JFK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEXacBJYbzU
The life of JFK as told by him, family and friends.



John F. Kennedy overrated?
Often cited as one of America's favourite leaders, John F. Kennedy lent the presidential office an aura of youth (he was 43 years old at the time of his election). The tragic circumstances of his untimely death, less than three years after arriving in the Oval Office, also made him a memorable figure. These factors, however, affected his overall record of achievements. Kennedy did not, for example, have time to fully deliver on his promises regarding civil rights. His dubious attitude toward women and frequent misbehaviour were also troubling, expecially given the public projection of his picture-perfect marriage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7tZd3M6j5Q
Oliver Stone in 2013

Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Encyclopedia Britannica
Assassination of John F. Kennedy, mortal shooting of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and defected for a time to the Soviet Union. Os

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--VdXM6OvQ
13 days Cuban crisis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPxrfkk6NWc
Kennedy and Irish Mafia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDDTv6N07tw
Rivalry between Kennedy and LBJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12OC5RpmXxE
Irish Mafia/Rivalry between Kennedy and LBJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA_R9HbNjJ0
LBJ and war in Vietnam

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iPXgu_fPxa0
5 shooters on Dealey Plaza

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzYwCmDDSLA
Clint Hill - SS -agent who lies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wA5xw2eRmY
black SS-agent about Cuban assassination in Chicago

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V6DwywiaE9s
Forging the autopsy report from future President Ford
Did future President Ford alter the JFK autopsy report?

Yes, future President Gerald Ford made a minor alteration to the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The original draft of the report stated that a bullet had entered Kennedy's back "at a point slightly below the shoulder to the right of the spine." Ford wanted this changed to "the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." The change was accepted by the other members of the commission.

Ford's reason for making the change is not entirely clear. Some people have speculated that he was trying to support the single-bullet theory, which holds that Kennedy was killed by a single bullet fired from behind by Lee Harvey Oswald. Others have suggested that Ford was simply trying to clarify the report's language.

Whatever Ford's reason, his change to the report has been criticized by some people who believe that it was an attempt to alter the evidence to support the single-bullet theory. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Ford was motivated by anything other than a desire to clarify the report's language.

The Warren Commission Report has been the subject of much debate and controversy since its release in 1964. Some people believe that the report is accurate and that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. Others believe that the report is incomplete or inaccurate and that there may have been a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.

The alteration made by Ford to the Warren Commission Report is just one of the many issues that have been raised about the report. Whether or not Ford's change was significant is a matter of opinion. However, it is clear that the Warren Commission Report is a complex and controversial document that has been the subject of much debate and scrutiny.

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A a minor alteration?

Whether or not Ford's change to the Warren Commission Report was a minor alteration is a matter of opinion. Some people believe that it was a minor change that did not affect the overall findings of the report. Others believe that it was a significant change that could have affected the interpretation of the evidence.

The Warren Commission Report concluded that Kennedy was killed by a single bullet fired from behind by Lee Harvey Oswald. The report stated that the bullet entered Kennedy's back "at a point slightly below the shoulder to the right of the spine." Ford wanted this changed to "the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."

The difference between these two statements is subtle. The original statement could be interpreted to mean that the bullet entered Kennedy's back at a point below his shoulder blade. The revised statement makes it clear that the bullet entered Kennedy's neck, just below the base of his skull.

Some people believe that Ford's change was an attempt to support the single-bullet theory. They argue that the revised statement makes it more likely that the bullet that entered Kennedy's neck was the same bullet that exited his head. Others have suggested that Ford was simply trying to clarify the report's language.

Ultimately, whether or not Ford's change was a minor alteration is a matter of opinion. There is no evidence to suggest that Ford was motivated by anything other than a desire to clarify the report's language. However, the change has been criticized by some people who believe that it was an attempt to alter the evidence to support the single-bullet theory.

***
Fog of War


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLLHMY9-wc
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

***
Former Secret Service Agent Makes Startling Claim About Bullet Found After Kennedy Assassination
An upcoming book by former Secret Service agent Paul Landis raises questions about the bullets fired in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963

By Liz McNeil and Virginia Chamlee  Updated on September 12, 2023 02:30PM EDT
Sixty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a former Secret Service agent is offering a startling revelation about that day, claiming that he tampered with evidence and put one of the bullets believed to have killed the president in his pocket before placing it on a hospital gurney.

Paul Landis, now 88, was assigned to the security detail of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and was traveling with the motorcade when the then-president was struck by two bullets — one in the head and one in the neck — while riding in a parade through downtown Dallas.

"I didn't think about it at all for about 45 years, and at that point it was March 2014 and I started thinking that maybe it was time that I told my story," Landis tells PEOPLE in a new interview ahead of the release of his book, The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After 60 Years.

"That was really the beginning. Up to that point I had no thoughts about writing. Everything was just kind of buried. I didn't think about it. Nobody ever asked me," he says.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
Paul Landis, former Secret Service agent and author of "The Final Witness". COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
In the book, Landis offers a first-hand account of the moments during, and after, the assassination — and a shocking revelation about a bullet he now says he found that day in the presidential limousine and later placed on Kennedy's hospital gurney.

It's a moment that changed history and a story that still fascinates.

 'Without Any Warning, Mrs. Kennedy Begins Crying': Witness Remembers Jackie After the JFK Assassination
The Kennedy assassination has given rise to endless conspiracy theories in the years that followed— theories that will no doubt be boosted by the revelations made in Landis' new book, which at least one historian says are difficult to believe.

Kennedy Assassination: Kennedy in Car
CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES
Speaking to PEOPLE in a recent interview, Landis recalls how Kennedy's motorcade had "just completed the hairpin turn in front of the book depository, and the cars were straightening out" when he heard the first shot.
"I recognized it immediately as the sound of a gunshot, turned to look over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing," he says. "I was scanning forward."

john-f-kennedy-papers-assassination.jpg
The Kennedys on Nov. 22, 1963.
Landis says he saw President Kennedy sitting in the limo and leaning slightly to his left, though it was unclear at that point if he had been hurt. That's when the former agent turned to scan the surrounding areas, including the now-infamous "grassy knoll," long a focus of conspiracy theorists who have claimed that there was a second shooter involved in the attack.

"I had just finished scanning the overpass and ahead of the car, and I heard this second shot, and still no reaction from President Kennedy," Landis recalls. "I couldn't see anything else in the limo. It still appeared that everything was okay."

Then, the third shot rang out. Landis describes how one agent immediately rushed to Kennedy's side before the motorcade raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

"It was like a flash of white, and then the air just filled with a cloud of blood and brain, flesh, bone matter — and I ducked so I wouldn't get splattered as we drove through it," he says.

 Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service Agent Opens Up About His Suicide Attempt After JFK Assassination: New Book
Once at the hospital, Landis says he ran to the president's limo, where Jackie was sitting with her husband's head laid in her lap. As other agents and hospital staff descended on the car, Landis took in the scene.

Blood and bone fragments, he says, were "everywhere," including in a pool on the seat next to the first lady. Landis says he also noticed two bullet fragments in a puddle of blood, picking them up and then placing them back in the seat as the chaos unfolded.

Meanwhile, a fellow agent, Clint Hill, removed his suit coat to wrap the president's head and torso and lift him onto a gurney. The first lady then stood up to follow the group inside.

That's when Landis says he noticed a fully intact bullet "sitting on the back seat ledge, where the cushion meets the metal on the car."

"I picked that up," he says. "I looked at it and I started to put it back. I didn't see anybody in the vicinity, I was wondering where all the agents were. And they all seemed to be over looking for the president or to help remove the president. So I put the bullet in my pocket."

It was "a quick decision," Landis says, one he debated "just for a second," deciding that he ultimately "didn't want that bullet to disappear."

Once inside the hospital, Landis and the others raced down a hallway, landing at a trauma room.

By then, he recalls, "it was just a mad push to get into the trauma room. I was kind of behind Mrs. Kennedy at this point. She was right there holding onto the gurney. I just got pushed in. It was like being trapped."

Landis was in the hospital room, he now says, when doctors and nurses removed Kennedy's body from the gurney, transferring it to an examination table.

"So all the time I've been standing there, I've been kind of fumbling with the bullet in my pocket," he continues. "I took it out and I set it by the president's left foot, and it was like a white cotton blanket on the table, and the bullet started to roll off the table, and I reached out and grabbed it, and there was a little wrinkle in the blanket. So I put the bullet so that it wouldn't roll off. It stopped in that blanket."

Amid the confusion and chaos, Landis says, "I figured this was the place the bullet it needed to be. They would find it. And I felt a great relief that I had saved an important piece of evidence."

In the days and weeks that followed, the shooting took its inevitable mental toll on the agents, including Landis.

"I just kept telling myself, 'Paul, you've got to hang in there. You have to hang in there,'" he says. "I didn't want to be an embarrassment to the Secret Service and in my job."

But he tried not to remember the horror of what he'd witnessed that day.

"We were kept so busy the whole weekend. For me, it became just a blur of activities. We were sleep-deprived, working long hours," he says, noting that he was assigned to the first lady's detail after she moved out of the White House the following week.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
Paul Landis with Jacqueline Kennedy. COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
Landis says he did write two reports in the wake of the incident, but that they were brief and he doesn't remember the details. He says he planned to detail the bullet during the larger investigation, known as the Warren Commission.

"I just figured, well, I'm going to be questioned by the Warren Commission and I can tell my whole story then," Landis says. "And that time never came."

It wasn't until 2014, when Landis read the book Six Seconds in Dallas, that he saw mention of a bullet being found on a gurney — though in the book, it's described as being found on the gurney of Texas Gov. John Connally, who was seriously wounded but survived the shooting.

"They showed a picture [of the bullet] in the book, and my reaction was, 'Well, wait a minute. That's the bullet that I put on President Kennedy's stretcher.' And that triggered some thoughts and I wondered what to do. How do I straighten this all out?"

Over the next several years and after conversations with fellow agents, Landis decided to come forward with his story.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
A young Paul Landis. PHOTO BY PAUL KIRBY, COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
Speaking to PEOPLE 60 years after the assassination, Landis describes the bullet he found that day as having "no sign of really blood on it."

"All I saw were the striations and knew that it had been fired," he says.

Still, he's quick to note that he has no theories about the significance of the bullet or how its existence might change the way some people think about the assassination, which the presidential commission determined was the result of a lone gunman: former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
 Plans of Champagne and Horses Shattered by Gunfire: How the Kennedys' Fateful Trip to Texas Became a Nightmare
Historian Steve Gillon, who has studied the assassination and wrote a book on the subject, questions the veracity of Landis' account, which he says contradicts the findings of the Warren Commission.

"[Landis'] account and the Warren Commission can't both be right," Gillon says. "So if what he remembers is true, then the Warren Commission is wrong ... It all revolves around the magic bullet. "

According to the Warren Commission, there were three bullets fired. The first one missed its target, and most likely hit a nearby sign, with scattered fragments found nearby.

The second bullet to be fired is the one known as the so-called "magic bullet," and has been determined to have hit Kennedy in the back and exited his his throat before then hitting Gov. Connally, breaking a rib, exiting his body and entering back in his wrist and then thigh.

"According to the Warren Commission, that [magic] bullet was found on a gurney by a hospital employee in the hallway," Gillon notes. "And no one is certain what gurney it was and whether it was the one Connally came in or not. That was the speculation."

FREELANCE 380131.JPG FREELANCE 1BA4E2CD FREELANCE 1B9CAA6E Zapruder film frame 371 of Kennedy assassination showing blurred Jackie Kennedy climbing to back of open car, mortally wounded Pres. in back seat & bullet-hit Gov. Connally in middle) as secret serviceman climbs aboard. ZAPRUDER FILM Nov 22nd 1963 Photo credit: Zapruder Film ;;;© 1967 (Renewed 1995) The Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza LIFE FREELANCE Zapruder Film/Life Magazine FOR CLEARENCE TO USE ZAPRUDER FILM CONTACT Megan P. Bryant Director of Collections & Intellectual Property The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza 411 Elm Street Dallas, TX 75202-3308 Phone: 214.747.6660 ext. 5519 Fax: 214.747.6662 Website: www.jfk.org
The Zapruder Film of the JFK assassination. ZAPRUDER FILM 1967 (RENEWED 1995) THE SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM AT DEALEY PLAZA
The third bullet is the one that proved fatal to Kennedy, and entered into his head.

That second bullet, Gillon believes, couldn't have been found by Landis on the ledge of Kennedy's limo, behind where the first lady was sitting, as he recounts in his book. "It makes absolutely no sense if it's behind Jackie because how did it get behind her without hitting her?" he questions.

The existence of a bullet — one found behind Jackie Kennedy and pocketed by Landis before being placed on Kennedy's hospital gurney — would also raise another possibility debated in conspiracy circles for decades: the potential of a second shooter.

"If Kennedy and Connally are hit by different bullets, or if there's a mysterious bullet behind Mrs Kennedy as he claims in the book, then it means there has to be another shooter because Oswald was shooting from the sixth floor," Gillon says, "There's just no way of explaining that. The Warren Commission has made very clear what each bullet did."

 The Biggest JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories and How They've Been (Mostly) Debunked
Gillon raises additional questions about Landis' recollections, noting that in Secret Service testimony taken after the assassination, no one placed Landis in the operating room that day, as he now descrbies in his new book.

Gillon adds that, in Landis' own initial statements after the assassination, he never said he went into the operating room.

"Now [in his book], he's in there, and he's in there long enough to take a bullet out of his pocket and put it next to JFK's foot. I mean, there's lots of people in that room. They would've seen him. And then why did he not say this in his statement?" Gillon adds.

As gripping as Landis' account may be, Gillon worries the details may have been lost to time and faded memory: "Historians are always taught to believe contemporaneous accounts over memory, which fades over time. It is difficult to accept that Landis remembers things 60 years later that he did not remember at the time. There are too many contradictions for this account to be credible."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.
Landis, meanwhile, says that his first statements after the assassination were made during a time of great distress — week- and month-long stretches that, while there wasn't a word for it at the time, would now be known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I think I became more quiet and reserved. I was fairly outgoing prior to [the assassination]," Landis tells PEOPLE. "I lost my self-confidence for a while there."

Landis left his post six months after the assassination, and now, six decades later, says he feels a weight has been lifted after writing his new book and telling his story.

"It is just a different level of relief for me that I carried this with me for so long," he tells PEOPLE.

***
Former Secret Service Agent Makes Startling Claim About Bullet Found After Kennedy Assassination
An upcoming book by former Secret Service agent Paul Landis raises questions about the bullets fired in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963

By Liz McNeil and Virginia Chamlee  Updated on September 12, 2023 02:30PM EDT
Sixty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a former Secret Service agent is offering a startling revelation about that day, claiming that he tampered with evidence and put one of the bullets believed to have killed the president in his pocket before placing it on a hospital gurney.

Paul Landis, now 88, was assigned to the security detail of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and was traveling with the motorcade when the then-president was struck by two bullets — one in the head and one in the neck — while riding in a parade through downtown Dallas.

"I didn't think about it at all for about 45 years, and at that point it was March 2014 and I started thinking that maybe it was time that I told my story," Landis tells PEOPLE in a new interview ahead of the release of his book, The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After 60 Years.

"That was really the beginning. Up to that point I had no thoughts about writing. Everything was just kind of buried. I didn't think about it. Nobody ever asked me," he says.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
Paul Landis, former Secret Service agent and author of "The Final Witness". COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
In the book, Landis offers a first-hand account of the moments during, and after, the assassination — and a shocking revelation about a bullet he now says he found that day in the presidential limousine and later placed on Kennedy's hospital gurney.

It's a moment that changed history and a story that still fascinates.

 'Without Any Warning, Mrs. Kennedy Begins Crying': Witness Remembers Jackie After the JFK Assassination
The Kennedy assassination has given rise to endless conspiracy theories in the years that followed— theories that will no doubt be boosted by the revelations made in Landis' new book, which at least one historian says are difficult to believe.

Kennedy Assassination: Kennedy in Car
CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES
Speaking to PEOPLE in a recent interview, Landis recalls how Kennedy's motorcade had "just completed the hairpin turn in front of the book depository, and the cars were straightening out" when he heard the first shot.
"I recognized it immediately as the sound of a gunshot, turned to look over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing," he says. "I was scanning forward."

john-f-kennedy-papers-assassination.jpg
The Kennedys on Nov. 22, 1963.
Landis says he saw President Kennedy sitting in the limo and leaning slightly to his left, though it was unclear at that point if he had been hurt. That's when the former agent turned to scan the surrounding areas, including the now-infamous "grassy knoll," long a focus of conspiracy theorists who have claimed that there was a second shooter involved in the attack.

"I had just finished scanning the overpass and ahead of the car, and I heard this second shot, and still no reaction from President Kennedy," Landis recalls. "I couldn't see anything else in the limo. It still appeared that everything was okay."

Then, the third shot rang out. Landis describes how one agent immediately rushed to Kennedy's side before the motorcade raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

"It was like a flash of white, and then the air just filled with a cloud of blood and brain, flesh, bone matter — and I ducked so I wouldn't get splattered as we drove through it," he says.

 Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service Agent Opens Up About His Suicide Attempt After JFK Assassination: New Book
Once at the hospital, Landis says he ran to the president's limo, where Jackie was sitting with her husband's head laid in her lap. As other agents and hospital staff descended on the car, Landis took in the scene.

Blood and bone fragments, he says, were "everywhere," including in a pool on the seat next to the first lady. Landis says he also noticed two bullet fragments in a puddle of blood, picking them up and then placing them back in the seat as the chaos unfolded.

Meanwhile, a fellow agent, Clint Hill, removed his suit coat to wrap the president's head and torso and lift him onto a gurney. The first lady then stood up to follow the group inside.

That's when Landis says he noticed a fully intact bullet "sitting on the back seat ledge, where the cushion meets the metal on the car."

"I picked that up," he says. "I looked at it and I started to put it back. I didn't see anybody in the vicinity, I was wondering where all the agents were. And they all seemed to be over looking for the president or to help remove the president. So I put the bullet in my pocket."

It was "a quick decision," Landis says, one he debated "just for a second," deciding that he ultimately "didn't want that bullet to disappear."

Once inside the hospital, Landis and the others raced down a hallway, landing at a trauma room.

By then, he recalls, "it was just a mad push to get into the trauma room. I was kind of behind Mrs. Kennedy at this point. She was right there holding onto the gurney. I just got pushed in. It was like being trapped."

Landis was in the hospital room, he now says, when doctors and nurses removed Kennedy's body from the gurney, transferring it to an examination table.

"So all the time I've been standing there, I've been kind of fumbling with the bullet in my pocket," he continues. "I took it out and I set it by the president's left foot, and it was like a white cotton blanket on the table, and the bullet started to roll off the table, and I reached out and grabbed it, and there was a little wrinkle in the blanket. So I put the bullet so that it wouldn't roll off. It stopped in that blanket."

Amid the confusion and chaos, Landis says, "I figured this was the place the bullet it needed to be. They would find it. And I felt a great relief that I had saved an important piece of evidence."

In the days and weeks that followed, the shooting took its inevitable mental toll on the agents, including Landis.

"I just kept telling myself, 'Paul, you've got to hang in there. You have to hang in there,'" he says. "I didn't want to be an embarrassment to the Secret Service and in my job."

But he tried not to remember the horror of what he'd witnessed that day.

"We were kept so busy the whole weekend. For me, it became just a blur of activities. We were sleep-deprived, working long hours," he says, noting that he was assigned to the first lady's detail after she moved out of the White House the following week.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
Paul Landis with Jacqueline Kennedy. COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
Landis says he did write two reports in the wake of the incident, but that they were brief and he doesn't remember the details. He says he planned to detail the bullet during the larger investigation, known as the Warren Commission.

"I just figured, well, I'm going to be questioned by the Warren Commission and I can tell my whole story then," Landis says. "And that time never came."

It wasn't until 2014, when Landis read the book Six Seconds in Dallas, that he saw mention of a bullet being found on a gurney — though in the book, it's described as being found on the gurney of Texas Gov. John Connally, who was seriously wounded but survived the shooting.

"They showed a picture [of the bullet] in the book, and my reaction was, 'Well, wait a minute. That's the bullet that I put on President Kennedy's stretcher.' And that triggered some thoughts and I wondered what to do. How do I straighten this all out?"

Over the next several years and after conversations with fellow agents, Landis decided to come forward with his story.

a new book about a Secret Service agent's bombshell account from the JFK assassination
A young Paul Landis. PHOTO BY PAUL KIRBY, COURTESY OF PAUL LANDIS
Speaking to PEOPLE 60 years after the assassination, Landis describes the bullet he found that day as having "no sign of really blood on it."

"All I saw were the striations and knew that it had been fired," he says.

Still, he's quick to note that he has no theories about the significance of the bullet or how its existence might change the way some people think about the assassination, which the presidential commission determined was the result of a lone gunman: former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
 Plans of Champagne and Horses Shattered by Gunfire: How the Kennedys' Fateful Trip to Texas Became a Nightmare
Historian Steve Gillon, who has studied the assassination and wrote a book on the subject, questions the veracity of Landis' account, which he says contradicts the findings of the Warren Commission.

"[Landis'] account and the Warren Commission can't both be right," Gillon says. "So if what he remembers is true, then the Warren Commission is wrong ... It all revolves around the magic bullet. "

According to the Warren Commission, there were three bullets fired. The first one missed its target, and most likely hit a nearby sign, with scattered fragments found nearby.

The second bullet to be fired is the one known as the so-called "magic bullet," and has been determined to have hit Kennedy in the back and exited his his throat before then hitting Gov. Connally, breaking a rib, exiting his body and entering back in his wrist and then thigh.

"According to the Warren Commission, that [magic] bullet was found on a gurney by a hospital employee in the hallway," Gillon notes. "And no one is certain what gurney it was and whether it was the one Connally came in or not. That was the speculation."

FREELANCE 380131.JPG FREELANCE 1BA4E2CD FREELANCE 1B9CAA6E Zapruder film frame 371 of Kennedy assassination showing blurred Jackie Kennedy climbing to back of open car, mortally wounded Pres. in back seat & bullet-hit Gov. Connally in middle) as secret serviceman climbs aboard. ZAPRUDER FILM Nov 22nd 1963 Photo credit: Zapruder Film ;;;© 1967 (Renewed 1995) The Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza LIFE FREELANCE Zapruder Film/Life Magazine FOR CLEARENCE TO USE ZAPRUDER FILM CONTACT Megan P. Bryant Director of Collections & Intellectual Property The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza 411 Elm Street Dallas, TX 75202-3308 Phone: 214.747.6660 ext. 5519 Fax: 214.747.6662 Website: www.jfk.org
The Zapruder Film of the JFK assassination. ZAPRUDER FILM 1967 (RENEWED 1995) THE SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM AT DEALEY PLAZA
The third bullet is the one that proved fatal to Kennedy, and entered into his head.

That second bullet, Gillon believes, couldn't have been found by Landis on the ledge of Kennedy's limo, behind where the first lady was sitting, as he recounts in his book. "It makes absolutely no sense if it's behind Jackie because how did it get behind her without hitting her?" he questions.

The existence of a bullet — one found behind Jackie Kennedy and pocketed by Landis before being placed on Kennedy's hospital gurney — would also raise another possibility debated in conspiracy circles for decades: the potential of a second shooter.

"If Kennedy and Connally are hit by different bullets, or if there's a mysterious bullet behind Mrs Kennedy as he claims in the book, then it means there has to be another shooter because Oswald was shooting from the sixth floor," Gillon says, "There's just no way of explaining that. The Warren Commission has made very clear what each bullet did."

 The Biggest JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories and How They've Been (Mostly) Debunked
Gillon raises additional questions about Landis' recollections, noting that in Secret Service testimony taken after the assassination, no one placed Landis in the operating room that day, as he now descrbies in his new book.

Gillon adds that, in Landis' own initial statements after the assassination, he never said he went into the operating room.

"Now [in his book], he's in there, and he's in there long enough to take a bullet out of his pocket and put it next to JFK's foot. I mean, there's lots of people in that room. They would've seen him. And then why did he not say this in his statement?" Gillon adds.

As gripping as Landis' account may be, Gillon worries the details may have been lost to time and faded memory: "Historians are always taught to believe contemporaneous accounts over memory, which fades over time. It is difficult to accept that Landis remembers things 60 years later that he did not remember at the time. There are too many contradictions for this account to be credible."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.
Landis, meanwhile, says that his first statements after the assassination were made during a time of great distress — week- and month-long stretches that, while there wasn't a word for it at the time, would now be known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I think I became more quiet and reserved. I was fairly outgoing prior to [the assassination]," Landis tells PEOPLE. "I lost my self-confidence for a while there."

Landis left his post six months after the assassination, and now, six decades later, says he feels a weight has been lifted after writing his new book and telling his story.

"It is just a different level of relief for me that I carried this with me for so long," he tells PEOPLE.

***

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Kevin-Costner/dp/B002MFULQO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pFUd9hD_gQ
Chronologie
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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Nc6z7tbVQ4E
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-r63oMMUca8&feature=shared
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jk_VHRkdVj8
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RI2Cpw5AWyM
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d81lzgLf3n0

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xRK3pDjwHIA
Tippit murder

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXu2rPlz3Dk
Jack Ruby
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYDaqto22NY
Mysterious Death of Reporter Dorothy Kilgallen & the JFK Assassination


2020  ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY

Author and former criminal defense attorney, Mark Shaw, speaks about his book "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much" and its follow-up, "Denial of Justice." Each chronicle not only his 12 years of research but most importantly, the life and times and mysterious death of What's My Line? TV star and crack investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen and her 18-month investigation of the Dallas tragedies which included being the only reporter to interview Jack Ruby at his trial. Shaw also discusses his controversial exposure of the most important JFK assassination documents in history, the Jack Ruby tri …

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFmcMKeIwa8

Marilyn Monroe

Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Encyclopedia Britannica
Assassination of John F. Kennedy, mortal shooting of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and defected for a time to the Soviet Union.

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I5EVbW5k2o0
JFK never high?

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zvDJuqqpoB0
Rose a junkie

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JFK is a 1991 American epic political thriller film written and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison leading along with an ensemble of casts. The film examines the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy by district attorney Jim Garrison, who came to believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy and that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. The film features performances from Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Kevin Bacon, and Joe Pesci. The film also features supporting performances from Laurie Metcalf, Donald Sutherland, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Michael Rooker, Ed Asner, Brian Doyle-Murray, John Candy, Beata Po;niak, Wayne Knight, Jay O. Sanders, Vincent D’Onofrio, Sally Kirkland, and Martin Sheen.

The film's screenplay was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins (1988) by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (1989) by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth". JFK has been considered controversial due to its embracement of conspiracy theories.[2] Many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film's implication that Kennedy's Vice President (and eventual successor) Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d';tat to kill Kennedy.

Despite the controversy, JFK received critical praise for the performances of its cast, Stone's directing, score, editing, and cinematography. The film gradually picked up momentum at the box office after a slow start, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1991 worldwide. JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was the first of three films Stone made about American presidents, followed by Nixon (1995) and W. (2008).

Plot
During his farewell address in 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns about the build-up of the military-industrial complex. He is succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president, whose time in office is marked by the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis until his assassination in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Former US marine and suspected Soviet defector Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit and arraigned with both murders but is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his team investigate potential New Orleans links to the JFK assassination, including private pilot David Ferrie, but their investigation is publicly rebuked by the federal government and Garrison closes the investigation.

The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies. Garrison and his staff interrogate people involved with Oswald and Ferrie. One such witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for solicitation, who says that he witnessed Ferrie talking with a man called "Clay Bertrand" about assassinating Kennedy, and that he briefly met Oswald. Garrison and his team theorize Oswald was an agent of the CIA and was framed for the assassination.

In 1967, Garrison and his team talk to several witnesses, including Jean Hill, a teacher who says she witnessed a gunman shooting from the "grassy knoll", a small hill, that Secret Service threatened her (gaslighting at it best) into saying three shots came from the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald was said to have shot Kennedy, and her testimony was altered by the Warren Commission. Garrison's staff also test fire an empty rifle from the Depository and conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and that there was more than one shooter. Garrison comes to believe that "Bertrand" is really New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw. Garrison interviews Shaw, who denies having ever met Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald.

Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ruby and Ferrie, die in suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who identifies himself as "X". He suggests a coup d';tat at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, FBI, and then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson as either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the assassination. X suggests that Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War and dismantle the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute Shaw. Soon afterward, Garrison indicts Shaw with conspiring to murder Kennedy.

Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with his methods, and leave the investigation. One of them, Bill Broussard, is later revealed to have been an insider for the FBI for some time, and even plays a peripheral, undisclosed role in what seems to be an attempt to kidnap, murder or otherwise scare Garrison. In addition, Garrison is criticized in the media as wasting taxpayer money to investigate a conspiracy theory. Garrison suspects a connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Shaw's trial takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with a dismissal of the single-bullet theory, proposing a scenario involving three assassins firing six shots and framing Oswald for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, all for the purpose of installing Johnson as President so he could escalate the war in Vietnam and enrich the defense industry. However, the jury acquits Shaw after less than one hour of deliberation. While his prosecution has failed, Garrison wins his wife and children's respect for his determination, and so repairs his relationship with his family.

Cast
Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison
Kevin Bacon as Willie O'Keefe
Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand
Laurie Metcalf as Susie Cox
Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald
Michael Rooker as Bill Broussard
Jay O. Sanders as Lou Ivon
Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison
Joe Pesci as David Ferrie
Beata Po;niak as Marina Oswald Porter
Jack Lemmon as Jack Martin
Walter Matthau as Senator Russell B. Long
Donald Sutherland as Mr. X
Ed Asner as Guy Banister
Brian Doyle-Murray as Jack Ruby
John Candy as Dean Andrews Jr.
Sally Kirkland as Rose Cheramie
Wayne Knight as Numa Bertel
Pruitt Taylor Vince as Lee Bowers
Tony Plana as Carlos Bringuier
Vincent D'Onofrio as Bill Newman
Dale Dye as General Y
Lolita Davidovich as Beverly Oliver
Ellen McElduff as Jean Hill
John Larroquette as Jerry Johnson
Willem Oltmans as George de Mohrenschildt
Tomas Milian as Leopoldo
Gary Grubbs as Al Oser
Ron Rifkin as Mr. Goldberg / Spiesel
Peter Maloney as Colonel Finck
John Finnegan as Judge Haggerty
Wayne Tippit as FBI Agent Frank
Jo Anderson as Julia Ann Mercer
Bob Gunton as News Anchor
Frank Whaley as Imposter Oswald
Jim Garrison as Earl Warren
Martin Sheen as Narrator

Production
Zachary Sklar, a journalist and a professor of journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, met Garrison in 1987 and helped him rewrite a manuscript that he was working on about Kennedy's assassination. He changed it from a scholarly book in the third person to "a detective story – a whydunnit" in the first person.[3] Sklar edited the book and it was published in 1988. While attending the Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Cuba, Stone met Sheridan Square Press publisher Ellen Ray on an elevator. She had published Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins.[4] Ray had gone to New Orleans and worked with Garrison in 1967. She gave Stone a copy of Garrison's book and told him to read it.[5] He did and quickly bought the film rights with $250,000 of his own money to prevent talk going around the studios about projects he might be developing.[6]

Kennedy's assassination had always had a profound effect on Stone: "The Kennedy murder was one of the signal events of the postwar generation, my generation."[5] Stone met Garrison and grilled him with a variety of questions for three hours. Garrison stood up to Stone's questioning and then got up and left. His pride and dignity impressed the director.[7] Stone's impressions from their meeting were that "Garrison made many mistakes. He trusted a lot of weirdos and followed a lot of fake leads. But he went out on a limb, way out. And he kept going, even when he knew he was facing long odds."[8]

Stone was not interested in making a film about Garrison's life, but rather the story behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. He also bought the film rights to Jim Marrs' book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. One of the filmmaker's primary goals with JFK was to provide a rebuttal to the Warren Commission's report that he believed was "a great myth. And in order to fight a myth, maybe you have to create another one, a counter-myth."[9] Even though Marrs' book collected many theories, Stone was hungry for more and hired Jane Rusconi, a recent Yale University graduate, to lead a team of researchers and assemble as much information about the assassination as possible while the director completed post-production on Born on the Fourth of July. Stone read two dozen books on the assassination while Rusconi read between 100 and 200 books on the subject.[10]

By December 1989, Stone began approaching studios to back his film. While in pre-production on The Doors, he met with three executives at Warner Bros. who wanted him to make a film about Howard Hughes.[11] However, Warren Beatty owned the rights and so Stone pitched JFK. Studio president and chief operating officer Terry Semel liked the idea. He had a reputation for making political and controversial films, including All the President's Men, The Parallax View and The Killing Fields.[12] Stone made a handshake deal with Warner Bros. whereby the studio would get all the rights to the film and put up $20 million for the budget. The director did this so that the screenplay would not be widely read and bid on, and he also knew that the material was potentially dangerous and wanted only one studio to finance it. Finally, Stone liked Semel's track record of producing political films.[12]

Screenplay
When Stone set out to write the screenplay, he asked Sklar (who also edited Marrs' book) to co-write it with him and distill the Garrison and Marrs books and Rusconi's research into a script that would resemble what he called "a great detective movie".[13] Stone told Sklar his vision of the film:

I see the models as Z and Rashomon, I see the event in Dealey Plaza taking place in the first reel, and again in the eighth reel, and again later, and each time we're going to see it differently and with more illumination.[3]

Although he did employ ideas from Rashomon, his principal model for JFK was Z:
Somehow I had the impression that in Z you had the showing of the crime and then the re-showing of the crime throughout the picture until it was seen another way. That was the idea of JFK – that was the essence of it: basically, that's why I called it JFK. Not J dot F dot K dot. JFK. It was a code, like Z was a code, for he lives, American-style. As it was written it became more fascinating: it evolved into four DNA threads.[14]

Stone broke the film's structure down into four stories: Garrison investigating the New Orleans connection to the assassination; the research that revealed what Stone calls, "Oswald legend: who he was and how to try to inculcate that"; the recreation of the assassination at Dealey Plaza; and the information that the character of "X" imparts on Garrison, which Stone saw as the "means by which we were able to move between New Orleans, local, into the wider story of Dealey Plaza."[15] Sklar worked on the Garrison side of the story while Stone added the Oswald story, the events at Dealey Plaza and the "Mr. X" character.[13] Sklar spent a year researching and writing a 550-page triple-spaced screenplay and then Stone rewrote it and condensed it closer to normal screenplay length. Stone and Sklar used composite characters, most notably the "Mr. X" character played by Donald Sutherland. This was a technique that would be criticized in the press.[16] He was a mix of Richard Case Nagell and retired Air Force colonel Fletcher Prouty, another adviser for the film and who was a military liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. Meeting Prouty was, for Stone, "one of the most extraordinary afternoons I've ever spent. Pretty much like in the movie, he just started to talk."[17] According to Stone:
I feel this was in the spirit of the truth because Garrison also met a deep throat type named Richard Case Nagell, who claimed to be a CIA agent and made Jim aware of a much larger scenario than the microcosm of New Orleans.[18]

The screenplay's early drafts suggested a four and a half-hour film with a potential budget of $40 million – double what Stone had agreed to with Warner Bros.[19] The director knew film mogul Arnon Milchan and met with him to help finance the film. Milchan was eager to work on the project and launch his new company, Regency Enterprises, with a high profile film like JFK.[20] Milchan made a deal with Warner Bros. to put up the money for the film. Stone managed to pare down his initial revision, a 190-page draft, to a 156-page shooting script.[21]

There were many advisers for the film, including Gerald Hemming, a former Marine who claimed involvement in various CIA activities, and Robert Groden, a self-proclaimed photographic expert and longtime JFK assassination researcher and author.[22]

Stone later published JFK: The Documented Screenplay, a heavily annotated version of the screenplay in which he cites sources for nearly every claim made in the film (ISBN 1557831270).

Casting
Trying to cast the role of Garrison, Stone sent copies of the script to Costner, Mel Gibson, and Harrison Ford. Initially, Costner turned Stone down. However, the actor's agent, Michael Ovitz, was a big fan of the project and helped Stone convince the actor to take the role.[23] Before accepting the role, Costner conducted extensive research on Garrison, including meeting the man and his enemies. Two months after finally signing on to play Garrison in January 1991, his film Dances with Wolves won seven Academy Awards and so his presence greatly enhanced JFK's bankability in the studio's eyes.[24]

Tommy Lee Jones was originally considered for another role that was ultimately cut from the film and Stone then decided to cast him as Shaw.[25] In preparation for the film, Jones interviewed Garrison on three different occasions and talked to others who had worked with Shaw and knew him.[26]

Stone originally wanted James Woods to play David Ferrie, but Woods wanted to play Garrison. Stone also approached Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich, who both turned down the role.[27]

Stone considered Marlon Brando for the role of Mr. X, which eventually went to Donald Sutherland.[28]

According to Gary Oldman, very little was written about Oswald in the script. Stone gave him several plane tickets, a list of contacts, and told him to do his own research.[29] Oldman met with Oswald's wife, Marina, and her two daughters to prepare for the role.[30] Beata Po;niak studied 26 volumes of the Warren Report and spent time living with Marina Oswald. Since the script contained few lines for the Oswalds, Po;niak interviewed acquaintances of the Oswalds in order to improvise her scenes with Gary Oldman.

Many actors were willing to waive their normal fees because of the nature of the project and to lend their support.[27] Martin Sheen provided the opening narration. Jim Garrison played Chief Justice Earl Warren, during the scene in which he questions Jack Ruby in a Dallas jail and in a TV appearance. Assassination witness Beverly Oliver, who claims to be the "Babushka Lady" seen in the Zapruder film, also appeared in a cameo in Ruby's club. Sean Stone, Oliver Stone's son, plays Garrison's oldest son Jasper. Perry Russo, one of the sources for the fictional character Willie O'Keefe, appeared in a cameo as an angry bar patron who says Oswald should get a medal for shooting Kennedy.

Principal photography
The story revolves around Costner's Jim Garrison, with a large cast of well-known actors in supporting roles. Stone was inspired by the casting model of the documentary epic The Longest Day, which he had admired as a child: "It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars ... the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods."[24]

Cinematographer Robert Richardson was a week and a half into shooting City of Hope for John Sayles when he got word that Stone was thinking about making JFK. By the time principal photography wrapped on City of Hope, Richardson was ready to make Stone's film. To prepare, Richardson read up on various JFK assassination books starting with On the Trail of the Assassins and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy.[31]

The original idea was to film the opening sequence in 1.33:1 aspect ratio in order to simulate the TV screens that were available at the time of the assassination, then transition to 1.85:1 when Garrison began his investigation, and finally switch to 2.35:1 for scenes occurring in 1968 and later. However, because of time constraints and logistics, Richardson was forced to abandon this approach.[31]

Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza. His producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks.[32] He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage he needed and so he used seven cameras (two 35 mm and five 16 mm) and 14 film stocks.[31] Getting permission to shoot in the Texas School Book Depository was more difficult. They had to pay $50,000 to put someone in the window from which Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy.[32] They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor and Stone. Co-producer Clayton Townsend has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.[32]

The production spent $4 million to restore Dealey Plaza to 1963 conditions.[33] Stone utilized a variety of film stocks. Richardson said, "It depends whether you want to shoot in 35 or 16 or Super 8. In many cases the lighting has to be different."[34] For certain shots in the film, Stone employed multiple camera crews shooting at once, using five cameras at the same time in different formats. Richardson said of Stone's style of direction, "Oliver disdains convention, he tries to force you into things that are not classic. There's this constant need to stretch."[31] This forced the cinematographer to use lighting in diverse positions and rely very little on classic lighting modes. Shooting began on April 15, 1991 and ended on July 31, lasting 78 days with filming finished four-and-a-half months before the release date.[35]

Editing
JFK marked a fundamental change in the way that Stone constructed his films: a subjective lateral presentation of the plot, with the editing's rhythm carrying the story.[36] Stone brought in Hank Corwin, an editor of commercials, to help edit the film. Stone chose him because his "chaotic mind" was "totally alien to the film form."[36] Stone also commented that Corwin "had not developed the long form yet. And so a lot of his cuts were very chaotic."[36] Stone employed extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks for a specific effect. He said in an interview:
I wanted to do the film on two or three levels – sound and picture would take us back, and we'd go from one flashback to another, and then that flashback would go inside another flashback ... I wanted multiple layers because reading the Warren Commission Report is like drowning.[10]

Because of being shot on various sized film stocks, conventional 35mm film editing was impossible. Although digital editing was in nascent form, LightWorks and AVID were still not available as editing systems when editing began on JFK. For that reason, all the footage was transferred to 3/4" videotape and edited on videotape. The 35mm film negative, along with the other sized film stocks were then conformed to match the videotape edit.

Years after its release, Stone said of the film that it "was the beginning of a new era for me in terms of film making because it's not just about a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. It's also about the way we look at our recent history ... It shifts from black and white to color, and then back again, and views people from offbeat angles."[37]

Music
Main article: JFK (soundtrack)
Because of his enormous commitment to Steven Spielberg's Hook, which opened the same month as JFK, composer John Williams did not have time to compose a conventional score for the entire film. Instead he composed and conducted six musical sequences in full for JFK before he saw the film in its entirety.[38] Soon after recording this music, he traveled to New Orleans where Stone was still shooting the film and saw approximately an hour's worth of edited footage and dailies. Williams remembers, "I thought his handling of Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly strong, and I understood some of the atmosphere of the film – the sordid elements, the underside of New Orleans."[38] Stone and his team then actually cut the film to fit Williams' music after the composer had scored and recorded musical cues in addition to the six he had done prior to seeing the film. For the motorcade sequence, Williams described the score he composed as "strongly kinetic music, music of interlocking rhythmic disciplines."[38] The composer remembered the moment he learned of Kennedy's assassination and it stuck with him for years. This was a significant factor in his deciding to work on the film. Williams said, "This is a very resonant subject for people of my generation, and that's why I welcomed the opportunity to participate in this film."[38]

Reception
Critical reaction

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 68 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "As history, Oliver Stone's JFK is dubious, but as filmmaking it's electric, cramming a ton of information and excitement into its three-hour runtime and making great use of its outstanding cast."[39] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average of 72 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[40] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[41]

The film's production and release were subject to intense scrutiny and criticism. A few weeks after shooting had begun, on May 14, 1991, Jon Margolis wrote in the Chicago Tribune that JFK was "an insult to the intelligence".[42] Five days later, The Washington Post ran a scathing article by national security correspondent George Lardner titled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the JFK screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it."[43] The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association.[43] Stone responded to Lardner's article by hiring a public relations firm that specialized in political issues. Other critical articles soon followed. Anthony Lewis in The New York Times stated that the film "tells us that our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a Presidential assassination."[42] Washington Post columnist George Will called Stone "a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience."[42]

Time ran its own critique of the film-in-progress on June 10, 1991 and alleged that Stone was trying to suppress a rival JFK assassination film based on Don DeLillo's 1988 novel Libra. Stone rebutted these claims in a letter to the magazine.[44]

Richard Corliss, Time's film critic, wrote:

Whatever one's suspicions about its use or abuse of the evidence, JFK is a knockout. Part history book, part comic book, the movie rushes toward judgment for three breathless hours, lassoing facts and factoids by the thousands, then bundling them together into an incendiary device that would frag any viewer's complacency. Stone's picture is, in both meanings of the word, sensational: it's tip-top tabloid journalism. In its bravura and breadth, JFK is seditiously enthralling; in its craft, wondrously complex.[45]

The filmmaker ended up splitting his time between making his film, responding to criticism, and conducting a publicity campaign of his own that saw him "omnipresent, from CBS Evening News, to Oprah."[36] However, the Lardner Post piece stung the most because Lardner had stolen a copy of the script. Stone recalls, "He had the first draft, and I went through probably six or seven drafts."[44]

Upon theatrical release, The New York Times ran an article by Bernard Weinraub that called for intervention by the studio: "At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?"[42] The newspaper also ran a review of the film by Vincent Canby who wrote, "Mr. Stone's hyperbolic style of film making is familiar: lots of short, often hysterical scenes tumbling one after another, backed by a soundtrack that is layered, strudel-like, with noises, dialogue, music, more noises, more dialogue."[46] Pat Dowell, film critic for The Washingtonian, had her 34-word capsule review for the January issue rejected by her editor John Limpert on the grounds that he did not want the magazine to give a positive review to a film he felt was "preposterous".[42] Dowell resigned in protest.[42]

The Miami Herald said about the controversy in its review, "the focus on the trivialities of personality conveniently prevents us from having to confront the tough questions [Stone's] film raises."[47] Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film positive reviews on their television show.[48] Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Siskel called the film "thoroughly compelling" and suggested that while it contained "gross alterations of fact", Stone had "the right to speculate on American history".[49] Ebert praised the film in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, saying,

The achievement of the film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche.[50]

Rita Kempley in The Washington Post wrote, "Quoting everyone from Shakespeare to Hitler to bolster their arguments, Stone and Sklar present a gripping alternative to the Warren Commission's conclusion. A marvelously paranoid thriller featuring a closetful of spies, moles, pro-commies and Cuban freedom-fighters, the whole thing might have been thought up by Robert Ludlum."[51]

On Christmas Day, the Los Angeles Times ran a critical article entitled "Suppression of the Facts Grants Stone a Broad Brush."[relevant?][52] New York Newsday followed suit the next day with two articles – "The Blurred Vision of JFK" and "The Many Theories of a Jolly Green Giant". A few days later, the Chicago Sun-Times followed suit with "Stone's Film Trashes Facts, Dishonors J.F.K." Jack Valenti, then president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, denounced Stone's film in a seven-page statement. He wrote: "In much the same way, young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, in which Adolf Hitler was depicted as a newborn God. Both JFK and Triumph of the Will are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Mr. Stone and Leni Riefenstahl have another genetic linkage: neither of them carried a disclaimer on their film that its contents were mostly pure fiction."[53] Stone recalls in an interview, "I can't even remember all the threats, there were so many of them."[52]

TIME magazine ranked it the fourth best film of 1991,[54] while also including it in "Top 10 Historically Misleading Films" in 2011.[55]

Ebert named Stone's film as the year's best and one of the top ten films of the decade[56][57] as well as one of The Great Movies.[58] Gene Siskel ranked it the seventh best film of the year.[59] The Sydney Morning Herald named JFK as the best film of 1991.[60] Entertainment Weekly ranked it the 5th Most Controversial Movie Ever.[61]

Ebert's future colleague Richard Roeper was less complimentary: "One can admire Stone's filmmaking skills and the performances here while denouncing the utter crapola presented as 'evidence' of a conspiracy to murder."[62] Roeper applauded the film's "dazzling array of filmmaking techniques and a stellar roster of actors" but criticized Stone's narrative: "As a work of fantastical fiction, JFK is an interesting if overblown vision of a parallel universe. As a dramatic interpretation of events, it's journalistically bankrupt nonsense."[62]

Harry Connick Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: "Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been."[63] In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film.[64] Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate "lies and fabrications"[65] in Stone's film and describes the film as "one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go."[66] David R. Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as "irrational".[67] Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film "a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud".[68] Former Indiana Representative Floyd Fithian, who had served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations said the film had manipulated the past.[69] Kennedy's son, John F. Kennedy Jr., refused to watch the film, "because that's not entertainment for me… people, historians, filmmakers…are going to take time and money studying (the assassination)." He cared little about the controversy, stating that regardless of the truth, it would not bring his father back.[70] Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent who was with Kennedy when he was shot, criticized the film, calling it "absurd".[71]

Box-office
JFK was released in theaters on December 20, 1991. In its first week of release, JFK tied with Beauty and the Beast for fifth place in the U.S. box office and its critics began to say it was a flop.[52] Warner Brothers executives argued that this was at least partly because the film's long running time meant it had had fewer screenings than other films.[52] Box-office picked up momentum, however, in part due to a $15 million marketing campaign from the studio.[36] By the first week in January 1992, it had grossed over $50 million worldwide, eventually earning over $200 million worldwide and $70 million in the United States during its initial run.[72]

Garrison's estate subsequently sued Warner Bros. for a share of the film's profits, alleging fraud perpetrated through a book-keeping practice known as "Hollywood accounting".[73] The lawsuit contended that JFK made in excess of $150 million worldwide but the studio claimed that, under its "net profits" accounting formula, the film earned no money, and that Garrison's estate did not receive any of the more than $1 million net profits income he was due.[73]

Awards and nominations
Award Category Recipients Result
Academy Awards[74][75][76] Best Picture Oliver Stone and A. Kitman Ho Nominated
Best Director Oliver Stone Nominated
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Tommy Lee Jones Nominated
Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar Nominated
Best Cinematography Robert Richardson Won[77]
Best Film Editing Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia Won[78]
Best Original Score John Williams Nominated
Best Sound Michael Minkler, Gregg Landaker and Tod A. Maitland Nominated
BAFTA Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role Tommy Lee Jones Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar Nominated
Best Editing Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia Won
Best Sound Tod A. Maitland, Wylie Stateman, Michael D. Wilhoit,
Michael Minkler and Gregg Landaker Won
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama Nominated
Best Director Oliver Stone Won[79]
Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Kevin Costner Nominated
Best Screenplay Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar Nominated
Directors Guild of America Award[80] Outstanding Directing - Feature Film Oliver Stone Nominated
Upon winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture, Stone said in his acceptance speech: A terrible lie was told to us 28 years ago. I hope that this film can be the first step in righting that wrong.[81]

Entertainment Weekly ranked JFK as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".[82] In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the ninth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.[83]

Legislative impact
Main article: Assassination Records Review Board
The final report of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) partially credited concern over the conclusions in JFK with the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, also known as the JFK Act.[84]

The ARRB stated that the film "popularized a version of President Kennedy's assassination that featured U.S. government agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the military as conspirators."[85] While describing the film as "largely fictional", the ARRB acknowledged Stone's point that official records were to be sealed from the public until 2029, and his suggestion that "Americans could not trust official public conclusions when those conclusions had been made in secret."[86] By ARRB law, all existing assassination-related documents were to be made public by 2017,[87] and most are now released.[88]