Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Although, as previously indicated, the mainstream media, for the most part, excoriated Stone’s film, how did Hollywood itself treat this abomination? It thought it was just fine. Stone won the 1991 Golden Globe Award for Best Director, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Writing a historical-drama review in which he gave JFK four stars out of a four-star rating, film critic Roger Ebert gushed that the movie was “a masterpiece…If Garrison’s investigation was so pitiful…then where are the better investigations by Stone’s attackers?…It’s impossible to believe the Warren Report because the physical evidence makes its key conclusion impossible: one man with one rifle could not physically have caused what happened on November 22, 1963, in Dallas.”293 If you say so, Roger.

  Since film critics aren’t necessarily historians, perhaps Ebert’s review shouldn’t be considered shocking. But what about Marcus Raskin, writing in the American Historical Review, the prestigious publication of the American Historical Association, an organization founded in 1884 and chartered by Congress in 1889? The Review is so brainy and upper crust it doesn’t even have advertisements. Raskin wrote in an issue with erudite companion articles (such as those dealing with the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, three middle-class women’s organizations in Boston and their evolution from the nineteenth into the twentieth century, and recent rethinking of intellectual history) that “the film JFK…has had an extraordinary effect on the public consciousness.” (I agree so far. Indeed, as stated earlier, that’s the reason for this very long section on the movie in this book; absent this effect, the film would not be entitled to more than one sentence or two.) But then Raskin goes on to say that “contrary to what some would like to believe, [JFK ] is surprisingly accurate. On the complex question of the Kennedy Assassination itself, the film holds its own against the Warren Commission.”294

  There are few groups, if any, in America who are more elitist than the Eastern literati—that is, except in the presence of Hollywood royalty, where many are as obsequious before Hollywood’s luminaries as the rest of America. This was never more clearly on display than at a town hall debate on JFK in New York City on the evening of March 3, 1992, sponsored by the Nation Institute and the Center for American Culture Studies at Columbia University. The moderator was Victor Navasky, the distinguished, longtime editor of the Nation (who, to his credit, did not exalt Stone), and among the participants were Stone and authors Norman Mailer, Nora Ephron, and Edward Epstein. Stone gave no inch or compliments to the other three authors, but they (even Epstein, the only one with the temerity to offer a mild criticism of JFK in Stone’s presence, pointing out there is a difference between fiction and nonfiction, and JFK “mixed” the two) couldn’t help weaving into their comments a fawning praise for Stone and his film. The sellout audience of fifteen hundred like-minded people gave Stone a thunderous applause when he was introduced and by far the biggest hand after his remarks, whistles and all. Epstein’s tepid attack drew little support, whereas Stone’s rebuttal to it was met with very robust applause.

  But perhaps the highlight of the evening was when Ms. Ephron, defending Stone against attacks by his critics, said that when the press criticizes directors for “trivial inaccuracies” in their films about historical events, such as “breakfast that was actually dinner, a silver fork that was actually stainless steel,…this is all nonsense…There are people, however, who say that maybe there’s a special obligation in this area. That, for instance, young people will see JFK and think the Joint Chiefs of Staff killed President Kennedy. But I don’t know why they’re going to think this way more than I do.” What?!! When no one in the audience caught what she had obviously intended to be a serious laugh line—that she also believed the Joint Chiefs of Staff had murdered Kennedy—she paused, waiting for the audience to finally get it before she continued. And when they did and she got the laugh she wanted, she went on to say, “Eventually, they’ll grow up and figure it out for themselves. And if they don’t, it’s not the filmmaker’s responsibility.” I thought Ms. Ephron, an otherwise gifted intellectual, had already said quite enough, but she had more to say. She added, “The real danger is not that we’ll have an inaccurate movie, which never hurt anyone. The real danger is that the wholesale, knee-jerk objection” to these movies “might result in something far worse, which is a chilling effect on works of art.” But in view of the reality that people believe and are influenced by what they see on the screen, it’s too obvious to state that bad art presented as history can indeed do damage. Consider the hypothetical example of a major, important film that denies the existence of the Holocaust.

  One of the people on the panel of questioners at the town hall “debate” that night, Max Holland, said it well: “I cannot accept that facts don’t matter and that all facts are equally important. And when a filmmaker invents or ignores facts to support a thesis, he crosses the line.”295

  It’s not enough that Oliver Stone’s movie poisoned the minds of millions of Americans about the assassination. Warner Bros., which produced the film, most likely did not know what an enormous falsehood the movie was,* and therefore unwittingly compounded the damage the movie had done by funding a 1991 study guide to the movie for American high school students that was prepared by Learning Enrichment Inc. of New York City. Appallingly, the study guides were sent to thirteen thousand teachers throughout the land to be used in their social studies and history classes.

  The guide contains a synopsis of JFK (which the teachers are encouraged to have their students see), including a denigration of the Warren Commission’s “magic bullet” by a ridiculous drawing that has the bullet making a right turn in midair, an allegation that four days after the assassination, NSAM 263, calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 troops from Vietnam, was canceled, and so on. “You might want to tell students,” the study guide urges teachers, “about the intensive research Oliver Stone undertook before making the film.” The teachers are told that the guide was assembled to help them “provide both background and context for student viewing [of the film] and discussion.” The guide says, “After viewing JFK…invite students to begin the discussion by saying whatever comes to mind. What did they feel while viewing the movie? What questions did it raise?”

  The cover of the guide includes this quote from Stone: “I hope they [the viewers of his movie] become more aware of how politics are played out and how our kings are killed.” The message in Stone’s movie and the study guide is that when the nation’s power structure doesn’t like the policies of an American president, it simply murders him. What a poisonous thought to put into the minds of our nation’s youth about the country they live in.

  I could go on condemning the relentless perversion of reality known as JFK. But enough. The reason, as indicated, for all the time I have already devoted to the subject is, as the Chicago Tribune noted, because of “the danger that Stone’s film and the pseudo-history it so effectively portrays” will end up being the “popularly accepted version. After all, what can scholarship avail against Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek (Garrison’s wife in the movie), Donald Sutherland, et al., on the big screen with Dolby stereo?”

  I believe that history is sacred and should not knowingly be tampered with. In imposing a narrative on a historical event, obviously a certain amount of dramatic license and embellishment is unavoidable, but even this device should be used with great caution and economy. Outright fabrications of important matters that necessarily cause viewers or readers to reach a different conclusion is a cultural crime. We can only ensure the past’s future if we respect its truths.

  Someone once described history as the thinnest thread of what’s remembered, stretching across an ocean of what’s been forgotten. But the history of the assassination has not been forgotten by Oliver Stone. Except for those instances where ignorance is his only defense, it’s been deliberately ignored or invented. That’s fine. But he had a moral, if not a legal obligation, to tell his audienc
e what he was up to. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a more charitable view of Stone and a less menacing view of JFK than I. He writes that Stone “is an artist, and artists are often hopelessly loyal to their fantasies, and their fantasies often hopelessly abuse the truth. History will survive.”296 The eminent historian is most assuredly correct if we define history in the narrow sense of being an exact synonym for the facts—what actually happened. Facts don’t and can’t change. Not even God can change the past. However, if we define history in the broader sense of that which succeeding generations believe and accept as the truth, then Stone, more than any other single American, is responsible for 75 percent of Americans currently believing that a dark and wide-ranging conspiracy involving the highest reaches of our government was responsible for the death of President Kennedy, which is only pseudo-history.

  Indeed, it is in this latter sense of perceived history that Stone himself defines history. On the set of JFK, he said, “I’m shaping history, to a degree.”297 And in his introduction to his friend Fletcher Prouty’s book, Stone, alluding to the fact that the victor writes the history of an event, asks, “Who owns reality? Who owns our history? He who makes it up so that most everyone believes it. That person wins.” For once, I agree with Oliver Stone. That is, unless the fabricator is exposed, as I trust I have done in this book.

  Conclusion of No Conspiracy

  By now it has to be more than obvious to the reader of this book that Oswald acted alone in killing the president. Not only does all of his conduct speak unerringly only to this conclusion, but also, as I believe I have demonstrated, the various conspiracy theories are utterly vapid and bankrupt. Does what you have read prove beyond all doubt that there was no conspiracy in Kennedy’s assassination? Probably not, if only because such a degree of proof will perhaps always be unattainable. Why? Because, first, Oswald is dead (and absent a confession from a conspirator, only Oswald could tell us if he acted in concert with anyone), and second, it’s normally much more difficult to prove a negative than a positive. However, there is sufficient evidence to satisfy, beyond a reasonable doubt, the world’s leading skeptic that Oswald acted alone—that there was no conspiracy. That Oswald, a lone nut, killed Kennedy and was thereafter killed by another lone nut, Ruby. Two small men who wanted to become big, and succeeded. Or, to ennoble their ignoble deeds, as author David Lubin says, “the lethal tussle in the basement of city hall was a fight between two would-be paladins. Each regarded himself as a knight on a mission to avenge wrong and restore right.”1

  If, as is the situation with the conspiracy theorists, there is no evidence to support your allegation, from a legal standpoint you’re out of court. But even if you’re out of court, if you can at least argue that “well, there’s no evidence of this, but logic and common sense tell you it is so,” you still have talking rights and you can still play the game, as it were. But when you not only have no evidence, but logic and common sense tell you it isn’t so, it’s time to fold your tent. No evidence plus no common sense equals go home, zipper your mouth up, take a walk, forget about it, get a life. Of course, the hard-core conspiracy theorists, who desperately want to cling to their illusions, are not going to do any of these things. If they were to accept the evidence of no conspiracy, those whose lives have been heavily immersed in the assassination for years would also have to accept that they have “wasted” the last twenty or thirty (or however many) years of their lives on something that has no merit. And consciously or subconsciously, it is difficult for anyone to do this. So they are prime candidates for being “in denial” and impervious to the points being made. It should be added that if these conspiracy theorists were to accept the truth, not only would they be invalidating a major part of their past, but many would be forfeiting their future. That’s why talking to them about logic and common sense is like talking to a man without ears. The bottom line is that they want there to be a conspiracy and are constitutionally allergic to anything that points away from it. In fact, if Oswald himself appeared in front of them and said, “Hey, guys, knock off all this silliness. I killed Kennedy and acted alone,” they’d probably tell him, “Look, we know a heck of a lot more about this case than you do, so go back to wherever you came from.”

  It’s essentially become a religious belief with the theorists that there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s death, and with religious beliefs, the believer knows the truth, so there has to be an explanation for everything that seems to contradict that truth. Their reasoning, then, is to start the debate assuming the very point that has to be proved (Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy), and anything that is at odds with this belief has to have an explanation, no matter how ridiculous and far-out it may be. Nothing you tell the conspiracy theorists can shake their belief in a conspiracy. In situations where even they can’t come up with an explanation, they shield themselves from the evidence by either distorting or ignoring it. This type of intellectual carpentry by the buffs allows them to proceed forward with their fantasy, unfazed by the inconvenient interposition of reality.

  The example I am about to give illustrates the religious obsession and startling illogic of conspiracy theorists. A very prominent and well-respected medical doctor who is a sincere and eloquent member of the new wave in the conspiracy community wrote me (on August 30, 2001) that “for nearly ten years now, I have slept, jogged, eaten, gone to the bathroom, and dreamed about this case.” This doctor went on to tell me, unbelievably, that it was terribly illogical of me to say that one shouldn’t reject the findings of the Warren Commission without bothering to first read the Warren Report. Such a reading was unnecessary, he said. The profound passion and equally profound irrationality reflected in that way of thinking are the norm, not the exception, in the ethos of the hard-core conspiracy community. The arguments that follow are not just for the conspiracy community, but mostly for the millions of Americans who, not knowing the facts, have been duped by the conspiracy theorists into buying their drivel, misinformation, and flat-out fabrications.*

  As with the evidence of Oswald’s guilt, which has already been presented in very abbreviated, summary form, here’s the evidence of no conspiracy. As you are reading this list, I would ask you to take a moment to ask yourself whether the individual point you are reading, all alone and by itself, clearly shows there was no conspiracy. I believe you will find this to be the case with many of the points.

  1. Perhaps the most powerful single piece of evidence that there was no conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy is simply the fact that after all these years there is no credible evidence, direct or circumstantial, that any of the persons or groups suspected by conspiracy theorists (e.g., organized crime, CIA, KGB, FBI, military-industrial complex, Castro, LBJ, etc.) or anyone else conspired with Oswald to kill Kennedy. And when there is no evidence of something, although not conclusive, this itself is very, very persuasive evidence that the alleged “something” does not exist. Particularly here where the search for the “something” (conspiracy) has been the greatest and most comprehensive search for anything in American, perhaps world, history.

  I mean, way back in 1965, before over forty additional years of microscopic investigation of the case by governmental groups and thousands of researchers, Dwight Macdonald wrote, “I can’t believe that among the many hundreds of detectives, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service agents, and [counsel] for the Warren Commission…not one would be bright or lucky enough to discover or stumble across some clue [of a conspiracy] if there were any there.”2 But not one clue of a conspiracy has ever surfaced. And this is so despite the fact that the two people the conspirators would have had to rely on the most not to leave a clue, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, were notoriously unreliable.

  A conspiracy is nothing more than a criminal partnership. And although conspiracies obviously aren’t proved by the transcript of a stenographer who typed up a conversation between the partners agree
ing to commit the crime, there has to be some substantive evidence of the conspiracy or partnership’s existence. And in the conspiracy prosecutions I have conducted, I have always been able to present direct evidence of the co-conspirators acting in concert before, during, or after the crime, and/or circumstantial evidence from which a reasonable inference of concert or meeting of the minds could be made. In the Oswald case, if, for instance, Oswald had disappeared for a few days before the assassination without adequate explanation, or within these few days he was seen in the company of a stranger, or there was evidence he had come into some serious money, or he had made any statement to anyone, such as Marina, suggesting, even vaguely, a conspiratorial relationship, or someone had called him at the Paine residence and he left the room and took the call in another room, or he was seen getting in a car after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, or any of a hundred other possible events or circumstances had occurred, that would be one thing. But here, there is nothing, nothing. Just completely foundationless speculation and conjecture.

  Traditionally, the way to reach a conclusion in a criminal case is to draw reasonable inferences from solid evidence. So the evidence is the foundation on which all inferences and conclusions are based. Conspiracy theorists, in contrast, make completely baseless assumptions and then proceed to make further assumptions based on these assumptions. As an example, they assume, without any evidence, that there was a conspiracy in the assassination and that Oswald was an unwitting participant. They then proceed to assume, again without any evidence, that Oswald became aware of this conspiracy at the time of the shooting in Dealey Plaza, and believe that he was being set up to take the fall for the assassination, and this is why he fled the Book Depository Building. But where is there any evidence to support either of these two assumptions?*