Who Whacked Jack?

So, most of the JFK papers have now been released, as promised, although a few are still being held back at the insistence of the CIA. The common opinion is that nothing particularly new or radical has been unearthed. There’s a rather wild story about a guy at a Cambridge newspaper receiving an anonymous call along the lines of “telephone the American embassy for the big news”, half an hour before the assassination. It’s the sort of thing that will have the conspiracy theorists chomping at the bit, but isn’t anything that interests me.

No, the release that caught my attention was a memo written by everyone’s favourite cross-dressing megalomaniac, J Edgar Hoover.

“The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr Katzenbach, is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin,”

Had Hoover written this three months, or even three weeks into the investigation, it might not sound so fishy. The truth is he wrote it three days into the investigation. He actually wrote it before a man with known mobster ties, walked unchallenged into the police station where Oswald was being held, and shot him dead, live on TV.

Three days after a president gets shot, would you not think the head of the Federal Bureau of INVESTIGATION would be interested in discovering the facts, rather than dictating his own opinion to the public?

At best, you can say this is evidence of shoddy police work. At worst you could say it points to Hoover being determined the truth should never out. He refused to consider, from day one, that Oswald may be part of a conspiracy. Even when Oswald said he was a patsy, right before a mafia gunman killed him, Hoover stuck to his own version of events.

Is there any reason the head of the FBI, a man who helped bring to justice such notorious criminals as Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, would want to cover up the murder of the president? Well, that depends. Hoover was notorious for hating Catholics and Liberals. JFK was a liberal catholic. JFK insisted Hoover should investigate the mafia. Hoover had ignored the mafia’s existence for twenty years. Hoover was widely regarded to be homosexual, a fact he strove to hide his entire life, therefore was entirely open to blackmail should anyone happen to possess a photograph of him getting up to kinky mischief with a man, which the mafia frequently claimed they did.

Hoover directed more time and resources into investigating the Black Panthers than he did the KKK. He had his agents collect dirt on politicians and celebrities so he could stash it for personal leverage. He was the whisperer behind the McCarthy Witch Trials. He ran the FBI as a personal army. He was a racist, homophobic voyeur.

I think the real question should be, is there any reason we should believe a single word that came out of Hoover’s mouth? Given what has come to light since his death, that he was a ‘corrupt, human sewer’, should we believe the snap judgement he pedalled in November of 1963, before Kennedy’s body was even cold, that Oswald acted alone?

Hoover held power over the USA for half a century. His influence over everyone, from the police to the president, should not be underestimated. Anyone who knows him merely as a figure of fun, as a harmless old tranny, really needs to do a bit of research.

I advance no theories. I only ask you consider whether there is scope for doubting the official explanation, given the character of the man who made it.