Fourteen years ago this year, the movie JFK was thrust upon the American public. There’s nothing significant about a 14th anniversary; I just wanted an excuse to blog about the movie. 
Hollywood director Oliver Stone is a raging liberal, but his 1991 movie is one of my favorites. The way he juxtaposes fact and fiction, actual black and white film footage from the era and his own creations, makes for a very entertaining film. He takes rumor and speculation, coupled with his political leanings, and fashions what I consider a masterpiece in filmmaking.
I’m somewhat of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the murder of John F. Kennedy. On the one hand, I believe Kennedy was murdered by certain rogue elements in the government, with assistance, most likely, from the mob and/or professional assassins. Unlike Stone, however, I believe Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the shooters but was set up to be the lone scapegoat.
On the other hand, given the sheer number of people and plans that had to be in place to carry out something of that magnitude — plotting and committing the murder of a sitting president — it seems impossible that in all these years, no one has told what really happened and who else was involved. Human nature doesn’t work that way. If there is something to know, somebody somewhere will tell it.
But it’s still fun to speculate.
While researching another topic on Saturday, I found this 1993 Frontline documentary about Oswald on the PBS web site. I watched the whole thing, which prompted me to watch JFK for the 20th time, which prompted me to blog about it today. Until the murder is solved to my satisfaction, I’ll always be fascinated by the mystery.
Download the Zapruder film.
Related posts: Digitally Analyzing An Assassination, Is The Anniversary of JFK’s Assassination Here Already?
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{ 30 comments }
Hi La Shawn,
Just read your comments about Stone’s JFK. I think Stone was pretty much “on the money” however I don’t believe Oswald killed JFK. I guess the one benefit from JFK is the lasting interest in the case since 1991 and the shortlived ARRB. If you want to expand your thinking of the JFK assassination I suggest you read “Harvey & Lee” by John Armstrong as well as “The Man Who Knew To Much” by Dick Russell.
Phil.
La Shawn:
Don’t expect any answers soon, as long as the major players are alive.
It was almost 50 years before critical information about our use of the Atomic Bomb was de-classified. You will probably live to have the information on Kennedy de-classified, but I will not hold my breath.
There is some renegade Doctor in Fort Worth that wrote a book (fiction) about the Kennedy assasination – he was working at Parkland at the time, but wasn’t remotely involved; yet the press loves him, because others have long tired of telling the same story many times over.
Stone’s rabid leftist anti-Americanism disgusts me to the point that I can’t bring myself to watch anything of his, no matter how technically well done it is.
In the real case of the assassination of JFK, I’m open to any new facts, including any one of several intriguing conspiracy theories. But the most fascinating thing would be to discover that Oswald acted alone, Jack Ruby was just a scummy nut case, Sam Giancana, Lyndon Johnson, the CIA and all the other usual suspects knew nothing about it, and the Warren Commission had it right all along. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
La Shawn,
Having discussed this with you before (one of the few areas that I have had a disagreement with your opinion), I will not delve too deeply into this, but simply say that it will probably never be solved to your satisfaction. I say this, given the improbability of any new information coming out at this late date, about a subject so heavily investigated and scrutinized over the last 40+ years.
Like RedBeard said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. It could all fit together to point to a wider conspiracy, or it could all fit together and just be what it is (I tend to go with the latter because I have found over years of investigating crimes, including homicides, that the simpler explanation of events is usually the correct one.)
Can’t believe you don’t back me on this, Montie.
What about Oswald’s “defection” to the Soviet Union and subsequent non-arrest? At the very least, you don’t think he was a spy? This was a time when suspected communists were blacklisted, yet he returns to the US, with funds provided by the government, with his Russian wife? What about how most of the witnesses died under suspicious circumstances? It’s sinister. Something shady was (is) going on.
I’m sorry you didn’t mention that Jim Garrison, played in the film as a hero by Costner, was, in real life a bullying, lying, self-aggrandizing autocrat who destroyed at least a half dozen lives by putting Clay Shaw on trial – a trial in which the jury returned a verdict of innocent in 40 minutes.
When asked, one of the jury members remarked that the reason it took so long was that most members had to use the bathroom.
Read Gerald Posner’s book “Case Closed” or watch the documentaries done by ABC and NBC on Garrison and tell me that this man deserved to be lionized in Stone’s film.
La Shawn, here is a quote from “The Death of a President” by William Manchester: “This writer has carefully examined the site in Dallas and once qualified as an Expert Rifleman on the U.S. Marine Corps range at Parris Island, S.C., firing the M-1 rifle, as Oswald did, from 500, 300, 200 yards. From the sixth floor in the Book Depository Oswald would look down on a slowly drifting target less than ninety yards away, and his scope brought it within twenty-two yards. At that distance, with his training, he could scarcely have missed.” Say what you want about loser Lee Harvey Oswald, but he knew how to shoot!
LaShawn,
You’re spot-on when it comes to the film’s entertainment value. I mean, it is beautifully photographed and well directed. And the cast is inarguably first-rate. Stone’s kookiness is easy to ignore. I just apply the same suspension of disbelief to this film as I would normally do to something like The Matrix or Nightmare on Elm Street.
Compared to some of Stone’s more dreadful work (the completely horrendous Natural Born Killers and Any Given Sunday come to mind), JFK is light popcorn fare.
I haven’t seen JFK since it first came out on video. Maybe it’s time to rent it again.
La Shawn, you might want to take a look at the book Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K. by Barr McClellan, who is the White House press secretary’s dad.
La Shawn,
Why do you suppose in the deaths of the famous– JFK, RFK, MLK, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana– there always someone suggesting “something sinister or shady?” Count me in the cigar is a cigar crowd.
Cindy
Just a note on Stone’s filmaking. I suppose it might be said that he is talented. But as far as communicating anything interesting and with form, I just can’t say he is the best at it. I’m not in to many broken thoughts that barely tell a story (Ali comes to mind). A story can be complicated, rich, and deep, but still be a unit, a whole.
La Shawn, the problem I have always had with conspiracy theories is that they are easy to believe and impossible to prove. Most people can’t show up at the same time and location, and agree on what to have for lunch! A comment on JFK’s assassination came from John Hinckley Jr., who said something like “I almost killed Reagan, of course Oswald killed Kennedy.”
Oswald learned Russian while in the USMC. I attended the Presidio of Monterey Defense Language Institute. The same place Oswald learned Russian. I can tell you for a fact that the expense of the school and it’s length of time means that only two types of Marines go through there. Embassy guards and Military Intelligence. Oswald was never an Embassy guard. Therefore, the only logical conclusion was that he was in the Naval Intelligence Services. This means that when the government claims that he WAS NOT involved in NIS, they are lying.
If the govt. is lying about this issue, what other issues are they lying about? I’m not a big conspiracy guy…I just think that there is a lot that the government isn’t letting out.
La Shawn,
Yes I’m fully aware of Oswald’s communist sympathies. He had been observed passing out pro-Castro flyers on occasion, and was very vocal in his beliefs. His beliefs probably had a major influence on his decision to do the assasination. But, that has all been looked at, not only by the Warren Commission, but by many others since.
There might indeed have been something more sinister going on, or more likely, the sinister goings on were inside the head of Lee Harvey Oswald.
.
I recommend you read Gerald Posner book “Case Closed” on the JFK assassination. It closed the case for me. Incidentally, for conspiracy buffs, here’s the starting point for a new one- the man who assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968 was a palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, who still claims he didn’t do it. Of course he’d claim that. Conspiracy theories are often based on the liberal’s view of the world- no individual is guilty much less responsible for what he does. His act is the result of forces, most often right-wing forces, who run the world.
Read it and heard him talk about the case numerous times. Didn’t do a thing for me. – Admin
I was teaching a class when Kennedy was shot. I have kept tabs on the many investigations and theories that have arisen over the years. I refused to see Stone’s movie, because it caused my own children to discard all reason and take it as gospel. When you feed an adolescent mind the right propaganda, you can easily make them fervent believers. Che did it, Pol Pot did it, Timothy O’Leary did it, Hitler did it, the KKK did it and Islamafascists are good at it.
Albert Einstein said: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy and Connelly all by his lonesome. That is the simple fact.
To insist on a conspiracy that has survived in tact all these years is to make the explanation “simpler.” What could be neater than a carefully laid out “Manchurian Candidate” type of cabal that ties the whole event up into a neat package?
Edgar Alan Poe said that to succeed, a short story must engage the reader in “the willing suspension of disbelief.”
The disbelief so many engage in concerning the Kennedy assassination does not produce a short story. It creates an epic of government cover-up. Right there with black helicopters, space aliens, the Carlysle Group, the Masons, the Jewish control of everyitsybitsything in the universe.
Here is a fact to check up on: Mark Lane played a major role in the conspiracy theories on Kennedy and he ended up hiding in the woods next to the village as the Jonestown “suicide” took place. The main players in the Kennedy conspiracy have interesting biographies. Many of them were self aggrandizing and as weird as nine dollar bills.
If you go to the Dealey Plaza today, about a half a dozen “researchers” will tell you the whole story, if you are willing to listen. I visited the site for the first time about a year ago. I bought on the conspiracy tabloids, and also the autopsy tabloid.
According to one “researcher” there are witnesses still living. My question is, when these “witnesses talk” does anyone still care?
It is difficult for me to believe that Oswald carried the assignation of JFK on his own. My problem is that so far I have not seen a conspiracy theory that seems viable.
I find it interesting how a leftist murder of a president gets turned into a conspiracy by every “right-wing” group imaginable.
Well, I read with interest your two postings on JFK and the conspiracy. I too loved JFK the movie, read the book and the Warren report. I do find it interesting how the murder of a democratic president by a leftist does get my conspiracy wheels amovin’! My wife has always thought that Jackie had him shot for his philandering and after watching the Zapruder film with her tonite we noticed that she wasn’t holding a gun! Guess it wasn’t her;)
Oswald acted alone. ABC’s two hour special on the 40th anniversary convinced me of that, and I’ve been a lifetime believer in the conspiracy theory.
BTW Tom Bosee, Oswald wasn’t using an M-1. He used a Mannlicher-Carcano.
Naval Intelligence? Oswald was a Marine. They have their own intelligence division.
I do not think he did it alone. It is much easier to shoot someone coming at you, than going away. Heck, they made the turn right under the building for god’s sake. How easy would have been to shoot him then, fish in a barrel.
Plus the Zapruder film is what tells me he was not shot from the rear. The right backside of his head was blown off. If shot from the rear, the front of his face would have been blown off.
You people who believe it was Oswald and it was only three shots, do you believe the magic bullet theory? Or the fact that not hours after the shooting, the Dallas police had his description and his location? Or how when the police busted into the Depository, he was on the second floor drinking a coke. He had just shot the President and he stops to get a cola. I mean I love coke as much as the next guy, but really.
The Magic bullet is the thing that gets me though, that only tells me something was up. 3 shots were heard. one completely missed the car and hit a curb, they completely took the whole curb, not just the bullet. Why would you do that? So people could not come back later and get the true trajectory.
One bullet hit him in the throat, the driver and the passenger in the front seat, crazy bullet action there. And the last one took off the back of his head. hhhmmm.
To antimedia, yes I know Oswald used a Mannlicher-Carcano with a 4X scope. With a bolt-action, there is no possibility of a jam, as there is with a auto-loading M-1 Garand. I agree, Oswald acted alone.
Ah-ha! You guys must be in on it, too!
James, I wish I could recall what show I saw it on, but the “magic bullet” was easily explained. Once I saw the reconstruction of the movement of the bodies in relationship to Oswald’s location, it was no longer mysterious.
As for the moving target, that would present no difficulty to a trained marksman. Any bird hunter or trap shooter can handle a much more unpredictable moving target with ease.
I’m not saying there isn’t more to this, because that possibility always exists, but only that there isn’t any credible evidence of anything deeper.
“Ah-ha! You guys must be in on it, too!”
“Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!” 
James, the so-called magic bullet was explained in the two hour ABC special. Gov. Connally was seated inboard and below President Kennedy. When you look at the animation, it’s very clear that the bullet followed a perfectly straight trajectory through Kennedy’s neck, through Connally’s chest and into his wrist. The bullet traveled through soft tissue until it glanced off Connally’s wrist, explaining the lack of damage to the bullet. (It was not “pristine” as some have reported.)
You take the curb for evideniary purposes, just as you take the entire door jamb or a section of a wall where bullets entered. It’s routine practice.
WRT the head shot, I assume you’re aware of Newton – for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction? That explains why a shot from the rear would cause skull and brain tissue to be ejected to the rear. It couldn’t go forward. There was more skull and brain tissue preventing it from going in that direction.
Think of a high speed car crash. The car stops. You continue forward – until you hit the steering wheel, at which point you go backwards.
Tom, actually the Mannlicher-Carcano was prone to jamming, as was demonstrated during the ABC special.
You trust…ABC?
Could somebody who has fretted deeply about this give me a simple synopsis of how many people have had to keep their mouths shut all these years to make the JFK murder “conspiracy” work? And who are the big players? Is Castro still a favorite co conspirator? Have we stopped trying to prove the Dominican Republic connection and the CIA murder of its dictator on LBJ’s orders?
Just wondering.
To Heliotrope, Sometimes a lone nut with a rifle, is just a lone nut with a rifle!
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