Paper Example: President John F. Kennedy's Assassination

In my opinion, the case of President John F. Kennedys assassination was rather an unfortunate event, free from conspiracy, which was heightened by the citizens emotional mistrust in the government and the conflicting geopolitics at the time. In the following paragraphs, this paper will show that JFKs assassination was a lone gunman case, as opposed to a conspiracy theory that claimed it was a two-gunmen involvement, and that there is substantial evidence to back this stance.

One of the popular lone gunmen critics points of argument is based on the entry direction of the bullet that killed the president. This point would really make sense if there was concrete proof to back it up. However, medical evidence on the two victims, JFK and John Connally, showed that they were shot from behind. Additionally, a benefit of doubt would have been given if there were at least little evidence, either at the actual scene or at the grassy knoll, but not even the second commission, HCSA could identify the contemplated second gunman in the crime. Only speculations were made based on the entry wound, which the critics had no medical proof that it was actually the entry point. Furthermore, the fact that a third independent commission comprising of the Humes and Clark panel agreed that the president had been shot from behind, it is clear that this point of argument was just an emotional speculation. The above evidence supports the lone gunman stance because, apart from the speculations brought forth by the critics, there was no hard proof that there was a shooter at the grassy knoll.

From the primary document excerpts, the alleged assassinator, Oswald, seemed to be a troubled man. Looking at his background, there is evidence of severe emotional deprivation in his early life. His brother commented that, at a very early age, they had learned that their mother viewed them as being burdens ("Lee Harvey Oswald", 2017, N.p). This outright rejection by parents and the fact that childhood friend, William Wulf, commented that Oswald was in constant search for something to belong provides strong evidence that his actions could have been prompted by personal psychological issues. The literature paints him as a frustrated man who had even tried to denounce his American citizenship but was unsuccessful. He was further aggravated when his efforts to gain visas to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union, the prime conspiracy suspects, were unsuccessful. Considering there was no proof that he was a member of the Mafia, from a logical perspective, it would be unlikely that he would take part or even conspire with the enemies to take out JFK. This evidence supports this stance because Oswalds psychological instability and the events that had happened before the assassination highly ruled out the possibility of working with the speculated conspirators.

Regardless of this stance, however, the government could have done a better job in ensuring that its citizens had closure on the matter. Considering that the public suspected the involvement of a second gunman, the government through Warren commission should not have released the report without giving an explanation to every piece of evidence that was brought forward. Though there was strong evidence supporting the lone gunman argument, the inconsistencies, such as the case of a bullet going through two people and even breaking wrist bones without getting damaged as well as the Parkland and FBI reports that showed there was the possibility of a front-direction shot, should have been properly addressed to give the public a finality.

As seen from the above analysis, the evidence supporting the lone gunmen argument was more solid compared to the two gunmen theory because it was based more on concrete proof than speculations. However, the government failed in ensuring that the final investigation report was comprehensive enough to address all the inconsistencies and this gave an impression that it was hiding some facts about the case.

Work cited

"Lee Harvey Oswald." Spartacus Educational. N.p., 2017. Web. 18 Nov. 2017.