Kerry McCarthy in Dealey Plaza, Nov. 21, 1999
Note: For three years running, JFK's cousin, Kerry McCarthy, has attended Lancer's November in Dallas conference, and has been a featured speaker. The mere presence of a Kennedy relative in Dealey Plaza is striking. But does her attendence at these conferences have any deeper meaning? She agreed to the following interview.
Fair Play: It seems significant to me that a member of the Kennedy family is appearing at a conference like this. And I just wonder, what led you to attend?
McCarthy: My own personal desire to understand what had happened. And to be able to sort out why are researchers referred to as kooks in the mainstream media, and I saw their Internet site and found some of the articles fascinating. I had been sent a copy of Fair Play, and of the Chronicles, and I thought, these seem to be very intelligent, very sincere people.
And I'm a relative of the Kennedys, but I don't speak for the Kennedys, nor do they speak for me, and I thought, "I'm going to try this."
I'm in Texas a lot, John, I'll be honest with you, for politics. And it was the people of Texas that made me not be afraid to be in Dallas. It has become the people of Lancer that have made me not be concerned about discussing the murder of my cousin.
So I think I did it, I'm going to be very honest with you, wholly for my own benefit. Not to benefit anyone else, not to speak for anyone else, but to find out. It has been a traumatizing experience for every individual in the family. And I know there are certain protocols that must be followed in a famous political family. But I wanted to establish my own.
Fair Play: Your answer sort of anticipates some of my later questions, but I'm going to just go ahead---
McCarthy: Please do!
Fair Play: ---and ask them as I wrote them down.
McCarthy: Sure, do!
Fair Play: I wonder what kind of publicity your involvment with this may have received, and what kind --- what the response has been from the rest of the family?
McCarthy: Well, there's very little publicity generated from it. I don't come for any publicity. In fact, you're one of the few that would even be considered "press" that I've spoken to. But I come as an individual, to participate --- mostly to learn.
And, I've been outspoken about my family for quite a few years. I've been a historian and a researcher of my own family history. I'm a curator of a collection, called Lorretta Kennedy-Connelly Collection, that deals with the older Kennedy family members --- their momentos, letters, photos --- so from that perspective, I have a right to speak out.
When I do speak out, my family isn't always thrilled, you know. But I think there's only been one criticism that I've been aware of, in the entire twenty years I've been doing this. That's not too bad, for a family this large.
I don't come for the publicity, nor do I come to lend it in any way to anyone else.
Fair Play: You mentioned "Kennedy-Connelly." Is that, "e-l-l-y"?
McCarthy: Yes, it is. Thank you! The, as my grandfather used to say, the proper Irish way.
Fair Play: When I heard you speak at Lancer two years ago, you seemed to profess pretty clearly, I felt, your belief in a conspiracy killing JFK.
McCarthy: I think what I probably stated is that I don't find myself differing with ninety percent of the American populace --- that I don't know the truth. And I don't particularly see that it was just Mr. Oswald, but I don't know. I came to try to find out if there's an answer.
I think that there are situations that I have learned about that lend one's credibility to being stretched on the lone gunman theory. I think probably, what do they call it, the "magic bullet" theory and these things, confuse some of us that are lay people, that are not involved in trajectories or anything. But I don't think we've been told the truth --- that much I know. And in that respect, there's a conspiracy. Whether it was a conspiracy to commit the death, or a conspiracy to cover some of the facts of his death, then I --- yes, in that case, I would say yes.
Fair Play: How does that affect your role as family historian?
McCarthy: Well --- very little. The family functions with or without me, as I do with or without them.
As I said, my role as historian deals with the older generations of my family. I don't really pretend to be an expert on Jack's administration, just an admirer. I don't think it affects it at all, any more than it effects a banker or businessman who now can say that perhaps they don't believe the Warren Commission Report, where maybe twenty years ago, they couldn't have even said it, because in social situations they would have been considered an oddity.
I think the polling data, and the other things that have come out, lend us feel that it is all right to question. And that's all this is. It's a right to question. And in that questioning, if you arrive at a theory that you're at ease with, well then fine.
Fair Play: Do you think the Warren Report, the Warren Commission material, was deliberatly fraudulent?
McCarthy: I don't believe that the Commissioners themselves did anything to be fraudulent. I think that, having worked in politics now for a long time, there are pressures that come to bear. There are, sometimes, anxieties that hit political people --- this was a very political commission. You had members that were forced into being on it.
And, I would not call them fraudulent. But I would call them having been easily maneuvered. And doing so, what they thought was probably keeping faith with the country, actually. It's an odd dichotomy in their own psychology.
But I admire many of the people --- I've met many of the people that were on the Warren Commission.
No. I'm not going to call them fraudulent. But I am going to say that the times themselves forced some situations that might not arise in today's world.
Fair Play: There's a point of view that your cousin was killed by the United States --- by the very government that he served. In the words of Jim Garrison, he was removed by a "power elite" within the government.
McCarthy: Wouldn't that be tragic if that's the case?
I don't know who killed John F. Kennedy. All I know is, they killed a spark within all of us that were related to him. And they took a heritage away from us that I resent.
I don't think one can be the leader of an enormous country like this, and not make enemies. Jack made mistakes. He was very human. But he also had grown into a leadership that was responsible and respected.
I don't know if he became too strong where he had been perceived as being weak enough to not be a problem in his early part of his administration. All I know is, someone took him away from us. Whatever their motivation, whatever their need to conquer --- he's gone. And that's all that matters to me, is the fact that he's gone.
I'd like some truth involving that loss to come to light.
Addendum: After I turned off my tape recorder, I showed Ms. McCarthy a quote from her speech at the 1997 Lancer conference: "His death was not an act of anger. It was the premeditated murder of our nation's leader, motivated for very specific reasons, and benefitting those who ordered it. The people of this nation know that, and they still hope for answers." It was this quote, which says in no uncertain terms her belief in conspiracy, which had me so keen to interview her. On reading the quote, she said, "I stand by that."
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