The 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
Literature Novels Gideon's March (Hodder & Stoughton) by J. J. Marric, a novel published in 1962, the year before Kennedy's real life assassination, follows Inspector George Gideon learn of a plot to assassinate Kennedy during a state visit to London; the assassination is to take place during a parade, by means of a bomb, with the assassin, O'Hara, being a Southern bigot who hates Kennedy for his Roman Catholic faith and his civil rights initiatives. J. G. Ballard wrote a 1967 short-short story titled "The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race". The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson depicts the assassination scene, with several would-be assassins trying to kill Kennedy simultaneously. Sherlock Holmes in Dallas (Dodd, Mead, & Co. 1980) by Edmund Aubrey, brings the renowned consulting detective on the verge of his Sussex retirement to investigate the Kennedy assassination. Libra (1988) by Don DeLillo is a fictional imagining of the assassination, with Lee Harvey Oswald as the protagonist. The Underworld USA Trilogy (1995-2009) by James Ellroy, particularly the 1995 novel American Tabloid, constructs a fictional narrative involving several characters who have part in the Kennedy assassination. In Columbo: The Grassy Knoll (1994) by William Harrington, the titular lieutenant solves the Kennedy Assassination after a talk-show host is murdered before an exposé. The 1996 Doctor Who spin-off novel Who Killed Kennedy features the Doctor's enemy the Master attempting to kill Oswald before the assassination as Kennedy's survival would trigger a chain reaction in history that could wipe the Doctor from existence, requiring journalist James Stevens to go back in time and kill Kennedy himself (acting as both gunmen at different points in his life, as Oswald's rifle had a misaligned targeting scope that prevented him delivering the fatal shot from the Book Depository on the first trip). Coincidentally, the Doctor Who TV show started the day after the assassination with the first episode delayed by eighty seconds due to news coverage of the killing. The Star Spangled Contract (1976) by District Attorney Jim Garrison, and Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell, are both based, in part, on a conspiratorial view of the Kennedy assassination. In The Amnesia Desk by Jim Sullivan, the son of Kennedy's 'real' killer - a CIA assassin - has to flee from the Amnesia Desk, a CIA clean-up team. Joshua, Son of None by Nancy Mars Freedman (1973, ) is a novel about government officials secretly cloning Kennedy after assassination, and duplicating his actual life events by staging them in the new person's life. By controlling both nature and nurture, genetics and life events, the desired outcome results: the young man is successful, and is elected president.
Comic books In the first album of Jean van Hamme and William Vance's comic book series XIII, the title character is shown to be the alleged assassin of fictional U.S. President William B. Sheridan, who was murdered in his car during an official presidential visit to a city. The events are clearly based on JFK's assassination. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Kennedy's true assassin is Red Skull, the son of Captain America. Nick Fury muses that the assassination of Kennedy was the Skull's way of showing that he would no longer take orders from America. In the 2008–2009 series The Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the Kennedy assassination is a central plot element. The series initially takes place in a timeline where the assassination never happened, until an organisation of time-travelling assassins go back to 1963 to kill Kennedy. When the Umbrella Academy intercept the gunmen, The Rumour, disguised as Jacqueline Kennedy, uses her powers to make Kennedy's head explode. In Superman: Red Son, Superman's space pod crash lands in the Soviet Union instead of the United States. Richard Nixon wins the 1960 Presidential Election, and he is the one who is assassinated in Dallas instead of Kennedy, who in this timeline marries Marilyn Monroe, and does not become president until the 1970s. He is later succeeded by Lex Luthor, who with Jimmy Olsen as his vice president, finally wins this extended version of the Cold War. In DC Comics' Crime Syndicate series, Kennedy is portrayed as a dictator who is killed by a teenage Ultraman. In DC Comics, Watchmen it is revealed that Comedian killed Kennedy.
Alternative history The assassination has been the subject of time travel and alternate history stories in science fiction film, television and literature, many with Kennedy or Oswald surviving or other people in the Presidential limousine dead. Some of these have Texas Governor John Connally or Jacqueline Kennedy killed in place of President Kennedy. Literature In the 1980 novel Timescape by Gregory Benford, Kennedy's assassination was averted by a high school student who interrupted Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Although seriously injured, Kennedy survived. This interference created an alternate timeline in which William Scranton was the US president in 1974, having defeated Robert F. Kennedy due to a telephone tapping scandal.
In the 1992 anthology Alternate Kennedys, edited by Mike Resnick, 25 science fiction authors imagine alternate histories involving the Kennedys, including speculating upon different outcomes of November 22, 1963.
In the 1994 alternate history novel Bubba Ho-Tep and the 2002 film of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, one of the main characters is an African-American man who claims that he is John F. Kennedy and that following his failed assassination attempt, his death was faked, his skin was dyed black and was abandoned by Lyndon B. Johnson in that same nursing home Elvis Presley was staying in.
In Stephen Baxter's novel Voyage (1996), the Dallas assassination attempt only succeeds in crippling Kennedy, but Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is killed. Kennedy is re-elected in 1964 and commits the United States to landing a crewed vessel on Mars, which occurs in 1986. The novel uses the assassination attempt only as the impetus for an alternate history US space program.
In Michael Chabon's 2007 alternative history novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union it is mentioned that Kennedy was never assassinated and married Marilyn Monroe.
Jeff Golden's 2008 novel Unafraid: A Novel of the Possible speculates on what would have happened had the assassination attempt been unsuccessful, with Kennedy serving two full terms as president. () Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle jams during the assassination attempt, leaving Kennedy wounded and Governor Connally dead.
In the 2010 book, TimeRiders, a training mission involves going back to November 22, 1963, to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK. This results in a new timeline in which a large space program sends a mission to Mars on September 10, 2001. The trainees learn that history corrects itself, and Oswald, who was originally a lone gunman, was no longer alone when he shot the President but was part of a conspiracy, thanks to their interference with the timestream.
Stephen King's novel 11/22/63, published in 2011, tells about a time traveler trying to stop the assassination. The novel was adapted into a TV series, 11.22.63, in 2016. In both versions, the protagonist succeeds in saving Kennedy and kills Oswald with his own rifle in the Texas Schoolbook Depository after distracting him on the day of the would-be assassination after Oswald fired the first shot at the motorcade, but returns to a dystopian future brought about by his actions (as stopping the assassination later allowed George Wallace to win the 1968 election and start a nuclear war), prompting him to return to the past to "reset" the results of his intervention. The protagonist also attempts to prove Oswald was assisted by a Soviet agent when he attempted to kill Kennedy and General Edwin Walker.
In the 2012 book The Man from 2063 by Jack Duffy, a lawyer travels back in time prior to November 22, 1963, to prevent the assassination. Unlike Stephen King's novel which has Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone to kill JFK, The Man from 2063 portrays the assassination as a conspiracy.
In the Space: 1999 graphic novel, Aftershock and Awe (2013), the events of the television series are set within an alternate history. That history diverged from our own when Kennedy escaped assassination by visiting Cape Canaveral instead of Dallas. His survival led to an accelerated space race and diminished Cold War tensions, although a limited nuclear exchange occurred between the United States and North Korea in 1987.Andrew Gasska et al.: Space 1999: Aftershock and Awe: Fort Lee, NJ: Archaia: 2013: During the 1970s, when the TV show was made, 1999 was the future. Placing the show in an alternate timeline allows the graphic novel to ignore the events of real life history as the series has spacefaring technology advanced beyond that of the real 1999 (or indeed the late 2010s).
In Ken Davenport's 2017 novel The Two Gates, Kennedy survives the Dallas shooting with the back-to-throat wound he actually received, but First Lady Jackie is killed by the fatal third shot. The novel deals with speculation as to how Kennedy would have dealt with the Vietnam War had he lived.
In the SCP Foundation collaborative writing project, the assassination of Kennedy is featured in the 2017 short story SCP-3780 - Who Shot JFK?. SCP-3780 is a series of attempts by time travelers to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. The Temporal Anomalies Department, a division of the SCP Foundation, is tasked with intercepting the attempts to assure or reinstate the proper series of historical events. SCP-3780 - Who Shot JFK? was inspired by the amount of conspiracy theories and the release of the assassination files by order of President Donald Trump.
In film A pair of alternate history films called The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald made in 1964 and 1977 have the accused assassin not being killed by Jack Ruby and standing trial for the murder of President Kennedy. Neither film ends in a verdict: the earlier movie ends after jury instructions, imploring viewers to debate among themselves; while the latter one has him being shot to death while being escorted from his jail cell to the courtroom just after the jury came back from deliberating. The 1990 TV movie, Running Against Time, depicts a contemporary schoolteacher who laments the death of his brother in Vietnam, going back in time to prevent the assassination, based on the belief that it would prevent Lyndon Johnson from beginning an escalation of the conflict. His attempt results in him being accused of the crime. The film is based on the 1986 Stanley Shapiro book A Time to Remember. In the 2000 film Timequest, a time-traveler prevents Kennedy's assassination and history takes an alternate course, including the birth of a second son, James Kennedy, who was conceived on the night of November 22, 1963, when Kennedy and his wife return from Dallas. It also has Robert F. Kennedy becoming president in the late 1970s, with Martin Luther King Jr. as his vice president, after both men were saved from their assassinations in 1968 by the same time traveler. The film depicts a conspiracy by having Clint Hill shooting two would-be assassins at the grassy knoll and later Jack Ruby to prevent him from killing Oswald.
In television