Over four decades of time have passed since John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated by gunfire at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Yet no individual was ever convicted in that murder. How could that be? Lee Harvey Oswald, the only suspect arrested that day by officers of the Dallas Police Department, was himself killed two days later while in custody in front of a live nationwide television audience by a man who claimed he did the deed to keep the widow of the slain president from being forced to return to the city of the crime and having to testify in a criminal proceeding.

So there was no trial to convince the citizens of the United States and world of that alleged assassin’s guilt or innocence. And since the prime suspect was dead, newly sworn-in President Lyndon Johnson authorized a blue-ribbon commission of Washington politicians and insiders to investigate the crime on behalf of the American people. Yet their findings convinced very few people that a lone, misfit gunman committed the crime of the century. Dozens, if not hundreds, of books have been written since the conclusion of the Warren Commission findings were made public, each advocating their own unique theory on who the real perpetrators were of Kennedy’s death.

But there is a new book that’s just been published by Carroll and Graf that examines recently de-classified government documents and its authors present a credible and plausible explanation of what really happened that Friday afternoon in late November of 1963 when a President of the United States was murdered as part of a conspiracy that involved Fidel Castro and his ruling of Cuba. But the controversy of this theory and the irony of who the participants of that conspiracy were that took an American leader’s life is shocking!

The book is titled ‘Ultimate Sacrifice’ by JFK researcher Lamar Waldron and Air America radio talk show host Thom Hartmann. In the tome, the two authors allege that members of Kennedy’s own administration planned a fake assassination attempt to bolster their man’s chances of re-election in the upcoming 1964 campaign, but something went terribly wrong when the American leader was actually killed by elements of a Mafia clique who had infiltrated the group of plotters and had their own reasons to eliminate the president so put forth their own assassin(s) to complete the act, unbeknownst to the original participants who were expecting a much different outcome.

So it seemed that by the fall of 1963 it would appear that Kennedy had a lot of political enemies and would be facing an uphill battle in his quest for re-election to a second term. Now, if every conspiracy theory ever advocated by a particular author was to be believed, then the first-term chief executive was killed on orders of every group and organization in the nation and world including, one could presume, the Girl Scouts! But let’s examine what seems plausible.

The main reason we were told that Kennedy was going to Texas that November was to shore up his sagging popularity ratings in that state as he prepared for his upcoming re-election race against the still to be determined Republican challenger. He went to the Lone Star State as part of a swing through southern states on the advice of Vice-President Johnson and Texas Governor John Connally to raise campaign funds for his 1964 campaign, only to end up dead at the hands of an assassin once he arrived in Dallas.

But the authors of this new book allege that this trip, plus two previous journeys the president took that same month to Miami and Chicago, were part of a plot orchestrated by members of Kennedy’s own administration to stage a ‘phony’ assassination attempt that was to be blamed on Cuba. When that occurred, the U.S. citizens would be so shocked at the unprovoked attack on their leader that they would demand our troops attack that nation as punishment with the U.S. military allegedly having orders to invade that island no later than December 1, 1963 as revenge for having attempted to kill our president.

Was such a plan so preposterous to our civility that it can’t be believed at face value? Or could it have been planned, as alleged by the authors, with JFK as the willing guinea pig since he had an obvious vested interest to win that second term for his legacy?

Yet, we must consider that back in the early days of the Kennedy administration, as documented by author James Bamford in his book ‘Body of Secrets;’ the Pentagon’s Joint Service Chiefs approved an obviously controversial plan entitled ‘Operation Northwoods’ to stage a shoot down of an American civilian airliner in Florida that could be blamed on Castro’s Cuban soldiers as a pretext to invade that island nation even though the plan was apparently never undertaken. If military planners were willing to sacrifice innocent civilians to their wild schemes to reclaim Cuba, then wouldn’t it seem reasonable they could convince Attorney General Robert Kennedy to encourage his brother to participate in a similar scheme with the prospect of taking back Cuba just as his re-election race was approaching?

Therefore, if the plan went forward yet something went tragically wrong and the president was intentionally or accidentally killed, then could that be why RFK never publicly commented on his brother’s murder once the Warren Commission announced their own findings? Because it was part of a plot he authorized that subsequently backfired and he had to make sure those revelations never became public knowledge? And wouldn’t the cover-up for such a blowback require the framing and subsequent death of a ‘patsy’ to allay a vindictive public demanding immediate justice upon the death of our leader?

Lee Harvey Oswald fit the pattern of being the perfect fall guy for this crime once a guilty party had to be rounded up when Kennedy was actually killed if this new theory is to be believed. Yet, can anyone explain why Oswald was a man whose short life was full of unexplained contradictions before he became infamous to the world?

We’ve been told that he was a poor student in his formative years, yet he was able to master speaking the Russian language apparently on his own. He’s supposedly not a very good Marine yet he’s assigned to work at a top secret naval air base in Japan that oversaw the highly classified U-2 flights being made over the Soviet Union at that time.

He had verifiable contacts with the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and FBI before deciding to defect to Russia where he’s then in communications with Soviet spy entities upon his arrival. He spends two years there, then comes back to America and takes up residence in New Orleans where he is seen with anti-Castro followers. Then, he is purposely seen and interviewed by the news media in that city when he participates in pro-Castro events.

Oswald goes to Mexico City in September, 1963 to allegedly get a visa at the Russian Embassy there so he and his Russian wife can supposedly return to the Soviet Union. But he may have also contacted members of the United States Embassy as well, for some still yet unrevealed purpose. He then heads to Dallas, Texas where he gets a job at the Texas Book Depository just a few weeks before President Kennedy’s motorcade drives by that very building and meets his untimely fate.

A lucky coincidence for a sole assassin who wanted to kill a president so he could become famous? Or were the real conspirators merely covering their tracks by setting up a fall guy who they knew would never go to trial?

So how can anyone explain that, according to the book ‘Marina and Lee’ by author Priscilla Johnson McMillan, the fact that Oswald publicly spoke at an American Civil Liberty Union meeting in Dallas a few weeks before the assassination and stated that he thought Kennedy was doing a good job in handling the civil rights issue facing the country. Oswald also appeared to be happy that Kennedy was interested in establishing better relations with Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev one year after the two nations near nuclear encounter over Russia’s placing of strategic missiles in Cuba.

Then what would Oswald’s motives be for killing the president if he was the lone gunman that the Warren Commission wanted us to believe? Apparently none, if the authors of this new book are to be believed. Many other researchers have also examined Oswald’s life and writers as diverse as Norman Mailer have tried to understand the enigmatic life of this ‘lone gunman,’ yet no one has ever been able to show definitive proof that he alone killed the president.

One can presume, that with over forty years having passed after this foul deed was perpetrated, that most, if not all, the participants in this conspiracy are themselves dead and beyond the capability of being brought to justice. So, at this late junction, there will be no quick resolution in determining who the guilty parties were to everyone’s satisfaction.

John Kennedy lived life at a fast pace and it ended too quickly, even for him. There was no satisfactory resolution to his presidency and no proper final ending to his life. He went out in a blaze of painful death, thereby robbing America of what he could have brought forth if he had served that second term. But, alas, that question will never be answered. All we are left with are the ‘what ifs’ on what he could have accomplished if given that chance and still trying to determine who the real conspirators were that took a president’s life.

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com