Kennedy Name Back in the Headlines

On September 15th, 2023, at a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., political campaign, LAPD arrested a man accused of impersonating a federal officer and concealing a firearm. 

“We will roll back the secrecy, end the surveillance, stop the censorship, and make government transparent,” is an RFK slogan.

Believing the CIA was involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and even possibly his father as well, RFK, Jr., looks to “shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.” This is a reference to the famous JFK quote, “I’d like to splinter the CIA, and scatter it into the winds.”

As of 2023, an observational Question and Answer done by Pew Research Center shows 16% of the US people publicly have trust in their government. This means that around 84% of people have distrust in their government. The statistics show the number rapidly declined after the assassination of former president JFK as well as the presidency of LBJ.

“I think there should be less government,” Mr. Todd Weiss, a teacher of the government course at Fleetwood Area High School, said.

“I have to be careful the CIA does not assassinate me,” RFK, Jr., famously said on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.

“I think RFK, Jr., bringing this up definitely does pander to the pro-CIA/JFK conspiracy theory crowd because I believe the last study I looked at said something like over 80% of the population believes that there was a conspiracy surrounding the assassination of JFK,” Conspiracy Theories teacher Mr. Sean Gaston of Fleetwood Area High School said. 

The recent arrest of a man impersonating a federal officer has stirred the crowd of theorists up, but not all people are convinced.

“I think it was just a random occurrence,” said Weiss.

Gaston thinks the theorists are misguided on the subject.

“Most of those people know very little about the case. For example, many people have no idea that Lee Harvey Oswald, in April of 1963, just 7 months before he assassinated JFK, tried to assassinate General Walker in Dallas and missed. Oswald used the same rifle in that assassination attempt that he would use seven months later when he shot President Kennedy,” said Gaston.

“Also, the CIA and FBI were keeping tabs on him for quite a while before the assassination because of his involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the fact that he defected to Russia. But that doesn’t mean that the CIA was plotting to kill Kennedy and had Oswald do it,” Gaston said. 

Kennedy claims he will expose the CIA if elected in the 2024 election. As for students interested in the Kennedy assassination, students 9-12 are able to sign up for Mr. Gaston’s conspiracy theories course.