SS310 Unit 9: Loss of Leaders - Discussion - Research Paper Example

Loss of Leaders Loss of Leaders What do you think accounts for the rise of conspiracy theories that are offered as explanations for the assassinations of the great leaders of the 1960s?1960s is arguably the period where many great American leaders died as a result of assassinations. This is because it is during the 1960s that great American leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed by assassins. However, what emerged from the investigations from these assassinations is that they were both connected to conspiracy where two or more individuals were found to have conspired for the assassination, which later led to the rise in conspiracy theory.

The conspiracy theory is also thought to have arisen in an attempt to bring out the identities of the conspirators of the assassinations that were rampant during the 1960 as pointed by Shermer (2010). For example, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was highly linked to conspiracy immediately after Warren Commission gave a report indicating that no conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy existed. This was after another investigation by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) found that Kennedy was shot by two gunmen thereby pointing a conspiracy in the murder (Marrs, 1989).

Despite the report not revealing the identities of Lee Harvey Oswald’s co-conspirators, conspiracy theories that emerged from this assassination pointed a finger at the KBG, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover who was the director of FBI, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson among others (Marrs, 1989). The same was also discovered in Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination in which findings showed that assassin Ray was found to have conspired with Rita Stein and Charles for the killing according to Shermer (2010).

Therefore, based on these assassinations of the 1960s it can be concluded with certainty that the conspiracy theories arose in an attempt to make proof of the notion that two or more people were involved in the assassination of leaders during this period by attempting to bring out their identities. ReferencesMarrs, J. (1989). Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. Shermer, M. (2010). “The Conspiracy Theory Detector.” Retrieved from http://www.

scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-conspiracy-theory-director.