Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Democratic President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The news this week has been full of stories recalling the assassination, its impact on American politics, and questions that remain unanswered to this today. Apropos, here's an interview of former Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado published in the Huffington Post yesterday. Hart was a member of one of the committees set up in the 1970s to revisit questions from the 1963 assassination, questions that remained unanswered after the Warren Commission's report in 1964.
According to Sen. Hart, they're still very much unanswered:
Hart served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Agencies, known as the Church committee, after chairman Frank Church. He recalled that while the committee was investigating the connection between the assassination, the Mafia and plots against Cuban President Fidel Castro, two of the three main figures involved were also killed.
"It's amazing to me that American journalism never followed up on that story very much, because if you found out who killed those two guys, you might have some really interesting information on your hands," Hart, who served as a Democratic senator from Colorado for two terms, told HuffPost in a recent interview…
The deaths of [Johnny] Roselli and [Sam] Giancana in 1975 and 1976 occurred amid the Church committee's ongoing investigations surrounding Kennedy's assassination. That coincidence, Hart said, was suspicious enough to warrant press attention, and he was surprised that the press didn't jump on the story.
"I was always amazed in that particular instance of the CIA-Mafia connection and the Cuban connection 12 years — coming up 12 years — after Kennedy was killed that somebody didn't go after that story," he said. "New York Times, Washington Post; anybody. And they didn't. They reported the deaths and that was it, and the strange quirky coincidence, you know, but nothing more."
…Hart tried to uncover the truth about the Kennedy assassination and the "big unanswered questions." He said he worked with fellow Church committee member and former Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-Penn.), but ultimately ran out of resources and leads. During an ill-fated presidential bid in the 1980s, Hart vowed he'd reopen the Kennedy investigation if elected. In retrospect, he said it "was probably a stupid thing to do," citing death threats he received. [Pols emphasis]
Fascinating reading for sure. Although much information about the JFK assassination has been released to the public, many thousands of pages of documents and other evidence remains classified. Perhaps the whole story of what happened on November 22nd, 1963 will be known in our lifetimes–or, like Jim Garrison portrayed by Kevin Costner warned in the movie JFK, maybe our children's. Until then, it will remain the subject of speculation; some baseless, and some fueled by legitimately unanswered questions like those posed by Sen. Hart.
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Death threats? Puh-leeze. Gary Hart is just trying to blame others because he couldn't keep it in his pants.
That may be the stupidist thing you have yet offered….
stupidest…that should be.
What are you, 12?
You are aware of the reason Hart's presidential run was "ill fated," aren't you?
It wasn't JFK, lefties…
Google "monkey business", skeezix.
Of course we're aware, junior. But the death threats and the zipper problem are separate issues. I personally thought Hart was an idiot to dare the press to pin something on him and then continue to be so blatant they had no trouble doing so. I thought Bill was an idiot, too. It's not as if he didn't know there was an actual conspiracy out to get him, looking for anything they could possibly make stick. The least he could have done would have been to find himself a discreet mistress instead of a childish BJ distributing groupie in his own employ.
Having said all that, it says all we need to know about you that you aren't even slightly interested in the main point. You know. The still not entirely satisfactory answers to questions surrounding the Kennedy assassination and subsequent investigations? You have heard of it, right?
oops. That would be discrete.
You were right the first time.
You're right. Tired. looked at it again and it just didn't look right. But it is. And spell check says discrete is a word too. Just not the right one.
Nope, not that old.Most 12 year olds I know are more mature and well-considered than this twit seems to be.
Interesting. I've stayed away from the whole JFK conspiracy arena over the years, figuring there was no point to investigating. I had and have tons of respect for Gary Hart, though, in spite of the "zipper problem".
If we did know for certain that there was Mafia or some other nefarious group involvement, then what?
The conspiracy theories on who or what dark forces killed JFK will never die. There's even a story on the internet John Conally turned and shot Kennedy with a pistol (Conally of course was a protege of LBJ who was behind the whole thing because of his obsession with becoming president). Good luck with that one.
The Mafia connection is more plausible of course. For those wishing to pursue this theory, I would recommend "The Plot to Kill the President" by G. Robert Blakey, who was counsel to the House Select Subcommittee on Assassinations. He maintains organized crime hit Kennedy.
I repeat I would love to know more from Rafael Cruz, who arrived in Dallas, after serving with Castro in the mountains in 1957. He went to college in Texas (Dallas?) and wound up in New Orleans later. I was in Boulder during these years. The "Fair Play for Cuba" committee recruited on campus. I would love to know how Cruz stayed away from all of that. When you read all the conspiracy stuff, my impression is that Dallas and New Orleans and points in between were crawling with people involved with Castro, Anti-Castro groups, organized crime, the CIA, etc. etc. Who wasn't involved in the conspiracy?
I remember when November 22 was a tragic day, not a media event.