the truth is that chomsky is right (as usual) and the myth is based on almost nothing substantive. he orchestrated an election fraud against nixon. when you put the two side by side, issue-to-issue, it's actually nixon that comes off as more left-wing. yet, jfk is thought of as some kind of liberal paragon, and his death as some kind of coup.

a coup in what sense? jfk was more aggressive than johnson. he fought civil rights reform. he either used mccarthy cynically or actually agreed with him. he would have never supported limited arms treaties or opening up to china; rather, he was a strong advocate of the idea of using extreme force to stamp out the threat of communism.

it was probably johnson that killed him. there's a number of people that died or disappeared in ways that were convenient to johnson's career. this is the most basic, crude explanation; it's probably correct because of it, rather than in spite of it. regardless, the blunt truth is that his death may be the only reason the world survived the 60s. no other president throughout the cold war would have been so foolish as to press the soviets as hard as he did, in retaliation for pointing turkish missiles at moscow.

http://chomsky.info/interviews/20131122.htm