Of course, at the heart of loving this movie is my adamant and extremely logic-based belief that there was, of course, ABSOLUTELY, without a doubt, an ugly government/military-derived plot to assassinate Kennedy. Only a fool would think otherwise. I believe that with all my heart! And I remain befuddled and disturbingly shocked by the great number of fools who still do.
In years past -- before the movie was made ... before I was charged with perpetually plugging my ebook SPACE CASE (which as you know retails for a mere $2.99 for my Blah-ugh! readers, and $2.99 for everyone else) -- I had a somewhat unique opportunity to twice see and hear a five-hour presentation by a photographic expert who was involved with the SECOND official investigation -- (the one which followed the Warren Commission, and may have been called the "Church Commission," but I'm not absolutely sure and I'm too lazy to look it up).
It was absolutely amazing and jaw-dropping to be taken through the event step by step, to see repeated viewings of the famous "Zapruder film," AND another little-known home movie that was taken from the other side of the street ... to learn the links between key figures involved and their respective ties to organized crime, the CIA, the military, and in some later cases both Watergate and the Iran-Contra Affair ... to be shown how and why certain photographs are faked ... to see with a guided hand exactly why it was ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for Lee Harvey Oswald to have acted alone.
At the time of "JFK"'s release, a lot of people sought to discredit it based on Stone's (perhaps fatuous) inclusion of a nonexistent character whom the chief investigator Jim Garrison (truly, a kind of hero) meets with in Washington. For narrative purposes, it tied a few loose ends up in the movie, but many jumped all over this as reason to discount everything else that was presented. The fact is, the evidence is ridiculously overwhelming that myriad lies were told and reenforced by numerous parties, including the Warren Commission, which handled the first investigation into the assassination.
To begin with, it was physically impossible for one man (Lee Oswald) to even take three shots in the short window of time he was allowed. There is also overwhelming proof that MORE than three shots were taken -- five at least, and more probably six or seven. The damage inflicted on Kennedy and Gov. John Connolly combined simply could not have been done with ONE BULLET, as the Warren Commission claimed. (See Sen. Arlen Spector, if you really want to look at an asshole.) Film of the event also pretty much proves -- I mean, it DOES, for Chri'sakes -- that Kennedy was shot from the FRONT, likely from the famous grassy knoll, where DOZENS of eyewitnesses said they heard shots. (Some even saw smoke, smelled gunpowder there, and witnessed men running from the site.)
The biographies of other individuals involved -- Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Guy Bannister, and more -- fill in many blanks about how and why such an event would be orchestrated. More importantly, Oswald's links to the military, his covert training, the ease with which he went into and out of living in Moscow and regained his citizenship effortlessly, and his affiliations with all these people, make it abundantly clear that he was involved in government work (though possibly could have been getting set up for many years in advance for just such a fall). The lightning speed with which Oswald was arrested, the fake photograph of him given to Life magazine holding the rifle, and all the propaganda that was immediately put into play on that very same day, are just too unrealistic to take seriously.
Further, the numerous botched arms of the subsequent investigations -- lost documents, destroyed evidence ... and even witnesses gone missing -- all add up to -- if not an outright effort to shield the truth -- a remarkably poor attempt to try and find it.
It's been almost 50 years now, and you may be asking yourself, Who gives a s**t? And that's a good question, and that's the scariest part. Little by little, the terrifying realities surrounding this event have become so familiar, that they're no longer considered dangerous. It's something that happened a long time ago. Even the "bad" people like Spector aren't really that bad, after all, because we got to know them through television and even, perchance a Saturday Night Live appearance, or some such nonsense ...
Oh, our military industrial complex? It's possible they've done some questionable things in recent years, maybe, but it's not like it was, if it ever was ... I mean, they wouldn't do anything like that now, would they? It's not like they had a hand in taking down ... the ... World Trade Center or anything like that, did they? ... Uh ... Did they?!
my father was on Kennedy's entourage as an apprentice photographer . . . but he didn't do it.
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