Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of an American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993

Arkansas Tech University Online Research Commons @ ATU Theses and Dissertations from 2019 Student Research and Publications Fall 12-13-2019 In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of An American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993. Thurman Lee Storing Arkansas Tech University Follow this and additional works at: https://orc.library.atu.edu/etds_2019 Part of the Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Storing, Thurman Lee, "In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of An American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993." (2019). Theses and Dissertations from 2019. 25. https://orc.library.atu.edu/etds_2019/25 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research and Publications at Online Research Commons @ ATU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations from 2019 by an authorized administrator of Online Research Commons @ ATU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IN SEARCH OF VERITAS: KENNEDY ASSASSINATION CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE EMERGENCE OF AN AMERICAN CULTURE OF SUSPICION, 1963-1993. By THURMAN LEE STORING Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of Arkansas Tech University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY December 2019 © 2019 Thurman Lee Storing iii Acknowledgments This study would not have been possible without the contribution of several outstanding individuals. First, I would like to thank my thesis advisor and mentor, Dr. James Moses, for his input and guidance. Dr. Moses’s support and direction not only aided in making this project a viable academic work but molded me into a better student and historian. I would also like to thank the members of the thesis committee: Dr. Peter Dykema and Dr. Gregory Michna for their expert editorial input and suggestions. Also, a very sincere thank you to Dr. H. Michael Tarver for his help. It was in Dr. Tarver’s Historical Methods course that elements of this thesis first germinated. Outside of academia, many others contributed and offered encouragement. Thank you to my parents, Royell and Anna Storing, whose memories and thoughts on the Kennedy assassination inspired this project. Thank you for instilling in me qualities of fairness and integrity toward diverse histories. A very special thank you goes out to my sister, Julie Ann Storing, for always believing in me. I’d also like to thank Cindy Parker and Wade Pagel for their warm encouragement that allowed me to finish this thesis. Most importantly, I would like to thank my wife, best friend, and guiding star, Teri Nicole Storing. Her constant support and insight made this work a reality, and she continues to inspire me to push for greater heights and new horizons. Without her, none of this would have been possible. I dedicate this thesis to her and our daughter, Luna Renée. iv Abstract “In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of an American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993” argues that the evolving theories and concepts contained in the literature and media surrounding the Kennedy assassination demonstrate the deteriorating trust in American government institutions that resulted from the political and social climate of the 1960s through the 1980s. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, marked a pivotal and horrific point in American history. The shocking murder and unanswered questions that surrounded the young president’s death traumatized the nation, leaving a psychological wound that persists decades after the event. Utilizing both primary and secondary sources, including assassination literature, public opinion polls, and scholarly articles, the work contends that acceptance of Kennedy assassination theories represented a broader symptom of distrust in public government and reflected how Americans felt of their own history and national trajectory in the latter part of the twentieth century. From substantial to absurd, the theories around President Kennedy’s shocking death reflect a pursuit for personal meaning; one designed to provide a sense of closure to the American public in the wake of the public tragedies and political turmoil in the three decades after the assassination. Keywords: Kennedy assassination; conspiracy theories; government distrust; cultural history; Late Twentieth Century America. v Table of Contents Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION: IN SEARCH OF VERITAS ................................................................1 I. SEARCHING THE SHADOWS (1963-1967) ...............................................................13 II. SOME DARE CALL IT TREASON (1967-1975) .......................................................68 III. CONSPIRACY OF ONE (1975-1983) ......................................................................112 IV. PAST IS PROLOGUE (1983-1993) ..........................................................................154 CONCLUSION: THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE .............................................198 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................208 vi Introduction: In Search of Veritas Between 1963 and 1993, the assassination of President Kennedy, coupled with the social and political unrest in America in the latter decades of the twentieth century, led to a unique cultural moment in American history. The question of conspiracy in the assassination, whether real or imagined, altered the perception not only of a historical event but reflected a change in how Americans viewed their government and themselves in the subsequent three decades after the president’s death. The theories put forth by the Kennedy assassination conspiracy movement, beginning in the mid-1960s, not only created a counter-narrative to the government’s official version of events but demonstrated the malleability of a historical event. As the event drifted further away from present and into memory, the assassination took on new meaning and definition. While some theories presented valid criticism, others served as a mirror of how Americans wished to immortalize their own history at a specific point in time. By the mid-1970s, most Americans rejected the official government version of the assassination. It had become a fairy tale, a government perpetuated myth. Although initially accepted, public trust in it had faltered. By 1976, nearly nine out of ten Americans doubted the official conclusion: that, on the crowded streets of downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, one man had acted alone in the shooting death of President John F. Kennedy.1 To millions of Americans, the events surrounding the death of one of their most beloved and revered leaders nearly fifteen years previous functioned 1 George H. Gallup, “Do you think that one man was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy, or do you think others were involved?” December 10-13, 1976, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinions 1972-1977, vol. 2, 1976-1977 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1978), 927. Public opinion on the assassination has historically favored belief in conspiracy, with an average of sixty percent. The mid-1970s, however, yielded the highest percentage of acceptance in a conspiracy. 1 2 as the catalyst that unleashed a domino effect of unfortunate events on the country. Thousands of pages of publications and articles discussed it at length and picked at every minute detail. Many Americans doubted the possibility that a single bullet fired by a single assassin could inflict several wounds on two grown men in a moving automobile as the president’s commission had told them. After the murder of President Kennedy, they watched as their country descended into a madness of unwinnable war, civil and social unrest, and a string of political scandals that shook the foundation of authority. They witnessed a graphic amateur film, that had been hidden from public view for over a decade, which appeared to show the President hit from the front, not behind as the government had told them. By 1976, the continued public outcry forced Congress to finally act and begin an official reinvestigation, but fears of subterfuge and dishonesty remained.2 Reflecting the sentiments held by many Americans of the era, journalist and author Robert Sam Anson wrote in 1975 that, “the revelations of the past few years have shown that…conspiracy is as American as apple pie.”3 In many respects, the assassination became a flashpoint in American history. To conspiracy theorists, the assassination of President Kennedy represented the point where the forces of darkness took over and the country entered a strange and terrible reality. A cynical uncertainty and sense of betrayal unseated the optimism generated by President Kennedy’s promise of a “new frontier.”4 This viewpoint, though, represented a flawed interpretation that ignored tensions that had been building for decades. Anxieties and paranoia triggered by the Cold War with the Soviet Union existed well before the 1963 2 Robert Sam Anson, “They’ve Killed the President!”: The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), 1-3. 3 Anson, “They’ve Killed the President!”,

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