The Kennedy Assassination

doi:10.1017/9781009025676.009

Chapter 6 - The Kennedy Assassination

Paranoid Suspicions

from Part II - History and Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2022

Skip Willman

Edited by

Jesse Kavadlo

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Jesse Kavadlo: Affiliation:
Maryville University of Saint Louis, Missouri

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Summary

The Kennedy assassination traumatized a nation, and the official investigation conducted by the Warren Commission (1963–64) contained discrepancies that invited conspiratorial speculation. Subsequent investigations by the Church Committee (1975–76) and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1976–79) raised questions regarding the covert activities of the CIA, particularly the enlistment of the Mafia to assassinate Castro, which reframed the entire Kennedy assassination. Skepticism regarding the findings of the Warren Commission and revelations from the Church Committee fueled a cultural paranoia that pervades the work of Don DeLillo, particularly in a run of novels from Players (1977) and Running Dog (1978) through The Names (1982) and Libra (1988). Deeply indebted to the findings of these three flawed investigations, DeLillo’s fictionalization of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, Libra, mines this paranoia, but also contextualizes the JFK assassination within an American social totality marked by contradictions and antagonisms. By exploring historical trauma in a way that calls into question official history, Libra represents an exemplary work of what Linda Hutcheon calls historiographic metafiction.

Keywords

Don DeLillo Kennedy assassination Warren Commission CIA Church Committee House Select Committee on Assassinations Paranoia Lee Harvey Oswald Libra Historiographic metafiction

Type: Chapter
Information: Don DeLillo In Context , pp. 58 - 67

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009025676.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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