at least in
the minds of the people. Right, Yeah, you're you're absolutely right.
And to explain a little bit about the the issue

(21:27):
that the Cuban exiles have, we we had to talk.
We have to talk about the revolution. A lot of
there was a ton of wealth inequality pre revolution in Cuba,
and many of the people who would go on to
be Cuban exiles and anti communist extremist felt that their
property had been stolen by the new government of Cuba.

(21:50):
And so to them, I mean, yeah, it had you
can call it whatever you You can call it nationalized
if you want, if that makes it sound better or
more official. But yeah, it was taken. And the idea
was that it had itself been this property had been
acquired unfairly by these families of these folks leveraging the government.

(22:11):
That was the position of the communist revolution in Cuba.
But these folks never gave up. How would you feel
if you thought this communist government had wrecked your life
in your future, you would want to retaliate. That's an
understandable thing. So they were all about it, uh, But
Kennedy and his administration were not on board because they

(22:33):
didn't want to poke a certain bear across the Atlantic,
a bear that was also dangerously close to Alaska very
much had a around and find out reputation, and they
also had nuclear weapons. So Kennedy thought it was a
bad move to mess with Castro. We can talk this down.
He's the guy at the bar saying, okay, let's not
throw hands yet, because we want to be at this

(22:55):
bar tomorrow. The USSR was not feeling this move against
Cuba because to them it was a vital part of
the global communist revolution and they pretty much saw it
as a client state. They felt they had hedgemony over
the country, so they said, you know what around you're

(23:15):
about to find out. So they sent nuclear weapons to
the island, and this is what launches the crisis so
bad that we literally still today call it the Cuban
missile crisis. Yeah, and they didn't just ship the nukes
there so that you know, Fidel and the Cuban forces
could say, hey, there are nukes here. They installed those

(23:37):
babies ready to rock, just off the coast of the
United States, about ninety miles nine miles away. And so
the US only learned about this because of the YouTube
spy plane, which is famously how the members of the
band YouTube met each other. They were operating that plane. Uh,

(23:58):
this was October of nineteen sixty two. So when Kennedy
learned about this, it was kind of at He was
at an impass. So he placed a naval black aide
around the nation of Cuba and called it a quarantine,
cutting off any Soviet access. And he said, look, not
only can you not ship more nuclear weapons here, you

(24:20):
need to get all of the other stuff off the island.
You have to get all the nuclear missiles that you
already put there, and the non nuclear missiles and you
have to put them back on a boat to Soviet Russia,
and you've got to destroy those missile sites you've built.
So for thirteen days, some of us in the audience
were alive for these thirteen days. For thirteen days, the

(24:43):
future of civilization pretty much hinged on two dudes, Nikita
Kruschev and John Kennedy. And they made two deals. Only
one was public. So Russia or the US US are said,
you know what, Okay, we'll dismantled the sites if you,

(25:05):
John and the United States vow not to ever, at
least in the time being, invade Cuba for any reason.
Do not invade Cuba. And again this is this is
interesting because that's the one that we knew about, right, yeah, yeah,
So the idea is Kennedy was like fine, and then

(25:27):
somebody from the CIA in the back is going, no, yeah,
damn it. We have this great idea from a poison
tow ring, and we're going to give to Fidel cast Or.
We don't know if it works. You know, the man
loved his tow rings. That. Yeah, you know, everybody's got

(25:48):
their own inner life, right. Drew Carey has nipple piercings
I'm just saying that is true. Yeah, that's what I
tell me. That's not true. That's what I ruined. You
ruined Drew Carey for me? Bad? Wait wait wait, wait
care for me. Let's not let's not judge. What if?
What if I have a few of those? If you
what do you mean more than do you have like

(26:09):
a third nip situation? Or they like, really big, I'm sorry,
that's a personal question. Matt took off his head coach.
Now he's back in. They took off his shirt and
reveal his shiny China nip brands. So so um. Regardless
of their stance on nuclear weapons or nipple rings. Uh,

(26:30):
the leaders of the U s s R and the US,
we're trying to reach some kind of non violent agreement.
They were still very much in competition because they wanted
to be the rulers of the world. Let's talk about
that private agreement. This goes back to the idea of
posturing in a way that shows confidence, that shows lucidity,

(26:53):
that shows power, right, instead of weakness. Uh, the public
was sold kind of a tip for tat agreement. Right, Okay,
we're not gonna invade Cuba in the back. The intelligence
guys are like, no, damn it, and then in return,
you're going to get rid of those missiles. They're just
too close to us, and we think that's dangerous. This

(27:14):
is the same country, by the way, that has dozens
of basis encircling the border of Iran today. But anyway,
they were like, we like to do that to people,
but we don't want it done to us. But the
US had to give up something else, and they didn't
tell the public this for twenty five years. They also

(27:34):
agreed that they would remove their nuclear weapons from Turkey
because Russia. Russia asked a very reasonable question from their perspective,
which is like, okay, so you're telling me President Kennedy
that you you don't think it's a good look. You
don't like the vibe of a foreign power having nuclear

(27:55):
weapons really close to you. And they're like, no, absolutely not,
that's a nonstarter. They're like, cool Turkey though, bro, Turkey, Yeah,
what about les here right there? Right? And the battle,
that battle was over, Those days passed and the world
did not descend into nuclear chaos, but the beef was

(28:18):
still on. There's still this huge arm race because both
nations see themselves not just as wanting to be the
leaders of the world, but as the rightful leaders of
the world, and they'll do anything they can legality be
damned to make that so. And by thanks some part
of efforts on both sides, they're sending public signals that
they're ratcheting down the tension. This is the year when

(28:42):
the Kremlin and the White House set up a hotline,
you know, and they knew when that hotline bling, it
could only mean one thing, uh, total nuclear annihilation, yeah,
or a chance to talk back from the ledge Yeah.
Well and again like how great is that though, that
there could be between two superpowers, a direct line for

(29:07):
the leaders to communicate in case tensions get too high,
Like surely it was one of those big red phones
that like lights up. It has to be the only
possible option. It was. Actually, this is the weirdest part,
and I thought about this pretty often. It was a
way for them to text each other. Who was a
teletype machine? No way? Yes, way, Ted, Well, so now

(29:30):
they can just slide into each other's d m s
like putin just hits up Biden, like three am. I mean,
I'm sure that happens. H w y D bro W
Cold War Hotline sorry, I'm now done. It's perfect, you know, um,
it is inspiring, you know in this something we see

(29:51):
in diplomacy, the idea that if we can get away
from the court of public opinion, we the world leaders,
can work something out in a way that benefit it's everybody,
everybody being defined as you and me on the phone,
so on that hotline. So that's one thing they did.
And then they also Dmitri, Dmitri, I can't hear you, Dmitri,

(30:15):
you're breaking up. I'm sorry. I cannot think Dr Strangelove
when we talk about this exactly exactly, And I also
I would love to I feel like you can learn
a lot about somebody by the way in which they
choose to text, you know, and no judgment. Some people
are moji heavy, some people are not. Some people are

(30:35):
full sentences. Some people feel full sentences are kind of
cold and overly formal. I just don't like it when
you end a text with a period. I think it's
the most aggressive thing. It's like an act of war.
To me. I don't care. I don't care. My sentences
will be complete when I say things in text form.
What if it's just a single word followed by a period.

(30:56):
You don't think that's a little inherently aggressive context, I
would say, it depends I've just had that beat into me.
But I do text you both differently, like I, I know,
I don't want to put you off Noll with a period,
and then Matt, I also don't don't want to seem
like I don't want to seem like I don't care.
But what about group text? How do you how do

(31:17):
you how do you navigate those diplomatic waters. Then on
group text, I've you guys will notice I've done without
the period unless I'm writing actual like because I text
too many things, So I'll write out a paragraph. Then
at least at least I can do is get some
periods in there so it's readable. But we don't know.
We don't know what these world leaders were necessarily saying

(31:39):
on this hotline. We do know that in July of
ninety three, both sides were also signatories to the Limited
Nuclear Test Band Tree, which was an international agreement to
step down the wild West of nuclear testing. If you
want to learn more about that, check out our episodes

(31:59):
on things like the Marshall Islands. So at this point
we have to ask, what would the world be like today.
Not if Kennedy got re elected, but what if he
had just finished his term. There are tons of speculation
out there, but the simple truth is this, we are
never going to know. And that is because on November
twenty nine, six three, in Dallas, Texas, President John F.

(32:22):
Kennedy was assassinated. After an investigation, after a series of
very thorough investigations, the US government concluded this assassination was
carried out by one dude, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone,
shot the President of the United States fatally in the
head with a six point five millimeter Krkano Model thirty

(32:45):
eight rifle. That's the official conclusion through the War in Commission.
Turns out a lot of people have a problem with
that conclusion. What are we talking about. We'll tell you
afterwards from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Remember again, folks,

(33:08):
this is part one of a two part series. So
this is the part where we have to do the
official story. And we're very well aware this may irk
some of our fellow listeners in the crowd today, but
we've got to establish the actual timeline, the official timeline,
the stuff that the government says happened, and the order

(33:28):
in which they say it happened. All right, I'll take
the hit, guys. In November of nineteen sixty three, Kennedy,
vice President Lyndon Johnson, and their spouses embarked upon a
five city tour throughout Texas, aiming to boost Kennedy's popularity
for the next election while also uniting the Texas Democratic Party. Then,
on the morning of November, the Kennedy family arrived in

(33:51):
Dallas via Air Force one for from Fort Worth. The
president entered a motorcade heading for a luncheon at the
Dallas Trademark over Can I stop, just just for a second,
had a question for you guys, what's the difference between
a lunch and a luncheon? I was about to ask
the same thing. I think a luncheon is fancy, usually
involves tiny sandwiches, isn't it, like, yeah, a ladies luncheon,

(34:16):
you know, think about like a like a Pinnacle Club
meeting or something like that, or like some I think
that's right. Yep, okay, okay, sorry, sorry, Matt. That was
just that's something I didn't wanna I didn't want to
research before we went on air. The same question was
burning in my skull and you asked it. You asked
what everyone in the audience was asking. So bless you

(34:37):
for it. So anyways, the Kennedy's are hanging out going
to this fancy smancy lunch at the Dallas Trademark. They're
over a hundred and fifty thousand people lined up along
the road as the Kennedy's head that way in their vehicle.
It's a ten mile route, yes, it's a ten mile route.
And at twelve thirty in the afternoon, both President Kennedy

(35:01):
and the governor of Texas at the time and fellowing him,
John Connolly, are shot. They're writing in the presidential limousine,
which is open top, and Connolly is seriously wounded. For time,
they don't know if he's going to make it, but
the president despite you know, no one officially announces it
until later that day. But the president is clearly dead.

(35:23):
It's not tis but a flesh wound situation. You And
if there's one takeaway we got from this whole scenario
is no more open top motorcades, not a thing a
thing anymore in this country for presidents. So the car,
the limousine instantly goes into action like within sixty seconds,

(35:46):
it is racing towards the nearest hospital, Parkland Memorial. Around
this time, Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, is making his
escape from the sixth floor of the Texas school Book
Depot a tree history hinges on very very small things, folks.
He almost gets caught walking downstairs. Police officer briefly stops

(36:12):
him in the lunch room on the second floor of
the building, but he moves on without incident. By one PM,
Kennedy is at the hospital, his body is at least
he's pronounced dead, and just a few minutes after that,
police find empty rifle shells and they find a rifle
hidden on the sixth floor of the Texas school Book Depository.

(36:34):
Later investigations will show that was definitely oz Walt's rifle.
He definitely did buy it. By one PM, he is arrested.
His plan for a getaway did not go well. By
the next day, in the wee hours of November a
m he is officially charged with the murder of the

(36:55):
President of the United States. How did that go? Will
never know? He never makes it to trial. On November
he too will be assassinated by a very interesting guy
named Jack Ruby. Great name Uh. And then the wake
of that murder, Lennon Johnson UM sought to kind of

(37:17):
keep the peace maintained, some semblance of order. UM. He
knew that this was on everyone's television, everyone's radio, and
he knew that not everyone in the audience was a
particularly big fan of his UM considering, so he he
knew he needed to tread lightly UM, and an investigation commenced. UM.
Even as these rumors began to spread from the onset UM,

(37:40):
some genuine speculation, uh, some likely manufactured disinformation coming out
of Russia. Uh. You know they're looking at this as
an opportunity to just so discontent, right, UM, to divide,
which is attack that we know they've employed multiple times
throughout history against the United States, and US has against

(38:01):
so many other count This is a beautiful song we
are singing, But that's for us. It's not for you.
He always for us. UM. But in the end, the
warrant commissioned UM in an eight hundred eight page report. UM. Surprising,

(38:22):
no conspiracy theories have been made around that number. Oh
it's to get rid of the trees, Okay, I got it. Boom. UM.
They made this public on September nine, four it concluded
that Kennedy was in fact assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald,
and that Oswald had acted alone without any co conspirators,

(38:43):
and also that there was nobody else involved, like as
far as a government handler or agency or you know, military. Sure,
no big business interest, no organized crime, no ring of
sleeper agent spies. One dude, one gun and a few
bullets had laid democracy low. This remains one of the

(39:06):
most controversial investigations in the entirety of US history, and
as we record today, conspiracy theories about this murder proliferate.
It is, in fact, one of the most widely accepted
conspiracy theories in American culture. And and there are people again,
it's a political people on either side of the that,

(39:26):
you know, frankly manufactured divide people of every kind of creed,
every kind of um demographic slice you could imagine, people
who consider themselves very skeptical about every other thing might say, well, okay,
the Kennedy thing though, the Kennedy thing, right, And everybody
else in the room looks around and they know which one. Yeah,

(39:50):
They're like, well, which Robert, which one we're talking? Are
we talking? Chap aquittic? Because that happened too. I mean, anyway,
the the thing is that there's a mistrust of the
government very common in US culture. You could say it's
American as apple pie, which is misleading because apples are
from Kazakhstan. But whatever. Uh, the idea is that it

(40:12):
is some it is somehow both the responsibility and the
right of people living in the US to question the
decisions of those in power. And because parts of that
investigation remained classified today, that lack of transparency, coupled with
that ingrained lack of trust, combined to make just the

(40:34):
perfect soil for speculation. It's like in twenty seventeen, about
fifty nine percent of Hillary Clinton's supporters believed in a
conspiracy surrounding the jfk assassination, and at the same time,
about sixty one of Donald trumps supporters were on the
same page. Finally, finally we found the one thing people

(40:59):
of political stripes can agree on. Why is it that
up in the debate? How come no one talks about that?
They don't answer my letters? But I mean, that would
be pretty great on the stage the next presidential debate,
Just what's your take on the jfk assassination? And then
they connect so hard and everybody's just feeling each other

(41:20):
so much on stage that we all just get along.
And they decided to co president. They decided to go, yeah,
I'm just I pictory, like, uh, what is it? Anderson
Cooper moving from some question like one of those vaguely
worded questions about you know, freedom, and then just going
all right, JFK, just leaving it there. Maybe they have

(41:45):
to go Jeopardy style and phrase it as a phrase.
Their answer is a question to be careful, you know.
But but if they if that ever happened, which spoiler, folks,
that's never going to happen. You're not going to get
a presidential debate where they talk about that. Uh maybe
because they don't want to get shot. But if that
ever happened, you would hear some of the most prevalent

(42:08):
conspiracy theories brought up in the media. And they don't
all agree. At times they contradict, but they have a
couple of commonalities, and we can group them into just
a few categories. You know, it's like just a handful
of the most popular ones. Um, this one's for you know,
you know, Sopranos style. What if it was the mafia?

(42:30):
I guess that is me. I'm the Residents Sopranos. Not Yeah,
no one ever expects them off and that's not true.
They usually do do things pretty brashly. Um, doesn't feel
like this one has too much sand, right? Well, the
whole I mean, I don't know. I haven't seen a
whole hell of a lot of chatter about it. What
do you guys know? There are some weirdness in Jack
Ruby's connections. I don't know. Man with the Kamsters, right,

(42:54):
isn't there a connection with like a union and I'm
thinking of Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah it was dirty, but there
were Um. I have some personal nitpicks with the mafia theory, uh.
The chief of those and we'll talk about this born
part two, the chief of which is that it seems
unlikely for the mafia to be involved with an operation

(43:16):
of that magnitude and that risk unless there was a
clear benefit at the end, and would have to be
a significant benefit, whether it's cash or whether it's immunity
from something else. What I'm saying is like the mafia
participating in something the mafia being asked to help, maybe,
but the Mafia just deciding to do it on their

(43:37):
own some crime family that seems a little tough to swallow.
You have to imagine it would be a business decision
of some sort, exactly right, because what you know, you
can call these outfits crime families, but they're really business enterprises.
You know, mafias are a mom and pop business family business.
Um yeah, Jimmy Hoffa, right, I mean that that was

(43:59):
who was Purport did to have ordered the assassination or
been complicit in it. And he was obviously a very
corrupt Teamsters union leader who had mob ties and you know,
don't mess with teamsters in general, just stay on their
good side. That's what everybody in production tells me. Uh.
The other idea, Castro, fed up with the hilarious attempts

(44:21):
on his life, had decided he would show them how
it was done, and he ordered the death of John F. Kennedy.
Or was it the c i A and then vice
president Lyndon Johnson or were they both working together or
were they working with even more people? Did they all
vultron up, assemble their avengers, assemble their assassination avengers and

(44:44):
kill Kennedy? And then, you know, then go a little
further out, you'll see things like a shadow government, deeply
embedded cabal, the illuminati, um something like that killed Kennedy,
or even the John Birch Society killed Kennedy, or the
president somehow never actually died. So that's just hold that

(45:09):
one in your mind for the rest of this series.
But there's this fascinating deep rabbit hole of conjecture. The
theories often contradict one another on the most basic of assumptions,
but they all have one unanimous commonality. They all claim
that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Again, over

(45:30):
half of the people in the US believe some version
of this, and since nineteen these arguments have never quite
gone away. Oh shout out to the other one, the
incompetence conspiracy, the idea that with the best of intentions,
a member of the Secret Service fired the fatal shot
just for a fumble, speculation this individual was hungover, etcetera.

(45:53):
But that hasn't been proven. That's just one of the
other popular ones we have to mention. And you know,
the more I think about it, I think the probably
the majority of people who don't buy this official story
from the Warren Commission, they don't think their conspiracy theorists.
They just think there's something really off about the story,
and whether or not you agree, it's easy to understand

(46:15):
that perspective. And that's because for decades, from more than
half a century, Uncle Sam has kept information about this
murder from the public, and over the years some emerging facts,
things that did come out or did get declassified, like
the story behind the Cuban missile crisis, have called some
of these initial statements into question. There no matter, like

(46:37):
if you accept the official narrative, there's still no arguing
that there are a lot of weird discrepancies about this one.
There's a lot of muddy stuff here. Yeah, you can
look to a person named Dr T. Jeremy gunn Well
who actually worked on the assassination records review board. This
was this review board was established. This is the one

(46:59):
we mentioned or leader at the top of this uh
this episode. And by the way, this is right after
JFK was created by Oliver Stone. That's one of the
most well known stories about the assassination and about JFK.
Zapp Bruder film. Back to the left, Back to the left.

(47:19):
So this Dr T. Jeremy gunn Fellow was very surprised,
as he was, you know, looking through these records to
find that the medical evidence that was available from the
assassination of JFK's actual body was not up to snuff.
It wasn't what like, there wasn't enough information, There wasn't
accurate enough. It's just it wasn't up to the expectations

(47:42):
that you would imagine the medical records of an assassinated
president would be. Yeah. Yeah, he gun learned that there
was a deposition with one of the three doctors who
performed the autopsy on Kennedy's corpse, and this doctor, Dr
James Joseph Humes said, oh, yeah, we skipped some steps

(48:05):
in the autopsy, Like, wasn't my best autopsy. I don't know.
We but yeah, that we know was the president. But
we we skipped some stuff. You know, we're in a hurry.
And then it turns out that he had also made
a copy of the original autopsy paperwork, this doctor Humes, uh,
and he had destroyed the original. When asked why he

(48:26):
destroyed the original, he said he did it because he
saw I have bloodstains, so he made his made his
own thing, and because it's not an important original document
at all. Well, you know, on the other side of it,
Matt maybe he wanted literally a clean copy. I don't know.
I just feel like at that point you shouldn't be
messing with things anymore than they're already messed with. What

(48:49):
if he just kept it in a box in his
house for the rest of his life. Oh god, that
is a classic human move. I could so see that,
you know. But uh, if he did, he didn't come
forward during his lifetime to say, hey, here's the original.
He did seem to at least believe that he had
destroyed it. Uh t. Jeremy Gunn finds some other discrepancies.

(49:12):
He says, there are serious problems with the forensic and
ballistic evidence. This is not an armchair investigator, you know,
as as you established, Matt, this was literally this guy's job.
He also found that someone somehow had gone into the
National Archives and taken the official photos of Kennedy's corpse

(49:35):
post assassination. Uh. Whatever photos are there now do not appear,
in Gun's opinion, to be the original photos. So why
would you switch those out? What's I mean? Why what's
the point? And I guess in the auction that you
were great Greek Greek grandchildren will have one day or
as the as the more conspiratorial would argue, Uh, the

(49:57):
photographs show wounds that do not fit the official narrative,
and so there's a second factor here. The state secrecy
is definitely complicating the search for the truth, and this
leads to conspiracies about conspiracies. You'll find so many people
I used to believe this as well. You'll find so

(50:18):
many people claiming the CIA popularized the term conspiracy theory
in nine seven. You'll find some people claiming they invented
this term and weaponized it in the wake of the
jfk assassination. Um, they didn't invent it. Government agencies and
this is not a ding. Government agencies are not often

(50:40):
creative in that regard. They use well established means because
you want to stick with what works. But what the
CIA did do and what should scare you if you
were in the audience today, is exert their control over
domestic media. Not a little fringe sites, not a little
front websites or anything like that. No, no, no, no,

(51:01):
the papers of note like they wrote to contacts in
the New York Times of the Chicago Tribune and Uh.
The most famous of these is a memo called concerning
criticism of the War and report came out after the
war in commission, and in there, if you actually read
the thing, in the third paragraph, the CIA does talk

(51:22):
about conspiracy theories. It's the only time it occurs in
the document. They say, conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion
on our organization. Oh how wounded? Uh? For example by
falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. And
then they spend a lot of ink crapping on Lee
Harvey Oswald, which admittedly isn't hard. Uh. They say, you know,

(51:45):
he's super unstable. Nobody, let alone the c I, A
nobody in their right mind would be dumb enough to
use such an unreliable dude in an operation of this scope, Like,
come on, we don't play it. Ket It's it's like
all but saying like it doesn't say this, But the
implication is, like, we know enough about assassinating world leaders

(52:11):
that we have a pretty good idea of who not
to pick, and we would not pick this suite. Uh.
But the use of the phrase is really casual, the
way they use the phrase conspiracy theory. It's because before
this moment in time, that wasn't a pejorative. It was
like a thing people just kind of assumed happened. And

(52:32):
mainly this is meant. This memo is meant to give
people in media arguments against those rumors. And like you
pointed out earlier, Nold, some of those rumors were it's
highly likely that they were being spread on purpose by
foreign propaganda agencies or foreign propaganda operations. So that's what

(52:54):
they're fighting against. That is what they're funny, I guess,
but we have to remember we've discussed this in the past.
This CIA would plant an operative within a large news organization.
They did that, and that's what we're that's what we're
referring to here. We're saying like they'd reach out to
their people basically to give these directives. Uh, talking about

(53:18):
propaganda happening still happening today. I mean, even with that
little bit of myth busting, I think you're right, Matt,
that is the scariest part. No one in the public
knew about this memo, by the way, until the New
York Times years later, was able to get it through
a FAY or request, a Freedom of Information Act request.

(53:38):
That's how you get the pages with the black highlighter.
If you have a lot of tile in your hands.
Uh So, now this has led the public and the
government into a strange song and dance routine. I don't
know if we talked about it on air, but Disney
has been doing this clever thing for a very long
time where they repeatedly pushed back the rules of copyright

(53:59):
right the stat Teute of Limitations on copyright law, so
that they can retain um sole ownership of the there
are many many properties. Uh. In a in a weird way,
some faction of the U. S. Government or some group
of people seems hell bent on pushing back that scheduled

(54:20):
declassification of these JFK files that are still secret today.
It does not matter who the president is. It does
not matter which of the two political parties. It doesn't
You know what, if there's ever like a if the
Green Party was in charge, you know what I mean,
if like a libertarian party was in charge, this would
probably still be the same situation because public outcry does

(54:41):
not matter. It does not matter. You can't elect the
head of the c I A well, not while they're
at that job. They have to they have to have
moved on. But uh, yeah, we folks have probably noticed
in a recent example, if you tune into our Strange
News segments. We talked about the Biden administration the most

(55:05):
recent decision to keep those still secret files secret, and
they said they were just following the directives of National Archives.
And they gave two reasons. One feels actually, i'll say it,
one feels pretty solid and the other one is pretty spooky.
That's just my opinion. Well, yeah, the first one, they

(55:25):
just said, uh, the coronavirus in COVID nineteen, all of
the things that we have to do has slowed down
our process a lot, so we we need more time.
And that's that's makes sense, right, Yeah, supply chain. You know,
they can't get the markers. Everything's been held up. It's
like trying to get a good black highlighter now is

(55:47):
like trying to get a PS five. Yeah. Man, uh,
it's so hard over here in the archives. But there's
this other phrase that we mentioned in that Strange News
episode that is, to my mind, the domino that sends
me down a rabbit hole. Yes, uh, the phrase, the
very vague phrase identifiable harm whatever that means. Um, So,

(56:12):
why why the need for this, you know, persistent secrecy?
What would happen if all of these documents, assuming they
haven't been like Shredded were released. We talked about that
in the previous episode, right, I mean, my whole thing
is like, they're not going to release it. They're not
if there's anything in there, they're not gonna they they're
not gonna tell you. They're not gonna let us know.

(56:33):
I just don't believe that it is in the capacity
of the government to a ever admit they were wrong
and be released anything that would shed any light on
any secret nonsense that they've been up to. And then Ben,
you made the pointer. I think it was both of
you that there are branches of the government that are like,
there's there's no crossover. There are all these siloed branches,

(56:56):
so they might not even all know what's in there. Right. Oh, yeah,
for sure, that's definitely true. Also a side note, my
new favorite excuse not to go to things is identifiable harm,
Like if I can just use them, sorry, I can't
make hap and I have become weird. I've become weird.
I'm careful with that one. I've become strange. I don't

(57:19):
want to I I use I have become strange, and uh,
you got it. It's like saffron or sesame oil. A
little bit of that goes a long way. So is
the concept that if you were present, you may or
may not cause unidentifiable harm and that is just too
much of a risk to take. Or is that it

(57:41):
isn't that the event itself could cause unidentifiable harm to you?
No comments. We can't. We can't have people learning about
our collection methods and tactics. Got it. That's it? Um, yeah,
I think I'll stick with that. I have become strange maybe,
or we could just say COVID. So but to your question, well,

(58:03):
it's a good question, Um, what would happen It's not
going to but just hypothetically, what would happen if all
of this stuff was released, all the stuff that hadn't
been destroyed was released. It's really hard to say because
it's a black box. We don't know what's in there.
And if you are, if you do have visibility on
this and you are listening, um, you probably can't right

(58:25):
to us. You can't tell us what's in there. You'll
be under the jail. While you'll be under the prison,
you'll be under something it might be six ft of dirt.
But while you're you could say that the classifying all
of this would be a big step toward dispelling some
of the wild wilder claims. But it's I don't know.

(58:45):
I think it's probable that even if everything was released,
it wouldn't stop the tide of speculation because of one
profoundly disturbing an arguable fact. And it is true, the
US itself has assassin aided people, and like many other countries,
the US likely will assassinate more people in the future

(59:06):
if it deems those actions appropriate for some greater good. So,
I mean parts of the government moving dark by design,
So declassifying these documents might tell you know, foreign adversaries
or the public too much about how the sausage gets made.
The thing is, however, you personally think about what happened

(59:29):
that day in November in Dallas, Texas. The chilling fact
is this, when it comes to the murder of John F. Kennedy,
there is still, more than half a century later, something
the US government doesn't want you to know. It's like,
that's true, right, that's literally what the definition of classifying
things means. I want to know. You can't. It would

(59:52):
blow your mind, dude, It would kill you. It would
under you a quivering pool of jelly. Look look behind me.
I want to believe and I want to know. I
finally got an X Files poster in my room. I
was hoping you were going to have the classic, you know. Yeah,
I like this one because you got Molder and Scully,

(01:00:14):
and Scully is always looking over me. Now, you know
what's weird about because I know we will rewatch that show,
but I rewatched it during the pandemic. Just the greatest hits,
you know, the ones that really speak to me. And
as a kid, I didn't notice how often everybody says
Fox Moulder's name. It takes you out of the story.

(01:00:36):
It's not the way that people talk to each other,
you know. I mean, don't you get weirded out when
someone's using your name too much in casual conversation, Like
just Fox calling him Fox all the time? Says Molder,
like every three sentences, that's true. Did she ever call
him Fox? Like, like if she's cranky at him? I
think in emotional moments when they get more um more

(01:00:59):
spoilers oaks, when they that simmering sexual attention between the
two didn't just redact us a redaction. What they called
that was call what they call a shush redaction, classic move,
classic Matt move. And this is where we're going to

(01:01:23):
call it. Today again is the first of a two
part series. It might end up being more than two parts. Frankly,
this is an introduction of sorts, so tune in for
part two. We're diving deep into the JFK conspiracies. We're
going to give you some juice. We're going to go
from the plausible to the far out to maybe even
the bizarre JFK related claims of the modern day. But

(01:01:44):
for now, what do you think is the official story legit?
Is there a cover up? And if so, what kind
of cover up? Who's involved? If you are listening and
you are John Fitzgerald Kennedy and you are somehow alive, um,
you know right us. But if you want to write
to us, you don't have to be Kennedy. Whomever you are,
we'd love to hear from you. We try to be

(01:02:05):
easy to find online. Oh, the Internet such a place
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(01:02:27):
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(01:02:50):
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