Three ways JFK could have been SAVED as new clues emerge 60 years after assassination | The Sun

Files released in 2021 revealed that Oswald first appeared on the US’s radar in October 1963.

After his earlier defection to the Soviet Union, Oswald – a communist married to a Russian – developed a strong attachment to Cuba and its president, communist Fidel Castro.

Between September 27 and October 3, he visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City multiple times for a visa to Cuba where he would wait to be picked up by the USSR.

Oswald then travelled back from Mexico to the US through Texas, where Kennedy would be killed months later.

Gus Russo, one of the world's leading experts on JFK's assassination, told The Sun that Oswald's passion for Castro influenced his decision to shoot the president.

Castro was a Marxist like Oswald, and a revolutionary who set up a communist government in Cuba.

The CIA was attempting to take out Castro and even invade Cuba under Kennedy – but this was a tightly kept secret in 1963.

"Oswald was very pro-Castro… he turned all his political attention to Castro and that really consumed Oswald for the rest of his life," Russo told The Sun.

Castro could have prevented the assassination of President Kennedy. There was a conspiracy of silence

Months before the assassination, Oswald was receiving tip-offs that the US were going to try and invade Cuba, Russo added.

"So then Oswald goes to Mexico City and, according to Fidel Castro – he spoke to informants – Oswald offered to kill Kennedy in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City," he said.

"His exact words were, 'I'll kill that bastard Kennedy'.

"And he goes back and he does it."

Russo said that Cuba encouraged Oswald to take out Kennedy – who had been trying to murder their leader for two years.

"The Cubans encouraged Oswald to do it, to kill Kennedy, because Kennedy was trying to murder their boss Fidel Castro for two years," he said.

"Castro knew something might be tried. My feeling is that Castro knew something might happen in Dallas.

"And his culpability is that he didn't call the Secret Service and alert them to stop it, to stop Oswald.

"Castro could have prevented the assassination of President Kennedy.

"There was a conspiracy of silence."

For Russo, the Cuban connection is key to understanding Oswald’s motive for – and what led to – the Kennedy assassination.

FBI 'FAILINGS'

When ex Cuban intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga defected in 1987, he revealed important intelligence secrets about Castro and his government.

He revealed that hours before Kennedy's murder, Castro told an intelligence officer to redirect radio signals between Washington D.C., and Miami to Dallas, so he'd be the first to know if Oswald had pulled it off.

Brian Latell, a former CIA officer who interviewed a dozen high ranking Cuban spy defectors, was the one to receive this information from Aspillaga.

He believes threats against Kennedy weren't taken seriously enough by the government.

“I knew the CIA had placed a very high value on the reliability of Florentino Aspillaga as a source," Latell told The Sun.

"I knew I could trust him. But this time I was sceptical, because it was such a remarkable thing that he said.

"As I interviewed him again and again, the story never changed, he told me the story the same way every time.

"Over time, I came to believe that he was telling me the truth as he knew it."

It is, of course, impossible to know whether JFK would have lived if certain decisions had been made differently in the time leading up to his death.

But Latell does think part of the government's failure to track down Oswald is due to the FBI not tracking rifle-trained Oswald as closely as they should have.

It was a serious threat by Fidel Castro. But it was not taken seriously by anyone in the US Government

Latell said: "He was a Marine skilled rifleman. He knew how to fire a rifle. The rifle he used to kill Kennedy was later tested by the FBI.

"I do not think it is a surprise that a disturbed man like Oswald, a trained rifleman, could kill Kennedy.

"It was not a long distance that he had to fire from.

"The failure in detecting him was partly because the FBI was not tracking him as carefully as they could have.

"They were not considering him a very high priority."

Latell believes, like Russo, that Oswald was deeply committed to Castro's cause.

"After Lee Harvey Oswald returned to the United States, he was infatuated with the idea of Fidel Castro," he said.

"Oswald wanted to go to Cuba. And when he travelled in September 1963 to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, he met with a number of Cuban intelligence officers.

"He wanted to defect the second time from America, this time to Cuba because he wanted to help Fidel, a man he admired so deeply. The importance of Cuba for Oswald was supremely high."

He also told The Sun that another very significant detail was largely overlooked by those in the US government at the time.

Just months before Kennedy was shot, Fidel Castro had threatened his life in a widely circulated interview with a journalist.

Fidel Castro said in that interview: "If American leaders are planning to assassinate Cuban leaders, they should know that their lives will also be at risk."

The story appeared in countless American newspapers on September 9, 1963.

Latell said: "Castro knew that the Kennedy administration was attempting to assassinate him.

"So he turned it around at that interview, indicating that he knew what they were up to.

"It was a serious threat by Fidel Castro. But it was not taken seriously by anyone in the US Government."

OSWALD WAS 'UNDERESTIMATED'

Now a professor at Stanford and a leading expert in Soviet Russia, Paul Gregory had a special relationship with Oswald family in 1962, for several months.

Years after his relationship with Oswald, Gregory is certain he shot Kennedy and was dangerously "underestimated" before the president died.

The year before Kennedy was shot, he got to know Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina, as she gave him Russian language lessons.

He was the only one who broke through the cocoon in which Lee and Marina Oswald were living, seeing them on a regular basis.

At that time, Gregory was an undergraduate studying Russian, and Oswald had only recently arrived back in the US with his wife after his earlier defection to the USSR.

He met the Oswalds' through his father, and visited them twice a week to get Russian lessons from Marina, help them with errands and show them around the area.

It was very difficult for people to accept that someone who apparently is a loser killed a US President

"We tend to grossly underestimate Oswald," Gregory said.

"And we underestimate him because he worked as a manual labour, he did not graduate from high school, he was dyslexic.

"So he had all the characteristics of a loser. But he was someone who could plan things carefully. He was able to manipulate people, such as his own family or the embassy in Moscow.

"He was able to persuade people to help him without ever thanking them.

"The assassination itself was a low-tech assassination: just a rifle, a pistol and a bus ticket.

"It was very difficult for people to accept that someone who apparently is a loser killed a US President, one of the most closely guarded figures on earth. He could do it and he did it."

Any theories about a second gunman alongside Oswald are also rejected by Russo, who is very confident he was the assassin.

"When you combine the forensics, the ballistics and the fact he left the crime scene… he did it", Russo said.

Perhaps if – as some theories suggest – security services and agencies had been more thorough in tailing Oswald, the "grossly underestimated" marksman wouldn't have hit his target.

WHY HAS THE CASE NEVER BEEN SOLVED?

Peter Ling, a professor in American history and author of biography John F. Kennedy, told The Sun why he believes the case has never been solved.

He does not believe that Oswald acted alone in killing the president, but it couldn't be proved due to witnesses vanishing in mysterious circumstances.

Perhaps the most significant Kennedy revelation in years came just months ago with the confession of Paul Landis about his pocketed bullet.

Many have questioned the original investigation's conclusion that Oswald managed to kill the president as well as wounding fellow passenger Texas Governor John Connally with just three rounds.

It was claimed that one bullet had even passed through Kennedy before hitting Connally.

But those who believe there was more than one shooter have dubbed this "the magic bullet theory".

Ling told The Sun: "It's particularly odd if we're considering Oswald as the lone shooter with one weapon. One bullet is firmly encased and goes through two people ostensibly.

"And the other bullet fired rapidly from the same rifle, blows his head apart, and disintegrates on impact and goes into all kinds of particles in the brain.

"From the little I know of ballistics, that is unusual."

He agrees with a committee set up by the US government in the 1970s, which drew different conclusions to the initial investigation into Kennedy's death.

After its extensive dig into the events of November 22, 1963 – it "more or less concluded" that Oswald was not acting alone.

"They actually believe that there was a second gunman," he said.

"And they suspected that that second gunman might have links to organised crime. But they could not prove it.

"At the time, some of the people they wanted to interview met with unfortunate accidents.

"One of them their body was found in an oil drum floating off Miami. Giancana I think ends up being shot through the mouth, which is a traditional way of the mob signalling, why you were killed.

"Because you blew your mouth."

They suspected that that second gunman might have links to organised crime. But they could not prove it

Another person of interest Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald two days after the assassination in a Dallas police HQ on live TV, died in 1967.

Ling suggested that American mobsters Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana – heavily suspected by many – could have been involved alongside Oswald.

"Giancana and Carlos Marcello had very strong objections to the Kennedy's, because of the way in which Bobby Kennedy had gone after them," he said.

Marcello was even deported by Robert Kennedy in 1961 to Guatemala.

"These people have good contacts when it comes to eliminating people," Ling said.

"And they also have contacts with Jack Ruby, who then eliminates Oswald."

He added: "In my theory, they think Oswald could be a useful distraction.

"And if he shoots the president and kills them all well and good, but they've got a much more trained marksman in place to get the job done."

And perhaps the most significant new information to be revealed in the assassination case for decades comes from Landis, a former Secret Service agent assigned to the Kennedy's detail that day.

The 88-year-old claimed to have taken a "relatively pristine" bullet from the car after JFK was shot and left it on his stretcher at the hospital, fearing that it would be overlooked amongst the chaos.

He said it's generally assumed to be the same bullet which is "subsequently found on Governor Connally's car and is deemed to be the magic bullet".

While Ling admitted that there is only Landis' word to go on with this account, he told The Sun that the crime scene was handled so poorly – a lot of evidence was compromised.

Whether or not Landis' account is true, his account of the chaos that day does suggest that the immediate aftermath of the assassination may not have been properly handled.

Had certain evidence been better protected, or key figures survived to be interviewed, someone might argue that the mystery of JFK's assassination could've been solved by tracking down those truly responsible.

Ling described the crime scene of JFK's assassination as a "fiasco".

"The Dallas Police Department was just so chronically underfunded and untrained. So the initial investigation is so bad on so many levels."

They don't seal off the crime scene. They don't interview all the witnesses

Ling explains that a piece of Kennedy's own skull was even "picked up by a passerby", that investigators were handling the gun "without gloves" and the man responsible for taking fingerprints from it had only had "ten days training".

"They don't seal off the crime scene. They don't interview all the witnesses. They don't even seal off the Book Depository adequately.

"So it's just a fiasco… that's why there's just so many loose ends in all this."

And it's not just the crime scene that is not dealt with properly, but the autopsy of Kennedy himself.

Ling told The Sun up to 20 people were in the room for it, arguing over a pathologist who did not regularly work on gunshot victims.

Another "quirky" theory behind the president's death, Ling says, is to do with a Secret Service agent who was in the car with Landis – someone he has never mentioned.

"He is supposed to have accidentally shot the president," Ling said.

Ballistics expert Howard Donahue was interviewed for a book on Kennedy's death – outlining the theory that Secret Service Agent George Warren Hickey Jr took out JFK with a fatal mistake.

Ling told The Sun: "It's plausible enough in that we do know that the Secret Service detail arrives the night before, that usually they work incredibly anti-social hours, that they go out in Dallas on the booze and that the regular driver is too inebriated to drive that day."

He explains that someone else stands in for the usual driver, which is "why they don't behave in the classic fashion of accelerating away after the first shots".

The agent who would normally drive, but is too drunk, is trusted with a "loaded and cocked high velocity rifle in the back of the second car".

The theory touts that he reaches down and picks up the rifle to shoot in the direction of Oswald, but as the car jerks forward, he accidentally shoots the gun – and that's the second shot.

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