Was President Kennedy’s mission to Dallas a suicide mission?

Did he know it?

Had the President created an environment of recklessness among his staff and even the Secret Service itself? An environment that allowed his own death?

The Agents swear Kennedy didn’t order that convertible top taken off, but we all know the President had planned this mission specifically to be seen as a brave and bold figure in defiance of his most dangerous detractors.

Jack Kennedy was not to be seen hiding behind body guards or cowering under closed tops.

Jack Kennedy would ride rebelliously through the streets of  a city run by a family the President had once betrayed, while fliers fluttered through the streets declaring that the President was “Wanted for Treason” in the city of Dallas, Texas.

The President had been warned about the dangers that awaited him in Dallas.His ally from the UN and the Democratic Party, Adlai Stevenson, had been assaulted and spit on in that same city.

Stevenson had warned him not to go.

His advisors had warned him not to go.

His brother had warned him not to go. His wife had pleaded him not to go.

He knew what awaited him. And yet he decided to go.

It was not the first suicide mission in the Kennedy family, and it certainly would not be the last. Just as Kennedy’s brother Joe Jr. before him and Kennedy’s son JFK Jr. after, crashed their planes on their respective suicide missions, John Fitzgerald Kennedy would crash the Presidency on the streets of Dallas. The President had already begun violating numerous Secret Service protocols by night, in pursuit of constant partying. The Agents and advisors, enamored with the dynamic young President and pulled in by his powerful cult of personality had allowed this felonious self-endangerment to continue constantly.
The recklessness of the Kennedy cult spread to the streets of Dallas that day, and the Secret Service let the President go on his fateful suicide mission.

Many agents staunchly deny that President killed himself. But we all know that the job of the Secret Service is not only to protect the life of any given President, but to protect the integrity of the Presidency itself. If the true story of President Kennedy’s behavior were to be revealed, that integrity would be compromised. The Secret Service had failed to protect the President’s life, they would not fail at protecting his legacy. After the smoke had cleared from the assassination, the Agents unwittingly joined Bobby Kennedy’s massive conspiracy to cover-up the true nature of President Kennedy’s reckless behavior as a womanizer, policy maker, and public figure.

That is the true conspiracy behind the Kennedy Assassination. Not planning the assassination itself, but covering up the reasons why it happened.

It doesn’t matter where the shots came from.
The Knoll or the Depository, a half-opened window or a picket fence.
The murder happened in that car.
It doesn’t even matter who pulled the trigger.
Whether it was a disaffected communist defector, a French assassin, or someone disguised as a Dallas cop, the truth is…
Kennedy Killed Himself.

In private, it is said President John Fitzgerald Kennedy maintained a disturbingly fatalistic outlook on his own life. The President pondered his own death at length, and often mused about the prospects for own assassination. At times, JFK’s thoughts of assassination were just morbid jokes, Kennedy even jokingly enacted his own death for the home movie cameras At other times Jack Kennedy’s thoughts of assassination were horrifying prophecies. On November 22nd, 1963, those jokes and prophecies collided in Dallas.

From boyhood to manhood, the waters of the Pacific to the steps of our nation’s capitol, the life of John F. Kennedy had been one  of intense competition. Whether it was a backyard football game at the family compound in Hyannis Port, or the closest Presidential Election in American history, Jack Kennedy had been egged on and supported by his father and family to win, win, win. And win Jack did, handily, with women as well as world affairs. Even when Kennedy blew up his PT-109 patrol boat or botched the Cuban Missile Crisis, he’d manage to achieve a strategic victory with his winning smile and charming wit. In fact, it could be said that John Kennedy, neither as President, war hero, womanizer or wit-monger, ever really felt the sting of defeat until he met an assassin’s bullet in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.

The election of 1964 would be the final, climactic contest of John Kennedy’s long career of competition. There were to be no slip-ups. Kennedy was determined to keep Texas in his column at the electoral college in 1964, even if it meant braving a suicide mission to Dallas.

The Kennedy brothers were raised to win, no matter the cost, even if that meant certain death. Joe Kennedy did not tolerate failure from his sons in academics, athletics, politics, or warfare. Competition between each other and others was the modus operandi of the Kennedy family. A fierce, undying competitive spirit had allowed Joe Kennedy to rise from modest Irish Catholic roots and become one of the most  prominent and influential figures in the country. In turn, this spirit would allow one of his sons to become the President of the United States. But the single-minded strength of will behind this drive for the presidency would send three of his sons on suicide missions, and eventually to their graves

The first Kennedy “candidate” for President was Joe’s oldest son, the debonair Joe Jr. The elder Joe Kennedy had dashed his own dreams of the White House with his isolationist stance prior to World War II. As Ambassador to England, Joe Sr. had famously declared democracy to be “dead” in Europe, and subsequently killed his own political career. The Kennedy patriarch’s Presidential aspirations quickly became vicarious, as he rested his White House hopes on Joe Jr. After the United States entered the second World War, the three eldest Kennedy brothers (Joe, Jack and Bobby) quickly enlisted in the service. The brothers saw an opportunity to serve their country, father saw an opportunity to build the reputation of his sons for their political futures. But Joe Jr. was to go first. He would be a war hero, then a congressman, then a Senator, and then of course the President. It all seemed to be but set in stone. When Joe Jr.’s little brother Jack began outshining his elder sibling with daring-do in the Pacific, their father made it clear that this bit of failure from his namesake and protégée in the ongoing Kennedy family competition was unacceptable. Joe Sr. sent a strongly-worded note to Joe Jr. to step up the game, and doing something heroic. In short, Joe Jr. he had to win, no matter the cost. Junior picked his poison, loading a plane with explosives and flying a low-altitude raid  on a German installation. It proved a suicide mission. Joseph Patrick Kenendy Senior was devastated at what his encouragement had caused. This even would be seen as the beginning of the so-called “Kennedy tragedy,” but it was in truth the first in a long list of senseless suicide missions.

President Kennedy would have his Picket’s Charge into Dallas that day in November. His brother Bobby, forever scarred and disillusioned by his brother’s death, would wander listlessly towards doom into the crowds of the Presidential primary of 1968. It matters not whether it was Sirhan Sirhan alone or someone else was involved. It makes no difference whether the assassin was a Manchurian Candidate or merely mentally unstable. The truth is, Bobby Kennedy should have known his reckless behavior on the campaign trail would lead him to the same fate as his brother.

Jack Junior, little Jack Jack, should never have flown his plane over Martha’s Vineyard, just as his father should never have gotten off his in Dallas. But at that point what did it stop mattering for JFK Junior? What was one more dead Kennedy? Jack Jack’s grandpa, uncles and father had lead the way for decades. They lead him towards stormy waters they could never sail through, through hails of bullets even their charm couldn’t deflect, and into the sky like Icarus before them, whose father watched him tumble towards the Earth, but could do nothing.

The Kennedy family now looks towards the future. Jack and Teddy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Brother Bobby’s in New York. I hope the next young brood of Kennedy’s looks to the stormy skies and turbulent waters of the future with hope, determination and discipline as a new President strives to create and rebuild the sort of country Jack and his brothers dreamed of. I hope they have learned from the lessons of their forefather’s recklessness, and can be inspired by the cool-headed temperance of our current Chief Executive. As I dream of what the next generation of Kennedy’s and all Americans can accomplish, I pray that there will be no more suicide missions. With all the thrown shoes, heated town halls, White House party crashers, and increasingly angry Americans worried about their guns and their tax dollars, I pray for the safety of our President, and of all Presidents to come. For by ensuring their safety, we assure the safety of all Americans, and indeed all the world.