On this day 58 years ago today, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, convened the Warren Commission a few days afterward to investigate the circumstances of the assassination. It reads in the official 888-page report that Oswald killed the president without any help. Unfortunately, Oswald never went to trial because he himself was assassinated during his imprisonment two days after the president’s death. Thus, his exact motivations remain unclear to this day. Despite numerous investigations, doubts persist about the lone perpetrator theory.
The Kennedy assassination is an important example of distrust towards a liberal-democratic state, which remains an issue to this day. It reminds us that the facts conveyed, however clear they may seem, often leave room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding, and it emphasizes the importance of the credibility of expert analysis and democratic processes.
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