For Jesse Ventura, the professional wrestler turned independent politician, John F. Kennedy was the greatest president in modern US history — and the proof lies in his 1963 assassination.
“They wouldn’t even let him do one term. That’s what showed his greatness,” said Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and author of the new book, “They Killed Our President.”
Ventura believes that Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas probably because he sought to make peace with the Soviet Union and challenge the military-industrial complex following the CIA’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
“I believe he had more enemies within his own government than with the Russians and all of them combined,” Ventura told AFP. “Imagine how the world would have been different if Jack Kennedy had lived, with no Vietnam War and the Cold War ended in ‘65. What a great world I bet we would have had today.”
An official commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and historians debate the legacy of the still popular president, who sent military advisers to Vietnam.
But alternative theories on Kennedy’s death remain rife ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination on Nov. 22. A Gallup poll in 2003 found that a mere 19 percent of Americans believed that a sole individual was behind the murder, with more than one-third agreeing with theories that the mafia or the CIA killed him because he threatened their interests.
Much of the suspicion revolves around how Oswald, a former defector to the Soviet Union with a troubled life, could have single-handedly killed one of the world’s most powerful people by firing from the top of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald’s chance to speak publicly ended two days later, when he himself was fatally shot by a club owner Jack Ruby.
In works on Kennedy’s assassination — a search under “JFK conspiracy” on online bookstore Amazon found nearly 800 books — authors have questioned whether another gunman opened fire from the now infamous “grassy knoll” in front of the motorcade. A 1979 report by a congressional committee said that acoustic evidence pointed to a second gunman, although subsequent studies have challenged the assertion.
A home movie filmed by eye witness Abraham Zapruder has offered ample fodder for alternative views, with some theorists alleging that “the Umbrella Man” — who opened an umbrella despite the sunshine — was sending a signal.
One of the most prominent alternative theories of the assassination came in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK” which suggests a cover-up and involvement by Kennedy’s successor Lyndon Johnson. Stone said he wanted to create a “counter-myth” through the movie, which contributed to a decision by Congress to release more records on the shooting.
Some of the first major challenges to the official narrative came not from the United States but from Europe where philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre backed a committee in 1964 to challenge the Warren Commission, arguing that it was made up of Washington insiders who would have an interest in concealing any evidence of official involvement.
On the other side of the political spectrum, one early critic in the United States was Revilo P. Oliver, an academic close to far-right causes, who argued that Kennedy was a Soviet puppet who was killed because he had become a liability for Moscow.
In an influential essay written shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, historian Richard Hofstadter described conspiracy theories as part of “the paranoid style of American politics,” although he said that similar dynamics existed in Europe.
The paranoid person sees not just fleeting events but feels powerless against a “gigantic conspiracy” that is perceived as driving history and threatening an entire way of life, he wrote.
While the Kennedy assassination remains among the most contested events in US history, a slew of authors have also challenged the official narrative over traumatic events including the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
50 years on, no end to questions on JFK’s death
50 years on, no end to questions on JFK’s death
Parrots rescued as landslide-hit Sicilian town saves pets
- Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets
- Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them
NISCEMI, Italy: Pino Terzo Di Dio was in tears as firefighters carried his beloved parrots out of his home, which has been cordoned off as his town teeters on a cliff edge.
They were the latest pets to be saved by firefighters from hundreds of homes that were evacuated in the Sicilian town of Niscemi after a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) long stretch of hillside collapsed.
“They are scared,” Di Dio told AFP, his voice breaking as the emergency workers carried the parrots — four cockatiels and a parakeet — out of his house in two cages, buffeted by the wind.
The town, built on unstable terrain, was battered by a powerful storm which hit southern Italy last week.
There were no deaths or injuries from Sunday’s landslide, but experts say the gulf could extend when it rains again.
- ‘Lost everything’ -
Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets or gather belongings from important documents to clean underwear.
Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them.
Di Dio said his bird feeders were full but one of the parrots “tends to knock the water onto the floor,” and feared they may have been without water for days.
The 53-year-old said he had been moving between friends’ houses since the disaster.
“It’s been four days that I’ve barely washed. I smell like a goat, but that’s fine,” he said.
All his attention was on the yellow and grey birds, aged between seven and 13, and where they will go now.
“Let’s hope that someone with a kind heart will take care of them. The important thing is that they treat them well,” he said.
“I don’t have a home, I’ve lost everything.”
- ‘Help us’ -
Firefighter Franco Turco said emergency workers had rescued “quite a few dogs, cats — and now parrots.”
The team was working out how to rescue horses in fields below the baroque town, where deep fissures caused by the landslide were complicating access.
In the meantime, some 24 firefighters have carried out 80 missions to recover belongings in the red zone, which extends 150 meters from the cliff face.
But not even they enter the 50 meters buffer zone before the edge.
Some residents “have cried, have hugged us,” he said.
In the same building as Di Dio’s parrots, a woman who did not want to be named pulled a shopping trolley and black plastic bags full of belongings out of the house and onto the street.
In her arms she carried a ceramic statue of the Madonna, which had once stood at the foot of her stairs.
“May the Madonna help us,” she said.
