Fifty years ago this Friday, two bullets tore through the body and head of the president of the United States, making Nov. 22, 1963, the most infamous day in American history since Pearl Harbor.
From the moment news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination reached the world, people began to clamor for answers. As the case unfolded, the details of the assassination that emerged were either upsetting or suspicious. In response to these details, people began to doubt the official version of events, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and without any outside support.
Instead, these people came up with their own theories about what happened, placing the blame on the government, Cuba, disgruntled Mafia bosses and other shadowy figures. More “evidence” of at least a cover-up helped prove these conspiracy theories for some and made them plausible in the eyes of many in the American public.
The most famous detail is the murder of Oswald two days after the assassination by a nightclub owner with underworld connections, Jack Ruby, before the alleged assassin ever stood trial. The shooting was broadcast live on national television at a time when millions of Americans were staring at their sets, desperately searching for answers. The events of that week, horrifying as they were, captured our collective imagination. Every anniversary of the assassination brings up the same speculations that were made the years before, and conspiracy-themed movies and TV shows love to tell us who really killed Kennedy.
Government investigations concluded that Oswald killed the president alone, but the public has never been satisfied by this answer. This is honestly understandable, especially for people who were alive at the time of the killing, a little more than a year after we almost experienced nuclear war.
Oddly, it’s more comforting to believe the leader of the Free World was murdered by a dark and shadowy conspiracy of his enemies rather than believe his life was undone by one deranged man with a gun.
Half a century later, the conspiracy theories are still strongly in place. According to a poll conducted by Gallup last week, 61 percent of Americans still believe that someone other than Oswald was responsible for Kennedy’s death. Although that is, surprisingly, the lowest percentage of conspiracy believers since the late 1960s, it shows that the majority of Americans still harbor suspicions of the official version of events. The first and only successful presidential assassination in the age of television, radio and photography was burned into the minds and hearts of Americans everywhere, and new generations are taught about the killing with the same media records, experiencing the event for themselves. Fifty years later, we still haven’t fully healed from the trauma of Kennedy’s death.
Alec Carver is a UF journalism freshman. His column appears on Wednesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 11/20/2013 under the headline "Nation still has healing to do after JFK death"
