...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.
With 53% of the precincts reporting, Sen. Kennedy has a 48% to 41% lead...
...over Sen. McCarthy.
CBS News projects Sen. Robert Kennedy...
...the winner of the California primary.
Within the United States over the period of the last three years...
...the division, the violence, the disenchantment with our society...
...the divisions between blacks and whites...
...the poor and the affluent, between age groups...
...or Vietnam, we can work together.
We are a great country, an unselfish, compassionate country.
That's my basis for running.
Thank you all. It's on to Chicago and let's win there.
Senator Kennedy has been shot!
They killed him, honey.
He won...
...and they killed Robert Kennedy.
They shot him down.
Oh, my God!
Both of them?
Both brothers?
You were right.
It hasn't ended yet.
For the first time...
...I feel really scared.
I wish I could've loved you more.
Sometimes I feel like I didn't ever love you...
...or the children enough.
I'm sorry.
Please rise.
The Criminal District Court for Orleans Parish, Section H, is now in session.
Honorable Judge Edward A. Haggerty, Jr. presiding. Be seated.
That's Clay Bertrand.
That's who I saw at Ferrie's.
That's who you say you saw.
A confessed homosexual.
Convicted of pandering and soliciting.
A man who has lied about everything...
...and now wants to be taken at his word.
That man, right there. Yes, sir.
He was at the Pontchartrain wall...
...with the man who shot the President.
I remember him because of his limp.
A heroin addict injecting himself at the wall.
Barely conscious of his surroundings.
- Is that the man? - That was the man, right there.
He dropped Oswald off on the voter's line.
I remember 'cause they were the only white strangers around that 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.
Just a figment of my imagination.
The cat's stewing you, I told him.
You got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho.
Bertrand is not Shaw, scout's honor. And you can tell him I said so.
Objection, Your Honor!
Andrews has been convicted of perjury on this matter.
Exception taken. That case is on appeal.
Mr. Goldberg...
...you claim 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.
Is it also true that you fingerprinted your daughter when she went to college?
Yes, sir, I did.
Is it also true that you fingerprinted her when she returned?
Yes, I did.
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.
Your Honor, we call Police Officer Aloysius Habighorst to the stand.
I must ask the jury to leave the court.
Gentlemen, will you 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!
I call them as I see them!
Any aliases?
Clay Bertrand.
It's not constitutionally required that a lawyer be present!
- I'm ruling that inadmissible! - That's our case!
Then you didn't have a case.
I wouldn't believe anything Habighorst said anyway.
I can't believe you're saying this!
I am saying it. Bring in the jury.
- Oswald? - No, I did not.
- Ever call Dean Andrews? - No, I did not.
Have you ever met David Ferrie?
Wouldn't even know what he looked like if I hadn't seen pictures.
Did you ever use the alias, Clay Bertrand?
No, I did not.
Thank you, Mr. Shaw.
A very great actor has just given us a great performance.
But we are nowhere closer to the truth.
My office is charging Clay Shaw with outright perjury...
...on 15 answers he's given today, not one word being true.
You're out of order! Now, sit down!
That's the man right there.
To prove there was a conspiracy involving Clay Shaw...
...we must prove there was more than one man involved in the assassination.
To do that...
...we must look at the Zapruder film which my office subpoenaed.
The American public has not seen...
...has not seen the film. It's been locked in a vault the last five years...
...in the Time-Life Building in New York.
There's a reason for that.
Watch.
"The picture speaks 1,000 words."
The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case.
Three bullets, one assassin.
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 #2...
...where it waits 1.6 seconds...
...presumably in midair, where it turns right, then left...
...right, then left...
...and continues into Connally's right armpit.
Wound #3.
The bullet then heads down at an angle of 27 degrees, shattering his rib...
...and exiting from the right side of his chest. Wound #4.
The bullet turns right, reentering Connally's body at his right wrist.
Wound #5.
Shattering the radius bone...
...the bullet exits Connally's wrist, wound #6...
...makes a dramatic U-turn, then buries itself in Connally's left thigh.
Wound #7, from which it later falls out...
...and is found in almost pristine condition...
...on a stretcher in a corridor of Parkland Hospital.
Some bullet.
Any combat vet can tell you, never in the history of gunfire...
...has there been a bullet this ridiculous.
The government says it can prove it with some fancy physics in a nuclear lab.
Of course they can.
Theoretical physics can prove an elephant can hang from a cliff...
...with his tail tied to a daisy.
But use your eyes, your common sense.
The Army wound ballistics experts fired some comparison bullets.
Not one of them looked anything like this.
Take a look at CE-856.
An identical bullet...
...fired through the wrist of a human cadaver...
...just one of the bones smashed by the magic bullet.
Seven wounds, gentlemen.
Tough skin...
...dense bones.
This single-bullet explanation...
...is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of one assassin.
And once you conclude...
...the magic bullet couldn't create all seven wounds...
...you must conclude there was a fourth shot and a second rifleman.
And if there was a second rifleman...
...then by definition there had to be a conspiracy...
...which we believe involves the accused, Clay Shaw.
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.
Right behind, Jean Hill and Mary Moorman.
S.M. Holland, Richard Dodd, James Simmons...
...standing on the overpass. J.C. Price...
...overlooking the plaza.
William Newman, father of two children.
He hit the deck on the north side of Elm.
Abraham Zapruder.
Each of these key witnesses has no doubt whatsoever...
...one or more shots came from behind the picket fence.
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.
A fifth or possibly a quarter of the back of the head had been blasted out...
...along with the underlying brain tissue.
When's the proper time to declare one dead?
There was also a large fragment of skull attached to a flap of the scalp.
The exit hole in the rear of his head measured about 120 mm...
...or five inches, across.
Not one of the civilian doctors who examined the President...
...regarded his throat wound as anything but an entry wound.
But then the body was illegally moved to Washington for the autopsy.
Because when a coup d'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.
Objection!
Sustained.
On the plane, the White House Situation Room announced Oswald's guilt...
...to all passengers before any kind of investigation had begun.
The "angry lone nut" solution is beginning to take shape.
- Objection, Your Honor. - Sustained.
Please bottle the acid.
The three Bethesda doctors picked by the military left something to be desired.
None of them had experience with combat-gunfire wounds.
Through their autopsy, we've been able to justify eight wounds from two bullets.
Three to Kennedy, five to Connally.
One of them being the "magic bullet."
- FBI? - Here.
Col. Finck, are you saying someone told you not to dissect the neck?
I was told the family wanted the examination of the head.
Oh, Christ.
Looks like half his brain is gone.
- Weigh it. - 653 grams.
As a pathologist, it was your obligation to explore...
...all possible causes of death.
I had the cause of death.
Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer my question.
Why did Col. Finck not dissect the tract of the bullet wound?
I heard Dr. Humes stating....
That's enough. That's enough.
It's duly noted.
Let's check the back.
I can feel the end of the wound with my finger.
That won't be necessary.
Watch the ear!
Shot in the back. Cheap crime.
He said:
Who's in charge here?
I am.
I don't remember his name.
It was quite crowded.
And when you are called to look at the wounds of the dead President...
...you don't ask people for their names and who they are.
But you were a qualified pathologist. Was the Army General?
No.
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.
It is not our business to discuss this with anyone outside this room.
As I recall, Admiral Kenney, Navy Surgeon General...
...specifically told us not to discuss the case.
A lot of people were deciding what was private...
...none of the American people's business.
The chief pathologist, Commander Humes...
...by his own admission, voluntarily 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.
That's not all that's disappeared. With it, the concept of justice.
Objection. Mr. Garrison is insulting the federal government--
Overruled!
So, what really happened that day?
Let's just for a moment speculate, shall we?
We have the epileptic seizure...
...distracting the police and allowing the shooters to get into place.
The epileptic later vanished, never checking into the hospital.
The A-team goes to the sixth floor of the Depository.
They were refurbishing the floors of the Depository that week...
...allowing unknown workmen in the building.
They move quickly into position, minutes before the shooting.
The second spotter, talking by radio to the other teams, has the best overall view.
The God spot.
B-team, one rifleman and one spotter with access to the building...
...moves into a low floor of the Dal-Tex building.
The third team, C-team, moves in behind the fence above the grassy knoll...
...where the shooter and the spotter are first seen by the late Lee Bowers.
They have the best position.
Kennedy is close and on a flat, low trajectory.
Part of this team is a coordinator...
...who flashed security credentials at people, chasing them from the area.
Probably two to three more men are in the crowd.
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!"
The first shot rings out.
Sounding like a backfire, it misses the car completely.
Frame 161, Kennedy stops waving as he hears something.
Connally's head turns slightly to the right.
Frame 193, the second shot hits Kennedy in the throat from the front.
Frame 225, Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign.
He's been hit, raising his hands to his throat.
The third shot, frame 232...
...hits Kennedy in the back, pulling him downward and forward.
Connally, you will notice, shows no sign of being hit.
He is holding his Stetson, which is impossible if his wrist is shattered.
Connally is turning now.
Frame 238. The fourth shot.
It misses Kennedy and takes Connally in the back.
This is the shot that proves there were two rifles.
Connally yells, "My God! They're going to kill us all!"
Around this time, another shot misses the car completely...
...striking James Teague by the underpass.
The car brakes.
The sixth and fatal shot.
Frame 313, takes Kennedy in the head from the front.
This is the key shot.
The President going back and to his left...
...shot from the front and right.
Totally inconsistent with the shot from the Depository.
Again.
Back, and to the left.
So what happens then?
Pandemonium.
Let's go! We got him!
The shooters quickly disassemble their various weapons, except the Oswald rifle.
Patrolman Smith rushes to the parking lot behind the fence.
He smells gunpowder.
He produced credentials showing him to be Secret Service.
Let's see your ID. See anyone else up here?
I accepted that and let him go.
I regretted it. He looked like a mechanic.
He had on a sports shirt and pants, but he had dirty fingernails.
Afterward, it didn't ring true. But at the time...
...we were so pressed for time.
All Secret Servicemen in Dallas 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.
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.
He was in a booth on the right side of the room.
He was by himself as usual, appeared to be having lunch.
I didn't speak to him, but I recognized him clearly.
At the same time, Bonnie Ray Williams is supposedly eating lunch in the 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.
Many of us saw them.
Everyone was hollering and yelling. We thought they was security guys.
If Oswald was the assassin, he was nonchalant about moving into position.
Later, he told police he was in the 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.
Is this man an employee?
Yes. The President's been shot.
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.
Is this man an employee?
Yes. The President's been shot.
Is he out of breath?
According to Baker, absolutely not.
Assuming he is the sole assassin, Oswald is free to leave the building.
The longer he delays, the more chance the building will be sealed by police.
Is he guilty? Does he walk out the nearest staircase?
He buys a Coke...
...and at a slow pace, spotted by Mrs. Reid on the 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.
A man shot the President!
He puts on his jacket, grabs his .38 revolver...
...and leaves at 1:04.
Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, heard two beeps on a car horn.
Two uniformed cops pulled up while Oswald was in his room.
Like it was a signal.
Officer Tippit is shot between 1:10 and 1:15, a mile away.
And though no one saw him walking...
...the government says Oswald covered that distance.
Giving the government the benefit of the doubt...
...Oswald would'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.
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.
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.
Sir, can I get you to stand up?
I am not resisting arrest! I am not resisting arrest!
They have their man.
It's already been decided in Washington.
When he is brought from the theater...
...a crowd is waiting to scream at him.
Lee Oswald must have felt like Joseph K. in Kafka's The Trial.
He's never given reasons for his arrest.
He doesn't know the unseen forces ranging against him.
At police headquarters, he was booked for murdering 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.
Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald...
...buried in a cheap grave under the name Oswald?
Nobody.
False statements and press leaks about Oswald circulate the globe.
The official legend is created and the media takes it from there.
The glitter of official lies and the epic splendor of JFK's funeral...
...confuse the eye and confound the understanding.
Hitler said:
"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it."
Lee Harvey Oswald, a crazed, lonely man who wanted attention...
...and got it by killing a President was only the first in a long line of patsies.
In later years, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King...
...men whose commitment to change and peace...
...made them dangerous to men committed to war, would follow...
...also killed by such lonely, crazed men.
Men who remove all guilt by making murder a meaningless act of a loner.
We've all become Hamlets in our country, children of a slain father-leader...
...whose killers still possess the throne.
The ghost of John F. Kennedy confronts us with the secret murder...
...at the heart of the American Dream.
He forces on us the appalling questions: Of what is our Constitution made?
What are our lives worth?
What is the future of a democracy...
...where a President can be assassinated under suspicious circumstances...
...while the machinery of legal action scarcely trembles?
How many more political murders disguised as heart attacks...
...suicides, cancers, drug overdoses?
How many plane and car crashes will occur...
...before they are exposed for what they are?
"Treason doth never prosper," wrote an English poet.
"What's the reason?
"For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
The American public has yet to see the Zapruder film.
Why?
The American public has yet to see the real X-rays and autopsy 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...
...who were accomplices after the fact.
The assassination reduced the President to a transient official.
His job is to speak as often as possible of the nation's desire for peace...
...while he acts as a business agent in the Congress...
...for the military and their contractors.
Some people say I'm crazy.
Southern caricature seeking higher office.
There's a simple way to determine if I am paranoid.
Ask the 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.
Has the jury reached a verdict?
We have, Your Honor.
Please hand the verdict to the clerk.
Will the defendant please rise?
The clerk will now read the verdict.
"New Orleans, Louisiana. March 1, 1969.
"We, the jury, find the defendant, Clay Shaw, not guilty."
We believe there was a conspiracy.
Whether Shaw was a part of it is another kettle of fish.
There's Jim!
Do you agree that this is a full vindication of the Warren Commission?
It only proves you cannot run an investigation...
...questioning the intelligence operations of the US government.
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!
Who will you persecute next?
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.
There's Clay! There's Clay Shaw!
- How does it feel to be acquitted? - It's been exhausting.
What'll you do now?
I'm going home and cook some étouffée.
Were you confident about the outcome?
- Do you think Garrison will be back? - I'm sure he will.
In 1979, RICHARD HELMS, Director of Covert Operations in 1963,
admitted under oath that CLAY SHAW had worked for the CIA.
CLAY SHAW died in 1974 of lung cancer. No autopsy was allowed.
In 1978, JIM GARRISON was elected Judge of the Louisiana State Court of Appeal
in New Orleans. He was re-elected in 1988.
To this date, he has brought the only public prosecution in the Kennedy killing.
SOUTHEAST ASIA: 2 million Asian lives lost, 58,000 American lives lost,
$220 billion spent, 10 million Americans air-lifted there by commercial aircraft,
more than 5,000 helicopters lost, 6.5 million tons of bombs dropped.
A Congressional Investigation from 1976-1979 found a "probable conspiracy"
in the assassination of John F. Kennedy
and recommended the Justice Department investigate further.
As of 1991, the Justice Department has done nothing.
The files of the House Select Committee on Assassinations are locked away until 2029.
WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE
DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG
IN WHOSE SPIRIT THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH MARCHES ON
As a result of this film, Congress in 1992 passed legislation to appoint a panel
to review all files and determine which ones would be made available
to the American public.
English subtitles conformed by SOFTITLER