QUOTE(Redneck @ Oct 14 2004, 10:03 PM) [snapback]308035[/snapback]
The investigation was botched, no doubt about that. But there's no positive evidence of a conspiracy. And really, there was no real reason powerful interests would resort to such drastic measures to remove Kennedy. For all his popularity he never accomplished a whole lot as president.
I would disagree.
There is more than compelling evidence pointing to conspiracy in some form. The mere fact that the actual nature of the President's wounds is not known, over 40 years after the fact; the fact that the statements of the Dallas doctors pertaining to the nature of what they observed conflicts with the autopsy protocol and the Warren Commissions conclusions in rather graphic ways, and the fact that the documentation of this autopsy is a medical-legal nightmare in its inconsistancy and conflicting information points to some thing definitive.
As to motive...although one cannot state for certain what it would've been, an obvious conclusion can be drawn from the facts surrounding what happened immediately following Kennedy's death. Kennedy's troop withdrawal (the "advisors" we had in Viet Nam at the time, numbering perhaps 10-12,000) was already underway as of November 22, 1963. 1000 of them had already returned, and the rest were planned to return by early to mid-1965, after the 1964 election was over (...a political move. This was being kept secret by until after Kennedy's re-election because there were factions that he knew wouldn't support him if they knew he was pulling out of Viet Nam).
Of course, his order was rescinded almost immediately after his death, and of course, there were a couple hundred thousand troops in Viet Nam in relatively short order as Johnson escalated our involvement.
I think those 60,000 names on the memorial in Washington point to a potential motive for Kennedy's removal. It is an unfortunate reminder that Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Establishment" (which he warned Kennedy about in his 1961 farewell address) was a bit more powerful than anyone imagined.
As to not accomplishing much. Perhaps. After botching the Bay of Pigs, he acomplished a few small things...domestically; a tax cut, stimulating the economy (oddly enough, something that today's Democratic party disagrees with, and President Bush has implemented...to great economic effect), establishing the Peace Corps, which still seems to do alot of great work, staring down the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis and garnering the respect of our greatest adversary, proposing great new American initiatives which resulted in the United States becoming pre-eminent in the areas of scientific and technological development throughout the 1960s, and which resulted in the landing of American men on the Moon...and of course, determining that American involvement in Viet Nam was not something he wanted to see escalate, and making plans to gradually end it.
Just a couple of things. But really, he didn't have much time to do much else, I think.
Regards.