One of the many reasons listed for John Kennedy’s assassination was his supposed threat to the power of the Federal Reserve, American’s central bank. His famous Executive Order 11110, allowed for the issuing of Treasury notes backed by silver and not credit such as Federal Reserve notes are. These silver notes are interest free, which mean the Fed earned no interest off them. The bankers are thus listed in the group of Kennedy enemies by many conspiracy researchers. But many of them do not fully understand the matter.
The difficulty with this Executive Order and the issuance of silver certificate notes in 1963, is that most people that bring this issue up for conspiracy, don’t fully understand what is going on here. Kennedy’s E.O. was not to undercut the power of the Federal Reserve, it was amended to an earlier Executive Order 10289, signed by President Harry Truman in September 9, 1951. The purpose of the notes was to belay a silver shortage at the time which was heavily used for coinage. The notes are not so much backed up by silver as they are redeemable for silver. That is the main purpose of them–not to slash the Fed out of making interest off the issuance of currency.
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| Silver certificate currency issued in 1934 and 1957. |
An important issue here is that these Treasury silver notes had been issues many times over the years from 1878 to 1964. The first ones were not issued in 1963. They’ve been issued off and on for over 70 years. I personally own silver notes issued in 1934 and 1957, besides the Kennedy notes of 1963. The Kennedy era silver notes are noted for their red seal; most of the others issued feature a blue seal. If you like to collect them they are available on eBay and at antique malls. Just beware that the older ones issued in the 1800’s are quite expensive.
Another myth is that Lyndon Johnson signed an E.O. to take the silver notes out of the circulation. That simply did not happen. The Treasury stopped issuing them in October of 1964. In 1968, Congress ended the redeeming of silver certificate notes. The actual E.O. stayed on the books till Ronald Reagan phased it out in 1987.
No doubt that John F. Kennedy had a villainous circle of enemies challenging him during the course of his presidency. The bankers at the Federal Reserve were not among them. (Please note I am not an admirer of the Fed. Its creation was unconstitutional and it has been a source of debt expansion for the United States.) Let us remember that when we investigate conspiracy, not every little thing is conspiratorial. The issuance of silver certificate money is an example of that. Some well known researchers have this issue totally wrong because they did not look deep enough.
Addendum
Wikipedia states the issuance of silver notes ended in 1964 but a silver note issued in 1966 is at this writing, available for sale on eBay. So the printing of the silver notes went on for some time after JFK’s death, unless that 1966 bill is a forgery.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Certificate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11110
