JFK: A Thousand Days and The Sixty-Year Shadow

In this deep-dive episode, we pull back the curtain on the most analyzed presidency in American history. We begin in the freezing waters of the Pacific, where a young John F. Kennedy survived a ship destruction that should have killed him, and follow his meteoric rise to become the youngest man ever elected to the Oval Office.

Song of the week: "I'm Not Dead" by Mike Messina 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Hey, hi, hello. If you hear snoring, it's Claribelle. I think she was snoring right when I said hi. Also, sorry for not releasing an episode yesterday. I wanted to. This one, actually, that I'm about to talk to today. Was supposed to be yesterday's episode, but it doubles as like a true crime and a conspiracy deep dive. So happy Sunday slash Tuesday. Oh yeah, and welcome back to Don't Quote Me, It's Probably Nothing. The podcast where I get high and talk about weird stuff. I'm Kelly. I probably should have said all that first. But you know, I'll get it right one day, I think. And there was something I was supposed to tell you. Oh yeah. If you're a band that I messaged to use your song and like I haven't talked to you in a little while, can you just like send me a message or email me? Because I have so many emails and messages on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. They're all over the place. I have no system for messaging people, you know? I just message a whole bunch. And then sometimes the songs get lost in my emails. But I did have a list written out, but I'm sorry to say it's misplaced somewhere on my desk. And I keep looking for it and can't find it. And I just want to make sure I play all the songs of the people I talked to before who may have possibly been listening to every single episode waiting. Which I'm I'm actually starting to feel bad about it now. So I'm gonna stop talking about it. But if that's you, send me an email or a message. Anyway, today I'm gonna talk about JFK. And the true crime part obviously is that he was murdered, and the conspiracy part is who did it? So yeah, let's talk about JFK. So obviously, I have to start with the Kennedy curse and the family machine. So John, or Jack, as his friends called him, which actually my grandpop's name was John, and they called him Jack on my dad's side, because my dad's name is John too, but we don't call him Jack. And you know what? I I uh maybe his name wasn't John. May he might actually have been a Jack. And I oh hold on, I'm gonna text my dad real quick. Okay, my dad actually messaged me right back, and his name was John, and they called him Jack. So I was correct. Also, fun fact, he was in World War II, and when he told me he was in World War II, I literally was like, Why aren't you dead? Because I assumed I was young, I was in I think first grade when I said this, but maybe second. I'm trying to picture when it happened and what my hair looked like. But anyway, yeah, he was like, Should I be dead? And I was like, um, I don't know. Uh it was a long time ago. I thought that everyone from World War II was not alive. Little did I know. Anyway, so John was the second of nine kids, and his dad, Joe Kennedy, was like this ruthless millionaire who basically decided one of his sons had to be president. And he was originally supposed to be the oldest brother, Joe Jr., but he died in World War II. See? See what I mean? Just kidding. But anyway, all the pressure fell on Jack. Also, I know you hear the snores, it's Claribelle. She's a sleepy head. So Jack was not like the healthiest guy, and he actually spent a lot of his life in hospital beds with secret back pain and Addison's disease, but like he never let the public see it. And in World War II, he became a hero when his boat, the PT 109, was sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer, and he swam for miles, even towing a wounded crewman back by a life jacket strap that he held in his teeth. Isn't that wild? I feel like that's something you would see in like a Tom Cruise movie. But anyway, that story, like what had happened to him, was basically his like golden ticket into politics. So by 1960, he runs for president against Richard Nixon, and this was the first time that they televised debates. So on the radio, people thought that Nixon won, but on TV, JFK looked all like tan and confident, you know? And while Nixon was sweating and had like a five o'clock shadow, anyway, JFK won by one of like the closest margins in history. And then the new frontier began. And I used air quotes for new frontier. Anyway, uh sorry for laughing like that. Um I kind of laughed like the nanny, I feel like. Which have you guys ever at least tell me someone out there has seen The Nanny. That was the best show ever. I remember watching it like at nighttime, and I was so excited when it came on Nick at Night when they kind of brought n when like Nick at Night was still around. And then now I have to figure out where to watch it, but I want to watch it from the beginning because I remember cracking up all the time. And I was like, I don't know, seven. But anyway, JFK's presidency was basically like one long heart attack because of the Cold War. So first there was the Bay of Pigs in '61, and the CIA told JFK that if he sent a group of Cuban exiles to invade Cuba, the people would rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro, and it was a total disaster. So the invaders were captured, and JFK looked like a rookie. And he was furious at the CIA, and he famously said that he wanted to splinter it into a thousand pieces. Which I feel like that's something that you could say to someone who makes you angry, you know? Like, maybe their cheese fries look better than yours, and then you can just be like, I hope your cheese fries splinter into a thousand pieces and you can't eat them. Just kidding. Anyway, next came the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 62. And this is a big one because for 13 days we were on like the literal edge of a nuclear apocalypse. So U-2 spy planes found Soviet nukes in Cuba, and his generals wanted to start bombing immediately, which would have triggered a Russian attack on Europe and a full-on nuclear exchange. But Kennedy held his ground, okay? So he set up a naval quarantine and negotiated secretly through his brother Bobby, and they made a gentleman's agreement where the Soviets took their missiles out of Cuba and we secretly agreed to take ours out of Turkey later. And he basically saved the world by being like the coolest like person in the room, like temperature-wise. Like he wasn't blowing up and screaming. You know, a lot of stuff gets done when people are calm and nice. And like, if you want something done and someone goes out and they're screaming at it, absol freaking literally not. I'm not gonna give it to you. Sorry, go scream at somebody else. But like if someone were to come up and be like, hey, I need this, this, and this, I'd be like, okay. You know, I mean, depending on what it is. Anyway, so while all this was happening, JFK was like, you know what? I'm losing the space race. Cause I guess that's what people think about. And the Soviets had the first satellite and the first man in space. So JFK went to Rice University and gave this like incredible speech, and he said, We choose to go to the moon not because it's easy, but because it's hard. And he convinced the country to spend billions on NASA. But he's the reason Neil Armstrong did or did not take that step in '69. Which I actually did an episode about this. If you're new here, I did a uh moon landing episode. So you can go listen to it if you want. Can't promise that I talked about the moon in there, but the title has it in there. But anyway, so back in the US, um, things were getting crazy with civil rights. And at first, JFK was like cautious because he didn't want to lose the southern Dixiecrats. But after seeing the police dogs and fire hoses used on protesters in Birmingham, he actually had enough and he went on national TV and called civil rights a moral issue, and he started drafting the civil rights bill, which was a huge political risk at the time. So while he was dealing with all of that as a president, then comes November 22nd, 1963. And JFK went to Texas to patch things up with the local Democrats before the 64 election, and it was a beautiful, like sunny day. So they took the bubble top off the limo. And as the motorcade turned into Daily Plaza, passing the Texas School Book Depository, people heard gunshots. And it happened in like seconds, and the first shot missed, but the second hit JFK in the neck and went through to hit Governor Connolly. And the third was the fatal headshot. And there's actually a home movie, it's like a famous home movie of the event. I'm probably gonna get this name wrong, but it's the um the Zapruder film. I'll spell it for you. It's Z-A-P-R-U-D-E-R. So that that film. But that is probably like the most scrutinized piece of film in history. So after this happened, they arrested Lee Harvey Oswald in a movie theater about an hour later. And he was a weird guy. He was a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union and then came back, and he kept shouting I'm a Patsy to the reporters, but like we'll never know his side because two days later, while the police were moving him, a nightclub owner named Jack Ruby walked up and shot him dead on live TV. And that, my friends, is where conspiracy theories happen. So let's talk about some of those conspiracy theories. So the first theory is this second gunman and the grassy knoll. So in that famous, like Zaprut Zapruder film or whatever it is, when the that shot hits JFK, it's at frame 313 and his head snaps violently backwards, which is like simple physics suggests, okay, that if you get hit from behind, you fly forward. So conspiracy theorists say that this is 100% proof of a shooter on the grassy knoll, which was the hill to his front right. So when JFK arrived at the hospital, several doctors initially described a small entry wound in his throat and a massive blowout hole in the back of his head. And in ballistics, entry wounds are small and exit wounds are big. So this suggests that he was shot from the front. And the official autopsy later contradicted this, leading to claims that the body was altered during the flight back to DC. And in the 1970s, the House Select Committee found a police motorcycle recording that they claimed captured four shots and not three. Since Oswald's bolt action rifle couldn't fire that fast, it proved a second shooter. Though scientists later disputed the recording's clarity. But it it did, it is like a cornerstone of like the two shooter theory. So next is that the CIA is a rogue agency. So this theory paints JFK as a leader who was like too peaceful for his own good. So there's the splinter threat. So after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, JFK was so mad at the CIA that he fired its legendary director, Alan Dooles, and reportedly said he wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. So I didn't, yeah, you know. You know what? I like that a lot better than what I said earlier because I didn't add the scatter to the winds earlier. I hope someone's cheese fries splinter into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. Because you know why? Then they wouldn't be able to eat it. You ever run after something? You ever like you're walking down the street and you drop a napkin or something or something falls, and every time, every time you get close enough to pick it up, the wind takes it. That's the worst. Then you gotta keep going to get it, and then you gotta step on it and look all weird out in public. But anyway, because of like what he said, um people in the agency allegedly saw him as a threat to national security. And then there's like the Vietnam factor. So some theorists, including director Oliver Stone, argue that JFK was planning to pull out of Vietnam, and this would have cost the military industrial complex billions of dollars, giving them a massive financial motive to replace him with LBJ, who immediately escalated the war. And the whole like Lee Harvey Oswald thing, a lot of people argue that he was a fake, uh what they call a dangle. Dangle is a funny word. What is that show? Reno 911, the officer's name is Officer Dangle, I think was his name. But I hear the word dangle and I picture funny things. So next is like the mafia theory. And this feels like a scene like out of The Godfather. Okay. So it's long been rumored that JFK's father, Joe Kennedy, asked Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, which I probably got wrong, to use his influence to fix the election in Illinois. And the mob expected the Kennedys to leave them alone in return. This was like during the 1960 election. But instead, JFK made his brother Bobby the attorney general, and Bobby went on a holy war against the mafia, and the mob felt betrayed. And like one mobster famously said, like, you don't kill the dog, you kill the man who holds the leash. Meaning, like the dog was Bobby, and the man who held the leash was JFK. And there is like a little bit of a connection, and this is through the guy Jack Ruby, and he's the one who killed Oswald. So Jack Ruby was a strip club owner with deep ties to organized crime. And the theory is that the mob ordered Ruby to kill Oswald so that Patsy wouldn't talk and reveal the mob's involvement. And then there's also Lyndon B. Johnson, and some people call it like the follow the money, the the Texas coup theory. Theory words, I mean theory names that people come up with are weird. I feel like there's a theory for everything though. Like you could be walking down the street and you'd be like, oh my gosh, I tripped over the sidewalk today. And then someone could like if you post a TikTok about it, and then someone could comment and be like, that's the sidewalk crack theory. Step on the crack, you break your mother's back. Just kidding. Did anybody else do that? I remember double stepping on the cracks when I was mad at my mom. And then I would come home and her back wouldn't be broken. And then I would actually kind of be glad because I would have felt bad if it actually was. So Lyndon B. Johnson or LBJ was an incredibly ambitious man who was miserable as vice president. And he was also facing a massive corruption investigation regarding his associate, Bobby Baker, that likely would have like ended his career. And by 12:30 p.m. on November 22nd, he was a failing politician. And by 1 p.m., he was the most powerful man in the world. And some point to a meeting the night before the assassination at the home of oil tycoon Clint Murchison, where LBJ supposedly told his mistress, after tomorrow, those JFKs will never embarrass me again. Though many historians say this never happened. But you never know. Supposedly he said it. But that's also probably why hearsay is like not admissible in court. Because like you would have to prove somebody said it, you know? I mean, maybe I shouldn't say not admissible. I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. I mean it's objected a lot. Is is that the right word? Objected? I know the lawyers say object. One time, okay, one time I was sitting in court, okay, and there was this trial, and this guy, it was a jury trial, and this guy, he was here. I don't know if it was legally or illegally, or I think he he was here, he had a green card. If he was gonna be convicted in this case on anything, then he would have been deported back to where he came from. And I guess the jury wasn't supposed to know that. And the defense attorney um just happened to mention it in her opening statement. And the the DA who was doing this case yelled objection so loud, like it scared the crap out of me. I was so scared. My heart was in my butt, okay? I was scared. I think the judge even jumped. It was so it was loud. It was loud. But anyway, that's how I know they say objection when they don't agree with something. And I always wondered, like when they did it in court, they made it sound so easy. Like some of them, they're writing and listening at the same time, which I probably I can do. Like I used to do that in school and stuff, right? And like when you're taking notes. But like obviously, if I went to school to be a lawyer, I would know all these things. But like, as someone who's not a lawyer, like just thinking of them doing that makes me think they are like the smartest human beings ever. But they're they're probably just normal people, you know. Speaking of smart lawyers, I also had the privilege, I shouldn't say the privilege, because I felt so bad for this guy. I almost cried. Okay. So it was like a super duper busy day, and they would bring prisoners in, and they brought this prisoner in who was maybe a little bit scary. He definitely was like no nonsense. He was definitely fed up with everything. And they get up there and his attorney asks to remove himself because this guy, the defendant, wanted to represent himself, which is not something they that they like let them do often. Like, you have to have an attorney for like I'm assuming because of the is it the constitution that that would say? Maybe. Don't listen to anything I say. Anyway, so this guy starts freaking out and screaming, and the judge is trying to get him to calm down, and he's like, he got his uh, what do you say? He got his law degree from a cracker jack box or something like that. And the lady next to me was cracking up because that part was kind of funny. But then the lawyer, the poor guy, he got all teary-eyed, and I felt so bad for him. I rem I still remember his name, but I'm not gonna out him, I'm not gonna say it to the world. But just no, I felt bad because he looked like he wanted to cry, and that wasn't nice. But also, that's why I could not be a lawyer. Because along with like crying the minute the other attorney starts to like debate something, you know, I would cry to the judge. I'd be like, but you're aware, like, you know, because that's just how I am. But also, if like the defendant got mouthy with me or told me that my law degree came from a cracker jack box, I'd be like, that's why you're in jail, bitch. Like that's why I can't be a lawyer. But anyway, so there is like another like accidental theory that's like gained a lot of traction. So the theory is that Oswald did fire from the window and hit JFK once. And in the chaos, a Secret Service agent in the car behind JFK named George Hickey grabbed his AR-15 rifle to return fire. And as the car lurched, he accidentally pulled the trigger, and his bullet was the one that accidentally hit JFK in the head. And this would explain why the headshot looked like it came from a different angle and why the bullet exploded. Oswald's ammo was full metal jacket while the Secret Service used fragmenting rounds, and it also explains a government cover-up. Not because they planned it, but because they couldn't admit that the Secret Service accidentally killed the president that they were supposed to protect. But then there's also the single bullet theory, and some call it the magic bullet theory, like the critics do mockingly. But if this theory is false, then there has to be a second shooter. If it's true, then Lee Harvey Oswald could have acted alone. So, so the Warren Commission had a math problem, okay? And they determined that Oswald fired three shots in about six seconds using a bolt action rifle. Shot one missed and hit a curb. Shot three was the fatal headshot. And the issue is that that left only one bullet, which was shot two, to account for all of the other injuries. So between President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly, there were seven distinct entry and exit wounds. So to the commission, it seemed impossible that one bullet didn't do all of it. If shot two only hit Kennedy, then a fourth shot would have been needed to hit Connolly. But Oswald couldn't fire four shots that fast. Thus, the single bullet theory was born. So according to the official report, Commission Exhibit 399, which is the bullet, performed the following magic feat. And I said magic in quotes. So it entered JFK's upper back, it exited the front of his throat near like where his tie knot would be, the knot of his tie, and it traveled downward and entered Governor Connolly's back near his right armpit. It shattered five inches of Connolly's fifth rib and exited his chest, and it entered the top of Connolly's right wrist. It exited the inner side of his wrist and finally buried itself in Connolly's left thigh. Now, did you even picture any of that? So the biggest piece of evidence used by conspiracy theorists is the physical state of the bullet itself. So it was found on a stray stretcher at Parkland Hospital. Despite supposedly breaking a rib bone and a wrist bone, the bullet was nearly. Perfect. It wasn't flattened or mushroomed. It looked like it had been like barely fired. And critics argue that a bullet hitting that much bone would be like mangled beyond recognition. Now, critics often show diagrams where JFK and Connelly are sitting directly one behind the other at the same height. And in that layout, the bullet would have to zigzag mid-air to hit Connolly. And modern 3D scans and historical photos show that Connolly was sitting in a jump seat, which was lower than the president's seat and shifted slightly to the left. And when you align their bodies correctly based on the car's actual blueprints, the path of the bullet becomes a straight line. Now, if you watch that home, that film closely, the Zippruder film or whatever it's called, um, there's a moment where JFK's hands fly to his throat, which they call the Thorburn position, in case you were wondering. And less than a second later, Connolly's jacket appears to flip as the bullet exits his chest and he begins to grimace. And the skeptic view is that they reacted at different times, meaning they were hit by two different bullets. And the commission view was that Connolly had a delayed reaction due to the shock of the rib injury, but they were hit simultaneously. But there's also another theory that has come up of late. It's probably been around for a while, but it's something I'm gonna talk about today. I just have to say alleged and no historical record to everything I'm about to say. So, so at the time of JFK's presidency, the Western Wall was located in East Jerusalem, which was under the control of Jordan and not Israel. And it would have been geographically and politically impossible for a US president to visit the wall as part of an official trip to Israel during that era, and the wall only became under Israeli control after the Six-Day War in 1967, which was four years after Kennedy died. So the theory of like he didn't go and kiss the wall, you know, in Israel. You know that the Israel people killed Kennedy. But anyway, so in the late 1950s, Israel began building a nuclear facility in the some desert called the Negev, Negev, N-E-G-E-V desert, and it was called Demona, I think, or Demana, maybe. Oh, that would be a weird name. That's a weird name to call that. But it's spelled D-I-M-O-N-A. If it's Demana, that sounds awfully, sorry for that word, awfully familiar as something evil. Anyway, they told the world that it was a textile factory or a research center, but US intelligence, i.e. the CIA, suspected that it was actually a plant to create plutonium for nuclear weapons. And JFK was a non-proliferation hawk, and he was terrified that if Israel got the bomb, then Egypt and the rest of the Arab world would get the bomb, leading to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that the US couldn't control. So Kennedy took like a very hard line with Israel Prime Minister David Ben Guran. Maybe I said that right. And so here's a play-by-play of that tension. So JFK demanded that American scientists be allowed to inspect Domona to prove it wasn't for weapons. And Kennedy sent a series of incredibly blunt, almost undiplomatic letters. And he essentially threatened that if Israel didn't allow these inspections, the shining relationship I used air quotes, between the US and Israel would be in serious danger. And in June of 1963, Ben Gurion, that guy, um, suddenly resigned as prime minister. And some historians believe the immense pressure from Kennedy over the nuclear issue played a role in his decision to step down. And the theory with all of this suggests that pro-bomb elements within the Israeli government or the Mossad, which is their intelligence agency, viewed Kennedy as a threat to Israel's very survival. And Israel felt the logic to this is that Israel felt they needed the nuclear option to prevent being overwhelmed by their neighbors. And Kennedy was the only thing standing in the way of that goal. And after JFK was assassinated, the pressure on the Demona Project significantly cooled down under Lyndon B. Johnson because like LBJ was much more supportive of Israel and didn't push nearly as hard for the inspections and eventually allowed Israel to maintain a policy of nuclear ambiguity, which is neither confirming nor denying that they have the bomb. Now, some like mainstream historians say that there's no evidence, like like the risk for a foreign government assassinating a US president is like pretty high because like they can mess a lot of things up relationship-wise. And then they don't think that Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby had a connection to Israeli intelligence, which that wouldn't even matter because if Lee Harvey Oswald was just what did he call himself, a patsy? If he was a Patsy, then it wouldn't matter if there was no connection. Because he was the fall guy. But also, despite the nuclear disagreement, JFK was actually the first president to sell major offensive weapons to Israel like hawk missiles, so he wasn't necessarily seen as an enemy of the state for them to want to kill him. But what do you guys think? Who do you think did it? Have you guys seen that video by the way of JFK getting shot? I saw it once. Maybe twice. I didn't want to watch it after after the second time. But I mean I would re-watch it again to see which way his head moved and to see if I could see like more shots. But I wouldn't want to watch it because I don't want to see him get shot, you know? You know what I mean? Because it was actually real, it happened in real life. If I were to like see it on a movie, that's different. It's a movie. I know it's fake. But anyway, I hope you like this episode and that it left you with maybe more questions than answers. Shout out to those listening on Nighthawk Radio. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, uh, feel free to give me five stars. I have eight five star ratings now, by the way. But also if you don't like it, you know you don't have to give it five stars. And you can tell me why you don't like it, but I probably won't change anything. Sorry. Anyway, if you want to try a clean energy drink with no sugar and no crash and no like jittery I just licked power outlet feeling, you can go to www.w.gg and use code stay weird for 10% off. And you can try them because they're delicious. The song of the week this week is called I'm Not Dead, and it's by Mike Messina. And I think you should go stream it wherever you listen to your music because this is a good one. I mean, I I think every single song I play on here is good. That's why I play it. Stay weird, stay curious, go be kind to someone for no reason, and go be amazing.