This is Not an Article About JFK

This is not an article about the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy 50 years ago today. It’s not even an article about gun control, terrorism, or the other most likely topics for me to write about on the anniversary of a political assassination. This is an article about conspiracy theories, the US intelligence community, and why the lone gunman explanation for JFK's death will never be widely believed. This is the story of how the CIA became what it is today: one of the most universally feared, and hated, agencies ever established by the US government.

In case you haven’t noticed the flood of statuses, tweets, and articles on the internet today, JFK’s assassination still elicits speculation, political vitriol, and tales of schemes and plots, even half a century later. More than half of US citizens don't believe that JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald alone, and many of those doubters point fingers instead at the Central Intelligence Agency. The shadow games played by the young CIA (note that the Agency wasn’t formed until after WWII) seem to have forever tarnished the Agency’s reputation: no matter what, there will always be those that think the Agency was behind JFK’s death, and every significant world leader’s death or terrorist attack in the last 50 years, for that matter.