"Bullets and fingerprints aside, there are much larger questions to be answered: who planned the assassination, who organized the minutia of the detail, what principals participated, and why did they do it. It is an extremely healthy endeavor that we undertake in continuing to attempt to learn the answers to these questions in order to better protect our Presidents now and in the future, and additionally to hold accountable those who played a role who are today still living."

I believe the assassination was literally planned by Johnson's attorney in Texas named Edward Clark. Clark had represented Johnson since the inception of his political career, in other words for decades. Johnson had an incredible number of skeletons in his closet. While some of these skeletons have in the past made the public media, many today are just not talked about often, if ever, publicly.

Johnson was Clark's cash cow, and if and when he became President, the rewards would be astronomical for both. So Clark would protect Johnson at all costs.

Of course, Johnson was from the state of Texas and was no stranger to either the players of the military industrial complex and BIG OIL. Kennedy's failure to engage in a war against the Soviets over the Cuban missile crisis, his failure to escalate the Vietnam war into a full fledged war, the rumors in Washington that he was planning to pull out 1,000 advisors by the end of 1963 infuriated many well-placed power brokers as well as wealthy businessmen. They saw Kennedy as weak on national security and an impediment to the profits of big business. He had to go.

During Kennedy's first term, while Johnson was sitting in the Vice President's Office, he was threatened by two personal scandals, either one of which could result in his being ejected from that seat. One of them was the Billy Sol Estes scandal who was facing Federal fraud charges and who gave a lot of money to Johnson's campaigns. He also received a lot of assistance with cotton allotments and Johnson "helped" him with that. Large amounts of money and other assistance was involved in the Johnson/Estes relationship, and when Estes came up for criminal charges, Johnson was panic-stricken. The other scandal facing Johnson was his relationship with Bobby Baker who provided women for "entertainment" purposes to members in Congress. The Republicans were doing all they could to stir up these scandals and the Senate was starting hearings. Johnson knew as Vice President he faced exposure and possible expulsion should he be charged in either scandal; however, as President neither could touch him.

Add to all of this mix, Johnson and Kennedy despised each other and you have the recipe for an assassination. This is part of the answer to the question Why.

I believe the "cook" for the recipe was Edward Clark, as suggested by Barr McClellan, another attorney who work with Clark and the author of the book, Blood, Power and Money. He suggests in his book Johnson was kept in the "wood-shed" from the details. In that way, he could react convincingly when the President was assassinated and he could never reveal the details of the planning if he did not know them.

But not only for Johnson, but also for the other interested parties mentioned above, Clark planned the assassination, put the pieces together and implemented the whole operation. Oswald, I believe, was involved, but I also believe Mac Wallace, a long-time Johnson associate and hit-man, was a second shooter. A fingerprint that remained unidentified for 35 years, one found in the sixth-floor sniper's nest, was identified in the late 90s by an expert named A. Nathan Darby and independently confirmed by a French fingerprint expert, who was not supplied the name of the matter under investigation or the suspected identity of the person to whom the fingerprints belonged.

Considering the longstanding history Johnson and Clark had with Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, wealthy businessmen as well as expert hitmen and other nefarious people, a lot of the necessary players were easily gathered by them for participation and financing of an assassination of the President. Only the cover-up would be tricky but they also knew people who could assist with that....

Sam