In the first half, JFK assassination researcher Michael Cohen shared his theory that Madame Nhu, the de facto First Lady of South Vietnam, instigated the president's assassination, as revenge for Kennedy having ordered the CIA to kill her husband in a coup attempt. Further, Kennedy had sparred with Nhu over her policy of trying to convert Buddhists to Catholicism in Vietnam by burning down their temples, he detailed. According to a series of New York Times articles, Nhu threatened to kill JFK during a live press conference she held. The Warren Commission labeled her as a suspect, but kept all information about her secret at the time they produced their report, he noted.
Richard Nixon was in Dallas the day Kennedy died, serving as a conduit for the assassination teams, Cohen asserted. He conjectured that Nhu had contacted Nixon about arranging the assassination, and offered unlimited funds. She stipulated that JFK had to die on November 22nd at 1pm, and he must be shot in the the head. The date was given to her by an astrologer in Saigon, and the type of wound correlated with the way her husband had been shot, he explained.
In the latter half, researcher Jim DiEugenio discussed his decades of work uncovering new information about who was behind the assassination of JFK, including the role of Allen Dulles in the cover-up. A revised and expanded version of his 20-year-old book Destiny Betrayed, was recently published, in which he incorporated information from declassified documents from the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), such as material about the Jim Garrison investigation and Clay Shaw. "I've come to the conclusion that Garrison was one-step below the middle level of the conspiracy," he said, outlining who the people were at the ground level of the plot as George DeMorhenschildt in Dallas, Ferrie, Shaw, & Bannister in New Orleans, and Ruth & Michael Paine in Dallas. At the middle level were David Phillips and Howard Hunt, he continued.
There were three sniper teams used in Dallas, one at the grassy knoll, another at the Depository Building, and a third at the Dal-Tex building, producing the perfect "L-shaped ambush," for when the motorcade passed, he said. He also pointed out the inconsistency of the conclusions of the Warren Commission (single bullet theory), the FBI (multiple bullets), and the CIA (two assassins firing from two different directions). As to why so many varied theories have cropped up over the years about the JFK assassination, DiEugenio suggested that the powers-that-be intended for multiple theories to emerge as a deliberate misdirection ploy. Many files weren't declassified until 1994, so a lot of theories up until that time were based on speculation rather than facts, he added.
For more, check out recaps of some of our previous JFK Assassination Specials: 2011, 2010, 2009.