John F. Kennedy, was undoubtedly the most charismatic President of the United States, whose legacy continues to inspire many of his countrymen, even sixty years after he was gunned down while on a visit to Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was shot dead in full public view on November 22nd, 1963 and till this day, multiple aspects of his killing remain a mystery. What the people were made to believe was that Kennedy was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former communist from the top of a high-rise building. This was contrary to what many eye witnesses claimed at that time and who maintained that the shots were fired from behind a fence in front of the motorcade, and there were at least two assassins and not one as claimed by the authorities. To make matters complicated, Oswald was shot from point blank range by Jack Ruby, a night club owner and said to be a police informer shortly afterwards, thus bringing the investigations to a dead end for some time. The curious aspect of the President’s murder was that at least 300 who had some knowledge about what happened on that fateful day in Dallas, died under mysterious circumstances while the probe was still on. There were many in the United States, who raised questions over the role of J. Edgar Hoover, the then director of the FBI and felt that he had concealed information related to the killing. Amongst the conspiracy theories that surfaced was the one which stated that the 35th President was gunned down by sharpshooters of a special Delta force, created to neutralize leaders of the Cuban revolution. This force had been formed with a little bit of help from the Mafia, which had a big operation running in Havana and would have done anything to get Fidel Castro out. The existence of this special unit was known to a very few individuals including Kennedy’s predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower and his next in command, Richard Nixon, who lost to JFK in the presidential polls. It is widely believed that Hoover too was aware of this and thus ensured that this matter remained a closely guarded secret. Many have always maintained that there was a connection between the killing and that of Robert Kennedy, his younger brother, who during the presidential campaign in 1968 was shot dead at a Los Angeles Hotel. Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General under JFK and was privy to the Mafia Operations and also those of the dirty tricks departments of the various intelligence outfits. His assassination was probed in the most bizarre manner and though the police arrested, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, the investigations left much to be desired. To add to the mystery, the Hotel where the killing took place was demolished in a great haste and the role of a woman in a polka dot dress, who was heard saying that “we have killed him’’ was never properly scrutinized. The connection between the untimely deaths of the two brothers has always been a matter of speculation and when Oliver Stone made “JFK’’ many years ago, there was also some talk that the Delta force may have also been used for the break-in at the Democratic Party Headquarters as well on June 17, 1972 leading to the ouster of Richard Nixon following the infamous Watergate scandal, exposed by two Pulitzer prize winning journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Like all political killings, the cover-up of the assassination of two brothers, appeared to have been meticulously planned. In the United States, questions over the entire conspiracy that led to the shooting down of another President, Abraham Lincoln, have yet to be resolved to the satisfaction of all and numerous books have been written regarding the mysterious death of the President under whom the civil war took place to end slavery. Back in India, there are doubts over the conclusions reached over the assassination of both Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi and speculation has persisted whether Sanjay Gandhi too was similarly done away with by enemies who wanted to ensure that the Nehru-Gandhis did not play any role in Indian politics. So far as Indira Gandhi was concerned, the investigators made it look very simple, and stated that she was shot dead from point blank range by her bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. However, who motivated them or who were the people or forces which planned the entire operation, remain unknown since the probe ended, and no further inquiries have been conducted since then. In Rajiv Gandhi’s case, the official investigations pointed the finger at the outlawed, LTTE though till this day, no evidence has surfaced where the LTTE or any of its representatives ever claimed credit for the assassination. The probe was guided by the photographs left by Hari Babu’s camera which could have been misleading and took the line of investigation away from what it actually was. In Sanjay Gandhi’s case, there was speculation that the brand-new Pitts-2 aircraft was tampered and thus could not pull out of the loop it was taking while on a flight carrying the late Congress leader and his co-pilot Subhash Saxena. It has been 60 years since the time JFK, the first Roman Catholic to elected to the high office, was killed, and the world has not become wiser about why he died and who all were behind this incident.
