In this mini-series, we're going to talk about the events of November 22, 1963 -- the day John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated. We're going to talk about how the CIA used edge competencies -- the ability to create new value by leveraging value created outside of your company, a key concept in web 2.0 -- to kill John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States.

Let's start by establishing some facts. But remember: do not trust me, a self-proclaimed tin foil hat kook, on any of these matters; you're welcome -- or better yet, encouraged! -- to become a hero by initiating yourself in a quest to learn the truth about the Kennedy assassination to see how democracy was subverted, how the ruling class killed a hero who sought to help his people achieve greater freedom and independence. For those reading this living in the United States, understanding this event can help you understand why your federal taxes are a lot higher than they need to be, why current US domestic policy is approaching a police state, and why current US foreign policy is based out of fear of a man in a cave.
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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated in public.

Below is a video of the event. (Note to my fellow tin foil hat kooks: I'm aware of the theory that the footage below, known as the Zapruder film, has been doctored. I'm not sure if that's true; I've heard credible people argue both sides of the issue (on another note, the amount of disinformation related to the Kennedy assassination is astounding). In any event, the point here is only to establish that Kennedy was assassinated in broad daylight).


The first official investigation into the assassination, known as the Warren Commission, is that a "lone nut" shot Kennedy from the sixth floor of a building behind the car that Kennedy was in.

Kooks, and even many mainstream people who typically blindly accept whatever ludicrous lie their authority figures tell them (folks affectionately referred to by kooks as "sheeple" for their tendency to behave like unquestioning sheep), did not accept this, for even the most cursory of investigations essentially established that a single bullet from coming behind Kennedy could not have caused the damage the Warren Commission was claiming it did.

As evidence of a conspiracy grew, a reinvestigation was opened by the United States Congress. The conclusion, issued in 1979, was that there was a second gunman involved in the assassination -- thus making it a conspiracy. The second gunman was not identified, and thus the myth surrounding John F. Kennedy's death was born.

Kooks were not particularly accepting of any "official" explanation, and many independent investigations have been launched by heroes seeking to liberate their people with the gift of truth. One of the most visible heroes in the Kooks for Kennedy movement was Jim Garrison, a district attorney in the city of New Orleans who prosecuted the only case in which a defendent was charged with involvement in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. While Garrison lost the case, he convinced much of the public that individuals within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a department within the executive branch of the United States government, were involved in coordinating the hit on Kennedy. In 1992, acclaimed American film director Oliver Stone created the movie JFK, which was about Garrison's trial and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The movie helped to establish mass public acceptance in the United States of a CIA-related conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

In the next few posts, we'll look at how the CIA leveraged the edge -- the Inverse Universe, the world of value outside of their organization -- to pull off the hit on Kennedy. The posts will be as follows:

Using the Edge to Build Capabilities. In this post we'll look at the diverse and skilled team of assassins the CIA assembled to kill Kennedy, and will look at how web 2.0 entrepreneurs can think about using the edge to quickly develop superior capabilities.

Cost Cutting and the Edge. The CIA attempted to cover all tracks of its involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability." We'll look at how this concept can be employed by web 2.0 entrepreneurs to keep costs down.

Understanding the Ecosystem. Why did the CIA kill Kennedy? Understanding this question can help web 2.0 entrepreneurs understand the motivations of edge-centric organizations.

Lastly, we'll conclude with some resources for further exploring the Kennedy assassination and the edge-based capabilities the CIA used to pull it off.

NOTE: I use the term CIA in the interests of brevity; a more accurate term would be "elements within the CIA." If you want to get really specific about it, we can say key individuals in the CIA operating out of the JM/WAVE station and involved in the Executive Action program were closely involved in orchestrating the hit on Kennedy. If you want to name names, David Morales is probably one of the first names you can mention. So I'm talking about those folks in the CIA, which is a small minority of the CIA, and does not include more heroic individuals like John Stockwell, Ray McGovern, and Robert Steele.