Either John F. Kennedy is rolling his eyes or he’s laughing his head off at all the fuss Americans have given to his assassination over the years.  Even before he was laid to rest, the conspiracy theories began and have continued throughout the years in print, in the movies, and on television.  The best-known filmed account is Oliver Stone’s personal theory (though based on the account of New Orleans’s DA Jim Garrison) JFK, which has lost a lot of steam since it first hit theaters back in 1991.  Since then several biographical accounts of the late president’s personal life have painted a rather less flattering picture of the man who many people consider one of the greatest presidents of the 20th Century.

Now more controversy regarding JFK is resurrected on cable this Thursday, May 11th as the Discovery Channel presents an NBC-produced special called Conspiracy Files: JFK Assassination, which shows for the first time on TV declassified CIA files about a top secret plan by John and Robert Kennedy to stage a coup against Castro by invading Cuba on December 1, 1963, just ten days after JFK was shot in Dallas.

The special details the secret coup plan, code named AMWORLD by the CIA, which was withheld from the Warren Commission and later Congressional investigation committees.  Even as these files are being opened to the public, over a million JFK assassination files remain under lock and key, including other documents pertaining to the secret coup plan.

But to fill an hour’s worth of programming, there has to be more, so also included is information also withheld from the Warren Commission and Congress regarding a Mafia plot to kill JFK in Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1963, just four days before Dallas.  President Kennedy was informed of the threat before his motorcade was to roll, but he continued anyway, which in hindsight seems a bit eerie, especially when they show rare footage showing a tall building along the motorcade route that was a concern to law enforcement.

Another interesting part of the special, though a little too Dateline-ish for this reviewer, is an interview with Abraham Bolden, who was the first black presidential Secret Service agent.  According to Bolden, he was framed by the Mafia and arrested on the day he was going to testify to the Warren Commission about the Tampa assassination threat.  He spent six years in prison and has been trying to clear his name ever since.

Much of the special is based upon material in the book, Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba and the Murder of JFK, by progressive national radio host Thom Hartman and Lamar Waldron, who interviewed dozens of Kennedy insiders and perused over thousands of recently declassified files from the National Archives.

It seems every few years, another special or movie drudges up the JFK assassination and theories that purport that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the only one involved.  I don’t think any of this new information will settle anything because those who believe in conspiracies will only tell you about another conspiracy when the truth is unveiled.  Yet, specials such as this do make interesting television and, for at least entertainment purposes, deserve a look-see.

The special airs on the Discovery Channel on May 11th at 9 p.m. (Eastern; repeated later than night at 1 a.m.).

Rich Burlingham