JFK Assassination: Who Shot John F. Kennedy? Doubts Still Linger If Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, when he was traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. The 35th president of the United States was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald as the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository.

While investigation into Kennedy's death revealed that Oswald acted alone in the assassination, several conspiracy theories surfaced after the prime suspect was himself killed before he could be prosecuted.

This month, new evidence uncovered in the secret diaries of Cold War spy Douglas DeWitt Bazata revealed that his longtime close friend and fellow spy, René Alexander Dussaq, was a “primary organizer and plotter” of Kennedy’s assassination.

The diaries reveal that Dussaq might even have fired the fatal “shot or shots” that killed Kennedy, according to author Robert K. Wilcox’s latest book, “Target: JFK, The Spy Who Killed Kennedy?,” which went out for sale Nov. 14.

The Warren Commission, which was established to investigate Kennedy's assassination, concluded in 1964 that Oswald killed Kennedy by acting alone, and that Oswald was not part of any conspiracy. Three other U.S. government investigations, in 1968, 1975, and 1978-79, confirmed the Warren Commission's conclusion that two shots had struck Kennedy from behind.

However, in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations decided that there was a high probability that a second gunman fired at Kennedy and that he was "probably assassinated as a conspiracy."

But, this finding was rejected five years ago by a team of historians and retired secret service officers, who used the latest digital technology to analyze all the available clues and offered a "categorical confirmation" that Oswald acted alone.

In the September 1964 report, the Warren Commission stated that Oswald fired three shots from behind the presidential motorcade on the sixth floor in the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) building using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, killing Kennedy and injuring then-Texas Gov. John Connally and one bystander, James Tague. Oswald worked in the TSBD. Oswald’s rifle was found on the sixth floor along with three spent cartridges from rifle shots.

Oswald never got the chance to stand trial as two days after being charged with murdering the president and Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit -- whom authorities claim Oswald shot to death with a revolver while authorities were in pursuit of Oswald -- Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald, on Nov. 24, 1963, when he was being transferred by police from a Dallas police station cell to a nearby county jail.