I was 8 years old in 1963 and remember that almost all of the adults were sad, lots of tears, particularly when we watched it all on black/white TV.
The story about the Mafia staging JFK's assassination makes sense to me. Claims have been made that Old Joe paid the Mafia to fix the primary in West Virginia so that JFK would beat HHH and get the nomination and then fix the general election in Illinois, mostly Chicago/Cook County, so that JFK would beat RMN. Supposedly Sam Giancana, the reputed Chicago Mafia boss, did the fixing and he was killed the night before he was scheduled to testify in Federal Court. Giancana and JFK were reputedly having concurrent affairs with the same woman, Judith Exner, while JFK was POTUS.
Jack Ruby, actually Jack Rubenstein, was reputed to be an associate of Joe Campisi, who in turn, was reputed to be a lieutenant in the Mafia family of New Orleans boss Carlo Marcello. The attorney for Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., Frank Ragano, wrote about it in his book, Mob Lawyer. RFK was pushing the FBI to go after organized crime, particularly its involvement with the unions and even more so his focus was on the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa.
