Who Killed JFK? Theories Of CIA Involvement In The Assassination
Bettmann/Getty ImagesDistrict Attorney Jim Garrison speaking to reporters in 1967.
During his investigation, Jim Garrison came to believe that the CIA was highly motivated to murder the president. He claimed that they orchestrated the JFK assassination in order to stop Kennedy from ending the burgeoning conflict in Vietnam and from achieving peace with the Soviet Union.
“We discovered a whole mare’s-nest of underground activity involving the CIA, elements of the paramilitary right and militant anti-Castro exile groups,” Garrison later claimed in an interview with Playboy.
Indeed, “the CIA” may be the most common answer to the question “Who killed JFK?” among conspiracy theorists. Believers have long speculated about alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s ties to the CIA and the CIA’s possible interference with the Warren Commission. They’ve also pointed to tensions between John F. Kennedy and the CIA before his assassination.
These tensions were largely due to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The debacle resulted in the firing of CIA head Allen Dulles, and an anonymous source told The New York Times shortly thereafter that Kennedy was so angry with the intelligence agency in the aftermath that he wanted “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
After the assassination, even Kennedy’s brother Bobby suspected the CIA (though he later changed his mind). And Bobby’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been vocal about his own opinion about who killed JFK.
Public DomainCuban Revolutionary Armed Forces during the Bay of Pigs invasion. April 1961.
“There is overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in his murder,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known conspiracy theorist, said in a 2023 interview. “I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.”
He added: “When my uncle was president, he was surrounded by a military-industrial complex and intelligence apparatus that was constantly trying to get him to go to war in Laos, Vietnam, etc. He refused. He said that the job of the American presidency is to keep the nation out of war.”
That said, hard evidence tying the CIA to the Kennedy assassination is — perhaps unsurprisingly — difficult to come by.
“[A conspiracy is] obviously very difficult to detect and it may not be there,” Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and the moderator of jfkfacts.com, told NBC News. But Morley also believed that it was “premature to rule out a conspiracy involving CIA people” as potential JFK assassins.
Indeed, it’s possible that the CIA played a passive role in the Kennedy assassination. Some have speculated that the CIA learned of Oswald’s plot but did nothing as Kennedy’s death served their own interests.
Then again, the real answer to the question “Who killed JFK?” might lie on the other side of the law — with the Mafia.
Carlos Marcello, The New Orleans Mobster With A Grudge Against The Kennedys
Bettmann/Getty ImagesSome believe that mobster Carlos Marcello was one of the real JFK assassins who targeted the president.
If the CIA didn’t kill Kennedy, then who did? Many believe it was the mob. To be specific, a New Orleans boss named Carlos Marcello who had a well-documented grudge against John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby.
As NBC News reports, the Kennedy brothers started an unprecedented crackdown on organized crime in the 1960s. And Bobby, as attorney general, put special focus on Marcello and his operation in New Orleans.
Because Marcello was not a U.S. citizen — he had been born in Tunisia to Italian parents — Bobby succeeded in having Marcello deported to Guatemala in April 1961. Marcello had phony Guatemalan citizenship but, of course, was not actually from there. NBC News reports that the seething mobster was forced to trudge through the jungle in his Gucci shoes. From that point on, he had only one thing on his mind: vengeance.
Marcello allegedly promised to seek revenge in September 1962, stating: “Don’t worry about that little Bobby son-of-a-bitch. He’s going to be taken care of.” He also purportedly told associates that he would not only “take care” of Bobby Kennedy but also find a “nut” to kill John F. Kennedy.
Public DomainBobby Kennedy testifying about organized crime in September 1963, two months before his brother was assassinated.
Then there’s the fact of Marcello’s associates. The mobster happened to know David Ferrie and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) determined in 1979 that there existed “credible associations relating both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby to figures having a relationship, albeit tenuous, with Marcello’s crime family or organization.”
The HSCA also acknowledged that “Marcello had the motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated,” though it was unable to find evidence of his role in the assassination.
So were mobsters really the ones who killed JFK? Marcello allegedly admitted to orchestrating the president’s murder. In the book The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination, author Lamar Waldron claimed that Marcello confessed as much to a cellmate and FBI informant while he was serving a stint in federal prison in the 1980s.
“Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed,” Marcello allegedly said. “I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.”
