BISMARCK, N.D _ The events of Nov. 22, 1963, the day of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, have been researched and re-examined by hundreds of scholars.

David Lifton is one of those scholars, and has spent 47 years researching his own conspiracy theory about the events that took place that day.

He spoke Thursday afternoon during “The Kennedy Legacy: 50 Years Later” symposium, which started Tuesday and ended Thursday evening at Bismarck State College.

Lifton challenges the official version of the Dallas assassination and revealed what he believes is a medical cover-up that is central to the JFK assassination plot.

“What I’m here to tell you is that this autopsy is a fraud,” he said. “This means that the connection between Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle and Ken-nedy’s death is based on fraudulent evidence.”

He said that conspirators stole the body of JFK at Lovefield in Dallas, removed evidence from his body and delivered the body for an autopsy in Bethesda, Md.

“If you change the body you change the story of how he died and there’s the connection between the illegitimate evidence and the false narrative that is in this case,” he said. “And this is how Lyndon Johnson became president. It’s a story that was fabricated to facilitate the operation of the line of succession of the United States government.”

Lifton actually began his talk with the way Johnson pushed his way into the Kennedy administration by making appointments in key areas of the administration.

“Inside the administration was the embryo government of Lyndon Johnson,” he said.

It was a larger strategy with the assassination as its climax.

“It was like movements of piece on a chess board,” he said.

Lifton noted two possibilities that could have taken place involving the assassination: Oswald committed the act or conspirators made the appearance that he did.

In Lifton’s theory, someone came down, set a phony sniper nest in the Texas Book Depository and made sure a pre-selected, suitable scapegoat was in place, Oswald.

Lifton also believes that the autopsy of Kennedy’s body, which had been crucial to the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Kennedy had been shot by a lone gunman, had been falsified.

“Arrangements had been made to bring the president to a medical facility to remove bullets and alter wounds,” he said. “Why? To create the false appearance that Oswald’s rifle was the murder weapon. To create the foundation for a false autopsy. Remember the body of the deceased constitutes the diagram of the shooting.”

Lifton has outlined his theories in his book “Best Evidence.”

His talk was one of the last that took place during the three-day symposium.

Carol Christianson, who lives in Bismarck and Williston, attended all three days of the event. She said she enjoyed learning about aspects of JFK’s life and even a little about the conspiracy theories, even if she doesn’t buy into them.

“I was in my senior year of high school in Williston the day he was shot,” she said. “It was one of the biggest events in my life and I’ve really enjoyed hearing a firsthand account and learning more about his life and legacy.”