Dallas was hot that day. It was November 22, 1963, and the air in Texas felt heavy, even with the top down on the Lincoln Continental. People ask why did Kennedy get assassinated like there’s one clean answer hidden in a vault somewhere. There isn't. Not really. What we have instead is a collision of Cold War paranoia, civil rights tension, and a man named Lee Harvey Oswald who—depending on who you ask—was either a lone wolf or a "patsy" caught in a web far bigger than himself.
History isn't a straight line. It's a tangle. When that motorcade turned off Main onto Houston Street, the United States was at a breaking point. You had the Bay of Pigs disaster still fresh in everyone’s mind. You had the Cuban Missile Crisis which almost turned the planet into a cinder. Kennedy was walking a tightrope, and in doing so, he managed to piss off almost every powerful interest group in the country.
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The Official Story: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Lone Gunman
The Warren Commission spent months trying to figure out the "why." Their verdict? Lee Harvey Oswald did it alone. He was a Marxist, a defector to the USSR, and honestly, a bit of a failure at everything he tried. According to the official record, he fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Why would he do it? The motive is often painted as a desperate need for historical relevance. Oswald wanted to be a "Great Man." He had tried to assassinate General Edwin Walker—a staunch anti-communist—just months earlier. He failed then. He didn't fail in Dallas. But the "why" for Oswald is messy because he never got to speak. Jack Ruby made sure of that in a police basement two days later.
The Geopolitical Powder Keg
If you look past Oswald, the question of why did Kennedy get assassinated shifts toward policy. Kennedy was starting to pivot. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, he wasn't the same Cold Warrior. He signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He was talking—quietly—about a rapprochement with Castro.
This terrified the hardliners.
To the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kennedy was "soft" on communism. The Bay of Pigs was a humiliation they blamed on him for withholding air support. In their eyes, he was betraying the cause of freedom. There’s a school of thought, championed by researchers like James Douglass in JFK and the Unspeakable, that suggests the "why" was a preemptive strike by the "Deep State" of the 1960s to prevent Kennedy from dismantling the military-industrial complex.
Organized Crime and the Robert Kennedy Factor
Then you have the Mob. This isn't just movie stuff; it's documented history. The Mafia, specifically guys like Sam Giancana and Carlos Marcello, reportedly helped JFK win the 1960 election, particularly in Illinois. They thought they bought a friend in the White House.
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Instead, they got Robert Kennedy.
As Attorney General, Bobby went on a crusade against organized crime. He tripled the number of racketeering convictions. The Mob felt double-crossed. They had lost their casinos in Cuba when Castro took over, and now the President they "helped" was trying to put them in federal prison. "If you cut off the dog's head, the tail stops wagging." That was the logic attributed to Marcello. If JFK died, Bobby lost his power.
Vietnam: The $Trillion Question
Did Kennedy want out of Vietnam? This is one of the most debated "whys" in American history. In October 1963, he signed NSAM 263, which authorized the withdrawal of 1,000 personnel by the end of the year.
Some historians argue he intended to pull out completely after the 1964 election. Others, like Noam Chomsky, argue there’s no hard evidence he would have abandoned the South Vietnamese government. But the perception was there. If Kennedy planned to end the war, billions of dollars in defense contracts were at stake. The moment Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath on Air Force One, the trajectory toward full-scale war in Vietnam accelerated.
The Civil Rights Backlash
We can't forget the domestic vitrol. In 1963, the South was a tinderbox. Kennedy had sent federal troops to integrate universities. To the segregationists in Dallas and beyond, JFK was a radical liberal destroying the "Southern way of life." The morning he arrived in Dallas, a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News accused him of being a traitor. The climate of hate was so thick that even Adlai Stevenson, the UN Ambassador, had been physically attacked in Dallas just weeks prior.
Understanding the "Why" Through the Lens of 1979
If you really want to dive into the weeds, you have to look at the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979. They actually contradicted the Warren Commission. They concluded that Kennedy was "probably" assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
They pointed to acoustic evidence (which has since been hotly contested) suggesting a fourth shot from the Grassy Knoll. But more importantly, they highlighted the failure of the FBI and CIA to share information. Why did the CIA have a 201 file on Oswald long before the shooting? Why was he monitored so closely, yet allowed to work in a building on the motorcade route?
The "why" starts to look less like a single person’s motive and more like a systemic failure—or a systemic choice.
Common Misconceptions
- The "Magic Bullet" was impossible: Actually, ballistics experts and modern computer modeling (including work by Luke and Michael Haag) have shown that the "Single Bullet Theory" is physically possible given the alignment of the seats in the limo.
- Kennedy was a beloved pacifist: He wasn't. He was a pragmatist. He oversaw a massive buildup of nuclear weapons. But he was evolving, and it was that evolution that made him dangerous to the status quo.
- Oswald was a master marksman: He was a Marine-trained "sharpshooter," which is the middle tier of qualification. The shot was difficult, but not impossible for someone with his training, especially using a stabilized rifle.
The Actionable Path to Truth
You don't have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to want clarity. The mystery of why did Kennedy get assassinated persists because the government hasn't been fully transparent. Even in the 2020s, thousands of documents remain partially redacted.
If you want to understand this better, don't just watch movies. Do this:
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- Read the Mary Ferrell Foundation archives. They host the largest searchable database of JFK records. It’s the raw data, not the spin.
- Compare the Warren Report with the HSCA findings. Seeing where two government bodies disagree is where the real questions live.
- Visit Dealey Plaza. If you stand on the X on Elm Street, you realize how small the space actually is. It changes your perspective on the logistics of that day.
- Track the ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board) releases. These are the documents released in the late 90s that changed what we knew about the military's plans for Cuba (Northwoods, etc.).
The tragedy of Dallas isn't just that a President died. It’s that the "why" remains a Rorschach test for how Americans view their own government. Whether it was a lone malcontent or a sophisticated coup, the result was a loss of national innocence that we’ve never quite recovered from.
The best way to honor the history is to look at the evidence without wanting it to fit a specific narrative. The truth is usually found in the messy, uncomfortable middle.
Next Steps for Deep Research:
- Examine the Church Committee reports from the 1970s to understand the CIA's history with assassination plots.
- Review the medical testimony regarding the autopsy at Bethesda, specifically the discrepancies between the Dallas doctors and the military pathologists.
- Study the Zapruder Film frame-by-frame, focusing on the timing between shots rather than just the impact.