America's continuing obsession with the JFK assassination 60 years later

Since then, the tragic day has been the subject of dozens of books and movies. The site of the president’s shooting remains a major tourist attraction in Dallas.

Each year, about half a million people visit Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963.

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“You come down here and see the road that you’ve seen on TV thousands of times,” said Joe Skvarla, who traveled to Dallas from Idaho to visit the site. “Seeing the Xs on the road—the first shot, the second shot. Walking down and seeing the knoll, the grassy area, just envisioning all the people that were huddled on the ground at the time of the shooting.”

It’s impossible not to feel the weight of the day, even 60 years later.

“It’s a bit like, it brings shivers to your bones,” said Andy Challice, who traveled to Dallas from the UK.

No one doubts President Kennedy’s assassination changed the course of history, but the doubts and unanswered questions surrounding the official narrative may explain why this event has stayed so deeply lodged in America’s consciousness.

“As I see it, the public was asked to accept an implausible hypothesis,” said Jefferson Morley, a journalist in Washington who spent 15 years at The Washington Post. “The government is still sticking to that hypothesis. And it continues to cause a lot of people to be suspicious of the government.”

Morley has spent years researching and writing about the assassination. He’s the editor of the blog JFK Facts and wrote several books on the CIA.

“JFK endures as a symbol of people's lack of faith in government,” he said. “So that’s why it’s so important. It’s the ultimate conspiracy theory.”

Opinion polls have consistently shown that since the 1960s, the majority of Americans believe Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in the president’s assassination. Is there anything that could put to rest the conspiracies and doubts about Kennedy’s death after 60 years?

“The only solution is full disclosure,” Morley said. “Everything the government has needs to be made public. And if they have the courage to do that, then I think they can put this to rest.”

The National Archives recently finished its review of the remaining classified government files related to the assassination and says 99% of the records have been released to the public. But the fact that even a small percentage of files still remain withheld or redacted only feeds the public’s skepticism.

“There’s a lot of people with government mistrust, and I think this feeds that,” Skvarla said.

Was the assassination an unsolved crime or a tragic act of violence committed by one man? The American people may never know the definitive answer.

“It was such a bad thing that happened, and it's going to be in history books all over the world,” said Challice.

For now, the mystery surrounding the events of that day endures alongside America’s 35th president.