It doesn't make sense. Would a man afraid of dying...
...kill himself in a way that leaves no trace?
And leave two unsigned suicide notes?
If it's a suicide, I've seen weirder.
The fact is, he's gone. And so is our case.
Unless we go for Shaw now.
With whose testimony? O'Keefe, a male prostitute?
Jack Martin, a drunk? Vernon Bundy, a dope fiend?
Shaw's got respect. Newspaper editors, American Bar Association.
- I agree. We don't have the goods. - We wait, Shaw will get whacked!
How many corpses do you need to figure out what's going on?
Watch your mouth! Ferrie did this himself.
Where're you going?
I don't know.
I just don't know.
Frank, you're wasting your time here.
Big Jim gave strict orders. No FBI.
It's you I want.
Boss'd fry me in hog fat if I talk to you.
Boss got a problem. Real serious.
We know what's going on.
Guess you do.
You got nothing. I'm a friend. You're riding on the Titanic.
Time to jump off before you too get destroyed.
Enough!
We're talking about your career. You're young.
You're on the Castro thing.
- No, I'm not. - You are.
We know Oswald didn't pull that trigger. Castro did.
If it comes out, it's war.
Millions of people will die. That's more important than Jim Garrison.
Look at me when I talk to you! You're too selfish!
Shut up!
If you got a brain in your thick skull, listen to me. Listen real hard.
Get in the car.
Garrison?
Glad you came.
Sorry about the precautions.
I just hope it was worth my while, Mr...?
I could give you a false name, but I won't. Call me "X".
I've already been warned by the Agency, so if this is another threat.
I'm not with the Agency, Mr. Garrison.
If you've come this far, what I have to say interests you.
I won't name names or tell you who I represent.
Except to say you're close.
Closer than you think.
Everything I'll say is classified top secret.
I was a soldier, Mr. Garrison. Two wars.
A secret Pentagon guy, supplying the hardware.
Planes, bullets, rifles...
...for what we call Black Operations.
Black Ops. Assassinations. Coups d'etat...
...rigging elections, propaganda, psych warfare.
In World War II, I was in Rumania, Greece, Yugoslavia.
I helped evacuate part of Nazi intelligence at the end of the war.
And we used those guys against the Communists.
In Italy, '48, we stole the elections.
France '49, we broke the strikes.
Overthrew Quirino in the Philippines. Arbenz in Guatemala.
Mossadegh in Iran. Vietnam in '54.
Indonesia, '58. Tibet, '59.
Got the Dalai Lama out. We were good.
Very good.
Then we got into the Cuban thing.
Set up an invasion to take place in October, '62.
Khrushchev sent missiles to resist. Kennedy didn't invade.
We just had our dicks in the wind.
A lot of pissed-off people, Mr. Garrison.
Understand?
I'll come to that later.
So, 1963...
I spent much of September of '63...
...working on the Kennedy plan to get all U.S. personnel...
...out of Vietnam by the end of 1965.
One of the strongest plans issued by the Kennedy White House...
...National Security memo 263...
...ordered home the first 1,000 troops.
But in November, a week after the murder of Vietnamese President Diem...
...and 2 weeks before Kennedy's assassination.
...a strange thing happened to me.
Is Dave in there?
You wanted to see me, General?
I do, indeed.
You're going to the South Pole.
I am?
Dr. Mooney's got the details.
Check with him. Have a nice vacation.
I was sent by my superior, we'll call him "Y"...
...l was sent by General Y to the South Pole...
...as military escort for a group of international VIPs.
I was on my way back, in New Zealand...
...when the President was killed.
Oswald was charged at 7 p.m., Dallas time...
...with Tippit's murder.
That's 2 p.m. the next day in New Zealand.
But already their papers had the entire history...
...of this unknown, 24-year-old Oswald.
Studio picture, detailed biography, Russian information...
...and were sure he killed the President alone...
...although it took them 4 more hours to charge him with that crime in Dallas.
It felt to me as if...
...a cover story was being put out.
Like we would in Black Op.
After I came back...
...l asked myself, why was l, the chief of Special Ops...
...sent to the South Pole to do a job...
...many others could have done?
I wonder if it could've been because...
...one of my routine duties, if I'd been in Washington...
...would've been to order additional security in Texas.
I checked it out and found that someone...
...told the 112th Military Intelligence Group at Fort Sam Houston...
...to stand down that day, over the protests of Colonel Reich.
I believe it's a mistake.
It's standard procedure, especially in a known hostile city like Dallas...
...to supplement the Secret Service.
Even if we let him ride with bubble- top on...
...we would've put one to two hundred agents on the sidewalk.
A month before, in Dallas, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was spit on and hit.
There had been attempts on De Gaulle's life.
We'd have arrived early, studied the route...
...checked all the buildings.
We'd never allow open windows on Dealey. Never!
Our own snipers would cover the area.
A window goes up, they're on the radio!
We'd watch the crowd. Packages, rolled-up newspapers, coats.
Never let a man open an umbrella.
Never let that limousine slow down to 10 miles an hour.
Or take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm.
You'd have felt an Army presence in the streets that day.
But none of this happened. It violated our most basic protection codes.
And it is the best indication of a massive plot in Dallas.
Who could have best done this?
Black Ops. People in the business.
My superior could've called Col. Reich and said:
"We have another unit coming for security. You'll stand down."
That day, some Army Intelligence people were in Dallas.
I don't know who or why.
But they weren't protecting clients.
And Oswald. Army Intel had a Lee Harvey Oswald on file.
Those files have been destroyed.
Many strange things were happening.
Oswald had nothing to do with them.
The entire Cabinet was in the Far East.
A third of a combat division was returning from Germany...
...in the air above the United States, at the time of the shooting.
At 12:34 p.m., the Washington telephone system went out for an hour.
On the plane back to Washington...
...word was radioed from the Situations Room...
...to Johnson that there was only one assassin.
Sound like coincidences to you?
Not for one moment.
The Cabinet was out of the way.
Troops for riot control were in the air.
Telephones were out to stop the wrong stories from spreading.
Nothing was left to chance.
He could not be allowed to escape alive.
Things were never the same after that.
Vietnam started for real. There was an air of...
...make-believe in the Pentagon and CIA.
Those of us in Secret Ops knew the Warren Commission was fiction.
But there was something...
...deeper.
Uglier.
I knew Allen Dulles well. I often briefed him in his house.
But why was he appointed to investigate Kennedy's death? The man who fired him.
Dulles, by the way, was General Y's benefactor.
I got out in '64.
Resigned my commission.
I never realized Kennedy was so dangerous to the establishment.
Is that why?
That's the real question, isn't it? Why?
The how and the who is just scenery for the public.
Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, the Mafia...
...keeps them guessing, like a game.
Prevents them from asking the most important question:
Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited?
Who has the power to cover it up? Who?
In 1961 ...
...right after the Bay of Pigs, very few people know this...
...l participated in drawing up National Security Memo 55, 56, 57.
These are documents classified top secret.
In them, Kennedy told Gen. Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs...
...that from here on, the Joint Chiefs would be wholly responsible...
...for all covert paramilitary action in peacetime.
This ended the reign of the CIA.
"Splintered it into 1,000 pieces," as JFK promised he would.
And now he was ordering the military...
...to help him do it. Unprecedented!
I can't tell you the shock waves this sent along the corridors of power.
This and the firing of Allen Dulles...
...Richard Bissell and Gen. Charles Cabell.
All were sacred cows in Intel since World War II.
They got some very upset people.
Kennedy's directives weren't implemented because of...
...bureaucratic resistance.
But one of the results was...
...the Cuban operation was turned over to my department...
...as Operation Mongoose.
Mongoose was pure Black Ops.
It was secretly based at Miami University...
...which has the largest domestic CIA station...
...budgeted annually for hundreds of millions.
300 agents, 7,000 select Cubans.
50 fake business fronts to launder money.
They waged non-stop war against Castro.
Industrial sabotage, crop burning, etc.
All under General Y.
He took the rules of covert warfare he'd used abroad...
...and brought them to this country.
Now he had people, equipment, bases.
The motivation.
Don't underestimate the budget cuts that Kennedy called for in March of 1963.
Nearly 52 military installations in 25 states.
21 overseas bases.
Big money.
You know how many helicopters have been lost in Vietnam?
Nearly 3,000 so far.
Who makes them? Bell Helicopter, who owns Bell?
Bell was near-bankrupt when 1st National Bank of Boston asked the CIA...
...to use the helicopter in Indochina. How about the F-111 fighter?
General Dynamics of Fort Worth, Texas. Who owns that?
Find out the defense budget since the war began. 75 going on 100 billion.
200 billion will be spent before it's over.
In 1949, it was 10 billion.
No war...no money.
The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison...
...is for war.
The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers.
Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term.
He wanted to call off the moon race and cooperate with the Soviets.
He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing.
He refused to invade Cuba in 1962.
He set out to withdraw from Vietnam.
But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963.
Since 1961, they knew Kennedy was not going to war in Southeast Asia.
Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies.
Something's underway, but it has no face. Yet, everybody in the loop knows.
Forget about combat troops.
He told McNamara he would pull out the goddamn advisors!
He fucked us in Laos and now he will fuck us in Vietnam!
He can't afford to implement it before the election.
I hear the NSC meeting was a real barn burner.
I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Heads will roll. Hear about Lemnitzer?
What?
Kennedy rubbed Lem's nose in shit.
Said if we didn't go into Cuba which was so close...
...why go into Vietnam which is so far away?
There he goes again.
Got his hand on the chicken switch.
Lem said that Chiefs still think we should go into Cuba.
Money's at stake.
Big money. A hundred billion dollars.
Kennedy bred voting districts for defense dollars.
He gave TFX fighter contracts only to those countries that will matter in '64.
The people in the loop fight back. Their way.
We have to control intelligence from Saigon.
We just don't let McNamara stick his nose in this thing!
Every time he goes over to Saigon for a fact-finding mission...
...he comes back and scares the shit out of Kennedy!
Now I want Max Taylor on him night and day...
...like a fly on shit.
You control McNamara, you control Kennedy.
I think it started like that.
In the wind.
Defense contractors, oil bankers. Just conversation.
A call is made. Maybe to someone like my superior officer, General Y.
We're going. We need your help.
When?
In the fall. Probably in the South.
- We want you to come up with a plan. - I can do that.
It is cellularized.
No one said, "He must die." No vote. Nothing on paper.
There's no one to blame.
It's as old as the crucifixion.
Or the military firing squad.
5 bullets, 1 blank. No one's guilty.
Everybody in the power structure...
...has a plausible deniability.
No compromising connections except at the most secret point.
But it must succeed.
No matter how many die or how much it costs...
...the perpetrators must be on the winning side...
...and never subject to prosecution for anything by anyone.
That is a coup d'etat.
Kennedy announces the Texas trip in September.
At that moment, second Oswalds pop up all over Dallas.
They have the mayor and the cops in their pocket.
General Y flies in the assassins.
Maybe from the special camp we keep near Athens, Greece.
Pros.
They'd be locals, Cubans, Mafia hire. Separate teams.
Does it matter who shot...
...from what rooftop?
Part of the scenery.
I keep thinking about that Tuesday...
...the 26th of November.
The day after they buried Kennedy.
Gentlemen, I am not going to let Vietnam go like China did.
I'm committed...
...not to take our soldiers out of there till they know we mean business in Asia.
Lyndon Johnson signs National Security Memo 273...
...which reverses Kennedy's withdrawal policy...
...and approves covert action against North Vietnam...
...provoking the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Just get me elected, I'll give you the damn war.
In that document...
...lay the Vietnam War.
I can't believe they killed him because he wanted to change things.
- In our time in our country! - They have throughout history.
Kings are killed. Politics is power, nothing more!
Don't take my word for it. Do your own thinking.
The size of this is...
...beyond me.
Testify.
- Me? - Testify.
No chance in hell.
No, I'd be arrested and gagged. Maybe sent to an institution.
Maybe worse. You too.
I can give you the background. You find the foreground, the little things.
Dig, you're the only one to bring a trail in Kennedy's murder.
That's important. It's historic.
I haven't yet.
I don't have much of a case.
You don't have a choice anymore.
You're a significant threat to the national security structure.
They'd have killed you already, but there's light on you.
So they'll destroy your credibility.
They already have in many circles.
Be honest.
Your only chance is to come up with a case. Something. Anything.
Make arrests. Stir the shitstorm.
Hope to start...
...a chain reaction of people coming forward.
The government will crack.
Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth.
And the truth is on your side, bubba.
I just hope you get a break.
Mr. Shaw?
You are under arrest for conspiracy...
...and entering into agreement with others for the purpose of murdering...
...President John F. Kennedy.
We have a warrant to search the premises.
It's my duty to inform you...
...you have the right to remain silent.
Name?
Clay LaVerne Shaw.
Address?
1313 Dauphine Street, New Orleans.
Ever use any aliases?
Clay Bertrand.
Mr. Clark, are you aware of the charges filed by Attorney General Garrison?
Yes, Mr. Shaw was included in our investigation.
No connection was found at all.
If the FBI did investigate him, why is his name not mentioned...
...in the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Report...
...even if it is to clear his name?
I doubt this Attorney General would qualify for my staff.
Mr. Garrison has presented absolutely nothing publicly...
...which would contradict our findings.
I know of no fact which would refute...
...the Commission's conclusion...
...that Lee Oswald was the lone killer.
I congratulate Mr. Shaw. Most defendants must wait for trial...
...before they produce sacred cows like a Chief Justice...
...as a character witness...
...who is not under oath and therefore free from perjury.
Even if it's partly true...
...you realize you're damaging the credibility of the country?
Is a government worth preserving when it lies to the people?
It's become a dangerous country...
...when you cannot trust anyone. When you cannot tell the truth.
I say let justice be done, though the heavens fall!
"The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison."
- Honey, this is about you. - After an investigation in New Orleans...
...reporters have learned...
...that District Attorney Jim Garrison and his staff...
...have intimidated, bribed and even drugged witnesses...
...to attempt to prove a conspiracy involving businessman Clay Shaw...
...in the murder of John F. Kennedy.
John Chancler was a cell mate of Willie O'Keefe's at Angola.
He said he'd be cut loose if he copped to the DA's office.
I sent him up for burglary.
And there's his old buddy Miguel Torres.
We sent him up too.
They wanted me to say Shaw was Bertrand. They'd get me a pardon.
Janet Williams comments on Willie O'Keefe's...
...descriptions of having met Oswald.
Was he a homosexual?
Not the Lee I knew. Absolutely not.
Mr. O'Keefe must have seen someone he thought was Lee Oswald.
I didn't talk to nobody. I was on drugs at the hospital.
I told the FBI that call was a figment of my imagination.
I think he's quite ill, mentally.
With one half of his mind, he is able to fabricate evidence...
...then he convinces the other half that the fabrication is the truth.
Don't worry. There's only 20 or 30 million people watching this tonight.
My reputation's all right with the people watching "Laugh In."
Has he ignored the Mafia connections to this conspiracy...
...because he's indebted to the mob?
The more one looks at Jim Garrison, the more one finds...
...he has destroyed reputations, spread fear and suspicion, and worst of all...
...exploited this nation's sorrow and doubt.
Jim Garrison has said:
"Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."
He seeks the truth. So do we.
Dr. Martin Luther King's beautiful dream expressed so dramatically...
...during the 1963 march on Washington...
...was shattered tonight in Memphis, Tennessee by an assassin's bullet.
Police think the single shot came from across the street.
They found a Browning automatic rifle, fitted with a marksman's scope.
I'll get it.
Hello, is this Jim Garrison's daughter?
Virginia or Elizabeth?
Virginia, you're a lucky little girl.
Your daddy's entered you in a beauty contest. Like to be in one?
I don't know.
My God! What have they done?
It's lynching time.
That sounds fun.
You get out of school at 3:00?
Who are you talking to?
That's all I need to know.
Mommy, I'm going to be in a beauty contest.
Who is this? Who is this?
Did you enter Virginia in a beauty contest?
A man called and asked her height, her weight.
Some crackpot. Martin Luther King was killed.
Her life's been threatened!
A crank making calls. Happens 12 times a day at the office.
Our home! A kidnapper, a murderer!
Only cowards make crank calls.
Nothing will happen.
You don't know what goes on here anymore! You're busy making speeches!
Getting every crazed Klansman after us!
I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving! I can't stand it anymore!
- The government wants us scared. - You and your government!
They want everybody too scared to speak out. They count on it.
- There's nothing to fear! - Don't you have feelings?
Your own daughter!
What kind of a man are you?
I'll take them to my mother's. You spend a week.
I'll change the locks, the phones. I'll get a bodyguard.
Get a hold of yourself!
Before this Kennedy thing, your children mattered most.
The other night you didn't even notice Jasper.
He came to me bawling his eyes out.
I promise I'll make more time for Jasper.
Is it such a chore?!
Goddamn it! If I said I'll spend more time with him, I will!
I cannot fight you and the whole world too!
I'm not fighting you! I'm trying to reach you.
- You've changed. - Of course I've changed!
My eyes have opened.
And what once looked normal seems insane.
And now King. Don't you think this has something to do with that?
Can't you see?
I don't want to see, goddamn it! I'm tired. I've had enough!
You're ruining this man Shaw's life because he's a homosexual.
That's not why!
Did you ever once stop to consider his feelings?
You don't believe me?
- I don't know! - You never believed me?
I just want to raise our children and live a normal life.
I want my life back!
So do l, goddamn it!
I had a life too, you know!
You can't bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, Liz!
It's not about our well-being, our two cars, our TVs and your kitchen!
It's about our kids growing up in a shithole of lies. I'm angry!
My life is fucked because of it.
If you could see it that way, you'd see your life is fucked too.
You never talked to me this way.
If you don't want to support me, fine.
But don't make threats about taking the children.
I'm leaving you!
- I'm taking the children! - Go on! Get out!
- I am! - Go hide!
Join the rest! They'll say I'm crazy.
Plenty of people will tell you I'm crazy.
You won't have any problems filling out divorce papers.
But somebody's got to try, goddamn it!
Somebody!
Are we going away, Daddy?
I don't know, Jasper.
Because of Kennedy?
Will the same people kill us, Papa?
Nobody will kill us.
I'm scared.
I don't like it when you and Mommy fight.
I don't like it either, honey.
Why do we have to leave?
Don't you love us anymore?
Daddy loves you both.
There's nothing wrong feeling a little scared, Jasper.
Telling the truth can be a scary thing sometimes.
It scared President Kennedy, and he was a brave man.
But if you let yourself be too scared...
...then you let the bad guys take over the country.
Then everybody gets scared.
Stay with Mom, Papa.
Please.
Here's another.
The U.S. Attorney in Washington declines to serve our subpoena...
...on Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell, CIA director Richard Helms, any FBI agent.
What'd you expect from a pig but a grunt?
Now it'll be near impossible to prove Shaw's connection to the CIA.
What's going on?
We've never been refused an extradition request.
Let's get Julia Ann Mercer in here.
No, she could get hurt.
Look what's happening to other people.
She's the best witness we have.
I just don't want to do it. Now, what else?
You got your hate mail here. And your fan mail here.
The bad news is that the IRS requested an audit of your income from this office.
I expected that two months ago. They're wasting their time.
The bad news is the National Guard just asked me to resign after 18 years.
Maybe that's the good news. Never was as good as combat.
But this is.
Any more on Oswald or Shaw?
Yeah.
They were seen together in Clinton in early September.
The Civil Rights Movement was running a voter's registration drive.
Rumor is, Shaw, a local boy, was working on some arms deal...
...to discredit the Civil Rights Movement.
Nobody really knows what they were doing there, but...
...hell, they stood out like cotton balls.
I got whites and colored that saw 'em with a...
Last time I checked...
...there was nothing illegal with registering to vote.
We still got the uh, Negro junkie, Vernon Bundy...
...who saw him talking at the sea wall near Lake Pontchartrain.
But, hell, it's tough, boss, nobody wants to talk about Shaw.
He's just.
You keep saying this, see, you keep saying that...
...you're not digging.
- I keep saying what? - You're not digging.
You wanna do my job? You do my job, I'll do your job!
I think Clinton is a breakthrough, now.
Shaw denies ever knowing Ferrie or Oswald, right?
Right.
That proves he's a liar.
Keep on it, Bill.
This is interesting.
Oswald went to see the FBI 2 weeks...
...before the assassination.
May I see Special Agent Hosty?
He's not in. Can someone else help you?
Special Agent Hosty made 3 visits to Janet Williams' house...
...to keep an eye on Marina. He left a note.
Hosty told a newspaperman it was a warning...
...to stop questioning Marina when Oswald was not present.
She was not a citizen, so possibly he was threatening to deport her to Russia.
But what the note really said, no one knows.
Hosty tore it up and flushed it down the toilet.
This is just speculation.
But what if the note described the assassination attempt on JFK?
Come on, think!
That's the only reason to destroy it.
If it was a threat like Hosty said, they would have kept it.
It makes their case against the angry lone nut that much stronger.
Remember Agent Quigley...
...the day he was arrested?
Quigley destroyed the notes from the interview.
We can raise the possibility that Oswald was not only an informant...
...but he may have been the original source for the telex dated November 17...
...warning of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22.
William Walters, the FBI night clerk, gave me a copy.
It went all over the country. Nothing was done.
The motorcade went on schedule. The Warren Report didn't mention it.
"A militant group may attempt to assassinate President Kennedy...
...on his proposed trip to Dallas, Texas."
Shortly after the assassination...
...Walters says the telex was removed from all the files...
...as an obvious embarrassment to the Bureau.
I believe Oswald sent information through Hosty.
I have a hunch Oswald had infiltrated this group.
Cubans or right-wing extremists.
He was told to be at the Book Depository that day...
...to either prevent the assassination or take part in it.
Either they told him they'd close down the plotters...
...or simulate an attack...
...on Kennedy to whip up public opinion...
...so Kennedy would have to reverse his policies on communism.
What they told him doesn't matter.
He was under orders.
He was a foot soldier.
You can't miss. He is a dead duck.
I don't buy it.
Why would the FBI cover it up?
A telex disappears from every single FBI office in this country?
There's a word, Bill.
- Orders. - Or a cover- up.
Don't you have enough proof of the FBI's complicity yet?
I respect this country's institutions!
How the hell can you keep a conspiracy going...
...between the mob, CIA, FBI, Army Intelligence and who knows what else...
...when you can't keep a secret in this room between 12 people?
I mean, we got leaks everywhere.
We are going to trial, y'all!
What the hell do we really got?
Oswald, Ruby, Banister and Ferrie are dead.
Maybe Shaw is an agent. I don't know.
But as a covert operator...
...he is wide open for blackmail because of his homosexuality.
Shaw's our toehold. I don't know or care exactly how he fits.
But he's lying through his teeth. I won't let go of him.
That's why you're going to trial against Clay Shaw?
You will lose!
We should investigate our Mafia leads here.
I can buy that easier than I can the government.
Ruby is all mob, knows Oswald, sets him up.
Hoffa, Trafficante, Marcello, they hire some guns and do Kennedy.
The government doesn't want to open up a whole can of worms...
...because it used the mob to try to get Castro.
Castro being assassinated by the mob by us...
...sounds wild to John Q. Citizen.
So they close the book on JFK.
Makes perfect sense to me.
I don't doubt their involvement at a low level.
Could the mob change the parade route?
Or eliminate the protection for the President?
Could the mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back?
Get the FBI, the CIA and the Dallas Police to mess up the investigation?
Get the Warren Commission appointed to cover it up?
Wreck the autopsy? Influence the national media to go to sleep?
Since when has the mob used anything but .38's for hits up close?
The mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude.
Assassins need payrolls.
Schedules, times, orders.
This was a military-style ambush.
A coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.
You're saying Lyndon Johnson was involved? The President?
Johnson got $1 billion for his friends, Brown and Root...
...to dredge Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
Boss, are you calling the President a murderer?
If I'm so far from the truth, why is the FBI bugging our offices?
Why are witnesses bought off and murdered?
Why are federal agencies blocking our extraditions and subpoenas?
I don't know.
Maybe there's some rogue element in the government.
With a full-blown cover-up?
You ever read Shakespeare?
I do.
"Julius Caesar"?
"Brutus and Cassius, they too are honorable men."
Who killed Caesar?
10 or 12 Senators.
All it takes is one Judas.
A few people on the inside. Pentagon, CIA.
This is Louisiana.
How do you know who your daddy is? 'Cause your mama told you so.
You are taking a crap in the wind.
And I am not going along on this one.
I've had my doubts all along about Bill.
He's been fighting us.
We need him back.
He wasted a month trying to prove...
...that mob boys like Jack Ruby are hooked up with Hunt Oil.
- I don't trust him. - I will not hear this.
I value Bill as much as any person here.
It's time...
And now, Jerry, here's Jim Garrison...
...the District Attorney of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Welcome, District Attorney Garrison.
So, you're investigating the murder of President Kennedy.
You know, I must say, we've heard some strange things...
...coming out of your office in New Orleans.
First, we heard that the Cuban exiles killed the President.
Then, the mob.
Now, your latest theory seems to be that the CIA, and the FBI...
...and the Pentagon and the White House...
...all combined in some elaborate conspiracy to kill John Kennedy.
Let me ask you, is there anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald...
...who you think didn't conspire to kill the President?
Let's just say this, Jerry:
I've stopped beating my wife.
Maybe you should ask Lyndon Johnson.
We know he has some answers.
Now, there've been a number of reports in reputable news media...
...Time, Newsweek, our own NBC...
...that you've gone way beyond the legal means available to you...
...as a prosecutor...
...that you have intimidated, even drugged, witnesses...
...bribed them, even urged them to commit perjury?
Do you have a response to this?
Your faith in the veracity of the major media is touching, Jerry.
It indicates that the age of innocence is not yet over.
But ask yourself:
...if we had learned on November 22nd, 1963...
...that the Premier of Russia had been shot from...
...a Moscow office building by a lonely capitalist sympathizer who...
...himself, was then liquidated by a patriotic Muscovite within 48 hours...
...while surrounded by armed police...
...l think it would be pretty apparent to any free thinking person...
...that a coup d'etat or a transfer of power...
...had just taken place in the Soviet Union.
And we would not be asking questions...
...or attacking Jim Garrison or his record.
We would, in a free thinking society...
...be asking hard questions about why he was killed...
...and what forces were opposed to him.
Jim, you know, there are some people...
...who might say you're paranoid.
Maybe I'd better show you some pictures...
...so you can begin to understand what it is that I'm talking about.
These are arrests.
Now, these arrests were photographed minutes after the assassination.
Now, they were never shown to the American public.
Jim, I'm sorry. These pictures can't show up on TV.
Well, sure they can.
No, I'm sorry, they can't.
No. The camera can pick these up.
Jim, I'm sorry. They can't. We have libel laws, you know.
Those men you just saw were arrested in Dallas...
...minutes after the assassination. They were never seen again.
No record of arrest, no mug shot, no fingerprints.
Jim? Hold that thought.
We're gonna be back right after these commercials.
Who were they?
Jim!
Bill, what the hell are you doing here?
I'm sorry about the other day, chief.
I didn't mean to walk out on you like that.
Bill, you came all the way to tell me the obvious?
No, boss. Look...
...l just got word there's going to be an attempt to kill you...
...somewhere between here and New Orleans.
The mob guy was brought down by Shaw from Canada.
This is serious, chief.
You're gonna need a bodyguard tonight.
Bill, when you were in the Army...
...did you have a chance to find out what an order meant?
Yeah.
You happen to remember my order for anyone in my staff...
...not to participate in passing on these endless rumors...
...about how somebody's going to get killed?
Yes, I do, boss, but this is dif.
No, there is no "but."
There is no "but" in a military situation, Broussard!
I don't appreciate your dumping this paranoid garbage on me.
And I don't appreciate your inability to follow a simple order...
...especially when it means I'm personally gonna end up...
...paying for your flight back to New Orleans.
Now, let's get you a ticket.
Boss, I'm sorry. I'm just looking out for you.
Get a receipt.
Come on, come on, he's out here.
Jim, where're you going? It's me, Samuel.
Hey! How long were you in that restroom, mister?
None of your goddamn business.
Jim? Bad news. Bill's turned.
I think he's given everything we've got to the Feds.
We studied the memos, and there was nothing there, chief.
Nothing.
We went to confront him...
...and the landlady said that the son- of-a-bitch just took off.
Left everything.
It's unbelievable.
Mattie, could you get Mr. Garrison a drink, please?
Something sure scared him.
Bill doesn't scare that easy. Somebody got to his thinking.
He was never that good a thinker.
Well, he sure fooled us.
No, don't turn it down, turn it up. I want to see this.
He's winning!
He'll never make it.
If he wins, they'll kill him.
He'll stop the war.
They're gonna kill him before they'll let him be president.
Thank you, Mattie.
Boss, with Broussard, they have everything.
All our witnesses, our strategy for the trial.
We gotta double check all his work.
There could be false leads. We can't go to trial!
We don't have a prayer!
I don't think so, Al.
I have to agree with Al, boss.
This is not one we're going to come out on.
You remember the Hemingway story, "The Old Man and the Sea"?
The old fisherman manages to catch this great fish.
Fish so huge that he has to tie it...
...to the side of the boat in order to get it back in.
But by the time it reached the shore...
...the fish had long since been picked apart by sharks.
Nothing was left but the skeleton.
And that's what's gonna happen to us.
Then what'd we go to all this trouble for, boss?
It's a means to an end.
Now, this war has two fronts.
In the court of law, we hope against the odds...
...to nail Clay Shaw on a conspiracy charge.
In the court of public opinion, it could take another 25, 30 years...
...for the truth to come out.
But at least we're going to strike the first blow.
What if you're wrong?
I never thought for a second I was, honey.
Liz.
Will you come to the trial?
I don't think so.
With 53% of the precincts reporting, Sen. Kennedy has a 48% to 41% lead...
...over Sen. McCarthy.
CBS News projects Sen. Robert Kennedy...
...the winner of the California primary.
Within the United States over the period of the last 3 years...
...the division, the violence, the disenchantment with our society...
...the divisions between blacks and whites...
...the poor and the affluent, between age groups...
...or Vietnam, we can work together.
We are a great country, an unselfish, compassionate country.
That's my basis for running.
Thank you all. It's on to Chicago and let's win there.
Senator Kennedy has been shot!
They killed him, honey.
He won...
...and they killed Robert Kennedy.
They shot him down.
Oh, my God!
Both of them?
Both brothers?
You were right.
It hasn't ended yet.
For the first time...
...l feel really scared.
I wish I could've loved you more.
Sometimes I feel like I didn't ever love you...
...or the children enough.
I'm sorry.
Please rise.
The Criminal District Court for Orleans Parish, Section H, is now in session.
Honorable Judge Edward A. Haggerty, Jr. presiding. Be seated.
That's Clay Bertrand.
That's who I saw at Ferrie's.
That's who you say you saw.
A confessed homosexual.
Convicted of pandering and soliciting.
A man who has lied about everything...
...and now wants to be taken at his word.
That man, right there. Yes, sir.
He was at the Pontchartrain wall...
...with the man who shot the President.
I remember him because of his limp.
A heroin addict injecting himself at the wall.
Barely conscious of his surroundings.
Is that the man?
That was the man, right there.
He dropped Oswald off on the voter's line.
I remember, 'cause they were the only...
...white strangers around that morning.
The big, black Cadillac of his made me think they might be FBI.
Anything we can do to help you, please let us know.
Said he was a representative...
...of one International Trade Mart of New Orleans.
More than five years ago, for two minutes.
It's fair to say you could be mistaken.
Just a figment of my imagination.
The cat's stewing you, I told him.
You got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho.
Bertrand is not Shaw, Scout's honor. And you can tell him I said so.
Objection, Your Honor!
Andrews has been convicted of perjury on this matter.
Exception taken. That case is on appeal.
Mr. Goldberg.
You claim that you met David Ferrie and Clay Shaw...
...on a vacation trip from your accounting business in New York.
You had drinks, and, under the influence...
...discussed killing Kennedy.
Is that not so?
Yes. I did.
Is it not also true that you fingerprinted your daughter...
...when she went to Louisiana State University?
Yes, sir. I did.
And is it not also true that you fingerprinted her when she returned...
...at the end of the semester?
Yes. I did.
Why?
Well, I wanted to make sure that she was the same girl I sent away.
He was one of Broussard's witnesses, chief.
I'm sorry. He was totally sane when we took his affidavit.
Your Honor, we call Police Officer Aloysius Habighorst to the stand.
I must ask the jury to leave the court.
- Name? - Clay LaVerne Shaw.
Defendant didn't have his lawyer present.
It's standard booking procedure to ask an alias!
I call them as I see them!
Any aliases?
Clay Bertrand.
It's not constitutionally required that a lawyer be present!
- I'm ruling that inadmissible! - That's our case!
Then you didn't have a case.
I wouldn't believe anything Habighorst said anyway.
I can't believe you're saying this!
I am saying it. Bring in the jury.
- Oswald? - No, I did not.
- Ever call Dean Andrews? - No, I did not.
Have you ever met David Ferrie?
Wouldn't even know what he looked like if I hadn't seen pictures.
Did you ever use the alias, Clay Bertrand?
No, I did not.
Thank you, Mr. Shaw.
A very great actor has just given us a great performance.
But we are nowhere closer to the truth.
My office is charging Clay Shaw with outright perjury...
...on 15 answers he's given today, not one word being true.
You're out of order! Now, sit down!
That's the man right there.
To prove there was a conspiracy involving Clay Shaw...
...we must prove there was more than one man involved in the assassination.
To do that...
...we must look at the Zapruder film which my office subpoenaed.
The American public has not seen.
...has not seen the film. It's been locked in a vault the last 5 years...
...in the Time/Life Building in New York.
There's a reason for that.
Watch.
The picture speaks 1,000 words.
The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case.
Three bullets, one assassin.
But two unpredictable things happened that day to make it virtually impossible.
One, the film shot by Abraham Zapruder while standing near the grassy knoll.
And two, the third wounded man, James Tague, nicked by a fragment...
...while standing near the triple underpass.
The time frame, 5.6 seconds, established by the Zapruder film...
...left no possibility of a fourth shot.
So the shot of fragment that left a superficial wound on Tague's cheek...
...had to come from one of the 3 bullets fired from the Depository's 6th floor.
That leaves just two bullets.
We know one of them was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy.
So a single bullet remains.
A single bullet must account for the 7 wounds in Kennedy and Connally.
Rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further...
...the Warren Commission endorsed the theory...
...put forth by an ambitious attorney, Arlen Spector.
One of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people.
It's known as the "magic bullet" theory.
The magic bullet...
...enters the President's back, headed downward at a 17 degree angle.
It then moves upwards to leave Kennedy's body from the front of his neck...
...wound #2...
...where it waits 1 .6 seconds...
...presumably in midair, where it turns right, then left...
...right, then left...
...and continues into Connally's right armpit.
Wound #3.
The bullet then heads down at an angle of 27 degrees, shattering his rib...
...and exiting from the right side of his chest. Wound #4.
The bullet turns right, reentering Connally's body at his right wrist.
Wound #5.
Shattering the radius bone...
...the bullet exits Connally's wrist, wound #6...
...makes a dramatic U-turn, then buries itself in Connally's left thigh.
Wound #7, from which it later falls out...
...and is found in almost pristine condition...
...on a stretcher in a corridor of Parkland hospital.
Some bullet.
Any combat vet can tell you never in the history of gunfire...
...has there been a bullet this ridiculous.
The government says it can prove it with some fancy physics in a nuclear lab.
Of course they can.
Theoretical physics can prove an elephant can hang from a cliff...
...with his tail tied to a daisy.
But use your eyes, your common sense.
The Army wound ballistics experts fired some comparison bullets.
Not one of them looked anything like this.
Take a look at CE-856.
An identical bullet...
...fired through the wrist of a human cadaver.
...just one of the bones smashed by the magic bullet.
Seven wounds, gentlemen.
Tough skin...
...dense bones.
This single bullet explanation...
...is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of one assassin.
And once you conclude...
...the magic bullet couldn't create all 7 wounds...
...you must conclude there was a fourth shot and a second rifleman.
And if there was a second rifleman...
...then by definition there had to be a conspiracy...
...which we believe involves the accused, Clay Shaw.
51 witnesses thought they heard shots from the grassy knoll...
...which is to the right, in front of the President.
Key witnesses that day?
Charles Brehm, a combat vet.
And Jean Hill and Mary Moorman.
S. M. Holland, Richard Dodd, James Simmons...
...standing on the overpass. J.C. Price...
...overlooking the plaza.
William Newman, father of two children.
He hit the deck on the north side of Elm.
Abraham Zapruder.
Each of these key witnesses has no doubt whatsoever...
...one or more shots came from behind the picket fence.
26 trained medical personnel at Parkland Hospital...
...saw the back of the President's head blasted out!
Doctor Peters.
There was a large 7-centimeter opening at the right occipital parietal area.
A considerable portion of the brain was missing.
A fifth or possibly a quarter of the back of the head had been blasted out...
...along with the underlying brain tissue.
When's the proper time to declare one dead?
There was also a large fragment of skull attached to a flap of the scalp.
The exit hole in the rear of his head measured about 120 millimeters...
...or five inches across.
Not one of the civilian doctors who examined the President...
...regarded his throat wound as anything but an entry wound.
But then the body was illegally moved to Washington for the autopsy.
Because when a coup d'etat has occurred...
...there's a big difference between an autopsy performed by civilian doctors...
...and one that is performed by military doctors under orders.
The departure of Air Force One on Friday was not so much a takeoff...
...as it was a getaway, with the newly sworn in President.
Objection!
Sustained.
On the plane, the White House Situation Room announced Oswald's guilt...
...to all passengers before any kind of investigation had begun.
The "angry lone nut" solution is beginning to take shape.
- Objection, Your Honor. - Sustained.
Please bottle the acid.
The three Bethesda doctors picked by the military left something to be desired.
None of them had experience with combat gunfire wounds.
Through their autopsy, we've been able to justify 8 wounds from two bullets.
Three to Kennedy, five to Connally.
One of them being the "magic bullet."
- FBI? - Here.
Col. Finck, are you saying someone told you not to dissect the neck?
I was told the family wanted the examination of the head.
Oh, Christ.
Looks like half his brain is gone.
- Weigh it. - 653 grams.
As a pathologist, it was your obligation to explore...
...all possible causes of death.
I had the cause of death.
Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer my question.
Why did Col. Finck not dissect the tract of the bullet wound?
I heard Dr. Humes stating...
That's enough. That's enough.
It's duly noted.
Let's check the back.
I can feel the end of the wound with my finger.
That won't be necessary.
Watch the ear!
Shot in the back. Cheap crime.
He said:
Who's in charge here?
I am.
I don't remember his name.
It was quite crowded.
And when you are called to look at the wounds of the dead President...
...you don't ask people for their names and who they are.
But you were a qualified pathologist. Was the Army General?
But you took his orders.
So he was directing the autopsy.
There were others.
There were Admirals.
When you're a Lieutenant Colonel, you follow orders.
It is not our business to discuss this with anyone outside this room.
As I recall, Admiral Kenney, Navy Surgeon General...
...specifically told us not to discuss the case.
A lot of people were deciding what was private...
...none of the American people's business.
The chief pathologist, Commander Humes...
...by his own admission, voluntarily burns his autopsy notes.
President Johnson orders the blood soaked limousine...
...filled with bullet holes and clues to be washed and rebuilt.
He sends Connally's bloody suit to the cleaners.
The Justice Department denied this office access to the autopsy photos.
When we finally get a court order to examine Kennedy's brain...
...in the hopes of finding from which direction the bullet came...
...we're told...
...by your government that the President's brain has disappeared.
That's not all that's disappeared. With it, the concept of justice.
Objection. Mr. Garrison is insulting the federal government.
Overruled!
So, what really happened that day?
Let's just for a moment speculate, shall we?
We have the epileptic seizure...
...distracting the police and allowing the shooters to get into place.
The epileptic later vanished, never checking into the hospital.
The A-team goes to the 6th floor of the Depository.
They were refurbishing the floors of the Depository that week...
...allowing unknown workmen in the building.
They move quickly into position minutes before the shooting.
The second spotter, talking by radio to the other teams, has the best overall view.
The God spot.
B-team, one rifleman and one spotter with access to the building...
...moves into a low floor of the Dal-Tex Building.
The third team, C-team, moves in behind the fence above the grassy knoll...
...where the shooter and the spotter are first seen by the late Lee Bowers.
They have the best position.
Kennedy is close and on a flat low trajectory.
Part of this team is a coordinator...
...who flashed security credentials at people, chasing them from the area.
Probably two to three more men are in the crowd.
10 to 12 men. Three teams. Three shooters.
The triangulation of fire Clay Shaw and David Ferrie discussed 2 months before.
They blocked the Plaza.
They know every inch.
They've calibrated their sights. Practiced on moving targets.
They're ready.
Kennedy's motorcade makes a turn from Main onto Houston.
It's going to be a turkey shoot.
They don't shoot him on Houston...
...the easiest shot for a single shooter in the Depository.
They wait till he gets to the killing zone between 3 rifles.
Kennedy makes the turn from Houston onto Elm.
Slowing down to some 11 miles an hour.
The shooters across Dealey Plaza tighten, taking their aim.
Waiting for the radio to say, "Green! Green!"
Or, "Abort! Abort!"
The first shot rings out.
Sounding like a backfire, it misses the car completely.
Frame 161, Kennedy stops waving as he hears something.
Connally's head turns slightly to the right.
Frame 193, the second shot hits Kennedy in the throat from the front.
Frame 225, Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign.
He's been hit, raising his hands to his throat.
The third shot, frame 232...
...hits Kennedy in the back, pulling him downward and forward.
Connally, you will notice, shows no sign of being hit.
He is holding his Stetson, which is impossible if his wrist is shattered.
Connally is turning now.
Frame 238. The fourth shot.
It misses Kennedy and takes Connally in the back.
This is the shot that proves there were two rifles.
Connally yells, "My God! They're going to kill us all!"
Around this time, another shot misses the car completely...
...striking James Tague by the underpass.
The car brakes.
The sixth and fatal shot.
Frame 313, takes Kennedy in the head from the front.
This is the key shot.
The President going back and to his left...
...shot from the front and right.
Totally inconsistent with the shot from the Depository.
Again.
Back, and to the left.
So what happens then?
Pandemonium.
Let's go! We got him!
The shooters quickly disassemble their various weapons, except the Oswald rifle.
Patrolman Smith rushes to the parking lot behind the fence.
He smells gunpowder.
He produced credentials showing him to be Secret Service.
Let's see your ID. See anyone else up here?
I accepted that and let him go.
I regretted it. He looked like a mechanic.
He had on a sports shirt and pants, but he had dirty fingernails.
Afterward, it didn't ring true. But at the time...
...we were so pressed for time.
All Secret Servicemen in Dallas were accounted for.
None were on foot in Dealey Plaza before or after the shooting...
...till the Dallas Secret Service chief returned at 12:55.
The Dallas police took at least 12 people into custody.
No record of their arrest.
Men acting like hoboes were pulled off trains...
...marched through Dealey Plaza, photographed.
Yet there's no record of their arrest.
Men identifying themselves as Secret Service agents were everywhere.
But who was impersonating them?
Where was Oswald?
Around 12:15, leaving the building to see the motorcade...
...Carolyn Arnold sees Oswald in the 2nd-floor snacking...
...where he said he went for a Coke.
He was in a booth on the right side of the room.
He was by himself as usual, appeared to be having lunch.
I didn't speak to him, but I recognized him clearly.
At the same time, Bonnie Ray Williams is supposedly eating lunch in the 6th floor.
He's there until 12:15, maybe 12:20.
He sees nobody.
Arnold Rowlands, on the street, looks up, sees two men in the 6th-floor windows...
...presumably after Williams finished lunch and left.
John Powell, a prisoner on the 6th floor of the county jail, sees them.
Many of us saw them.
Everyone was hollering and yelling. We thought they was security guys.
If Oswald was the assassin, he was nonchalant about moving into position.
Later, he told police he was in the 2nd- floor snack room.
Probably told to wait there by his handler for a call.
But the phone call never came.
Maximum 90 seconds after Kennedy's shot...
...patrolman Marrion Baker sees Oswald in that 2nd-floor lunchroom.
Is this man an employee?
Yes. The President's been shot.
The Commission would have us believe...
...that after firing 3 bolt-action shots in 5.6 seconds...
...Oswald then leaves 3 cartridges neatly side-by-side in the firing nest...
...wipes fingerprints off the rifle, stashes it on the other side of the loft...
...sprints down 5 flights of stairs...
...past Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles who never see him...
...then shows up, cool and calm, on the 2nd floor in front of Patrolman Baker.
All this within a maximum of 90 seconds of the shooting.
Is this man an employee?
Yes. The President's been shot.
Is he out of breath?
According to Baker, absolutely not.
Assuming he is the sole assassin, Oswald is free to leave the building.
The longer he delays, the more chance the building will be sealed by police.
Is he guilty? Does he walk out the nearest staircase?
He buys a Coke...
...and at a slow pace, spotted by Mrs. Reid on the 2nd floor...
...he strolls out the more distant front exit...
...where cops have gathered.
Odd, since 3 shots were fired from there...
...nobody seals the Depository for 10 more minutes.
Oswald slips out, as do several other employees.
When he realized something had gone wrong and Kennedy had been killed...
...he knew there was a problem. Maybe even that he was the patsy.
An intuition, maybe. The President killed in spite of his warning.
The phone call that never came.
Perhaps fear now came to Oswald for the very first time.
Oswald returns to his rooming house around 1:00 p.m...
...a half hour after the assassination.
A man shot the President!
He puts on his jacket, grabs his .38 revolver...
...and leaves at 1:04.
Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, heard two beeps on a car horn.
Two uniformed cops pulled up while Oswald was in his room.
Like it was a signal.
Officer Tippit is shot between 1:10 and 1:15, a mile away.
And though no one saw him walking...
...the government says Oswald covered that distance.
Giving the government the benefit of the doubt...
...Oswald would have had to jog a mile in 6 to 11 minutes...
...then commit the murder...
...and walk 3/5ths of a mile to the Texas Theater...
...and arrive sometime before 1:30.
It's also a useful conclusion.
After all, why would Oswald kill Officer Tippit...
...unless he just shot the President and feared arrest?
Domingo Benevides...
...the closest witness to the shooting...
...refuses to identify Oswald as the killer and was never taken to a line-up.
Acquilla Clemons...
...saw the killer and another man go off in separate directions.
Mrs. Clemons was never taken to a line- up or to the Warren Commission.
At the scene, Officer Poe marks his initials on the shells...
...to record the chain of evidence.
Those initials are not on the 3 cartridge cases...
...which the Warren Commission present to him.
As early as 12:44, only 14 minutes after the assassination...
...the police put out a description matching Oswald's size and build.
Oswald is next seen by a shoe salesman, Johnny Brewer, on Jefferson Avenue.
Oswald is scared. He begins to realize the full implications of this thing.
He goes to the Texas Theater, possibly a prearranged meeting point.
Though he has $14 in his pocket, he doesn't buy the 75c ticket.
Brewer has the cashier call the police.
In response to that call...
...at least 30 officers in patrol cars descend on the movie theater.
This is the most remarkable example of police intuition...
...since the Reichstag fire.
I don't buy it!
They knew. Someone knew Oswald would be there.
Brewer leads the cops into the theater...
...and from the stage, points Oswald out.
Sir, can I get you to stand up?
I am not resisting arrest! I am not resisting arrest!
They have their man.
It's already been decided in Washington.
When he is brought from the theater...
...a crowd is waiting to scream at him.
Lee Oswald must have felt like Joseph K. in Kafka's "The Trial."
He's never given reasons for his arrest.
He doesn't know the unseen forces ranging against him.
At police headquarters, he was booked for murdering Tippet.
No legal counsel is provided.
No record made of the questioning.
When the sun rises the next morning...
...he is booked for murdering the President.
The whole country, fueled by the media, assumes he is guilty.
Under the guise of a patriotic club owner...
...out to spare Jackie Kennedy from testifying at a trial...
...Jack Ruby is let into a garage...
...by one of his inside men on the police force.
Oswald is brought out like a sacrificial lamb...
...and nicely disposed of as an enemy of the people.
Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald...
...buried in a cheap grave under the name Oswald?
Nobody.
False statements and press leaks about Oswald circulate the globe.
The official legend is created and the media takes it from there.
The glitter of official lies and the epic splendor of JFK's funeral...
...confuse the eye and confound the understanding.
Hitler said:
"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it."
Lee Harvey Oswald, a crazed lonely man who wanted attention...
...and got it by killing a President was only the first in a long line of patsies.
In later years, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King...
...men whose commitment to change and peace...
...made them dangerous to men committed to war, would follow...
...also killed by such lonely crazed men.
Men who remove all guilt by making murder a meaningless act of a loner.
We've all become Hamlets in our country, children of a slain father-leader...
...whose killers still possess the throne.
The ghost of John F. Kennedy confronts us with the secret murder...
...at the heart of the American Dream.
He forces on us the appalling questions: Of what is our Constitution made?
What are our lives worth?
What is the future of a democracy...
...where a President can be assassinated under suspicious circumstances...
...while the machinery of legal action scarcely trembles?
How many more political murders disguised as heart attacks...
...suicides, cancers, drug overdoses?
How many plane and car crashes will occur...
...before they are exposed for what they are?
"Treason doth never prosper," wrote an English poet.
"What's the reason?"
"For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
The American public has yet to see the Zapruder film.
Why?
The American public has yet to see the real X-rays and autopsy pictures.
Why?
Hundreds of documents could help prove this conspiracy.
Why are they being withheld or burned by the government?
When my office or you, the people, asked those questions, demanded evidence...
...the answer from on high has always been: national security.
What kind of national security do we have when we're robbed of our leaders?
What national security permits the removal...
...of fundamental power from the people...
...and validates the ascendancy of invisible government in the U.S.?
That kind of national security...
...when it smells like it, feels like it, and looks like it...
...you call it what it is:
Fascism!
I submit to you that what took place on November 22, 1963...
...was a coup d'etat.
Its most direct and tragic result...
...was the reversal of Kennedy's decision to withdraw from Vietnam.
The war is the biggest business in America...
...with 80 billion dollars a year.
President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy...
...planned at the highest levels of government...
...carried out by fanatical and disciplined cold warriors...
...in the Pentagon and CIA's covert operation apparatus.
Among them, Clay Shaw, here before you.
It was a public execution, and it was covered up by...
...like-minded people in the Dallas police...
...the Secret Service, the FBI, and the White House...
...up to and including J. Edgar Hoover, and Lyndon Johnson...
...who were accomplices after the fact.
The assassination reduced the President to a transient official.
His job is to speak as often as possible of the nation's desire for peace...
...while he acts as a business agent in the Congress...
...for the military and their contractors.
Some people say I'm crazy.
Southern caricature seeking higher office.
There's a simple way to determine if I am paranoid.
Ask the 2 men who profited most from the assassination.
...former President Johnson and your new President, Nixon...
...to release the 51 CIA documents pertaining to Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby.
Or the secret CIA memo...
...on Oswald's activities in Russia that was destroyed while being photocopied.
These documents are yours.
The people's property. You pay for it.
But as the government sees you as children...
...who might be too disturbed to face this reality...
...or because you might lynch those involved...
...you cannot see these documents for another 75 years.
I'm in my 40's...
...so I'll have shuffled off this mortal coil by then.
But I'm telling my 8-year-old son to keep himself physically fit...
...so that one glorious September morning, in 2038...
...he can go to the National Archives and learn what the CIA and FBI knew.
They may push it back then.
It may become a generational affair. Questions passed from parent to child.
But some day, somewhere, someone may find out the damn truth.
We better.
Or we might just as well build ourselves another government...
...like the Declaration of Independence says to, when the old one don't work.
Just a bit farther out West.
An American naturalist wrote:
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country...
...against its government."
I'd hate to be in your shoes today.
You have a lot to think about. You've seen evidence the public hasn't seen.
Going back to when we were children...
...l think most of us in this court...
...thought justice came automatically.
That virtue was its own reward.
That good triumphs over evil.
But as we get older we know this isn't true.
Individual human beings have to create justice, and this is not easy...
...because the truth often poses a threat to power...
...and we often have to fight power at great risk to ourselves.
People like S.M. Holland...
...Lee Bowers...
...Jean Hill, Willie O'Keefe...
...have all taken that risk and they've all come forward.
I have here some $8,000 in these letters...
...sent from all over the country.
Quarters, dimes, dollars from housewives...
...plumbers, car salesmen, teachers, invalids.
These are people who cannot afford to send money but do.
People who drive cabs...
...who nurse in hospitals...
...who see their kids go to Vietnam.
Why?
Because they care.
Because they want the truth.
Because they want their country back.
Because it still belongs to us...
...as long as the people fight for what they believe in.
The truth is the most important value we have because if it doesn't endure...
...if the government murders truth...
...if we cannot respect these people...
...then this is not the country I was born in, or the country I want to die in.
Tennyson wrote:
"Authority forgets a dying king."
This was never more true than for John F. Kennedy...
...whose murder was probably one of the most terrible moments...
...in the history of our country.
We, the people, the jury system sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw...
...represent the hope...
...of humanity against government power.
In discharging your duty...
...to bring a first conviction in this house of cards...
...against Clay Shaw...
"...ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."
Do not forget...
...your dying king.
Show this world...
...this is still a government of the people, for the people and by the people.
Nothing as long as you live...
...will ever be more important.
It's up to you.
Has the jury reached a verdict?
We have, Your Honor.
Please hand the verdict to the clerk.
Will the defendant please rise?
The clerk will now read the verdict.
New Orleans, Louisiana. March 1, 1969.
We, the jury, find the defendant, Clay Shaw, not guilty.
We believe there was a conspiracy.
Whether Shaw was a part of it is another kettle of fish.
There's Jim!
Do you agree that this is a full vindication of the Warren Commission?
It only proves you cannot run an investigation.