JFK Assassination: 60 years later, the mystery continues…

I have always been fascinated by a good whodunit.

There is something irresistible about a mystery with missing pieces, conflicting clues, unanswered questions. As a kid, I loved detective stories, trying to figure out who had done it before the final page gave everything away.

But there was one mystery that was different, and which became the ultimate whodunit; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

Growing up, I often came upon this reference in historical books under “events that changed the world”. He was the 4th U.S. President to be assassinated, so it was more like a statistic. As I grew older, I became aware about the manner of his death and that it was still a mystery.

Back then, there was no Internet, so the library was my best friend. Of course, at the time, I was too young to truly understand *all* the stories, like the backroom shenanigans of the FBI, CIA and the US military, his own flings and ‘sexploits’, or even the political climate of 1960s America.

Then, towards the late 80s, I watched Kennedy, and was hooked. This was a TV miniseries starring Martin Sheen and Blair Brown, originally aired in the U.S in 1983.

The other trigger for this fascination came while listening to Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire”, and the lyrics “JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?“. Seems morbid, I know.

There is something almost hypnotic about watching the events of that day unfold, the images stark and unforgettable. The couple arriving in Air Force One, Jacqueline Kennedy’s pink dress, the open motorcade in Dallas, the shots, the chaos. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, his arrest, and, before he could ever stand trial, his own murder by Jack Ruby.

Then there’s the Zapruder film, possibly the most watched, analysed and dissected short film in history. Abraham Zapruder was among the crowd who had gathered to watch Kennedy. He had taken his 8 mm camera, little knowing how big a part his film of the motorcade was to play. It captures the moments leading up to as well as the assassination itself.

The sheer volume of material about this case can feel like evidence in itself. Hundreds of books, documentaries, interviews, investigations and conspiracy theories, or even those recently released classified + redacted documents, all attempting to answer one question.

What really happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963?

Maybe that is what still fascinates people. Call it a myth, call it a conspiracy. Even 60 years later, the JFK assassination remains a mystery!