RFK Jr. Doubles Down: 'CIA was Involved in His Murder'

Democratic insurgent blames the clandestine service for his uncle's assassination

Speaking on WABC radio this weekend, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directly called out the CIA as being responsible for the murder of his uncle President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963.

“Who do you think really killed your uncle?” radio host John Catsimatidis asked RFK Jr. on his weekly show, “Cat’s Roundtable.”

“I think there is overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in his murder,” RFK Jr. replied. “I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point,” he said, while also blaming the agency for the 60-year cover-up of the crime.

RFK Jr. cited James Douglass’s book “JFK And the Unspeakable” as being an especially incisive and persuasive primer on the assassination. (For reader reviews of Douglass, click here.)

As his presidential bid draws more attention, Kennedy has not shied away from openly challenging the official narrative of his uncle’s murder.

On Monday, the candidate tweeted that President Biden should release all assassination-related documents as called for by law.

“As a Senator, Joe Biden voted for the Assassination Records Act of 1992, requiring that all documents related to the killing of JFK be released by 2017. But President Biden is still keeping thousands of pages heavily redacted, including 44 pages related to a shadowy CIA agent and a covert program that had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald just months before my uncle was killed.”

(RFK Jr. seems to be referring to 44 CIA documents about a deceased undercover officer that remain “denied in full” for reasons of “national security. The story was first reported by JFK Facts. See “Yes, There Is a JFK Smoking Gun,” JFK Facts, November 22, 2022.)

Kennedy went to say, “Nobody should be surprised when Americans are distrustful of a government that refuses to reveal 60-year-old secrets.”

Kennedy’s radio remarks followed a recent interview with Tablet magazine in which he went into some detail about JFK’s assassination, and his father’s immediate suspicion of the CIA.

Horseshoe Alliance

RFK Jr.’s message triggered mainstream commentary.

The Daily Mail noted Kennedy’s “conspiratorial claim” and reminded readers that he had “previously promulgated false claims about the dangers of Covid vaccines.”

Bryan Bender, a former reporter for the Boston Globe and Politico who has been critical of RFK Jr. in the past, once again found fault with Kennedy — but this time for not being precise enough about who in the CIA might’ve been to blame for the Dallas ambush. He tweeted:

“Little doubt elements or even operatives linked to CIA covert ops were involved in JFK’s murder. It’s unfortunate that [Kennedy] doesn’t make the distinction between official sanction and blowback from the dark underbelly of Cold War spy world.”

Bender is no stranger to the JFK assassination story, having written extensively on the subject for the Globe and Politico. What is of interest here is his acknowledgment that there was any CIA connection to the assassination of the 35th president.

Under the headline, “Unhinged,” New Republic writer David Masciotra described Kennedy as an “environmental lawyer turned anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist,” and lamented what he perceived to be a burgeoning “horseshoe alliance” between elements of the far right and far left “fringe” media ecosystems — from Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson to Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal — boosting RFK’s candidacy.

Damon Linker, former columnist for The Week, suggested RFK Jr is voicing a winning message. He imagined a scenario in which Kennedy rolls the Democratic establishment in 2024, the same way Trump rolled the Republican establishment in 2016: by stealing the party’s majority base from its elite. Linker then envisions RFK Jr. defeating Trump in 2024, thereby “accomplishing the realignment, rebranding the Dems as the populist-conspiracy-theory party that will also keep abortion & gay marriage legal.”

Tongue in cheek

Linker tweeted his perhaps tongue in cheek theory in response to a poll finding that RFK Jr. “scored the highest on net in favorability questions of major politicians and political parties.” What’s more, the Democratic insurgent scored highest with “Trump-First” voters, an indicator that his candidacy may have unusual bipartisan appeal.

RFK Jr.’s outspoken views on the assassinations of both his uncle and his father — which spurn received the political wisdom in Washington of more than half a century — combined with his controversial stances on vaccines and Big Pharma, have prompted the mainstream media organizations to cast him as the “conspiracy” candidate of 2024. Whether that reputation helps or hurts him at the polls remains to be seen.

The most recent poll of Democrats asked about 2024 preferences shows Kennedy with 19 percent support, compared to Biden’s 62 precent, and Marianne Williamson trailing at 4 percent.