According to Americans polled by the Gallup polling institute in 1999, this is the eighth most important event of the 20th century. Faced with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the USSR and the Vietnam War. The proof that the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, which occurred in 1963, continues to fascinate the United States.
The motives that prompted the shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, to pull the trigger continue to raise many questions. Perhaps the declassification of new confidential documents, Thursday, December 15, will clear up the mystery.
The five main surveys conducted since 1963 have not quite succeeded. According to a 2013 poll, 51% of Americans believe it is likely that the youngest president ever elected to the White House was the victim of a larger conspiracy.
► La commission Warren
The Presidential Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known as the Warren Commission, was set up at the end of November 1963. President Johnson received his 888-page report in 1964. Made public in the aftermath, he claims that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
These conclusions have been both challenged and defended by subsequent studies. Its members had expressed their reluctance, believing that the creation of a commission would generate more controversy than consensus.
► The Rockefeller commission, the CIA hypothesis
The Rockefeller commission is interested in 1975 in the “CIA activities in the United States”. She focuses in particular on the Zapruder Filma short video extract showing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, filmed by Abraham Zapruder.
The commission is also investigating the potential presence of Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, two CIA agents. She concludes that none of them were present in Dallas at the time of the assassination.
► The Church commission is still examining the CIA
The Church Commission, set up in 1975, looks into the intelligence activities of the FBI and the CIA after the Watergate incident. She is interested in the action of these two organizations in relation to the assassination of Kennedy.
His findings indicate that senior CIA and FBI agents willfully withheld information.
► The House Select Committee on Assassinations, to dispel doubts
The House of Representatives set up the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1976 to respond to the skepticism that had greeted the findings of the Warren Commission. In addition to investigating the assassination of Kennedy, she also looks into that of Martin Luther King.
Its report, published in 1979, concludes that the American president was probably the victim of a conspiracy. It establishes that previous investigations have not sufficiently explored this possibility and that the agencies involved in the searches have not all been up to the task.
Like the Church commission, the HSCA says the FBI and CIA erred in not transferring the results of their investigations to the Warren commission. Above all, the committee considers it likely that a second shooter was present on the spot in addition to Lee Harvey Oswald. However, he dismisses several suspects (the USSR, Cuba, the mafia and the secret services).
► The JFK Act of 1992
The film JFK, released in 1992, renews the American public’s interest in the most publicized assassination of the 20th century. In response, Congress passes the JFK Act, which among other things provides for the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board. The purpose of this is not to carry out a new investigation but simply to make available to the public numerous documents relating to the murder of the president.
However, its members point out inconsistencies between the testimonies and certain photographs used in previous investigations. Overall, the documents studied are not enough to shake the version of the lone shooter, according to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.