JFK's Assassination: The Result of a Conspiracy?

[Glenn X]

While I’ve always had my doubts regarding whether or not there really was a conspiracy behind John F. Kennedy’s assassination, I will concede that I’m a big fan of Oliver Stone’s JFK, which is, without doubt, one of the best, most provocative films of the past quarter century. Whether one agrees with the film’s theory of the assassination (much less Mr. Stone’s personal politics) or not, is really beside the point. The fact is that JFK, as just a sheer piece of moviemaking, is brilliant.

Generically speaking, I would classify JFK as film noir. However, unlike the original cycle of film noir from the 1940s, which gave rise to classics like The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and The Big Clock, JFK belongs in the category of Chinatown, Body Heat, No Way Out and other so-called “neo-noirs” that have tried to breathe new life into the genre. And as film noirs go, JFK deserves mention with the very best of them simply because of the gravity of its plot. As we all know, to have a film noir, there has to be a murder to be solved. And, simply put, John Kennedy’s death ranks as one of the great murder mysteries of the 20th century.

Who really killed Kennedy? Was the Warren Commission right? Was it just Oswald himself, acting alone? Or was there a conspiracy? And if so, who was involved?

By the time Oliver Stone’s JFK reaches its third act, the film has reached such dizzying heights, thrown so many conspirators and co-conspirators at us, featured so many double-crosses and triple-crosses, one can’t help but be awed by it’s tremendous scope and swept up in its far-flung narrative dragnet. However, the problem with JFK as a piece of documentary history, which is certainly part and parcel of Stone’s raison d'etre for making the film, is that when one begins to dissect and examine its clues and evidence, the movie simply falls apart like a giant house of cards, collapsing under the vast weight of its own broad assumptions and strained logic.

For example, one problem with JFK is the sheer number of individuals whom Stone implicates as having been involved in the conspiracy. If true, any reasonable person is left to wonder why the conspiracy went undiscovered for as long as it did. Surely, with human nature being what it is, someone -- or more likely, given the sheer volume of conspirators featured in Stone’s film, several individuals -- involved in the plot would’ve either gone public or been found out far earlier. Moreover, Patricia Lambert’s book False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK, which was published in the late 1990s, casts serious doubt on Stone’s assertion that Clay Shaw, played in the movie by Tommy Lee Jones, had anything whatsoever to do with any plot to kill Kennedy.

In my view, one of the more interesting conspiracy theories ever put forward regarding Kennedy’s assassination was done so by writer Steve Rivele in the 1988 BBC documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy. According to Rivele, who apparently conducted years and years worth of research on the matter, the real culprits in the assassination are the American Mafia (who supposedly felt burned by Kennedy -- after they had allegedly helped him win the 1960 presidential election via voter fraud in the state of Illinois -- for appointing his brother Robert as Attorney General, who then began aggressively investigating the Mafia’s underworld shenanigans) and the CIA (who supposedly had underworld connections going back years, and were none too pleased with Kennedy’s public criticisms of them). The way Rivele tells it, the American Mafia farmed the assassination out to their buddies in the French Corsican Mafia, who then conscripted four shooters, if memory serves, from their own ranks to do the job. It’s been years since I last saw this documentary, so my recollections of it here could be off, but the way I remember it is that the CIA helped the shooters get into the U.S. and into position in Dallas via phony IDs and passports, even furnishing two of the assassins with fake Dallas P.D. uniforms.

Of course, whether Rivele’s account is really any more or any less accurate than Oliver Stone’s or the Warren Commission’s is very hard to say. However, as conspiracy theories go, Rivele’s theory seems a tad more plausible to me than, say, Stone’s simply because of the fact that Rivele’s involves far fewer people and the principals implicated are all either mobsters or spooks, people for whom failure to observe the always important and ever-present Code of Silence usually leads to the proverbial swim with the fishes or burial in an unmarked grave. As a result, this would effectively explain to me: (a) why any hard facts or evidence regarding a conspiracy in Kennedy’s death have been so difficult to come by; and ( why virtually all official attempts at investigation into this matter have gone nowhere fast.

[Brave]

The Kennedy assassination drove me nuts for about a year or a year and a half. I read many books, watched many tapes and documentaries, ran and re-ran the Zapruder film hundreds of times and tried to come up with the most likely scenario. The result? Frustration.

There are hundreds of leads that you can't quite follow to the end. Scores of witnesses that can't be re-interviewed. Lots of evidence that doesn't exist any more. There are many facts which appear to point toward some type of conspiracy but they end up being teases. There's something there but you never do find out just what.

So, what do I believe after all is said and done? I absolutely believe there was a plot to kill Kennedy. There is just too much evidence that doesn't go along with a lone gunman, the most convincing being:

- 58 witnesses stated to the Warren Commission that shots came from the infamous grassy knoll. An additional 34 witnesses either ran to directed their attention toward the knoll after the shots.

- James Milteer stating in the spring of '63 that a plan was in the works to kill Kennedy from a high-rise building with a rifle. He was captured on tape by an FBI agent saying this.

- The "magic bullet" theory just doesn't wash (sorry Arlen Spector.) Not just that a single bullet would enter Kennedy's back, exit his neck, go through Connelly's wrist and bury itself in his thigh. Seems unlikely, but I suppose stranger things have happened. What's even harder to swallow is that the bullet would end up virtually pristine after doing all that damage. I've never heard of that happening.

- The fact that, after a short amount of time had passed, many key witnesses had met strange, untimely deaths (the odds of which, according to the BBC special, would be astronomical). Also Kennedy's brain, the single most important piece of physical evidence, was lost. The car, another potentially vital piece of evidence, was destroyed.

There are many, many other facts which lead one to assume more than a lone, crazy gunman was at work that day. Some, perhaps, were mere coincidences ... but not all. No way. Kennedy was taken out. I don't know by whom ... there were several groups that would (and did) benefit from his death. But after extensive research I am convinced of a plot.

[Brave]

Oh yeah, as to Stones picture. I thought it was great entertainment, but not much more. Garrison's investigation was the last one I would have based a movie on. I don't buy it and neither did the jury ... acquitting Shaw after deliberating less than an hour.

[Riggo-toni]

Who was really behind the JFK assassination? His wife, Jackie. I slowed down the film at the part where the back of his head gets shot off, and a lipreader confirmed what she was saying at that moment. It was "Take that, you cheating b@stard!":evil: :asta: