Jack Leon Ruby was an American nightclub owner. He fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, while Oswald was in police custody after being charged with assassination of John F. Kennedy, the incumbent United States President, and for murdering Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit about an hour later. A Dallas jury found him guilty of murdering Oswald, and he was sentenced to death.
Lee Harvey Oswald was a former U.S. Marine who assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
James Carothers Garrison was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The author of five books, he was portrayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone's JFK, while Garrison himself portrayed Earl Warren.
The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The HSCA completed its investigation in 1978 and issued its final report the following year, which concluded that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In addition to acoustic analysis of a police channel dictabelt recording, the HSCA also commissioned numerous other scientific studies of assassination-related evidence that corroborate the Warren Commission's controversial findings.
American Tabloid is a 1995 novel by James Ellroy that chronicles the events surrounding three rogue American law enforcement officers from November 22, 1958, through November 22, 1963. Each becomes entangled in a web of interconnecting associations between the FBI, the CIA, and the mafia, which eventually leads to their collective involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Santo Trafficante Jr. was among the most powerful Mafia bosses in the United States. He headed the Trafficante crime family and controlled organized criminal operations in Florida and Cuba, which had previously been consolidated from several rival gangs by his father, Santo Trafficante Sr.
John"Handsome Johnny"Roselli, sometimes spelled Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. In the early 1960s, Roselli was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Roselli is believed and suspected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and many other conspiracy theorists to have played a major role in the assassination of the 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
David William Ferrie was an American pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Garrison also alleged that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Ferrie denied any involvement in a conspiracy and said he never knew Oswald. Decades later, photos emerged establishing that Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Oswald in the 1950s, but critics have argued this does not prove that either Ferrie or Oswald was involved in an assassination plot.
Carlos Joseph Marcello was an American crime boss of the New Orleans crime family from 1947 until the late 1980s. G. Robert Blakey and other conspiracy theorists have asserted that Marcello along with Santo Trafficante, Jr. and Sam Giancana masterminded the 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in retaliation for federal prosecution that threatened their secret criminal organization's multibillion-dollar international organized crime empires.
Carlos Jose Bringuier is a Cuban exile in the United States of America who campaigned against Fidel Castro's government. Bringuier is principally known for his brief connection with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of United States President John F. Kennedy.
Salvatore Vincent "Bill" Bonanno was an American consigliere of the Bonanno crime family, and son of crime boss Joseph Bonanno. Later in life, he became a writer and produced films for television about his family.
Leonard "Lenny" Patrick was an American mobster, a member of the Chicago Outfit involved in bookmaking and extortion and later a government informant.
On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. On January 29, 1969, Shaw was brought to trial in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on these charges. On March 1, 1969, a jury took less than an hour to find Shaw not guilty. To date, it is the only trial to be brought for the assassination of President Kennedy.
The John F. Kennedy assassination and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
John Hagy Davis was an American author who wrote several books on the Mafia.
Samuel Mooney Giancana was an American mobster who was boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 to 1966.
The CIA Kennedy assassination theory is a prominent John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. According to ABC News, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is represented in nearly every theory that involves American conspirators. The secretive nature of the CIA, and the conjecture surrounding high-profile political assassinations in the United States during the 1960s, has made the CIA a plausible suspect for some who believe in a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists have ascribed various motives for CIA involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy, including Kennedy's firing of CIA director Allen Dulles, Kennedy's refusal to provide air support to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy's plan to cut the agency's budget by 20 percent, and the belief that the president was weak on communism.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and the subsequent murder of prime suspect Lee Harvey Oswald by night club owner Jack Ruby have spurred numerous conspiracy theories. These include alleged involvement of the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of these entities. The original FBI investigation and Warren Commission report, as well as an alleged "benign CIA cover-up", have led to the claim that the federal government deliberately covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination. Former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused at one time or another in various conspiracy scenarios.
The United States' Central Intelligence Agency made several unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro during his time as the President of Cuba.
Viola June Cobb was an American informant for the CIA. She worked at Fidel Castro's headquarters in Havana as a translator and public relations worker in 1959 and 1960. After leaving Cuba, Cobb continued working for the CIA in Guatemala and Mexico. She was the first CIA asset to relay an account of Lee Harvey Oswald having attended a twist party in Mexico City weeks before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Earlier in the 1950s, Cobb was involved with the production and trafficking of narcotics with her Colombian fiancé and his twin brother. She later provided information to the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics that led to arrests in Cuba and Colombia.
