From the
UK Daily Telegraph July 2020
Why
Oliver Stone’s JFK is the greatest lie Hollywood ever told
BK: WHY
IS THIS FILM STILL SO THREATENING TO PEOPLE? IT’S JUST A MOVIE ABOUT JIM
GARRISON AND HOW HE GOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION DRAMA.
JFK’s
assassination came in a time of political divide, fake news, conspiracies and
the unfulfilled promise of America. What has changed?
Under
the watchful gaze of the Lincoln Memorial, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner –
Hollywood’s then-good and true leading man) meets a mysterious whistleblower
known only as “X” (Donald Sutherland). Garrison is the New Orleans district
attorney; X is a former black ops man-turned-deep throat. (“One of those secret
guys in the Pentagon,” X says.) Garrison is investigating the assassination of
President John F Kennedy – shot on November 22 1963, at the Dealey
Plaza in Dallas – and determined to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was just “a
patsy” in a bigger plot.
BK: “X”
IS BASED ON COL. FLETCHER PROUTY, WHO DID WORK AT THE PENTAGON.
“You’re
close,” X tells him. “Closer than you think.”
In
Oliver Stone’s three hours-plus JFK, this scene is the towering dramatic
centrepiece: a blistering 15-minute monologue that blows apart the conspiracy
that killed Kennedy – tensions between Kennedy and the CIA; Kennedy’s soft
stance of communism and intention to pull out of Vietnam; the Cubans, the Mob,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all gunning for Kennedy from the shadows; the teams
of shooters brought in to kill him in a “turkey shoot” (with one shooter, of
course, placed on the grassy knoll); and the “fiction” of the of the Warren
Report, the official investigation into Kennedy’s murder.
BK: THE
JOINT CHIEFS WERE GUNNING FOR KENNEDY FROM THE SHADOWS AND THERE WERE TEAMS OF
SHOOTERS.
“Very
strange things were happening, and your Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do
with them,” says X, before asking the all-important questions that underpin
Stone’s film: “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to
cover it up?”
The
scene encapsulates JFK perfectly: densely packed with information; gripping
from the start to finish; and a dizzying whirlpool of ever-deepening
conspiracies. It’s also, rather disappointingly, hokum. In retelling the story
of Jim Garrison, still the only man to bring a trial in the murder of Kennedy,
and the conspiracy he claimed to have uncovered, Stone’s JFK treads the
deliberately-blurred lines between half-truths, speculation, and bold-faced
nonsense.
Michel
J Gagné is a humanities lecturer at Champlain College St-Lambert, Quebec.
He calls himself a historian of ideas and “a recovering conspiracist”. He’s
written about how he was duped by the film when he first saw it back in 1991.
BK: YEA,
A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE DUPPED, AND STILL ARE BEING DUPPED, ESPECIALLY THOSE CONSPIRACY
FREAKS WHO FLIPPED AND ARE NOW DEVOTED LONE NUTTERS, AND THERE ARE MORE THAN A
HANDFULL. THEY ARE ERIC HOFFER’S TRUE BELIEVERS WHO AS CONVERTS ARE EVEN MORE
FAITHFUL THAN THOSE BORN AND BAPTIZED.
“People
my age just took the film as fact – hook, line and sinker,” he tells me.
BK: IT
ARE THOSE WHO BOUGHT THE WARREN REPORT’S CONCLUSION THAT ONE MAN ALONE WAS
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ASSASSINATION WHO SWALLOWED THE HOOK, LINE AND SINKER.
The JFK
assassination was the actual crime of the century. It changed America, and
the events that surrounded it feel relevant today: civil rights, political
division, fake news, deep suspicion of government.
“To this
very day, JFK represents the unfulfilled promise of America,” says Tom Stone, a
professor at Dallas’s Southern Methodist University. “This is the guy who
seemed to aspire to move beyond militarism, beyond racism, beyond complacency.
There are all sorts of ways in which the real America has failed to live up to
our ideals. That gap between aspiration and reality is a reason why Kennedy is
still an important figure to this day.”
More
than just historical inaccuracy for Hollywood’s sake, JFK has an agenda. But
did Oliver Stone have a greater responsibility to the known facts surrounding
Kennedy? Is JFK a conspiracy to cover up the truth?
BK:
OLIVER STONE’S JFK IS NOT HISTORICALLY INACCURATE. HE PUBLISHED A BOOK THAT
DOCUMENTS EVERY SCENE WITH FOOTNOTES. IT’S THE STORY OF NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT
ATTORNEY JIM GARRISION, AND HOW HE GOT INVOLVED INVESTIGATING THE NEW ORLEANS
LINKS TO THE ASSASSINATION IN HIS JURISDICTION.
Tom
Stone began teaching courses on John F Kennedy around the time the film
was released. Each version of his course has begun with a screening of JFK.
“It’s a
very well made movie and the best introduction to the conspiracy theories –
even if the rest of the semester is spent poking holes in it,” he says. “I
believe that nobody should trust any one source about the assassination.
Everyone comes to it with an agenda. It’s easy to manipulate and cherry-pick
because the evidence is contradictory and all over the place. It’s like the
Bible. You can start plucking stuff out to prove just about anything.”
BK: THAT’S
WHY ALL SILLY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND DEVOTED LONE NUTTERS ARE IN THE SAME
SINKINIG BOAT ON SHIT’S CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE – BECAUSE THEY ARE COCK SURE
THEY KNOW WHO KILLED JFK WHILE THOSE OF US WHO DON’T KNOW WHO KILLED HIM ARE
TRYING TO ANSWER THE STILL OUTSTANDING QUESTIONS, AND ARE DOING JUST THAT.
Dr Ken
Drinkwater, a lecturer and conspiracy expert from Manchester Metropolitan
University, says he keeps “an open mind” about JFK.
BK:
NEITHER SILLY CT NOR DEVOTED LNS KEEP “AN OPEN MIND.”
“It’s
about understanding how conspiracies can be formed,” he says. “You can take a
belief system you already have, and it’s adapted by the information you think
is more pertinent to your belief.”
BK: WHY
DO LONE NUTTERS WANT TO STUDY THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SILLY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS?
SOMEDAY THERE WILL BE A STUDY OF THOSE WHO BOUGHT THE OFFICIAL COVER STORY AND
SEE HOW THEIR MINDS WORK.
That
seems true of both Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone. Stone first learned of
Garrison’s book, On the Trail of the Assassins, after a chance meeting with its
publisher at a Cuban film festival in 1988. By then, Garrison had been written
off as a kook. Even the conspiracy community saw Garrison as an embarrassment:
his farcical trial of respected and popular New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw
had damaged their cause. Garrison’s revisionist account was just as hokey.
BK:
GARRISON DIDN’T INDICT CLAY SHAW – A GRAND JURY DID – AND THAT’S WHERE THE
HOUMA BUNKER RAID FACTS CAME OUT – FACTS THAT PROVE THE BANNISTER-FERRIE-GORDON
NOVEL-TOM BLACKMON AND CUBAN CLOWNS DID NOT PULL OFF THE CLEAN CUT DEALEY PLAZA
OPERATION. AND THAT SHAW AND FERRIE WERE CONNECTED TO OSWALD WAS IN THE GRAND
JURY TESTIMONY OF THE CLINTON –CORE WITNESSES, WHO DIDN’T TESTIFY AT THE TRIAL.
WHY WEREN’T THE HOUMA BUNKER RAID AND THE CLINTON WITNESSES BROUGHT IN TO
TESTIFY AT THE TRIAL AS THEY DID BEFORE THE GRAND JURY? THEN THE NEXT DA HARRY
CONNACK ORDERED THE GRAND JURY RECORDS DESTROYED, BUT HIS OFFICE AIDE
RECOGNIZED THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AND TURNED THEM OVER TO THE ASSSASSINATONS
RECORDS REVIEW BOARD SO WE CAN READ THEM NOW.
“The
book was riddled with striking inaccuracies and outright lies,” wrote Clay Shaw
biographer Donald H Carpenter.
BK: I HOPE
SHAW’S BIOGRAPHY CONTAINS HIS CIA FILE AND WORK FOR PERMINDEX..
Stone
purchased the rights for $250,000 and hired Zachary Sklar, the editor of
Garrison’s book, to co-write the screenplay.
“The
movie is kind of quoting itself,” says Gagné. “There’s some of this circular
reasoning going on. Sklar wrote the screenplay based on a book that he himself
had heavily edited.”
Stone
also snapped up Jim Marrs’s Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, a
catch-all book on JFK conspiracies, and enlisted Robert Groden, Larry
Howard and L Fletcher Prouty as advisors – all conspiracists. Prouty
was one of the inspirations behind X. He was an Air Force
chief-turned-conspiracy whistleblower who associated with Liberty Lobby, a
Right-wing group with links to Holocaust denial.
BK: AND
JEWISH LAWYER MARK LANE DEFENDED THE LIBERTY LOBBY AT TRIAL WHEN THEY WERE SUED
BY DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS.
“People
who worked with him thought he was deeply paranoid,” says Gagné. “A lot of
stuff in his books is paranoid anti-CIA speculation.”
BK:
PROUTY WAS PARANOID ALL RIGHT, AND WITH GOOD REASON. HE WAS THE FIRST TO CALL
ATTENTION TO THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, WHOSE OFFICE WAS RIGHT DOWN THE
PENTAGON HALL FROM HIM. HE WAS ALSO THE FIRST TO CALL ATTENTION TO GENERAL
KRULAK – THE USMC WHO PROVIDED MILITARY SUPPORT TO THE CIA AND WHOSE AIDE COL.
HIGGENS WROTE THE MEMO THAT IS NOW THE SUBJECT OF AN FOIA CASE THAT IS GOING
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT. AND IT WAS KRULAK AND PROUTY WHO BOTH AGREE THERE IS
A PHOTO OF ED LANSDALE WALKING IN DEALEY PLAZA IN ONE OF THE TRAMP PHOTOS. WHAT’S
LANSDALE DOING THERE? THEY WANTED TO KNOW, AND SO SHOULD WE.
"This
murder in broad daylight ... Everything changed," said film director
Oliver Stone while recreating the assassination on camera
Oliver
Stone wrote the introduction for Prouty’s book, JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the
Plot to Assassinate John F Kennedy.
“They
didn’t consult mainstream historians,” says Gagné. “Robert Dallek, for example
– no one asked him to be an advisor, even though he’s one of the foremost
experts on JFK. They used people from the fringe.”
BK:
MAINSTEREAM HISTORIANS WON’T TOUCH THIS SUBJECT, IT’S TOO HOT FOR THEM TO
HANDLE.
According
to Patricia Lambert’s False Witness, a damning book on the Garrison-Shaw trial,
Oliver Stone went into top-secret mode for JFK. He dubbed the film “Project X”,
made the crew sign non-disclosures, and swept his office for bugs.
He also
paid $50,000 to film on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, where Oswald
shot Kennedy, and restored the “grassy knoll” area to how it looked in 1963.
But his portrayal of Jim Garrison and Clay Shaw (played in the movie by Tommy
Lee Jones) was less authentic, and more problematic: Garrison as a lone
crusader of American justice, and Clay – a proven innocent man – as a smug,
sexually deviant conspirator.
The real
Garrison is often described as “larger than life” and hugely charismatic – but
also bullish, narcissistic and manipulative.
BK: YOU
SHOULD READ JACK ANDERSON’S REPORT TO THE FBI AFTER HAVING A SIX HOUR DINNER
INTERVIEW WITH GARRISON.
“I
believe the real Garrison was kind of a charlatan who would do anything to win
and didn’t mind a bit of publicity,” says Tom Stone. “Anyone who sees the movie
and thinks they know what the real Jim Garrison was like… it’s almost funny how
wrong that is.”
Garrison
investigated a former pilot named David Ferrie (played by Joe Pesci), an
oddball who wore a homemade wig and stick-on eyebrows, and linked Ferrie to
Clay Shaw.
Garrison
accused Shaw of using the alias “Clay Bertrand”, a mystery man whom a shyster
DA named Dean Andrews said contacted him about Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary
Oldman in the film). Andrews later confessed he invented the story.
Garrison
claimed that Shaw, Ferrie, and Oswald had conspired to shoot Kennedy as part of
a “homosexual thrill kill”.
BK:
WHILE FERRIE, SHAW AND BANNISTER WERE CONNECTED TO OSWALD THE PATSY IN THE
SUMMER OF ’63, THEY WERE IN NO WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WENT DOWN AT DEALEY
PLAZA. THAT WAS A VERY WELL PLANNED – NOT PLOTTED, MILITARY STYLE AMBUSH, NOT
ONE CONCOCKTED BY A BUNCH OF LOONEYS AND GAYS SITTING AROUND SMOKING AND
DRINKING AND TALKING ABOUT WACKING KENNEDY.
But
there was no proven link between the three men.
BK: WAIT
A MINUTE. THERE’S A PHOTO OF OSWALD AND FERRIE TOGETHER IN THE CAP. AND THE
THREE WERE LINKED TOGETHER IN CLINTON DURING THE CORE VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE.
Later,
Garrison claimed Shaw was a CIA agent,
convinced by a story he’d seen on an Italian communist newspaper, Paese Sera –
a story reportedly planted by the KGB.
BK: THE
FAKE KGB DEFECTOR PLANTED THAT STORY – AND GARRISON DIDN’T READ THE STORY ABOUT
SHAW’S CONNECTION TO PERMINDEX – HE GOT IT FROM BILL TURNER. AND IN ORDER TO
ESTABLISH HIS BONIFIDES, MITROKIN GAVE UP A FORMER NSA CODE CLERK, WHO WHEN
ARRESTED, TOLD THE JUDGE HE SAW AN NSA DOCUMENT WITH THE NAME OF JFK’S REAL
ASSASSIN. WHEN A REPORTER ASKED HIM WHAT THE NAME WAS HE SAID – LUIS ANGEL
CASTILO.
The
CIA-killed-Kennedy theory continues to this day.
BK: YES,
AND THE CIA DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN TO BLAME THE DEALEY PLAZA OPERATION ON
CASTRO CONTINUES TO THIS DAY AS AN ACTIVE MEASURE – WITH FORMER CIA AGENTS
BRIAN LATELL AND BOB BAER AND THEIR MEDIA ASSETS GUS RUSSO AND PHIL SHENON
PUBLISHING BOOKS AND MAKING MOVIES ON HOW CASTRO CONTROLLED OSWALD – THE GUY
WHO DIDN’T KILL JFK.
“Garrison
deduced a theory, then he marshalled his facts,” wrote Patricia Lambert.
“And if the facts didn’t fit, he’d say they had been altered by the CIA.”
David
Ferrie died in February 1967 (not murdered for confessing, as depicted in the
film, but killed by a brain aneurysm), and Garrison arrested Clay Shaw the
following month.
An
insurance salesman named Perry Russo claimed that he’d witnessed Shaw, Ferrie,
and Oswald plotting to kill JFK at a party. But he only made the claims after
being subjected to hypnosis and the “truth serum”, sodium pentothal. Russo is
omitted from the film. Also absent is a crackpot investigator who made up
evidence and most of the case for the defence.
Unsurprisingly,
Stone met resistance in New Orleans from people who were involved with the real
trial. A defense attorney who represented Shaw told Oliver Stone that “he did
not believe Garrison acted in good faith.” Rosemary James, a reporter who
covered the trial, wrote: “I know for a fact that Garrison deliberately
proceeded with a fraudulent case against Clay Shaw.” Harold Weisberg, a veteran
assassination investigator, leaked an early draft of the script to The
Washington Post, creating more high-profile criticism.
Stone
defended himself in interviews by saying “I’ve created a counter-myth to the
official one – is that so bad?” But he would also call himself a “cinematic
historian” and hoped to be remembered as “a good historian as well as a good
dramatist”.
Indeed,
Stone’s documentary-style film making does pertain to absolute truth.
Newsreel-like grainy, black-and-white handheld scenes blend with real archive
footage, such as Walter Cronkite on live TV announcing to the nation that
Kennedy has died, and the Zapruder film, amateur footage of Kennedy’s motorcade
passing through Dealey Plaza.
Reclaiming
History, a 1,500-page doctrine debunking JFK conspiracies, by American attorney
and author Vincent Bugliosi, includes a searing chapter on the film.
“The
problem with Stone is not, really, that he egregiously fictionalised the
Kennedy assassination,” said Bugliosi. “It’s that he tried to convince everyone
he was telling the truth.”
Stone
said he wanted JFK to be like Japanese classic Rashomon, by offering up
different perspectives, most of which have Oswald, Jack Ruby (Brian
Doyle-Murray), and Clay Shaw wandering in and out. “It explores all the
possible scenarios of why Kennedy was killed,” Stone told the New York Times.
Stone
does throw in lots of theories: Oswald was framed for the murder of police
officer JD Tippit, killed 45 minutes after Kennedy; a famous photograph of
Oswald posing with his rifle was faked; witnesses at the Dealey Plaza heard six
shots, not three; others saw suspicious men at the grassy knoll; Oswald was a
poor shot; expert shooters couldn’t replicate the time of Oswald’s three shots
at Kennedy. Different perspectives perhaps, but a unifying “truth”: it was
conspiracy.
Bugliosi
dismantles the film’s many claims with convincing ferocity. For instance, ten
witnesses put Oswald on the scene of Tippit’s murder; Oswald was actually a
sharpshooter; one of the expert shooters didn’t just replicate but improved on
Oswald’s shooting; only one person at Dealey Plaza claimed to hear six shots,
while 136 people heard three; and many witnesses quoted by Stone were
unreliable.
According
to Bugliosi, there’s also key evidence left out: “Evidence like Oswald carrying
a large brown bag into the Book Depository Building on the morning of the
assassination, his fingerprints and palm print being found at the sniper’s
nest, his being the only employee of the building to flee the building after
the shooting, the provable lies he told during his interrogation… Stone
presented none of this to his audience.”
The
claim that Kennedy would pull out of Vietnam is also misleading. Memo NSAM 273,
which the film claims Lyndon Johnson signed to give the military its war,
thereby reversing Kennedy’s position just days after his death, was
actually drafted before Kennedy’s death.
“I don’t
think anyone could have known for sure what Kennedy was going to do about
Vietnam,” says Tom Stone. “The idea they took him out because of Vietnam is
based on a false assumption.”
BK: THE
FALSE ASSUMPTION IS THAT OSWALD KILLED JFK, NOT THAT JFK WAS GOING TO PULL OUT
OF VIETNAM – WHICH HAS BEEN CLEARLY ESTABLISHED.
JFK’s
biggest myth may be Kennedy himself, who was not a saint-like figure of
progressive politics. Kennedy was late to embrace the civil rights; had mob
connections; he was anti-communist; and had multiple affairs.
“He was
a morally fraught person,” says Gagné. “One big criticism is that a lot of his
decisions were made with his eye on opinion polls. He did not have a deep
ideology.”
Still,
Stone’s film is a persuasive masterclass. See the moment in which Costner’s
Garrison explains the “magic bullet theory”.
As
Garrison details, a single bullet caused a total of seven wounds between
Kennedy and Governor John Connally, sat in front of Kennedy in the motorcade.
To achieve this, the bullet must have stopped in mid air and made several
unfathomable turns – through Kennedy's neck, and Connally’s back, chest, wrist,
and leg. Surely there had to be more bullets, and therefore more shooters. But
that isn’t what the Warren Report says. The magic bullet was the creation of
conspiracists.
“When I
read the Warren Report, I realised there is no zig-zagging bullet,” says Gagné.
“Instead there’s a bullet that goes in a straight line and straight through
both men. That’s when I realised Oliver Stone was manipulating information.”
In the
film’s closing scene, Costner delivers a stirring speech about the dishonesty
at the heart of America. He accuses every law agency within spitting distance
of the conspiracy. The real Garrison didn’t mention the CIA. In fact, he only
averaged one day per week in court and wasn’t he there to cross-examine Shaw.
He was also absent when Shaw was acquitted in 54 minutes. But is the rousing
Americana just fair dramatic licence?
“I think
the film can be treated too harshly,” says Ken Drinkwater. “It’s entertainment
and based on some facts. There is a licence for a filmmaker to present more of
an exaggeration. If it was a documentary pointing to Lee Harvey Oswald not
being the lone assassin, it wouldn’t have sold as many box office tickets!”
The film
did convince audiences about conspiracies (me included). Its cultural impact
turned political: George Bush established the Assassination Records Review
Board, which led to the release of more than 3,000 documents in 2017, though
there were no major revelations.
“I’m
sure if there was a smoking gun in the files it was accidentally shredded and
flushed,” laughs Tom Stone.
BK:
OLIVER STONE SAID HE EXPECTED THE FILES TO BE LIKE A MERCEDEZ BENZ LEFT IN
HARLEM FOR TWENTY YEARS – STRIPPED TO THE FRAME BUT STILL IDENTIFIABLE AS A
MEERCEDEZ, JUST AS THE FILES SUPPORT THE FACT THAT THE ASSASSINATION WAS A
COUP.
But as
Ken Drinkwater points out, conspiracies have been proven in the past, such as
the MK Ultra mind-control tests; or Kennedy signing off an attempted
assassination of Field Castro, which is now widely known.
BK; HOLD
ON THEIR NELL! “KENNDY SIGNING OFF AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF FIELD (SIC
FIDEL) CASTRO, WHICH IS NOW WIDELY KNOWN.” OH YEA, WHICH ONE OF THE
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS DID HE SIGN OFF ON? NONE THAT I KNOW OF. AND THAT’S
WIDELY KNOWN.
And
there are still mysteries to be solved around JFK and files still unavailable.
BK: YES,
LET’S SOLVE THE STILL RESOLIVABLE MYSTERIS AND MAKE THE REMAINDER OF THE FILES
AVAILABLE – BUT WILL THE TELEGRAPH PRINT THAT?
Both Tom
Stone and Michel Gagné cite a trip which Oswald took to Mexico City weeks
before the assassination. Oswald made mysterious visits to the Cuban and Soviet
Embassies. Did someone get in Oswald’s ear?
BK: YEA, SHENNON WROTE A WHOLE BOOK ABOUT HOW
OSWALD ATTENDED A TWIST PARTY AT SYLVIA DURANS WITH TWO AMERICAN GRINGOS – AND I
TRACKED DOWN THE GRINGO AND INTERVIEWED THEM AND THEY WERE THERE AT THE TIME OF
THE ASSASSINATION AND NOT WHEN OSWALD WAS THERE, SO NO ONE COLD ‘GET IN OSWALD’S
EAR.”
“Just
because Oswald was the only shooter,
BK:
OSWALD WASN’T THE ONLY SHOOTER, HE WASN’T A SHOOTER OR EVEN ON THE SIXTH FLOOR
AT THE TIME.
doesn’t
mean there wasn’t some small-scale conspiracy to put him up to it,” says Stone.
“I still think there are legitimate concerns about influence. If we could ever
know who said what to Oswald in Mexico City, we’d have a solution to the case.”
With
JFK, Oliver Stone may have become the new Jim Garrison. Gagné agrees: “He used
a lot of the same methods, cherry-picking evidence to prove what he assumed at
the beginning was true. He doesn’t seem to notice that historians exist. Maybe
he thinks they’re part of the cover-up.”
And
certainly, Oliver Stone knows the power of film. In the Clay Shaw trial, he
screens the Zapruder film – just as the real Garrison had. The footage is
gut-churning: Kennedy’s head bursts open,
Jackie screams silently. As Costner’s
Garrison says: “A picture speaks a thousand words, doesn’t it?”
BK: AND
NOW WE CAN’T WAIT FOR STONE’S NEXT JFK FILM – A DOCUMENTARY WITH JIM DIEUGENIO CALLED
“DESTINY BETRAYED,” THAT WILL ADDRESS MANY OF THESE ISSUES AND IS NEARING
RELEASE.
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