Who Killed JFK? Theories That Cuba Or The Soviet Union Orchestrated The Assassination
Public DomainA reconnaissance image showing the construction of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
Theories about the CIA and the mob recruiting JFK assassins are compelling, but some believe that the answer to the question “Who killed JFK?” might be found further away from home. Speculation has proliferated since November 1963 that either Cuba or the Soviet Union — or perhaps even both countries — played a role in the president’s death.
This idea emerged for two reasons. First of all, tensions had deepened between the United States and these two countries in the 1960s. Not only had the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba spectacularly failed in April 1961, but the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had seemingly found themselves on the brink of nuclear war in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Then, the two superpowers engaged in a tense standoff over Soviet missiles in Cuba. As HISTORY reports, the Soviets eventually agreed to remove the missiles if the U.S. promised to not invade Cuba. Kennedy additionally — and secretly — agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. But tensions between these nations remained high as the Cold War continued.
Public DomainAlleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald passing out “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets in New Orleans. August 16, 1963.
And then there was Lee Harvey Oswald. The alleged JFK assassin had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 — where he met his wife, Marina — and spent two and a half years there before returning to the U.S. Back in the U.S., Oswald was vocal about his support for Cuba. And in September 1963, just two months before Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald traveled to Mexico City where he visited both the Cuban and Soviet embassies. The Washington Post reports that he was allegedly attempting to move abroad again.
Despite this, the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the FBI, and the CIA all ruled out foreign involvement. In fact, the Washington Post reports that Cuba and the Soviet Union preferred to work with Kennedy over his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson.
This raises another interesting possibility. If it wasn’t the CIA, the mob, or foreign powers, then who killed JFK? Perhaps the most surprising theory is that Johnson was behind the Kennedy assassination.
