All language subtitles for JFK.1991.sdh

[Military drumbeat]

[President Eisenhower's farewell speech,
background]

NARRATOR: January, 1961.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's
Farewell Address to the Nation.

This conjunction of an immense military
establishment and arms industry is new

in the American experience.

EISENHOWER: The total influence,

economic, political, even spiritual,

is felt in every city, every Statehouse,
every government office.

EISENHOWER: We must guard
against the acquisition

of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought

by the military-industrial complex.

We must never let the weight
of this combination

endanger our liberties
or democratic processes.

NARRATOR: November, 1960.

Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy
of Massachusetts

wins one of the narrowest election
victories in American history

over Vice President Richard Nixon
by a little more than 100,000 votes.

Alongside his beautiful
and elegant wife, Jacqueline Bouvier,

Kennedy is the symbol
of the new freedom of the 1960s,

signifying change and upheaval
to the American public.

"All men are created equal."

JFK: Every degree of mind and spirit
that I possess will be devoted

to the cause of freedom
around the world.

JFK: Today, the proudest boast is,

"Ich bin ein Berliner!"

NARRATOR:
He inherits a secret war against

the Communist Castro
dictatorship in Cuba,

a war run by the CIA
and angry Cuban exiles.

Castro is a successful revolutionary,

frightening to American business
interests in Latin America.

This war culminates in the disastrous
Bay of Pigs invasion

in April, 1961,

when Kennedy refuses to provide
air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade.

Kennedy takes public responsibility
for the failure.

He privately claims the CIA lied to him

and tried to manipulate him into ordering
an American invasion of Cuba.

[Castro speaks in Spanish]

NARRATOR: In October, 1962

the world comes to the brink
of nuclear war

when Kennedy quarantines Cuba

after announcing the presence
of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles

90 miles off American shores.

Soviet ships with more missiles
sail towards Cuba

but at the last moment they turn back.

The world breathes with relief.

In Washington, rumors abound
that JFK has cut a secret deal

with Russian Premier Khrushchev

not to invade Cuba in return
for a Russian withdrawal of missiles.

Suspicions abound that Kennedy
is soft on communism.

Kennedy also finds himself embroiled
in Laos and Vietnam.

We've got our difficulties there.

Unless a greater effort is made
by the government

to win popular support,
I don't think the war can be won there.

It's their war. They're the ones
who have to win it or lose it.

NARRATOR: Early that fateful summer,

Kennedy speaks of his new vision
at the American University.

JFK: What kind of peace do I mean?

What kind of peace do we seek?

JFK: Not a Pax Americana

enforced on the world
by American weapons of war.

We must re-examine our own attitudes
towards the Soviet Union.

Our most basic, common link

is that we all inhabit

this small planet.

JFK: We all breathe the same air.

We all cherish our children's futures.

And we are all mortal.

[Rose sobs]

You fucking assholes!

ROSE: Don't leave me here!

ROSE: They've gone to Dallas.

Friday.

[Rose gasps]

They're going to kill

Kennedy.

ROSE: Call somebody.

Stop them.

These are serious fucking guys.

[Rose gasps and moans]

DOCTOR: She's been high on something
since they brought her in.

Help!

Please!

[Military drumbeat]

[Sirens blare]

[Crowd applauds and cheers]

[Gunshots]

CRONKITE: [On TV]
Here is a bulletin from CBS News.

In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired

at President Kennedy's motorcade
in downtown Dallas.

The first reports say
that President Kennedy

has been seriously wounded
by the shooting.

[Dramatic music plays softly]

[Door opens]

What's wrong?

The President's been shot.

In Dallas. Five minutes ago.

Oh, no!

How bad?

No word. They think it's in the head.

[Jim sighs]

JIM: Napoleon's has a TV set.

NEWSMAN 1: [On TV]
Three bullets were found.

Gov. Connally also appeared
to have been hit.

The President was rushed to Parkland
Memorial Hospital, four miles away.

We are told the bullet entered the base
of the throat and came out the back,

but there is no confirmation.

Blood transfusions are being given.
A priest has administered the last rites.

[Crowd mumbles]

JIM: There's still a chance.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

Pull through, Jack.

CRONKITE: From Dallas

the flash, apparently official:

President Kennedy died

at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time

2:00 Eastern Standard Time,

some 38 minutes ago.

[Dramatic music plays softly]

[Woman sobs]

Vice President Johnson
has left the hospital.

Presumably he will take
the oath of office shortly

and become the 36th President
of the United States.

WOMAN: [Sobs on TV] He did so much
for this country, for colored people. Why?

[Shouting in bar]

MAN 1: Good-bye, you sorry bastard! Die!

MAN 2: Shut the fuck up!

I'm ashamed to be an American today.

CRONKITE: [On TV] The President
of the United States is dead.

NEWSMAN 2: [On TV]
I just talked to Father Hubert

of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

He told me

President Kennedy has been given
the last rites.

NEWSMAN 3: [On TV] Shortly after 12:30,

near the park in downtown Dallas

the shots rang out.

The President is dead.

The bullets came up over our heads

from that fence up on the knoll.

I seen his face when it hit.

His ear blew off and he turned real white.

He flopped over on his stomach

with his foot sticking out.

NEWSMAN 3: [On TV] None of us
thought it could happen here

or any place else.

BANISTER: All this blubbering over
that no-count son of a bitch!

They're bawling like they knew the man.
Makes me want to puke.

For God's sake, the President was shot.

A bullshit President!

Nobody's crying for the thousands
of Cubans

that bastard condemned to death
and torture at Bay of Pigs.

Goddamn peace treaties!

WOMAN: [On TV]
I heard shots from over there.

MAN: [On TV] I heard shots over there.
TV REPORTER: How many?

BANISTER: That's what happens
when you let the niggers vote.

They get together with the Jews
and the Catholics

and elect an Irish bleeding heart.

Chief, maybe you had too much to drink.

BANISTER: Bullshit!

Here's to the New Frontier.

Camelot in smithereens.

BANISTER: I'll drink to that.

[News coverage continues]

NEWSMAN 4: [On TV]
Dallas police have announced

they have a suspect in the killing
of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit

who was shot at 1:15 in Oak Cliff,
a Dallas suburb.

Police say there could be a tie-in
to the President's murder.

The suspect,
identified as a Lee Harvey Oswald

was arrested by more
than a dozen policemen

after a short scuffle at a movie theater
in Oak Cliff.

NEWSMAN 4: [On TV]
Officer Tippit was killed

by a revolver which was found
on Oswald.

MAN 2: Shoot the bastard!

MAN 1: Give him a medal
for shooting Kennedy!

I don't know what I am charged with

but I emphatically deny these charges.

BANISTER: The kid
must've gone nuts, right?

I said, Oswald must've flipped.

Right?

Just did this crazy thing
before anybody could stop him.

MARTIN: I'm going.
I've got to get home, Chief.

BANISTER: What are you talking about?

BANISTER: Who'd have ever thought

that goofy Oswald kid would pull
a stunt like an assassination?

Goes to show you can never know
about some people. Am I right, Jack?

Am I right, Jack?

BANISTER: Well, bless my soul.

All these years,
I thought you were on my team.

Are you kidding?

I couldn't be more serious, Jack.

Your little red eyes have me wondering
about your loyalty.

BANISTER: Look at that, Martin.

Who's been going through my files?

BANISTER: You've been looking
through my files, you little weasel!

You're starting to get paranoid. Really!

You went through all my files!

BANISTER: You're a goddamn spy!

Why would I want to look
through your files?

I've seen enough here this summer
to write a book.

I always lock my files!

BANISTER: You're the only one here today.

What do you mean, you bastard?

You're going to write a book?

You know what I mean.

I've seen a lot of strange things here.

Strange people.

[Grunting and groaning]

You didn't see a goddamn thing!

BANISTER: Not a goddamn thing!

NEWSMAN 4: [On TV] The full name
is Lee Harvey Oswald.

- Did you shoot the President?
- I didn't shoot anybody.

They have taken me in
because I have lived in the Soviet Union.

I'm just a patsy!

LIZ: He sure looks like a creep.

OSWALD: [On TV] I protested at that time
I was not allowed legal representation

during that very short and sweet hearing.

I really don't know

what this situation is about.

Nobody has told me anything
except that I am accused

of murdering a policeman.

I know nothing more than that.

I do request someone to come forward

to give me legal assistance.

NEWSMAN 5: [On TV] Were you ever
in the Free Cuba movement?

RUBY: It's the Fair Play
for Cuba Committee.

Why were you in Russia?
What happened to your eye?

He seems pretty cool
for a man under pressure.

A policeman hit me.

LIZ: He gives me the willies.

Come on, sugarplums,
it's past your bedtimes.

Mattie, honey, get a hold of yourself.

A fine man.

NEWSMAN 6: After a stint in the Marines,
he became fascinated by communism.

He is said to be a dedicated Marxist

and a fanatical supporter of Fidel Castro
and ultra left-wing causes.

He spent last summer in New Orleans
and was arrested

in a brawl with anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

JIM: Lou? Sorry to disturb you this late.

Matter of routine. Get on
this Oswald connection in New Orleans.

Check out his record. Find any friends
or associates from last summer.

Let's meet with the investigators
day after tomorrow.

LOU: [On phone] On Sunday?

JIM: Sunday. 11:00.

JIM: Thanks, Lou.

I would say that he is the killer

beyond a reasonable doubt
and to a moral certainty.

NEWMAN: [On TV] I thought a motorcycle
had backfired. I looked to my left.

A second shot hit him in the face.

NEWSMAN 1: [On TV]
The rifle, a cheap World War ll,

Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano

was ordered from
a Chicago mailing house

and shipped to Oswald's alias, A. Hidell

at a post office box in March of 1963.

This same rifle was used
to assassinate the President.

That ties it up.

NUMA: Another nut. Jesus Christ,
anybody can get a rifle in Texas!

LOU: As far as Oswald's associates,
one name keeps popping up: David Ferrie.

Oswald was seen with him
several times last summer.

I know David. Strange character.

LOU: He's been in trouble before.
He was a hot-shot pilot for Eastern Airlines.

Got canned after an alleged
homosexual incident.

NEWSMAN 1: [On TV] These photos
were found among Oswald's possessions

in the garage where Marina Oswald
and her children are living.

Somebody mentioned Ferrie
on that Texas trip. Find that out.

MARINA: [On TV] He no shoot anyone.

He good man. Good husband.

BILL: So it seems David Ferrie drove off
on Friday afternoon for Texas.

A source said he might have been
a getaway pilot for Oswald.

Hold your horses.

What kind of source?

The anonymous kind, Chief.

I remember Ferrie speaking
at a meeting of some veterans group

ranting against Castro. Extreme stuff.

JIM: They're bringing him out.
Numa, turn it up.

NEWSMAN 2: [On TV] Here he comes!

NEWSMAN 3: [On TV]
Anything to say in your defense?

RUBY: Oswald!

[Gunshot]

NUMA: He shot him!

[Shouting]

NUMA: He shot him on TV!

SPECTATOR: [On TV]
There's a man with a gun!

LOU: Seventy cops there.
What were they doing?

No trial now. Somebody just saved
the Dallas DA a pile of work.

Let's get David Ferrie in here anyway.

It's wrong. This is crazy!

[Somber, instrumental music]

NEWSMAN 7: [On TV]
Yesterday, in the midst of sorrow,

the business of government went on.

The President met with Henry Cabot Lodge,
our Ambassador to Vietnam

and members of his Cabinet.

The major subject was Vietnam,

a crisis that does not pause
for bereavement.

From this meeting

came affirmations that
the US would continue aiding

the new government of Vietnam in
its war against the Communist insurgents.

[Knock on door]

David Ferrie.

JIM: Come on in.

JIM: Thanks for coming.

Remember me? We met
on Carondelet Street after your election.

JIM: I remember.
You make quite an impression.

I've heard you're a first-rate pilot.

Legend has it you can get in
and out of the smallest field.

I'm a pilot myself. Flew grasshoppers
for the field artillery in the war.

Make yourself comfortable.

FERRIE: Mind if I smoke?

JIM: How could I?

As you know, President Kennedy
was assassinated on Friday.

JIM: A man named Lee Harvey Oswald
was arrested as a suspect,

then murdered yesterday
by a man named Jack Ruby.

JIM: We've had reports that Oswald
spent the summer here

and that you knew Oswald.

I've never met anyone named Oswald.
Anyone who told you that has to be crazy.

JIM: He served in your Civil Air Patrol unit
when he was a teenager.

If he did, I don't remember him.

Lots of boys in and out.

JIM: Surely you've seen this. Perhaps
you knew him under another name?

I never saw him before in my life.

Then we must have gotten
mistaken information.

Thanks for straightening it out.

JIM: There's one other matter.

JIM: We heard you went to Texas
shortly after the assassination on Friday.

True. I drove to Houston.

JIM: What was so appealing
about Houston?

I hadn't been ice-skating lately.
Some young friends and I

decided to go skating.

JIM: Why the urge to ice-skate in Texas

during one of the worst thunderstorms
in recent memory?

[Thunder rumbles]

Spur-of-the-moment thing.

Storm wasn't that bad.

Where did you drive?

We went to Houston.

FERRIE: Saturday we drove to Galveston,
and stayed there.

And Sunday?

In the morning, we went goose hunting.

JIM: Did you bag any?

The boys got a couple.

Boys said they didn't get any.

They're right.

There were thousands
of geese everywhere.

But you couldn't approach them.
They're wise.

Your friends said you had no weapons.

JIM: Isn't it difficult to hunt geese
without a shotgun?

I remember now. I'm sorry.

FERRIE: I got confused.

We got near the geese, then realized
we had forgotten our shotguns.

FERRIE: Stupid, right?

So, of course, we didn't get any geese.

JIM: Thank you for your time.

JIM: Sorry this must end inconveniently

but I must detain you for questioning
by the FBI.

Why? What's wrong?

Your story is not believable.

Really?

What part?

[Somber, instrumental music plays on TV]

FBI SPOKESMAN: This afternoon the FBI
released David W. Ferrie

of New Orleans.

After extensive questioning
and a background check,

the Bureau found no evidence
that Mr. Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald

or had any connection
with the assassination.

FBI SPOKESMAN: [On TV] The agent
in charge would like to make clear

that Ferrie was brought in
for questioning

by the District Attorney
of Orleans Parish.

LOU: I thought we were on the same side.

Why are they saying that?

Pretty fast, the way they let him go.

JIM: They must know something we don't.

So let's get on with our lives.

We have many homegrown crimes
to prosecute.

NEWSMAN:
The President has announced

the creation of a commission
to probe the events in Dallas.

It will be headed
by Chief Justice Earl Warren

and is expected to head off
several Congressional and Texas inquiries.

On the panel are Allen Dulles,
ex-chief of the CIA,

Representative Gerald Ford,
banker John McCloy.

[Dixieland music]

SEN. LONG: Fucking out of control. All of
these hippies running around on drugs.

SEN. LONG: You can't tell a boy
from a girl anymore.

I saw a girl the other day. Pregnant.
You could see her whole belly.

You know what she had painted on it?
"Love Child."

[Both chuckle]

SEN. LONG: It's a mess down there, Jim.

We've bitten off more Vietnam
than we can chew.

It figures with that polecat Lyndon
in the White House.

I sometimes think things have gone
downhill since Kennedy died.

Don't get me started on that.

Those Warren Commission fellows
were picking gnat shit out of pepper.

Nobody's going to tell me that kid
shot like he did from that bookstore.

Thank you, honey.

But the FBI test-fired the rifle
to see if it could be done.

Three experts and not one
of them could do it.

They say that Oswald got off three shots
with world-class precision

from a manual bolt-action rifle
in less than six seconds.

According to his Marine buddies,
he got Maggie's drawers.

That means he wasn't any good.

SEN. LONG: Average man would be lucky
to shoot twice.

And the first would be the best.

Here the third shot's perfect.

And they got that bullet zigzagging
all over the place

hitting Kennedy and Connally
seven times.

One pristine bullet? That dog don't hunt.

Something's always bothered me
about that from day one.

JIM: Think other men were involved?

If I was investigating the case, I'd round up
100 of the world's best riflemen

and find out which ones were
in Dallas that day.

You been duck hunting.
Oswald's an old-fashioned decoy.

What did he say? "I'm just a patsy!"
Believe it.

[Instrumental jazz music]

LIZ: Dinner's just about ready.

LIZ: Got a surprise for you tonight.
Tried something new.

Jim?

Jim.

JIM: What?
LIZ: Dinner.

Smells good. Do you know Oswald

was interrogated for 12 hours
after the assassination

with no lawyer present,
and nobody recorded a word of it.

I can't believe it. An experienced
police captain and a crowd of FBI agents

had to know that with no record,
what Oswald said is inadmissible in court.

Let's talk at the table. It's getting cold.

LIZ: What are you doing here?

Daddy said it's okay if I'm quiet.

JIM: Sure it is.

If I handled a minor felon that way,
it'd be all over the papers.

This is the alleged murderer
of the President.

JIM: Again and again
credible testimony's ignored.

Leads are not followed up,
conclusions are selective, no index.

It's the sloppiest investigation
I've ever seen.

Dozens of witnesses heard the shots

coming from the grassy knoll
in front of Kennedy

not the Book Depository behind him.

But it's broken down and spread around.
You read it, but the point is lost.

MATTIE: I never believed it.

LIZ: I'll do the dishes. You take Eb up.

Elizabeth, your bedtime too!

That was three years ago.
We've tried to put it out of our minds.

You keep digging it up.

You're the DA of New Orleans.

Isn't the Kennedy assassination
a bit out of your domain?

All those important people studied it.

I can't believe a man as intelligent
as Earl Warren read those volumes.

Maybe you're right.

You got an hour to solve the case
while I get the kids in bed.

Then you're mine. Mr. Kennedy
will have to wait until morning.

JASPER: Look, Dad. Look what I drew.

That's something. What is it?

It's a rhino in a cage.

- Can I stay up another hour?
- I don't think so, Son.

JIM: Pickle and Snapper, my two

dancing partners.

JIM: Good night, doodlebugs.

LIZ: One hour, you hear?

Some Saturday-night date you are.

Mama warned me this would happen
if I married such a serious man as you.

When I come up, I'll show you
how Saturday night got invented.

[Clock chimes]

BOWERS: I sealed off the area and held off
the trains till they could be examined.

There were some transients taken on
at least one train.

BALL: Mr. Bowers, you already talked to us
about this matter. Is that correct?

BOWERS: Yes.

BALL: Is there anything else you told us

that I haven't asked you about,
that you can think of?

Nothing that I can recall.

BALL: Witness is excused.

SGT. HARKNESS:
A long freight was in there

and we pulled some people off
and took them to the station.

[Shouting]

BELIN: Do you mean some transients?

Tramps and hobos.

BELIN: Were they questioned?

SGT. HARKNESS:
They were questioned at the station.

JIM: Ask the question.

BELIN: Let's go back
to that Amos Euins matter.

BOWERS: Traffic had been cut off
into the area since 10:00.

But three cars came in during this time

from around noon till the time
of the shooting.

They circled the parking lot and left.

Like they was checking the area.

BOWERS: One of the drivers

was holding something up to his mouth.

BOWERS: The last car came in about seven
to ten minutes before the shooting.

It was a white Chevrolet four-door Impala.

Muddy up to the windows.

BOWERS: Towards the underpass,
I saw two men

standing behind a picket fence

looking up towards Main and Houston,
as the caravan came down.

One of them was middle-aged

heavyset.

The other man was younger.

BOWERS: Two other men were
on the east end of the parking lot.

They both had uniforms.

At the time of the shooting

there seemed to be some commotion.

I'm just unable to describe

a flash of light or smoke or something

which caused me to feel that something
out of the ordinary

had occurred on the embankment.

Goddamn.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

[Shouting]

[Gunshot]

[Screaming]

JIM: No!

- You all right?
- Honey, it's incredible.

What?

The whole thing.

A Lt. Colonel testifies that

Oswald had a Russian language exam
as part of his Marine training

only a few months before he defects
to the Soviet Union.

A Russian exam.

It's 4:30 in the morning!
I have five kids who'll wake up in an hour.

In all my years in the military, I never knew
a single man who had a Russian test.

Oswald was a radar operator.

He'd have about as much use for Russian
as a cat has for pajamas.

LIZ: These books have gotten to your mind!

LIZ: Stop reading.
JIM: He makes it sound like nothing.

Oswald did badly on his test.

He got only two more Russian words right
than wrong.

That's like me saying,
Touchdown is not very intelligent

because I beat him three games
out of five when we played chess.

LIZ: Are you going to stay up all night,
every night? For what?

To be the only man who's read
all 26 volumes of the Warren Report?

Do I have to spell it out for you?

Lee Oswald was no ordinary soldier.

He was in military intelligence,
that's why he was trained in Russian.

It was no accident he was in Russia.

LIZ: Go back to sleep.
JIM: I've been sleeping for three years!

[Church bell rings in distance]

'Morning boys. Ready for a walking tour?

7:30 Sunday morning?
Not exactly fresh blood we're sniffing.

Old stains, but just as telling.

JIM: 531 Lafayette Street.

Remember whose office this was in '63?

Sure. Guy Banister.

LOU: Ex-FBI man.
Died a couple of years ago.

JIM: He headed the Chicago office. When
he retired he became a private eye here.

I used to have lunch with him.
John Birch Society, Minutemen.

To the right of Attila the Hun.

JIM: Recruited students to infiltrate
radical organizations on campus.

Headed the Anti-Communist League
of the Caribbean.

All out of this office.

I want to show you something.

JIM: See that?

Take a look here.

544 Camp Street.

531 Lafayette Street.

JIM: Same building, right?

Different addresses, different entrances,
both going to the same place

to the office upstairs.

Guess who used it?

JIM: Lee Harvey Oswald.

How do we know that?

This address was stamped on

pro-Castro leaflets he handed out
in the summer of '63 on Canal Street.

The same leaflets they found
in his garage in Dallas.

After the arrest, 544 Camp St.
never appeared on the pamphlets again.

He was arrested for fighting
with anti-Castro Cubans.

But he'd contacted them already

as an ex-Marine trying
to join their anti-Castro crusade.

When they heard he was now pro-Castro,
they paid him a visit.

CARLOS: What's this Fidel shit?

CARLOS: You lied to me!

Liar! Son of a bitch!

Do not take this Communist propaganda!

OSWALD: If you want to hit me, hit me.

CARLOS: You pinko shit!

Go back to Moscow!

JIM: There was no real fight.

The arresting Lieutenant later said
he felt it was a staged incident.

In jail, Oswald has a private session

with Special Agent John Quigley
of the FBI.

Oswald is released.

And Quigley destroys his notes
from the interview.

The arrest gets Oswald a lot of publicity.

And he appears on a local TV debate.

You are a Communist, are you not?

No, Mr. Bringuier. I am not a Communist.
I'm a Marxist-Leninist.

CARLOS: Communist, Marxist-Leninist,
what's the difference?

What if I told you Oswald was trained
in the Russian language in the Marines?

LOU: I'd say he got intelligence training.

You were a Marine. Who'd run it?

Office of Naval Intelligence.

Look across the street.

BILL: Post Office.

JIM: Upstairs, in 1963,
that was the Office of Naval Intelligence.

By coincidence, Banister,
before he was FBI, was ONI.

What's their saying?

"Once ONI, always ONI."

He likes working near his old pals.

We are standing in the heart

of the US government's intelligence
community in New Orleans.

That's the FBI.

JIM: That's the CIA.

That's the Secret Service.

That's the ONI.

Isn't this a strange place

for a Communist
to spend his spare time?

What are you driving at?

We're going back into the case.

The murder of the President.

BILL: Lord, wake me. I must be dreaming.

JIM: You're awake. I'm deadly serious.

JIM: Now, let's track down your
anonymous source from three years ago.

How'd you find out David Ferrie drove
to Texas that day?

BILL: I can't remember last night,
let alone three years ago, Boss.

JIM: You're not being cross-examined.

I need clarification about the night
Guy Banister beat you over the head.

Don't tell me you don't remember.

You called our office from your hospital
bed. You were hopping mad about it.

JIM: Here's my problem.

You told me you and Guy were
good friends for a long time.

- Over ten years.
- And he never hit you before?

Never touched me.

Yet, on November 22, 1963,

the day of the President's murder,

the police report says

he pistol-whipped you
with a. 357 Magnum.

It also says you argued
about the phone bill. Look!

JIM: Is an argument over a phone bill
a believable explanation to you?

[Hooves pounding]

MARTIN: There's more to it.

JIM: How much more?

I shouldn't talk about it.

I'd ask Guy. We were friendly.
Heart attack?

You buy what you read in the papers.

- You have other information?
- I didn't say that!

All I know is he died suddenly.
Just before the Warren Report came out.

Why did Guy beat you, Jack?

[Distorted voices shouting]

BANISTER: You were the only one here!

The only one here!

[Distorted sound effects]

BANISTER: You didn't see
a goddamn thing!

Hell, Guy's dead, so it don't matter
no more. It was all about those

people that was hanging
around the office that summer.

I was never part of the operation.

I just handled their private-eye work
as it came in for Guy.

Not much did, but that's why I was there.

[Shouting]

MARTIN: It was a nuthouse.

Cubans coming, going. And Christ,
they all looked the same to me.

FERRIE: You going to play with this rifle
or pack it?

MARTIN: Dave Ferrie.

- You know about him?
- We know Dave. Was he there?

MARTIN: He practically lived there.

The whole thing was all

cloak-and-dagger stuff.

They called it "Operation Mongoose."

The idea was to train these Cuban exiles
for another invasion of Cuba.

MARTIN: Banister's office was part
of the supply line

from Dallas through New Orleans
to Miami.

We stockpiled arms, explosives.

JIM: In view of the intelligence community
in Lafayette Square?

MARTIN: Yes. Everybody knew everybody.
They were all part of the network.

All worked for the CIA.

Pilots and black operators
and civilians and the military.

Everybody was running guns then.

MARTIN: Ft. Jefferson, Bayou Bluff,
Morgan City, you name it.

McAllen, Texas? Big gun-run operation.

JIM: Where does Banister fit in?

MARTIN: He was running his camp
north of Lake Pontchartrain.

Ferrie did a lot of the training.

They had a shooting range
and tropical territory, like in Cuba.

Some Americans were trained there too.

Nazi types. Mercenaries.

That Ferrie, though,
Jesus, he was the craziest.

Late summer the party was over.
Kennedy didn't want another Bay of Pigs.

He told the FBI, "Shut up the camp.

"Confiscate the napalm, C-4 and all."

The G-men were just going
through the motions.

Their hearts were still
with their old FBI buddy Banister.

JIM: Oswald?

MARTIN: He was there too.

MARTIN: Sometimes meeting
with Banister.

[Oswald talks to Banister]

MARTIN: With the door shut.

Shootin' the bull with Ferrie, whatever.
But he was there, all right.

Anything more specific, Jack?

It's important.

One time, the secretary got upset.

I can't believe it, Mr. Banister,
Oswald is down on Canal Street

handing out Communist leaflets
supporting Castro.

It's okay, Delphine, he's with us.

JIM: Was anyone else involved at

Banister's level?

One guy. I don't know who.

MARTIN: Big. White hair.

I saw him in the office once.
He looked out of place.

You know, a society guy.

Can't remember his name,
but Oswald was with him.

He had something to do with money,
because Banister never kissed ass

but he kissed his.

MARTIN: Clay something.

That was his name. Clay.

- Bertrand?
- Yeah.

JIM: Clay Bertrand?
MARTIN: I don't know.

MARTIN: Maybe not.
JIM: No, that's right.

MARTIN: I must go.

He was in the Warren Report.
He got Oswald a lawyer.

Was Kennedy discussed?

MARTIN: I don't know.

JIM: The assassination?
MARTIN: No.

MARTIN: Not with me. I've got to go.
JIM: Hold on.

MARTIN: That's all I'll say.
JIM: What's the problem?

Do I have to spell it out for you?

Nobody knows what
we're talking about here.

You are so naive.

[Instrumental jazz music]

JIM: When'd you do business
with Bertrand?

DEAN: Pipe the bimbo in red.

DEAN: Lawdy.

JIM: She's not as cute as you.

JIM: You should try a legitimate business.
DEAN: Why are you dancing on my head?

We've been friends since law school.

JIM: Because you're conning me.

JIM: I read your testimony.
DEAN: Grain of salt.

You said Clay Bertrand called you
the day after the assassination

- and asked you to be Oswald's lawyer.
- Right.

That's pretty important.

You told the FBI he's 6' 2".
Then you tell the Commission he's 5' 8".

JIM: How the hell does
a man shrink like that?

DEAN: They put the heat on me, like you. I
gave them whatever popped in my cabeza.

Truth is, I never met the dude.

CLAY: One likes friends that have friends.
DEAN: Indeed.

I don't know what that cat looks like
or where he's at.

All I know is sometimes
he sends me some cases.

One day he calls, talks to me
about repping Oswald in Dallas.

- You ever speak to Oswald in Dallas?
- No.

I told that Bertrand cat right off
this ain't my scene.

DEAN: I'm a hack. He needs a hot dog.

Then how did you get in the Commission?

Like I told the Washington boys

Bertrand asked me that summer to help
the kid upgrade his Marine discharge.

Mr. Bertrand said
he would take care of any of...

DEAN: Fine.

To whom am I speaking?

CLAY: [On phone] Bertrand.
I'll pay what they owe.

DEAN: There was no conspiracy. If there
was, why didn't Bobby Kennedy prosecute?

He was his brother.

How'd so many people keep such a secret?

DEAN: It was Oswald. He hated...

We're having a communication problem.

I know you know who Clay Bertrand is.
Stop eating that crabmeat and listen.

JIM: I'm aware of our friendship,
but I'll call you before the grand jury.

You lie to them as you lied to me,
I'll charge you with perjury.

JIM: I took nine judges on
here in New Orleans.

I beat them all.
Am I communicating with you?

Off the record?

DEAN: In that case,
let me sum it up for you.

If I answer that question you keep asking

if I give you the name
of the big enchilada

then it's bon voyage, Deano.

Like a bullet in my head, you dig?

DEAN: You're a mouse fighting a gorilla.
JFK's dead as that crabmeat.

The government's still breathing.

Either you give the grand jury
Clay Bertrand's real identity

or your fat behind's
going to the slammer.

[Dishware clatters]

DEAN: You're as crazy as your mama.
It's in the genes.

DEAN: Do you know
what you're getting into?

The government will jump all over
your head and go cock-a-doodle-doo.

DEAN: Good day to you, sir.

PRISON GUARD: [On walkie-talkie]
DA Garrison to see Prisoner 5388.

Ward block 237B.

[Percussion beat]

PRISON GUARD 2: We don't need gates
with that swamp.

Many of them gone in there,
none of them came out.

PRISON GUARD 2: William!

O'Keefe!

PRISON GUARD 2: You got visitors here.
Don't give them trouble.

- How you doing, Mr. Broussard?
- Let's go, Willie.

JIM: Thank you, Mr. O'Keefe, for this time.

O'KEEFE: I got nothing but time.

Minutes, hours, days. Years of it.

Time stands still here,
like a snake sunning itself.

Clay Bertrand?

Yeah. Clay.

I met him sometime in

June of '62. The Masquerade Bar.

Dave Ferrie took me there
expressly to meet him.

JIM: Sexual purposes?

BILL: Did he pay you?

$20 each time. Ain't no secret.
That's what I'm in here for.

JIM: Anything unusual about him

you'd be able to describe in court?

O'KEEFE: He had something wrong
with his leg. A limp.

Don't get me wrong.
He's not one of those limp wrists.

He's a butch John. Meet him on the street,
you'd never snap.

You could play poker with him,
go fishing, you'd never snap.

One night we were at David Ferrie's,

sometime late in the summer of '63.

[Ambient party sounds]

O'KEEFE: There was about nine
to ten people there.

Cuban. Friends who'd done stuff
in the bush with him. Place was a mess.

Dave's mind was a mess.
He had caged mice

'cause he's working on a cancer cure.

Dave's smart, though.
Speaks five languages.

Knows philosophy, medicine,
military history, politics.

O'KEEFE: He wanted to be a priest.
They defrocked him 'cause he was queer.

JIM: That's where you first met Oswald?

O'KEEFE: Strange guy.
Dave introduced him as.

Leon Oswald.

O'KEEFE: How you doing?

OSWALD: What the fuck is he doing here?

Fuck you, motherfucker.

Leon's in a bad mood. Don't get excited.

JIM: You said Leon was actually
Lee Harvey Oswald?

Yeah. I have no reason to lie to you.

O'KEEFE: I'm already in jail.

Go on.

Finally they left
and I was alone with Dave,

and this Leon

two of the Cubans,
and this guy Bertrand.

O'KEEFE: Dave pulled out some clippings.

He'd been obsessed with Castro
and Kennedy for months.

FERRIE: Little ass-wipe closed down
the camps! Took our C-4!

FERRIE: Took 10,000 rounds!
3,000 pounds of gunpowder!

All our weapons!

You want to free Cuba?
Whack out the fucking beard!

Kennedy won't let us.
Our hands are empty. How can we?

Problem is getting to him.
Informers on every block.

FERRIE: They got new stuff!

I could show you dozens of poisons!
Put it in his food, he'd die in three days.

FERRIE: No trace!

Put something in his beard,
make it fall out. He'd look ridiculous.

Fucking Kennedy is doing all kinds of deals
with that bastard Khrushchev.

LEOPOLD: Licking his ass.

An inspired act of God should happen here
and put a Texan in the White House!

O'KEEFE: The Cubans left.
Dave was drunk.

O'KEEFE: He started in on Kennedy again.

FERRIE: I will kill! In the White House!
Stab him in the heart!

Somebody must get rid of him!

You won't get that son of a bitch!

FERRIE: It won't be long.
That fucker will get what he deserves.

It could be blamed on Castro,
the country will want to invade Cuba.

FERRIE: We just need
to get him in the open.

Always some harebrained scheme.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

CLAY: Let's have some more champagne,
shall we?

What about the Secret Service? The cops?

If it's planned right, no problem.
They got close to De Gaulle.

FERRIE: Eisenhower always rode
in open top.

We need three mechanics
in three different locations.

An office building, a high-powered rifle.

Triangulation of crossfire, that's the key.
That's the key.

A diversionary shot gets the Secret Service
looking one way.

Boom! Get the kill shot.

One man has to be sacrificed.

In the commotion, the job gets done.

The others leave the country.

Let's drop this subject.
It's one thing to banter with these kids

but this sort of thing could be
so easily misunderstood.

[Ferrie screams]

O'KEEFE: I didn't think much about it then.
It's just bullshit.

People like to act more important
than they are.

Especially in the homosexual underworld.

But when they got him

I got scared.

Real scared.

That's when I got popped.

The things you said will be attacked
by many people.

Bring them on. Bring their college degrees
in here, I got nothing to hide.

No one can buy me.

O'KEEFE: I don't even need this parole.
JIM: What parole?

You liberal, you don't know shit
'cause you never been fucked in the ass.

This ain't about justice!
No, this is about order!

Who rules? Fascism is coming back.

JIM: Nobody wants to buy you.
No one's promising you parole.

What I need to know
is why are you telling us this.

'Cause that motherfucker Kennedy

stole that motherfucking election,
that's why.

Nixon was going to be a great President
until Kennedy wrecked this country.

O'KEEFE: Niggers wanting rights!
Why do you think we have all this crime?

He promised those motherfuckers
too much!

Revolution's coming, bullshit!
Fascism's coming back!

The day that Communist son of a bitch
died was a great day!

A great day for this country.

I hate to think they blame it
on silly, fucking Oswald.

O'KEEFE: Didn't know shit, anyway.

People got to know.
People got to know why he was killed.

Because he was a Communist.

O'KEEFE: Put me on the stand,
I'll tell the same goddamned story!

Don't matter to me!

All right, Willie. Thanks.

We'll be in touch.

O'KEEFE: All right.

O'KEEFE: You know,
you're not a bad-looking man.

Not bad at all.

O'KEEFE: I get out of here,
I'll come see you. We can have fun!

BILL: Their testimony
won't hold up in court.

Their reputations are lower
than crocodile piss.

That bothers you?

If a woman's a prostitute,
must she also have bad eyesight?

JIM: Find Bertrand.
Start by checking around the Quarter.

BILL: The six of us,
with almost no budget and in secret

will solve a case
the Warren Commission couldn't?

JIM: I didn't pick you for your legal skill.
BILL: Thanks, Boss.

You're a fighter.
I like a man who's not afraid of bad odds.

Mr. Garrison, how are you?
Remember me?

You vote for me?

I did. We sang together
at the Royal Orleans, remember?

We sang...

JIM & WOMAN: [Sing]
"You're the cream in my coffee."

Haven't seen you much lately.

Been too busy. Elected men can't have
as much fun as they used to.

It's always nice to see you.
Pleasure to serve you always.

JIM: How are you? Nice to see you.

Welcome back, Lou.

- Think I could get a martini?
- They're waiting for you, sir.

Keep that table open for us.

Anything on the hoboes?

LOU: Dallas Times Herald photographer
got great shots.

Never published.

JIM: Can't say that comes as a surprise.

LOU: They took them to the sheriff's
and let them go. No record of questioning.

LOU: Do they look like the hoboes
you remember?

JIM: These two look young.

LOU: Not a frayed collar or cuff,
fresh haircuts and shaves

LOU: clean hands, new shoe leather.
JIM: Who the hell are they then?

JIM: Hi, Susie.

Sit down.

This could be it. Let's look for them.

JIM: What about the railroad man, Bowers,
who saw the men at the picket fence?

LOU: Graveyard. Dead. August this year.

Single-car accident on an empty road
in Midlothian, Texas.

The doctor said he was in a strange shock
when he died.

We need to find more witnesses.

LOU: There was Rose Cheramie, a whore.

She said she was a dope runner
for Jack Ruby.

And that Ruby knew Oswald for years.

JIM: Can we talk to her?
LOU: She's dead too.

LOU: Hit and run.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

BILL: Why don't we go
to the horse's mouth?

Jack Ruby's been in a Dallas jail cell
for three years. Maybe he'll crack.

Can't. If I go to him our investigation
will hit the front pages.

It'll blow up in our face.
Susie, what did you find on Oswald?

SUSIE: Negative on his tax records.
Classified.

First time a DA can't get a tax record.

SUSIE: I asked for the CIA files on Oswald
that were part of the Warren Report.

About 1,200 documents.
Can't get one of them.

All classified as secret on the grounds
of national security.

Gave me his grammar school records.
It's a study of his pubic hairs.

[All chuckle]

SUSIE: Lonely kid, no father.

Joins the Marines at 17.

Learns Russian. Acts overtly Marxist.

But he's stationed
at a top-secret air base in Japan

where U-2 spy flights
over Russia originate.

He's discharged

supposedly because his mother's sick.
Stays home three days.

Then, with a $1,500 ticket from
a $203 bank account, he goes to Moscow.

CONSUL: Mr. Oswald, do you understand

- the action you are about to take?
- Yes, I do, sir.

OSWALD: I wish to renounce
my citizenship

and become a Soviet citizen.

I'll give them all the information
I have on the Marines.

SUSIE: He disappears for six weeks,
presumably with the KGB.

He's taken to a radio factory in Minsk

where he lives as high on the hog
as he ever has.

He's given 5,000 rubles,
a roomy apartment with a balcony.

Has affairs with local girls.

Makes sense. He's a spokesman.

[Chuckles]

SUSIE: But he never does any propaganda
for the Russians.

He meets Marina.

Her uncle is a colonel
in Soviet intelligence.

SUSIE: She thinks he's Russian
by his speech.

Six weeks later they marry,
have a daughter.

JIM: Only explanation for the royal
treatment is he gave them radar secrets.

JIM: Or fake secrets.

Six months after he's in Russia,

Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy flight
goes down

in Russia. That plane was untouchable.

SUSIE: Powers hinted that Oswald

could've given the Russians
enough data to hit it.

As a result, the peace summit between
Khrushchev and Eisenhower failed.

Perhaps our military didn't want
the conference to happen?

Susie, come on.

SUSIE: Maybe Oswald was part of that!

Stick to what you can prove in court.

SUSIE: You want facts?

Don't get sidetracked.
How'd he get back to the States?

Does he have any problems
with Uncle Sam?

No. The State Department issues him
a new passport in 48 hours

and loans him travel money.

He's never investigated or charged
for revealing classified information

or, as far as we know,
debriefed by the CIA.

Bastard should've been prosecuted
as a traitor when he got off the boat.

JIM: Did Marina have problems
getting out?

SUSIE: None, though it's almost impossible
to get Russian sweethearts out.

This is a man who defected once already.
It's crazy. Ordinary people

get blacklisted
for having leftist affiliations.

Doesn't add up.

SUSIE: Next thing, he's living
in Dallas-Fort Worth, October '62,

working six months
at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall

a photographic firm that makes maps
for the US Army.

Oswald becomes chummy
with the Dallas White Russian community.

All rabid anti-Communists.

It's odd.

SUSIE: His closest friend is an oilman,
named George DeMohrenschildt.

He is 35 years older than Oswald,
who is only 23 and supposedly broke.

He is a part of the Dallas Petroleum Club,
speaks five languages,

and was a French Vichy intelligence
during the war,

also rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer.

DeMohrenschildt draws a picture
of Oswald as an intellectual,

well read, speaks excellent Russian,
a man who adored JFK.

I think he's made some mistakes
regarding Cuba.

I think he's doing a pretty good job.
If he succeeds, in my opinion,

I think he'd make a great President
and a handsome one, too.

JIM: That's scenery, Susie.
Now, don't get sidetracked.

This is the same man that nailed Oswald
to the Warren Commission

as a potentially violent man
and linked him to the rifle.

OSWALD: Well,
in that sense Castro is an experimenter.

It could go any way with that country.

- It could go the way of the communism...
- What you got there?

Do you have rifles in there?

Tell me what I'm shooting at,
rabbits or Fascists?

- I hunt.
- You hunt?

We don't know he's CIA.
Let's circle him very probable.

Call him Oswald's handler.

SUSIE: The Oswalds are introduced
to Janet and Bill Williams.

It's through Janet Williams,
in October '63, that Lee gets the job

at the warehouse on Elm Street
at the Book Depository.

JIM: So he can now exercise his intellect,
stacking school texts at $1.25 an hour.

SUSIE: Marina fights with Lee
about many things.

[Lee and Marina argue]

His secrecy, their lack of money.

She says that Lee is not sexually adequate.

Lee hits her on several occasions.

SUSIE: At the age of 24,

he rents a room in Dallas
under the alias of O.H. Lee.

Do you want to watch TV?
Are you all right?

No, thank you. I'm fine.

SUSIE: All I know about the Williams
is their tax returns are classified.

Bill Williams has links to the CIA
through his family

and does classified work
for Bell Helicopter.

Bill's convenient separation from Janet
allows Marina to move into her house

where she suddenly becomes
Marina's best friend.

There Marina and Lee
have a second daughter.

OSWALD: I have to go away.
Just for a short while.

What's wrong with this family?

MARINA: I love Lee

and I sorry him.

REPORTER: Sorry for him?

MARINA: Yes.

SUSIE: When he's arrested,
Marina buries him with the public.

She describes him as a psychotic
and violent man.

I have too much facts,

and facts tell me that Lee shot Kennedy.

JIM: After being locked away
by the feds for two months

and afraid she'd be deported,

she was probably suffering
from nervous exhaustion.

JIM: They taught her how to answer.

When they think she's ready,
they buy her dresses,

polish her appearance and wheel her out.

I'd like to thank the Warren Commission.

JIM: Oswald was no angel.

But who was he?

I'm lost. What are we saying?

JIM: That when Oswald went to Russia,
he was not a real defector.

He was an intelligence agent for our
government and remained one till he died.

So, because Oswald pulled the trigger,

the intelligence community
murdered the President?

JIM: I'll go you one better.
Maybe Oswald

didn't pull the trigger.

Nitrate tests indicate he hadn't fired
a rifle on November 22.

And they didn't bother to see
if the rifle'd been fired that day.

BILL: His palm print was on it.
JIM: It went to the FBI.

FBI didn't find a goddamn thing.

It comes back a week later and a Dallas
policeman suddenly finds a palm print?

It could've been taken at the morgue.
There's no chain of evidence.

LOU: I can't figure out why he orders
a traceable weapon

to a P.O. box, when he can go
into any store in Texas,

give a phony name and walk out
with an untraceable rifle.

To frame him, obviously!

A lot of smoke, but some fire.

We're talking about our government!

We're talking about a crime.

You must think on a different level,
like the CIA does.

We're through the looking glass.

White is black.

And black is white.

Maybe Oswald is just what he said he was.

A patsy.

[Eerie sound effects]

Unbelievable. You were here?

Yes, this is where I was sitting.

Shots came from near the wooden fence
over there,

near the overpass.

I saw a man run from the fence
toward those railroad cars.

HOLLAND: I made it clear
to the Warren people.

One of the shots came
from behind that picket fence.

I heard the report and saw smoke,
six or eight feet above the ground.

Out from under those trees.

DODD: All four of us railroad men

seen the same thing.

The smoke came from behind the hedge.

HILL: I was standing near Mary Moorman,
who took the photo when he was killed.

I stepped down to the curb and yelled,

"Mr. President, look over here!"

Then shots rang out.

[Gunshots]

HILL: Mary dropped to the ground, yelling,
"They're shooting! Get down!"

[Gunshots]

HILL: I just stood there watching.

The driver had stopped.

I don't know what was wrong with him.

Out of the corner of my eye,

I saw a flash of light in the bushes.

And that last shot

[Gunshot]

just ripped his head off.

I looked up and saw smoke coming
from over there, on the knoll.

SAM: We came around to look for tracks.

It rained that morning
and we found a bunch.

Cigarette butts.

Someone had stood about here.

That's a good spot.

LOU: For the head shot.

[Gunshot]

HILL: Everything was just frozen.

Like people weren't breathing.
Like you were looking at a picture.

Except for one man.

I saw this one man running
from the corner of the Book Depository

to the parking lot.

MERCER: It was about 11:00 a.m.

I was driving on Elm Street
toward the underpass in a rented car.

MERCER: A light-blue Valiant.

I'll never forget that day.
There was a lot of traffic

and I stopped
alongside a green pickup truck.

It was very noticeable
because it had one wheel up on the curb.

When I saw the gun, I thought

"The Secret Service is not very secret."

The next morning, I went to the FBI office.

They showed me some pictures.

And I picked out three pictures
that looked like the truck's driver.

That's the man.

JIM: You mean you identified Jack Ruby
on Saturday?

MERCER: That's right.

The day before he shot Oswald?

MERCER: That's right.
When I saw him on TV, I was shocked.

I said to my family,
"That's the man I saw in the truck."

You weren't so sure in your statement
to the Commission.

What about these others?
You said one might be him?

MERCER: They look a bit like him,
but I'm sure this is the man.

HILL: It was him I chased
up the grassy knoll.

HILL: I thought maybe our guys
had shot back and got one of them.

I got to the parking lot.

All I saw were the railroad workers
and Dallas' finest.

- Secret Service. Come with us.
- No! Find the shooter!

AGENT 1: I want your pictures.

Son of a bitch!

HILL: He put a hurt on me, but good.

They must've seen everything because
they knew what we had done all day.

I wasn't hard to find,
wearing that red raincoat.

How many shots did you hear?

HILL: Four to six.

Impossible!

INTERROGATOR: You heard echoes!

Echoes!

We have three bullets and three shots
that came from the Book Depository.

INTERROGATOR: That's all we'll say.
HILL: No, sir.

I saw a man shooting from behind
that fence. What are you going to do?

HILL: You go out and get him!
INTERROGATOR: That's taken care of!

You only heard three shots,
and don't discuss this with anyone.

No one. Understand?

HILL: Which is strange 'cause it's less
than 20 minutes after the assassination.

Get her out of here.

HILL: I knew something was crooked
as a dog's hind leg.

When I read my testimony
in the Warren Report

it was a total fabrication.

That's what bothers me, Mr. Garrison.
They've altered my statements.

MERCER: This one says,

"Mercer couldn't identify any photograph
as being the man she observed

"slouched over the wheel
of the green truck." Not true.

I recognized him and I told them so.

Take your time.

I'm sure.

MERCER: And the sheriff's report.

This is really strange.

MERCER: See that notarized signature?

That's not mine.

There wasn't any notary present
during my questioning.

JIM: Mrs. Mercer, as a former FBI man,

it's difficult to accept this.

LOU: Beverly, tell Mr. Garrison
about the Carousel Club.

[Lounge music]

I used to go there to see Jack
and my friend, Jatta, who danced there.

It was a real swinging spot in town.

Everybody came.

Businessmen, politicians from Austin,
LBJ's friends...

Dallas was a slowpokin' town then.

BEVERLY: You chewed toothpicks,
played dominoes, spit, dated policemen.

But Jack was exciting.
There were always cops there.

Jack liked them around, even though
he threw out the drunks himself.

He had a violent temper.

Everyone in those days
knew Jack was in the mob.

Cops back then, they were bad.

They'd shake you down
for the money in your pocket.

LOU: What about Lee?

BEVERLY: One time I came in.

Jack introduced me to two guys.
He says, "This is my friend, Lee."

[Beverly laughs]

BEVERLY: I don't remember
the other guy's name.

He was a weird-looking guy.
He had these eyebrows.

And he looked like a buzzard.

Lee didn't make much of an impression.

He wasn't very handsome.

He didn't look like he had any money,
and he was in a bad mood.

So, I didn't pay him much mind.

I may not remember a name,
but I always remember a face.

Later, when I saw him on television,

I screamed, "My God, that's him!

"That's Jack's friend!"

Will you testify, Beverly?

BEVERLY: I don't think so.
LOU: I thought we had an agreement.

[Beverly sighs]

I don't want to be another statistic.

LOU: We could call you in.

If they can kill the President
of the United States,

you think they'll think twice
about a two-bit showgirl like me?

I understand the pressure you're under.

Don't think that I don't.

We both do.

RUBY: Mr. Chief Justice, do you
understand I can't tell the truth in Dallas?

RUBY: There are people here
who do not want me to tell the truth.

Who don't want me to have a retrial.

Why don't you just tell us now?

My life is in danger!

RUBY: If you request
that I go to Washington.

That is, if you want to hear
further testimony from me.

Can you take me with you?

CHIEF JUSTICE: No. It can't be done.

There would be no safe place for you.

We're not law-enforcement officers.

There's a great deal at stake in this matter.

If I'm eliminated,

there won't be any way of knowing
any bit of truth pertaining to my situation.

Consequently, a whole new form
of government will take over.

And I won't live to see you
some other time.

RUBY: I want to tell the truth.

And then

leave this world.

LOU: The Zapruder film establishes
three shots in 5.6 seconds.

LOU: I'm Oswald.

Time me.

JIM: Go.

LOU: Time?

JIM: Between six and seven seconds.

LOU: Without really aiming.

The second and third shots came
almost right on top of each other.

It takes a minimum of

2.3 seconds to recycle this thing.

LOU: The other problem is,
there was a tree

blocking the first two shots
when fired in the Zapruder film.

Didn't Hoover say something
about leaves falling in November?

LOU: It was Texas live oak, Chief.

It sheds its leaves in early March.

Take this Carcano,
world's worst shoulder weapon,

and try to hit a moving target
at 88 yards through heavy foliage.

No way.

FBI tried two sets of tests.

Not one sharpshooter could match
Oswald's performance.

Not one.

Oswald was at best a medium shot.

The scope was defective on it too.

This is the whole essence
of the case to me.

LOU: The guy couldn't do the shooting.

LOU: Nobody could.

LOU: They sold this lemon
to the American public.

The Zapruder film was the proof
they didn't count on.

We must get hold of it.

It means we'll have to subpoena Time-Life.

JIM: Let me ask you something.

Why not just shoot Kennedy on Houston?

Plenty of time.

- He's out in the open.
- I keep asking myself the same thing.

- Frontal shot.
- Even if you miss him once,

if he accelerates, you get a second shot.

LOU: The only reason to get him on Elm

is you got him in a triangulated crossfire.

You put a team there down at the fence.

LOU: Frontal shot. Flat, low trajectory.

Put a third team down in this building

on a low floor.

When Kennedy gets in the kill zone,
it's a turkey shoot.

How many men?

One shooter. One spotter on a radio.
Maybe three teams.

LOU: These are professional riflemen.
Serious people.

Hunters.

Patient.

It takes skill to kill with a rifle.

That's why no chief executive's
been executed with one in 200 years.

LOU: Three,

two,

one.

[Tires squeal]

[Distorted screams]

[Trigger clicks]

Main Street's over there.

Original parade route on the way
to the Trade Mart,

is too far, right?

Too far.

Impossible shot,
so they change the parade route.

Bring him down here.
Moving at a normal 25 mph.

They knew the motorcade would have
to slow down to about 10 mph

to make that turn there.
And that's where they got him.

Who do you think changed
the parade route?

Beats me. Secret Service,
city officials, Dallas Police.

You know who was the mayor at the time?

LOU: Roy Cabell.

- Guess who his brother is?
- Who?

General Charles Cabell.

Deputy director of the CIA.

Kennedy fired him in '61
because of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Moved back to the Pentagon
and called Kennedy a traitor.

When he came to New Orleans

to address the Foreign Policy
Association, know who introduced him?

Our friend, Clay Shaw.

LOU: Didn't the Warren Commission
call him?

JIM: His boss was the one
on the Commission

who handled the leads
in the intelligence community.

LOU: Allen Dulles?
JIM: Head of the CIA since '53.

Kennedy fired them both.

Cabell was his Deputy for nine years.

Talk about the fox investigating
the chicken coop.

Now, we'll have to subpoena them both.

[Band plays Dixieland music]

MOBSTER: Clay Bertrand?
Sure, I know him.

Comes to the Quarter.

Who is he? I've been to all the bars.
Nobody wants to talk.

Why should they talk to you?

I told your uncle, I never met a lawman
who wasn't a punk.

A big-shot businessman.
I seen him on the TV news

with all the other big shots.

The guy's a fag, you know?

Goes by another name.

What name?

Shaw.

Clay Shaw.

Clay Bertrand is Clay Shaw?

Guy who ran the International Trade Mart?

What's the mystery?
Everybody down here knows him.

BILL: Then why does he
call himself Bertrand?

Who gives a shit what he calls himself?

Will you give us a little help
on that grand jury thing?

MOBSTER: I hope so. We could use it.

SUSIE: Your hunch was right, Boss.

But it's even spookier than we thought.

Starting in September '63 on,
two months before the assassination,

there are sightings of Oswald
all over Dallas.

Buying ammunition,
getting a telescopic sight fixed.

Going to rifle ranges.

Early November,
at a downtown Dallas Lincoln dealership,

- he tells the salesman...
- Let's take it over for a test drive.

Despite the fact he has no license,
and doesn't know how to drive,

he hits the curves like A.J. Foyt
at the Indy 500.

Beauregard later told his boss
that he drove like a madman.

$300 down now, Mr. Oswald,
you can drive out of here.

What? For this heap?

No honest working man can afford to buy
a car in this goddamn country anymore.

Maybe I'll go to Russia and buy one.

Really dumb dialogue like he's trying
to draw attention to himself.

Salesman remembers him as about 5' 7",
but his draft card says he's actually 5' 11".

Other witnesses see him on several
separate days at different firing ranges.

One time, November 9,

he decides to practice
on the next guy's target.

I didn't pay for a target
just to have you shoot at it!

I'm sorry, buddy.

I thought I was shooting
at that son of a bitch Kennedy.

As subtle as a cockroach
crawling across a white rug.

Then he shows up at Sylvia Odio's,

a Cuban lady in Dallas
in the anti-Castro underground.

The two Cubans introduce him
as Leon Oswald.

Something about the man bothers her.

48 hours later, one of the Cubans calls her.

What did you think
of Leon Oswald last night?

I don't care about Oswald.

You know what he said to us?
"Cubans don't have guts, 'cause Kennedy

"should have been killed
after the Bay of Pigs by a Cuban."

SUSIE: It's like he's giving her information
she doesn't even ask for.

She's scared and doesn't see him again

till she sees Oswald's picture
in the paper.

But the Warren Commission
says that Sylvia

has bad eyesight because
they have Oswald in Mexico

trying to get back into Cuba.

The CIA has a camera
outside the Cuban Embassy.

And they say that this

is Oswald in Mexico.

OSER: If this is Oswald,
it must be our third Oswald.

JIM: The Warren Commission made great
efforts to make him a Communist.

I think the point of the Mexican episode
was to lay the blame on Fidel Castro.

If Oswald, or someone purporting
to be Oswald,

had gotten into Cuba, come back,
and then killed the President,

the American public would've supported
a Cuban invasion.

I even have doubts about this photo, Boss.

This convicted Oswald in the public's mind.

But Oswald told Capt. Fritz
that the photo was a fake.

This is not me!

- That came from Janet Williams' garage.
- I never saw this picture.

It's my face but it's superimposed.
The rest is not me.

OSWALD: I know photographic work.
That was made by someone else!

SUSIE: I took this picture to two experts.

Look at how the shadows on the nose

fall in a straight line, like it's high noon.

SUSIE: The shadow on the ground
reads like late afternoon or early morning.

It's not the same time.

And see the crop marks across the chin?

SUSIE: This head is pasted
onto another body.

Implicating him with the rifle and the gun.

CAPT. FRITZ: Who the hell are you?
Alex Hidell or Lee Oswald?

You're the policeman, you work it out.

SUSIE: Now it gets positively spooky.

In January 1961, in New Orleans,
at the Bolton Ford dealership,

when the Oswald we know is in Russia

there is a man using the name of Oswald
to buy trucks

for the Friends of Democratic Cuba.

SUSIE: Salesman never sees him again.

But who's on the Articles Of Incorporation
of the Friends of Democratic Cuba?

Guy Banister.

SUSIE: Banister has someone using
the name Oswald to buy the trucks.

Hoover at the FBI has a memo
dated June of 1960

that someone may be using
Oswald's passport and identity.

JIM: They created Oswald from day one.

Like a dummy corporation in the Bahamas.
Just move him around a board.

Anybody want to quit?

Dumb question. Put your hands down.

I found Clay Bertrand.

Grab your socks and hose and pull.

Clay Bertrand is Clay Shaw.

SUSIE: Director of the Trade Mart?
BILL: Former director.

SUSIE: Incredible.

Can you get some sworn statements?

That'll be tough. Nobody's talking.

JIM: Let's have him in for a chat.

LIZ: I hate to get him dragged into this.

He's done so much for the city,
restoring the Quarter.

Remember, we saw him at a fund-raiser.
Seems like such a nice man.

It'll be off the record.
I'll bring him in on a Sunday.

A quiet little chat between gentlemen.

[March music]

NEWSMAN: In heavy fighting
in Vietnam today

seven more American soldiers died
and 23 were wounded.

The body count for this week
now stands at 67 Americans

and 626 enemy soldiers killed in action.

President Johnson said he regretted
there's no end in sight to the war

where 500,000 US troops
are now fighting.

LYNDON JOHNSON: We face more cost,

more loss

and more agony.

LIZ: Come hunt for Easter eggs.

JIM: That's the kids' job. You know
I don't like these tribal rituals, anyway.

I'm talking to Clay Shaw this morning.

LIZ: We're going to Antoine's with the kids!

I told you I was talking to Shaw.

In the middle of Easter Sunday?

When I scheduled it,
I didn't know it was a holiday.

Look at the calendar!

You said a Sunday, not Easter Sunday.

Clay Shaw is important.

LIZ: And we're not.
JIM: I didn't say that.

I didn't say that.

You're missing most of your life
and you don't know it.

LIZ: The kids are missing out, too.

You're not the only one making sacrifices.

JIM: I'll be there by 2:00, I promise.

Just start without me.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

CLAY: What can I do for you
on Easter Sunday?

I'm sorry to interrupt this holiday.

But this conversation is best kept out
of the everyday bustle of this office.

I don't understand.

JIM: In an investigation we're conducting,
your name keeps coming up.

Can't imagine where.

JIM: We've talked to a number of men
who claim to know you.

JIM: Do you know a David Logan?

CLAY: No. Never heard of him.

Perry Russo?

No.

JIM: Willie O'Keefe?

[Doorbell rings]

I don't know anyone by that name.

Mr. O'Keefe told us he met you
at the Masquerade Bar in the Quarter.

JIM: Then you had him over for dinner
at your apartment on Dauphine Street.

JIM: Do you recall that?
CLAY: I don't know this man.

Be still my heart.

Obviously, I wouldn't have him over.

CLAY: Hope you like squab.

[Clay chuckles]

CLAY: Champagne?

JIM: Perhaps a few more details about
the evening will refresh your memory.

[Bell rings]

[Soft instrumental music]

JIM: Mr. O'Keefe told us dinner was served
by a uniformed waiter, a colored man.

You sat at one end and he at the other,
which he found unusual

because the table was so long.

How was your mousse?

JIM: Bring back memories
of Willie O'Keefe?

Not at all.

But I do have

a lovely Chippendale dining table.

I often have a friend sit at one end
while I sit at the other.

It's precisely the point
of a long dining table.

CLAY: The splendor of the meal
adds to its enjoyment.

JIM: I imagine a uniformed waiter helps.

It adds elegance, for which I confess

a weakness now and then.

I call him Smedley.

CLAY: His real name's Frankie Jenkins,
but it would be so uncouth during dinner

to turn toward the kitchen and holler,

"Frankie!"

[Clay laughs]

Where is all this leading to?

After dinner, you paid him to have sex.

[Percussion beat]

That is absolute nonsense.

The Quarter is filled
with vivid imaginations, dear Mr. Garrison.

Grimy young hoodlums who will say
and do anything!

JIM: Mr. O'Keefe told us

David Ferrie came to the house
with another young man.

[Informal greetings exchanged]

CLAY: Who?
JIM: David Ferrie.

I don't know that name.

CLAY: Never having met Mr. O'Keefe,
I couldn't have met Mr. Ferrie.

[Distorted sound effects]

FERRIE: You're mine, Mary.

The four of you partied early
into the morning hours.

Look at this picture.

CLAY: I've never met anyone
of such bizarre appearance.

[March music plays in film]

FERRIE: Only way you get this,
you do exactly what I say. I'm the man.

You know the name Clay Bertrand?

Clay Bertrand.

A man with a similar name worked
at the Chamber of Commerce.

CLAY: That the man you had in mind?
JIM: No, it was not.

JIM: Can you identify this man?

Naturally. You claim Mr. Oswald
also had dinner with me?

JIM: Have you ever met
Lee Harvey Oswald?

You have me consorting
with a sordid cast of characters.

JIM: Please answer the question.
CLAY: 'Course not.

The assassination was such a pity.

In fact I admired Kennedy.
Man of true panache.

Wife of impeccable taste.

LIZ: Let's order without your daddy.
He won't mind.

VIRGINIA: I want a Shirley Temple!

LIZ: Kids, put your water guns away.

When's Daddy coming?

He's coming soon.

He's sorry he's late,
but he promised he'd be here.

Daddy never keeps his promises.

JIM: This Italian newspaper article says

you were a board member
of Centro Mondo Commerciale in Italy.

This company was created by the CIA
for the transfer of funds in Italy

for illegal political-espionage activities.

JIM: Says that this company was expelled
from Italy for those activities.

CLAY: I'm well aware
of that asinine article.

I'm thinking of suing that rag.

JIM: It also says this company is linked
to the Schlumberger Tool Company

in Louisiana, which provided arms
to David Ferrie and his Cubans.

You're reaching.

JIM: Am I?

I'm an international businessman.
The Trade Mart I founded

is America's commercial pipeline
to Latin America. I trade everywhere.

Like all businessmen,
I am accused of all things.

CLAY: I go about my business,
make money, help society the best I can

and try to promote free trade
in this world.

Have you ever been a contract agent
for the CIA?

[Clay sighs]

And if I were

do you believe I would be here today

talking to somebody like you?

JIM: People like you don't have to.
CLAY: May I go?

People like you walk
between the raindrops.

[Whispers] May I go?

JIM: Yes.

[Rattling]

CLAY: Regardless of what you may think
of me, I am a patriot first and foremost.

JIM: I've spent half my life in the military,

defending my country.

You're the first person I've met who
considers it patriotic to kill the President.

You are way out of line.

It's getting late.
That's all the questions we have.

Thank you for your honesty
and for coming in.

I enjoyed meeting with you.

CLAY: And you, Miss Cox.
It's been most pleasant.

I extend to you and your families
my best wishes for a happy Easter.

"One may smile, and smile
and be a villain."

Goddamn it! We've got one of them.

See that?

JIM: Hi, honey.
LIZ: Hi.

JIM: Tough day.

Where you been?

LIZ: My sympathies.

JIM: I'm sorry, the meeting took
much longer than expected.

JIM: Just a second.

LIZ: We waited for hours, Jim!

You could've telephoned.

JIM: I can only say I'm sorry.
I just don't have rabbits on my mind.

You know what I think?

You care more about John Kennedy
than your own family.

All day the kids asked, "Where's Daddy?"
What should I tell them?

JIM: I don't know!

The truth! I'm doing my job
to make sure they grow up

in a country where justice won't be
a vanished idea in history books

like dinosaurs or Atlantis.

It doesn't replace a husband
or a father on Easter Sunday.

It's going to get worse!

BILL: I beat you again,
you must give me a raise.

Who can you brag to?

[Bill chuckles]

Who killed President Kennedy?
Was there a conspiracy here?

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Reporters talk at once]

Clear the door! Watch out! Move!

LOU: Congratulations. You're Page One.

Ain't nice, it says, we've spent over $8,000
on unexplained investigative expenses

since November, 1966.

JIM: Goddamn!

They went to the public records, got
vouchers we requested for withdrawals.

SUSIE: Shaw got them on our tail.

It could have been Ferrie,
Martin, Andrews, any of them.

Or they talked to Ruby 'cause of
they're on our asses for a measly $8,000.

They're hunting the news,
it's their business.

You'd think they'd understand
what we're doing.

Getting angry doesn't accomplish
a damn thing.

Son of a bitch.

This changes everything now.

What do you mean?

Either we pull out now
or we go through heavy flak together.

Bear in mind, this may affect
the rest of your careers, your lives.

Anyone who wants to pull out now

I assure you there will be no ill feelings
and I will reassign you to regular duties.

There it is then, thank you.

It means a great deal to me.

I'm giving this office $6,000
from my National Guard savings account.

So we can continue.

I'll make speeches where I can
and make additional money.

What shall I tell them?
Their piling up outside the door.

They want a statement.
The phones are going crazy.

JIM: I won't confirm, deny nor discuss,
Sharon.

Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm going home
to get a decent day's work done.

TV COMMENTATOR: Mr. Garrison's silence
has raised some interesting questions.

With taxpayer money,
has he uncovered valuable new evidence?

[Phone rings]

TV COMMENTATOR: Or is he
merely saving the information

to gain exposure at a national level?

Mr. Garrison should have
some explanation.

FERRIE: Did your office plant
that garbage in the paper?

LOU: Who is this?
FERRIE: You know damn well.

LOU: Dave?
FERRIE: You got it. Listen.

You're the only straight-shooter there.

FERRIE: I want an answer!
Did you plant it?

LOU: [On phone] Do you think we're nuts?
It's been a zoo since that broke.

Reporters everywhere.
Do you think we want that?

FERRIE: Somebody planted
that fucking story!

I'm one of fucking Garrison's suspects.
I can't go home!

FERRIE: The maggots are everywhere!
Do you know what you've done?

Calm down.

FERRIE: From here on

I'm a fucking dead man!

LOU: You weren't even mentioned
in the story.

Meet me in the lobby
of the Fontainebleau in 20 minutes.

LOU: I guarantee the boss will protect you.
He likes you. He likes your mind.

I just don't know who to trust anymore.

I suppose I could use a pot of hot coffee
and a few packs of Luckys.

Anything new?

Who are you scared of?

Everybody. The Agency, mob, Cubans.

Follow the Cubans.

FERRIE: Check them out. Here.
In Miami. Dallas.

Check out Eladio del Valle.

He was my paymaster
when I flew missions into Cuba.

You're on the right track.
Don't write this down!

FERRIE: I ain't cooperating with no one!

There's a death warrant for me!
Don't you get it?

Damn! Wait a minute!

FERRIE: You ain't bugged, are you?
Son of a bitch, Lou!

Are you?

LOU: I play square. No bugs.

I'd love you to go on the record,
but I'm in no hurry.

FERRIE: I haven't slept since that article.

FERRIE: Why'd you get me involved?
LOU: Did we involve you? Or did Shaw?

Cocksucking faggot.
He got me by the balls.

LOU: What do you mean?
FERRIE: Photographs, compromising stuff.

FERRIE: He'll use them, too.

Agency plays for keeps.

Oswald was in my Civil Air Patrol unit.
I taught him everything.

He was a wannabe. No one liked him.
Thought he was a snitch.

But I treated him good.

He wanted his kid to grow up
with a chance.

[Knock on door]

What's this? What's going on?

[Dramatic instrumental music]

JIM: Don't let him in.

No one's coming in here.

FERRIE: Black. Give it to me.

FERRIE: Black. My neck is killing me.

I've had cancer for years.
Been working with mice to find a cure.

JIM: Did you work for the CIA?

You sound like it's a remote experience
in ancient history.

You don't leave the Agency.

FERRIE: Once you're in,
they got you for life.

JIM: And Shaw?

Shaw's an untouchable. Highest clearance.

Shaw, Oswald, the Cubans, all Agency.

Ruby?

Jack was a pimp.
A bagman for the Dallas mob.

FERRIE: Ran guns to Castro
when he was on our side.

Castro was almost with us
till we tried to whack him.

FERRIE: Everybody keeps flipping sides.

It's fun and games.

LOU: How do the mob figure in this?
FERRIE: They're Agency too.

The CIA and the Mafia worked together
for years trying to whack out the beard.

There's more to this than you could dream!

FERRIE: Check out something called
"Operation Mongoose."

Government, Pentagon stuff.
They're in charge.

But who pulls whose chain? Who knows?

"Oh, what a deadly web we weave
when we practice to deceive."

Who killed the President?

Why don't you fucking stop it? Shit!

This is too big for you, you know that?

Who did the President? Fuck!
It's a mystery.

[Dramatic instrumental music intensifies]

It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle
inside an enigma!

The shooters don't even know!
Don't you get it?

FERRIE: Fuck, man!
I can't keep talking like this!

They'll fucking kill me!

I'll fucking die!

Son of a bitch!

It's all right.

FERRIE: I don't know what happened.

Fuck!

[Ferrie sobs]

All I wanted in the world

was to be a Catholic priest.

Live in a monastery.

Pray. Serve God.

I had

one terrible fucking weakness.

And they defrocked me!

[Ferrie sobs]

Then I started to lose everything.

You'll be okay, Dave.

JIM: Just talk to us on the record.
We'll protect you.

They'll get to you too.

FERRIE: They'll destroy you.

They're untouchable.

I'm so fucking exhausted,
I can't see straight.

[Reporters all talk at once]

Early for Mardi Gras, isn't it?

Paris Match,
the largest magazine in France.

Literaturnaya Gazeta from Moscow.

Victoria Taylor, Private Eye.

You know who shot the President?
Mr. Garrison is too busy.

They're putting the heat on David Ferrie.

LOU: If we wait, he won't hold on.

SUSIE: He keeps changing his story.
We can't call him to a grand jury.

OSER: He'll keep deteriorating.
We'll get more out of him when he cracks.

If we call him in now he might freeze up,
we'll lose our best shot.

He can't go down any further.
We must protect him full time.

I know what you're going through
with Ferrie.

We'll talk tomorrow.
I have to catch a plane to Washington.

A lead says he's closely connected
to these events

but he won't come here.

I'm onto Ferrie's Cuban paymaster,
Eladio del Valle.

I need more men. I got to get him in.

I can't pull the teams to watch Ferrie.
I promised him!

This is our case!

I got something to show you.

I think you'll find it interesting.

NUMA: This was found in your office.

The conference room is bugged, maybe
the phones. We have to debug the place.

SUSIE: Bugging the DA's office.
This is outrageous!

NUMA: Believe what you want,
but we must be more careful.

All these new volunteers!

You handle it, okay?
I don't have time for this nonsense.

Well, we obviously got
the bastards worried now.

I'm coming to Washington!

Dave Ferrie's dead.

LOU: Found his body in his apartment
two hours ago.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

JIM: What's it look like?

CORONER: I don't see any violence.

Heart attack, maybe an aneurysm.
Natural causes.

BILL: This is addressed to no one
and no signature.

"To leave this life is
for me a sweet prospect.

BILL: "I find nothing in it that is desirable

"and, on the other hand,
everything that is loathsome."

BILL: It goes on and on.

"Daily we are propagandized more
and more by the rising crime wave."

Seems pretty flowery for Dave Ferrie.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

[Eerie sound effects]

[Ferrie screams]

LOU: Proloid.

I took it once for a low thyroid condition.

It raises the metabolism.

Ferrie strike you as the kind of person
with a low metabolism?

LOU: Hardly, I'd say the opposite.
Maybe hypertension.

Ferrie was the only one to express
any kind of remorse about the whole thing.

I think it got him killed.

SUSIE: More bad news from Miami.

Ferrie's friend, Eladio del Valle,
was found

hacked to death with a machete
in his car.

He was tortured, shot point-blank
in the heart, his skull split open with an ax.

JIM: Ain't that the devil's piss!

BILL: Found another note.
Same thing. No name. No signature.

"When you receive this, I'll be quite dead,
so no answer is possible.

- "I offered you love, I got kicked."
- Must've pressed to come up with that.

JIM: What if a man with hypertension
were to take an entire bottle of Proloid?

CORONER: He'd die quickly. A heart storm
or a ruptured blood vessel in the brain.

JIM: Can you ascertain if there's Proloid
in his system?

CORONER: Not with a routine autopsy.

But there may be a high level of iodine
in the spinal fluid.

But it's difficult to know.
What're you thinking?

[Shouting]

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.

BILL: The fact is, he's gone.
And so is our case.

LOU: 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.

SUSIE: I agree. We don't have the goods.
LOU: We wait, Shaw will get whacked!

How many corpses do you need
to figure out what's going on?

BILL: Watch your mouth!
Ferrie did this himself.

Where're you going?

JIM: I don't know.

I just don't know.

[Reporters all talk at once]

Frank, you're wasting your time here.

Big Jim gave strict orders. No FBI.

It's you I want to talk to.

Boss'd fry me in hog fat
if he knew I talked to you.

Boss's got a problem. Real serious.

- We know what's going on at your office.
- I guess you do.

You got nothing. I'm a friend.
You're riding on the Titanic.

Time to jump off
before you get destroyed, too.

Enough!

FRANK: We're talking about your career.
You're young.

You're working the Castro thing.

- No, I'm not.
- You are.

We know Oswald didn't pull that trigger.
Castro did.

If it comes out, there'll be a war.

Millions of people will die.
That's more important than Jim Garrison.

FRANK: 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.

[Dramatic music plays softly]

MR. X: Garrison?

Yes.

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...

MR. X: 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
or what I represent.

Except to say you're close.

Closer than you think.

MR. X: 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'état,

rigging elections,
propaganda, psych warfare.

In World War ll, I was in Romania,
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.

MR. X: Overthrew Quirino
in the Philippines, Arbenz in Guatemala,

Mossadegh in Iran.
We were in Vietnam in '54

Indonesia, '58, Tibet, '59.

Got the Dalai Lama out. We were good.

Very good.

Then we got into the Cuban thing.
Not so good.

Set up an invasion to take place
in October, '62.

MR. X: 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 US 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 two weeks before
Kennedy's assassination,

a strange thing happened to me.

MR. X: Is Dave in there?

You wanted to see me, General?

GENERAL Y: I do, indeed.

You're going to the South Pole.

I am?

GENERAL Y: Dr. Mooney's got the details.

Check with him. Have a nice vacation.

MR. X: I was sent by my superior,
we'll call him "Y,"

I 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 7:00 p.m.,
Dallas time

with Tippit's murder. That's 2:00 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 that he killed
the President alone

although it took them four 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 a Black Op.

MR. X: After I came back

I asked myself, why was I,
the chief of Special Ops,

sent to the South Pole to do a job

many others could have done?

I wondered if it could've been because

a routine duty,
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 hadn't let him ride
with the bubble-top off,

we would've put 100 to 200 agents
on the sidewalk without question.

A month before, in Dallas, UN Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson was spit on and hit.

There had been attempts
on De Gaulle's life in France.

We'd have arrived days ahead,
studied the route,

checked all buildings.

Never would've allowed open windows
overlooking Dealey.

Our own snipers
would've covered the area.

If a window went up,
they'd have been on the radio!

We'd be watching the crowd,
packages, rolled-up newspapers, coats.

Never would've let a man
open an umbrella.

Never would've let the car slow down
to ten 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?

MR. X: Black Ops. People in my business.
My superior might call Col. Reich and say,

"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 Intell had
a Lee Harvey Oswald on file.

MR. X: Those files have been destroyed.

Many strange things were happening.

MR. X: 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 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.

MR. X: 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?

Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited?

Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

MR. X: In 1961,

right after the Bay of Pigs,
very few people know this,

I participated in drawing up
National Security Action Memos 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 Intell
since World War ll.

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 of dollars.

Three hundred agents, 7,000 select Cubans.

Fifty fake business fronts
to launder money.

They waged a non-stop war against Castro.

Industrial sabotage, crop burning, etc.

All under the control of General Y.

He took the rules of covert warfare
he'd used abroad

and brought them to this country.

Now he had the people,
the equipment, the bases

and the motivation.

Don't underestimate the budget cuts
that Kennedy called for in March of 1963.

Nearly 52 military installations
in 25 states.

Twenty-one overseas bases.

Big money.

You know how many helicopters
have been lost in Vietnam?

Nearly 3,000 so far.

MR. X: Who makes them?
Bell Helicopter. Who owns Bell?

Bell was nearly bankrupt when First
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.

Nearly $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.

MR. X: 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.

WHITE HOUSE MAN 1:
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!

WHITE HOUSE MAN 3: He can't afford
to implement it before the election.

I hear the NSC meeting
was a real barn burner.

WHITE HOUSE MAN 4: I wouldn't have
missed it for the world.

Heads will roll. Hear about Lemnitzer?

WHITE HOUSE MAN 2: What?

WHITE HOUSE MAN 4: 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?

WHITE HOUSE MAN 2:
There he goes again.

Got his hand on the chicken switch.

Lem said that the
Chiefs still think we should go into Cuba.

MR. X: Money's at stake.

Big money. $100 billion.

Kennedy bred voting districts
for defense dollars.

He gave TFX fighter contracts only
to those counties that will matter in '64.

The people in the loop fight back.
Their way.

We have to control the intelligence
from Saigon.

JOHNSON: 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!

JOHNSON: Now I want Max Taylor on him
night and day,

like a fly on shit.

You control McNamara,
you control Kennedy.

MR. X: 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.

CONSPIRATOR: [On phone]
We're going. We need your help.

When?

CONSPIRATOR: In the fall.
Probably in the South.

- We want you to come up with a plan.
- I can do that.

MR. X: Everything is cellularized.

No one said, "He must die." No vote.
Nothing's on paper.

There's no one to blame.

It's as old as the crucifixion.

Or the military firing squad.

Five bullets, one 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'état.

[General Y converses with conspirator]

MR. X: Kennedy announces
the Texas trip in September.

At that moment,
second Oswalds pop up all over Dallas

where 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.

Maybe 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.

JOHNSON: 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.

MR. X: 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.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

MR. X: 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've done it 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.

MR. X: I can give you the background.
You find the foreground, the little things.

Dig, you're the only one to bring a trial
in Kennedy's murder.

MR. X: 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.

MR. X: 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.

MR. X: Be honest.

Your only chance is to come up
with a case. Something. Anything.

Make arrests. Stir the shitstorm.

MR. X: Hope to start

a chain reaction
of people coming forward.

Then 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.

[Dramatic music plays softly]

LOU: 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.

LOU: It's my duty to inform you

[Camera clicks]

you have the right to remain silent.

OFFICER HABIGHORST: Name?

Clay LaVerne Shaw.

HABIGHORST: Address?

1313 Dauphine Street, New Orleans.

HABIGHORST: Ever use any aliases?

Clay Bertrand.

[Reporters all talk at once]

REPORTER 1: Mr. Clark, are you aware
of the charges filed by DA Garrison?

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes, Mr. Shaw was
included in our investigation.

No connection was found at all.

JIM: 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.

CHIEF JUSTICE: 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.

REPORTER: 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!

[Reporters all talk at once]

TV ANNOUNCER: The JFK Conspiracy:
The Case of Jim Garrison.

LIZ: This is about you.

STONER: [On TV] 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 cellmate
of Willie O'Keefe's at Angola.

He said he'd be cut loose
if he copped to the DA's office.

JIM: I sent him up for burglary.

And there's his old buddy Miguel Torres.

JIM: We sent him up too.

They wanted me to say Shaw
was Bertrand. They'd get me a pardon.

STONER: Janet Williams comments
on Willie O'Keefe's

descriptions of having met Oswald.

REPORTER: Was he a homosexual?

JANET: Not the Lee I knew.
Absolutely not.

Mr. O'Keefe must have seen someone
he thought was Lee Oswald.

ANDREWS: 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.

CLAY: 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.

STONER: 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.

[Melancholic instrumental music]

REPORTER: [On TV]
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.

[Phone rings]

VIRGINIA: I'll get it.

BEAUTY CONTEST MAN: [On phone]
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?

VIRGINIA: I don't know.

My God! What have they done?

MATTIE: It's lynching time.

VIRGINIA: That sounds fun.

BEAUTY CONTEST MAN:
You get out of school at 3:00?

Who are you talking to?

BEAUTY CONTEST MAN:
That's all I need to know.

VIRGINIA: Mommy,
I'm going to be in a beauty contest.

Who is this? Who is this?

[Dial tone]

LIZ: 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 a dozen times a day at the office.

Our home! A kidnapper, a murderer!

Only cowards make crank calls.

Nothing will happen.

LIZ: 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?

LIZ: Your own daughter!

LIZ: 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?

LIZ: 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!

LIZ: Did you ever once stop
to consider his feelings?

[Liz sobs]

You don't believe me?

LIZ: I don't know!
JIM: You never believed me?

I just want to raise our children
and live a normal life.

LIZ: I want my life back!

So do I, 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.

LIZ: I'm leaving you!

LIZ: I'm taking the children!
JIM: Go on! Get out!

LIZ: I am!
JIM: Go hide!

JIM: 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?

JIM: I don't know, Jasper.

JASPER: Because of Kennedy?

Will the same people kill us, Papa?

JIM: Nobody will kill us.

JASPER: I'm scared.

VIRGINIA: I don't like it
when you and Mommy fight.

JIM: I don't like it either, honey.

VIRGINIA: Why do we have to leave?

Don't you love us anymore?

Daddy loves you both.

There's nothing wrong
with 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.

OSER: Here's another.

The US Attorney in Washington declines
to serve our subpoena

on Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell,
CIA Director Richard Helms, any FBI agent.

JIM: What'd you expect from a pig
but a grunt?

OSER: 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.

OSER: Let's get Julia Ann Mercer in here.

JIM: 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?

NUMA: 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.

[All chuckle]

Any more on Oswald or Shaw?

They were seen together in Clinton
in early September.

The Civil Rights Movement
was running a voter's registration drive.

Rumor is, Shaw 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 coloreds
that saw them there.

Last time I checked,
it was not illegal to register to vote.

BILL: We still got the

the junkie, Vernon Bundy,
who saw him talking at the sea wall.

This is tough.
No one wants to talk about Shaw.

You keep saying that.

- I keep saying what?
- You're not digging deep enough.

You want to do my job!
You do my job, I'll do your job.

JIM: I think Clinton is a breakthrough now.

Shaw denies ever knowing Oswald, right?

That proves he's a liar.

- Keep on it, Bill.
- This is the interesting part.

Oswald went to see the FBI two weeks

before the assassination.

OSWALD: May I see Special Agent Hosty?

FBI RECEPTIONIST: He's not in.
Can someone else help you?

SUSIE: Special Agent Hosty made
three 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.

SUSIE: Hosty tore it up and flushed it
down the toilet.

JIM: 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.

JIM: Remember the meeting
with 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.

JIM: William Walter, the FBI night clerk,
gave me a copy.

It went all over the country.
Nothing was done.

The motorcade went ahead on schedule.
The Warren Report didn't mention it.

OSER: "A militant group may attempt
to assassinate President Kennedy

"on his proposed trip to Dallas, Texas."

JIM: Shortly after the assassination

Walter says the telex was removed
from all the files

as an obvious embarrassment
to the Bureau.

I believe Oswald sent information
through Hosty.

JIM: 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.

JIM: 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.

JIM: 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.

BILL: I don't buy it.

Why would the FBI cover it up?

A telex disappears from every FBI office
in this country?

JIM: There's a word, Bill.

JIM: Orders.
SUSIE: 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.

JIM: Shaw's our toehold.
I don't know or care exactly how he fits.

JIM: 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!

BILL: We should investigate
our Mafia leads here.

I can buy that easier
than I can the government.

BILL: 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?

JIM: 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'état 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 being bought off
and murdered?

Why are federal agencies blocking
our extraditions and subpoenas?

[Stammers] I don't know.

Maybe there's some rogue element
in the government.

JIM: With a full-blown cover-up?

You ever read Shakespeare?

Yeah.

I do.

JIM: Julius Caesar?

"Brutus and Cassius,
they too are honorable men."

Who killed Caesar?

Ten or twelve Senators.

All it takes is one Judas.

JIM: 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.

BILL: You are taking a crap in the wind.

And I am not going along on this one.

[Banging]

I've had my doubts all along about Bill.

He's been fighting us.

We need him back.

OSER: He wasted a month
trying to prove

that mob boys like Jack Ruby
are hooked up with Hunt Oil.

LOU: I don't trust him.
JIM: I will not hear this.

I value Bill as much as any person here.

It's time we made room
for someone else's ideas, including me.

Maybe Oswald is what everyone says he is,
and I'm

just plain dumb about it.

OSER: I've seen him copying files here
late at night.

LOU: I don't trust him.
JIM: Did you two hear me?

I won't tolerate staff infighting.

I'm afraid I cannot work
with Bill Broussard anymore.

Is this an ultimatum?

JIM: Are you giving me an ultimatum?

If that's what you want to call it.

I never thought it'd come to this.

I guess I am.

I won't have any ultimatum put to me, Lou.
I'll accept your resignation.

You sure got it.

You are one stubborn son of a bitch.

LOU: You're making a big mistake.

SUSIE: Boss, aren't you being a little hard?

No, I don't think I am.

Anyone else?

Now, Jerry, here's Jim Garrison,

the District Attorney
of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Welcome, District Attorney Garrison.

You're investigating the murder
of President Kennedy.

We have heard some strange things
coming out of your office.

First, we heard that Cuban exiles
killed the President.

Then the mob.

Your latest theory seems to be
that the CIA and the FBI

and the Pentagon

and the White House all combined
in an elaborate conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

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.
He has some answers.

There have been a number of reports
in reputable news media,

Time, Newsweek, our own NBC,

that you've gone beyond legal means
as a prosecutor,

that you've intimidated,
even drugged witnesses,

bribed them, and urged them
to commit perjury.

Do you have a response?

Your faith in the veracity
of the major media is touching.

It indicates that the age of innocence
is not yet over.

But ask yourself,

if we had learned
on November 22, 1963,

that the Russian Premier had been shot
from a Moscow building

by a lonely capitalist sympathizer

who, himself, was then liquidated
by a patriotic Muscovite within 48 hours

while surrounded by armed police.

I think it would be apparent to anyone

that a coup d'état and a transfer
of power had just taken place.

And we would not ask questions
or attack Jim Garrison.

We would, in a free-thinking society,

be asking why he was killed,
and what forces opposed him.

There are some people who might say
that you are paranoid.

I should show you some pictures
so you can understand

what I'm talking about.

These are arrests.

These arrests were photographed
minutes after the assassination.

They were never shown to the public.

I'm sorry,
these pictures can't be shown on TV.

- Sure they can.
- No, I'm sorry. They can't.

- The camera can pick these up.
- Jim, I'm sorry.

They can't. We have libel laws.

Those men you just saw were arrested
in Dallas minutes after the assassination.

They were never seen again.

No record of arrest,
no mug shots, no fingerprints.

Hold that thought.

We'll be back,
right after these commercials.

Bill, what the hell are you doing here?

I'm sorry about the other day.
I didn't mean to walk out on you like that.

You came all this way
to tell me the obvious?

No. Look,

I just heard of an attempt to kill you
between here and New Orleans.

A mob guy was brought down by Shaw
from Canada.

This is serious.
You'll need a bodyguard tonight.

When you were in the Army,
did you ever find out what an order meant?

Do you remember my orders
about passing on rumors

about someone going to be killed?

- Yes, I do, but this is...
- No, there is no "but."

There is no "but" in a military situation!

I don't appreciate you dumping
this paranoid garbage on me,

nor your inability
to follow a simple order

especially when it means I have to pay
for your flight back to New Orleans.

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 are you going?
It's me, Samuel.

- Hey, how long were you in that restroom?
- 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. Nothing.

We went to confront him and the landlady
said the son of a bitch just left.

Left everything.

It's unbelievable. I'm sorry.

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.
- He sure fooled us.

No, no, leave it. Don't turn it down.
I want to see this.

You know what's happening, he's winning.

He'll never make it.

If he wins, they'll kill him.
He'll stop the war.

They'll kill him
before they let him be President.

With Broussard, they have everything,

all our witnesses,
our strategies for the trial.

We got to double check 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'll come out on.

You remember the Hemingway story,
The Old Man and the Sea?

The old fisherman manages
to catch this great fish,

a fish so huge, that he has to tie it
to the boat to get it back in.

By the time it reached shore

the fish had long since been picked apart
by sharks.

Nothing was left, but the skeleton.

- And that's what will happen to us.
- Then what did we do this for?

It's a means to an end.

This war has two fronts.

In a court of law,
we hope to get Clay Shaw for conspiracy.

In the court of public opinion,
it could take another 25, 30 years

for the truth to come out.

At least we'll strike the first blow.

What if you're wrong?

I never thought for a second I was.

Will you come to the trial?

I don't think so.

NEWSMAN 1:
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.

ROBERT KENNEDY: [On TV]
Within the United States over the period

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.

[Crowd on TV cheers]

Thank you all.
It's on to Chicago and let's win there.

[Gunshots on TV]

[Chaotic reactions from crowd on TV]

REPORTER 1:
Senator Kennedy has been shot!

[Dramatic instrumental music]

They killed him, honey.

[Liz moans]

He won

and they killed Robert Kennedy.

No.

They shot him down.

[Liz sighs]

LIZ: Oh, my God!

Both of them?

Both brothers?

[Dramatic music plays softly]

You were right.

It hasn't ended yet.

For the first time

I feel really scared.

JIM: I wish I could've loved you more.

Sometimes I feel like
I didn't ever love you

or the children enough.

JIM: I'm sorry.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

[Reporters all talk at once]

[Gavel bangs]

Please rise.

BAILIFF: The Criminal District Court for
Orleans Parish, Section H

is now in session.

Honorable Judge Edward A. Haggerty, Jr.
presiding. Be seated.

O'KEEFE: That's Clay Bertrand.

That's who I saw at Ferrie's.

DYMOND: That's who you say you saw.

DYMOND: 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.

DYMOND: 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 day.

That big black Cadillac of his
made me think they might be FBI.

Welcome to Clinton.
If you need any help, let us know.

He said he was a representative
of Warren International Trade Mart.

More than five years ago,
for two minutes?

It's fair to say you could be mistaken.

ANDREWS: 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.

SUSIE: Objection, Your Honor!

Andrews has been convicted of perjury
on this matter.

DYMOND: Exception taken.
That case is on appeal.

Mr. Goldberg,

you claim you met Ferrie and Shaw
on a vacation trip

from your accounting business
in New York.

You had drinks,

and while drunk,
discussed killing Kennedy.

- Is that not so?
- Yes, I did.

DYMOND: Is it true that you fingerprinted
your daughter when she went to college?

GOLDBERG: Yes, sir, I did.

DYMOND: Is it also true that you
fingerprinted her when she returned?

Yes, I did.

DYMOND: Why?

I wanted to make sure
she was the same girl I sent away.

He was one of Broussard's witnesses.

He was totally sane
when we took his affidavit.

JIM: Your Honor, we call Police Officer
Aloysius Habighorst to the stand.

JUDGE: I must ask the jury
to leave the court.

BAILIFF: Gentlemen,
please rise and follow me.

- Name?
- Clay LaVerne Shaw.

Defendant didn't have his lawyer present.

It's standard booking procedure
to ask an alias!

JUDGE: I call them as I see them!

HABIGHORST: Any aliases?

Clay Bertrand.

[Shouting]

It's not constitutionally required
that a lawyer be present!

JUDGE: I'm ruling that inadmissible!
JIM: That's our case!

JUDGE: Then you didn't have a case.

I wouldn't believe anything
Habighorst said anyway.

I can't believe you're saying this!

JUDGE: I am saying it. Bring in the jury.

[Gavel bangs]

DYMOND: Oswald?
CLAY: No, I did not.

DYMOND: Ever call Dean Andrews?
CLAY: No, I did not.

Have you ever met David Ferrie?

CLAY: Wouldn't even know what
he looked like if I hadn't seen pictures.

DYMOND: Did you ever use the alias,
Clay Bertrand?

No, I did not.

Thank you, Mr. Shaw.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

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.

[Various voices shouting]

[Gavel bangs]

JIM: 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 five years

in the Time-Life Building in New York.

JIM: There's a reason for that.

Watch.

JIM: "The picture speaks 1,000 words."

The Warren Commission thought they had
an open-and-shut case.

Three bullets, one assassin.

Two unpredictable things happened
that day to make it impossible.

One, the film shot by Abraham Zapruder
while standing near the grassy knoll.

Two, the third wounded man,
James Teague, 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 Teague's cheek

came from one of the three bullets
fired from the Depository's sixth floor.

That leaves just two bullets.

We know one was the fatal head shot
that killed Kennedy.

So a single bullet remains.

A single bullet must account for the seven
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 number 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 number 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 number 4.

The bullet turns right, reentering
Connally's body at his right wrist.

Wound number 5.

Shattering the radius bone,

the bullet exits Connally's wrist,
wound number 6,

makes a dramatic U-turn,
then buries itself in Connally's left thigh.

Wound number 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.

[Crowd chuckles]

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 seven wounds

you must conclude there was
a fourth shot and a second rifleman.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

And if there was a second rifleman,

then by definition there had
to be a conspiracy

which we believe
involves the accused, Clay Shaw.

Fifty-one 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.

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.

[Gunshot, crowd screams]

Each of these key witnesses
has no doubt whatsoever

one or more shots came
from behind the picket fence.

Twenty-six trained medical personnel
at Parkland Hospital

saw the back of the President's head
blasted out!

Doctor Peters.

There was a large 7 cm opening
at the right occipital parietal area.

A considerable portion
of the brain was missing.

MCCLELLAND: A fifth or possibly
a quarter of the back of the head

had been blasted out

along with the underlying brain tissue.

DOCTOR: When's the proper time
to declare one dead?

MCCLELLAND: 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 mm,

or five inches, across.

JIM: 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'état 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, Friday
afternoon was not so much a takeoff

as it was a getaway,
with the newly sworn in President.

DYMOND: Objection!

Sustained.

JIM: 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.

DYMOND: Objection, Your Honor.
JUDGE: Sustained.

Please bottle the acid.

JIM: 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 eight wounds from two bullets.

Three to Kennedy, five to Connally.

One of them being the "magic bullet."

FINCK: FBI?
FBI AGENT: Here.

JIM: 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.

PATHOLOGIST:
Looks like half his brain is gone.

FINCK: Weigh it.
PATHOLOGIST: 653 grams.

JIM: As a pathologist,
it was your obligation to explore

all possible causes of death.

I had the cause of death.

JIM: Your Honor, please direct the witness
to answer my question.

JIM: Why didn't Colonel Finck dissect
the tract of the bullet wound?

FINCK: I heard Dr. Humes stating.

HUMES: That's enough. That's enough.

It's duly noted.

FINCK: Let's check the back.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

HUMES: I can feel the end of the wound
with my finger.

That won't be necessary.

[Military drumbeat]

FINCK: Watch the ear!

Shot in the back. Cheap crime.

FINCK: He said...

Who's in charge here?

I am.

FINCK: 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.

JIM: But you were a qualified pathologist.
Was the Army General?

FINCK: No.

JIM: But you took his orders.

Yes.

- So he was directing the autopsy.
- No.

There were others.

There were admirals.

When you're a Lieutenant Colonel,
you follow orders.

ADMIRAL KENNEY: It isn't 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.

JIM: 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 burned 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.

[Jury murmurs]

JIM: That's not all that's disappeared.
With it, the concept of justice.

DYMOND: Objection. Mr. Garrison is
insulting the federal government...

JUDGE: 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 sixth floor
of the Depository.

They were refurbishing the floors
of the Depository that week,

allowing unknown workmen
in the building.

[Orders given over radio]

JIM: 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.

[Crowd cheers]

Probably two to three more men
are in the crowd.

Ten to twelve men.
Three teams. Three shooters.

The triangulation of fire Clay Shaw and
David Ferrie discussed two 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 three 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!"

[Dramatic instrumental music]

The first shot rings out.

[Gunshot]

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,

[Gunshot]

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.

[Gunshot]

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 Teague by the underpass.

The car brakes.

The sixth and fatal shot.

Frame 313, takes Kennedy in the head
from the front.

[Gunshot]

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.

[Panicked screaming]

Again.

Back, and to the left.

Back, and to the left.

Back, and to the left.

So what happens then?

[Panicked screams from crowd]

Pandemonium.

A- TEAM ASSASSIN:
Let's go! We got him!

[Fast-paced, dramatic instrumental music]

JIM: 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.

SMITH: Let's see your ID.
See anyone else up here?

SMITH: 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.

JIM: All Secret Servicemen
in Dallas are 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.

JIM: 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 second-floor snack room,

where he said he went for a Coke.

CAROLYN: 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.

JIM: At the same time,
Bonnie Ray Williams is

supposedly eating lunch
in the sixth 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 sixth-floor windows,

presumably after Williams
finished his lunch and left.

John Powell, a prisoner on the sixth floor
of the county jail, sees them.

POWELL: 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.

JIM: Later, he told police he was
in the second-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 is shot,

Patrolman Marrion Baker sees Oswald
in that second-floor lunchroom.

BAKER: Is this man an employee?

Yes. The President's been shot.

JIM: The Commission would
have us believe

that after firing three bolt-action shots
in 5.6 seconds

Oswald then leaves three 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 five flights of stairs

past Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles
who never see him,

then shows up, cool and calm, on the
second floor in front of Patrolman Baker.

All this within a maximum of 90 seconds
of the shooting.

BAKER: Is this man an employee?

Yes. The President's been shot.

JIM: 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 second floor,

he strolls out
the more distant front exit

where cops have gathered.

Odd, since three shots were fired
from there,

nobody seals the Depository
for ten 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.

EARLENE: A man shot the President!

JIM: He puts on his jacket,
grabs his. 38 revolver

and leaves at 1:04.

[Car honks]

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've had to jog a mile
in six to eleven minutes

then commit the murder,
reverse his direction

and walk three-fifths of a mile
to the Texas Theater

and arrive sometime before 1:30.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

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,

refused to identify Oswald as the killer
and was never taken to a lineup.

Acquilla Clemons

saw the killer and another man
go off in separate directions.

Mrs. Clemons was never taken to a lineup
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 three cartridge cases

which the Warren Commission show him.

As early as 12:44, only 14 minutes
after the assassination

the police put out a description
matching Oswald's size and build.

[Sirens blare]

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 $0.75 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.

There he is.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

POLICEMAN:
Sir, can I get you to stand up?

[Shouting]

OSWALD: I am not resisting arrest!
I am not resisting arrest!

JIM: 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 Tippit.

No legal counsel was 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.

[Gunshot]

[Oswald gasps]

JIM: Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald,

buried in a cheap grave
under the name Oswald?

Nobody.

[Dramatic music plays softly]

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.

JIM: 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 photographs.

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 an invisible government in the US?

That kind of national security is

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'état.

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

worth $80 billion a year.

President Kennedy was murdered
by a conspiracy

planned at the highest levels
of our 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

[Crowd murmurs]

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.

[Crowd chuckles]

Southern caricature seeking higher office.

There's a simple way to determine
if I am paranoid.

Ask the two 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 40s

so I'll have "shuffled off
this mortal coil" by then.

But I'm telling my eight-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 someday, 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,

I think most of us in this courtroom
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 one often has to fight power
at great risk to themselves.

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 to know the truth.

Because they want their country back.

Because it still belongs to us,

as long as the people have the guts
to 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.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

[Gavel bangs]

JUDGE: Has the jury reached a verdict?

JURY FOREMAN: We have, Your Honor.

JUDGE: Please hand the verdict
to the clerk.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

JUDGE: Will the defendant please rise?

JUDGE: The clerk will now read
the verdict.

CLERK: "New Orleans, Louisiana.
March 1, 1969.

"We, the jury, find the defendant,
Clay Shaw, not guilty."

[Cheers and applause]

[Gavel bangs]

JURY FOREMAN: We believe there was
a conspiracy.

Whether Shaw was a part of it
is another kettle of fish.

MAN: There's Jim!

ENGLISH REPORTER: Do you agree
that this is a full vindication

of the Warren Commission?

It only proves you cannot run
an investigation

questioning the intelligence operations
of the US government.

NEWSMAN: People claim you're unfit
to hold office,

that you've ruined
Clay Shaw's reputation.

Are you going to resign?

Hell, no! I'm going to run again,
and I'm going to win!

NEWSWOMAN:
Who will you persecute next?

JIM: If it takes me 30 years to nail
every one of the assassins

then I will continue for 30 years!

I owe that to Jack Kennedy
and the country.

REPORTER: There's Clay!
There's Clay Shaw!

REPORTER: How does it feel
to be acquitted?

CLAY: It's been exhausting.

REPORTER 2: What'll you do now?

I'm going home and cook some étouffée.

NEWSWOMAN: Were you confident
about the outcome?

NEWSWOMAN 2:
Do you think Garrison will be back?

CLAY: I'm sure he will.

[Military drumbeat]