The 2013 book, The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy, offers a truly astounding chapter.      

Its early chapters provide an overview of the major events of the brief Kennedy administration: “The Torch Is Passed,” “Steel at Home and Abroad,” “Europe, Space and Southeast Asia.”

The next chapters concentrate on the assassination: “Echoes From Dealey Plaza,” “Questions, Answers, Mysteries,” “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects,” “Examining the Physical Evidence.” 

For anyone who’s previously delved into the thousand days of the Kennedy administration, much of these subjects will be at least generally familiar. But Chapter 11 zooms into an area that might seem right out of The Twilight Zone: “Inevitability: The Assassination That Had to Happen.”

The chapter opens: “It has taken fifty years to see part of the truth clearly: John F. Kennedy’s assassination might have been almost inevitable. It didn’t have to happen on November 22, 1963, but given a host of factors, one could reasonably argue that JFK was unlikely to make it out of his Presidency alive.”

Among the “host of factors” who had reason to hate Kennedy:

• New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello – Furious over the crackdown on organized crime by JFK’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he spoke of having the President assassinated to render RFK impotent.
• Anti-Castro Cubans – Enraged at Kennedy’s failure to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro after landing 1,700 armed Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs.  
• James R. Hoffa – Pursued relentlessly by Robert Kennedy, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union talked privately of having the Attorney General assassinated.
• The KGB – For Kennedy’s humiliating the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 
• Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana – Expecting to win immunity from federal prosecution, he fixed the 1960 Illinois election for John F. Kennedy. Instead, he found himself under intense investigation by RFK’s Justice Department—and raged that the Kennedys had “welshed” on their part of the deal.
• FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover – Fearing dismissal by the Kennedys, he withheld lethal threats his agents overheard when bugged Mafiosi railed against the President and Attorney General.

J. Edgar Hoover

• Southern racists – Who believed that JFK was a “nigger lover” for supporting civil rights for blacks. Especially after he sent deputy U.S. marshals and National Guardsmen to  desegregate the University of Mississippi and, later, the University of Alabama.
• The CIA – Blamed by Kennedy for failing to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs, its legendary director, Allen Dulles, was forced to resign. Many of its agents blamed JFK for refusing to commit American military forces during that attack—and laying the seeds for the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• Military and defense establishment – Appalled by Kennedy’s “weak” response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and support of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union.  
• Fidel Castro – Enraged by a series of CIA-Mafia attempts on his life, he publicly warned: “U.S. leaders should think if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders they themselves will not be safe.”

Fidel Castro

Just as President Kennedy was passionately loved and hated, so, too, is Donald J. Trump. And Trump, at 79, has already been the target of two assassination attempts.  

Donald Trump

Among the “host of factors” who have reason to hate Trump: 

• Blacks – For his racist attacks on Barack and Michelle Obama and on black journalists, politicians and celebrities. His issuing executive orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs—and remove references to black historical figures from government websites. A major reason for his flooding Minnesota with 3,000 ICE agents: Its large Somali population, which he publicly labeled “garbage.”
• Hispanics – For turning them into the #1 target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Throughout 2025, ICE arrested nearly 300,000 to 328,000 people, the vast majority of them Hispanics. These included not only illegal aliens but those with green cards awaiting their processing as citizens.
• More than 70,000 migrants are now held in detention centers. ICE vows to detain an additional 80,000 people in them. Some centers will reportedly hold up to 10,000 detainees apiece. This will allow Trump to imprison and then deport vastly more people much more quickly.
• Muslims – He’s said “I think Islam hates us” and called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” And he’s imposed a travel ban on 11 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. He’s proposed a registry for American Muslims and expressed support for surveillance of mosques. And he’s sided with Israel in its military attacks on Gaza and Iran. 
• Police officers – Despite his claiming to be a “law and order” President, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who had attacked Capitol Police on January 6, 2021. More than 140 police officers were injured.
• In November 2025, he issued preemptive pardons for 77 people involved in the plot to overturn the 2020 election results, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows. Among the convicted drug kingpins serving life sentences he has pardoned: Andre Donnell Routt, Zechariah Benjamin, Joe Angelo Sotelo, Edward Ruben Sotelo and Larry Hoover.