Oliver Stone's JFK: Real Political Change, Caused by "Real" Events

In 1991, a movie was released that not only raked in millions thorough the box office, but also created massive political change. Oliver Stone’s JFK delves into the investigation and subsequent trial of Clay Shaw for conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. Stone uses historical fact and twists it into a fictional drama that would be fitting only if it were in a Greek play. However, Stone’s use of characterization convinced the millions of people who watched this movie of something beyond a lone gunman in the Texas Book Depository. So I asked with my rhetorical question, how does Jim Garrison, through his investigation bias the viewers against the government, portraying them as the guilty party?

Jim Garrison, the District Attorney for New Orleans (portrayed by Kevin Costner) opening an investigation into the Kennedy murder case after the Warren Report was released in 1966. Stone uses his connection with the audience, as not only a movie going entity, but also as rationale thinkers, to persuade them that the story that he chooses to present is true. Though billed as a fictional drama, the film draws aspects out of historical events and create what many may believe is the exact truth.

Eventually, Stone hits the audience with a direct link between the overall plot (of figuring out who killed President Kennedy, and subsequently bringing them to justice) and the character that is portrayed as the antagonist (the government). This link comes when the protagonist Jim Garrison meets former CIA agent, Mr. X. Finally there are many reasons why one should look at Stone’s fictitious rendition of the assassination. Foremost, due to the success of the film, and later the extreme anger over what many felt was concrete evidence being used by Stone to prove a conspiracy, the United States government passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and created the Assassination Records Review Board. Their purpose was to investigate and locate all relevant information surrounding the Kennedy Assassination and make it available to the public. This included confidential documents from the FBI and CIA (both organizations were forced to cooperate) that had been gathered since the assassination took place. A film creating direct change in governmental order deserves to be studied. Stones creation of a governmental conspiracy, and using characters to prove such conspiracy created fear and doubt among American citizens over what their government was truly doing. This film was successfully able craft a narrative that revealed the secrecy of the American government which forced the government to release sealed secrets after 30 years.

For this analysis I will be using Narrative Criticism looking at aspects of character development and the gradual release of information leading to pinned guilt against the government. Sonja Foss in her book Rhetorical Criticism quotes Alasdair MacIntyre who described humans as “essentially a story-telling animal.” This film uses historical characters to craft historical fiction. Though Stone often times bent the truth in his telling of these events, the characters he used and created allowed for further explanation and intrigue into the lesser known facts entwined into a well known case. Foss explains that,

Narratives organize the stimuli of our experiences so that we can make sense of the people, places, events and actions of our lives. They allow us to interpret reality because they help us decide what a particular experience “is about” and how the various elements of our experiences are connected.

Garrison follows each event, step by step, slowly revealing additional characters and additional plot points, all culminating in his trail against Shaw. Stone uses these connections as not only evidence that Garrison uses against Shaw, but also as connectors between plot points that previously had been unknown to the average American citizen.

Oliver Stone begins by slowly revealing his interpretation of the assassination as we see flashbacks of the incident and aftermath. This interpretation is presented as testimony and the creation of Garrison’s vision of the events. Around the twenty five minute mark in the film, the government becomes the target of Garrison’s interest. Stone tries to connect the visions that Garrison is constructing and the testimony of witnesses and contradicts what the official report had presented through the Warren Report.

“The Damn Warren Report is a sham!” Garrison voices his opinion about the official government report of the assassination once he realizes that what everyone had been told is false. He then develops his own opinion (as well as the audiences opinion) when he looks at the actual investigation. He talks about the violation of Oswald’s constitutional rights when Oswald was interviewed with no lawyer for over 12 hours, and how none of it was recorded. Garrison begins to place a lot of the blame on law enforcement call the events that surrounded the assassination, “the sloppiest most disorganized investigation ever seen.”

Garrison is then seen reading the Warren Report, and questions the investigation that they held. The audience sees flashbacks to the investigation by the Warren Commission as Garrison is reading. Garrison questions the commission wondering why they aren’t asking the questions that any decent lawyer or investigator would ask.

The investigation digs deeper and continues to pin guilt onto the government (despite the fact that no one has directly came out and testified against the government). Garrison realized that Oswald held meetings and stayed at an apartment in the center of the military district of New Orleans. Despite Oswald officially leaving the marines and defecting to Russia, he is immediately let right back into America without issue, along with his wife who was also let in, despite the fact that Oswald defected.

Suspicions between Oswald and the CIA begin to form in Garrisons mind. The family that got Oswald the job at the book depository in Dallas had links to CIA. The Mayor of Dallas was the brother of fired CIA deputy director could have got the parade route changed. They then decided that, “Shaw, Oswald, and the Cubans…All Agency! They’re untouchable.”

Fears begin to arise among the investigators when once of Garrison’s investigators explains that the Woman In Red that was in Dealy Plaza was scooped up by secret service, and was told what she heard and was told to keep quiet less than 20 minutes after shots. They realize that several people who had given testimony to the Report, or was summoned to give testimony died in mysterious ways. Garrison then discovered that the Warren report had fabricated testimony and forged signatures in their report.

Despite all of these things, the question was how something this big could have been covered up without anyone talking. It is at this point that Garrison meets Mr. X a former CIA agent that worked explicitly in assassinations and black ops. Point by point, Mr. X pins an accusation on the government, with proof that would convict in a normal situation. This character of Mr. X is the key character in the movie because he ties everything together neatly against the government. Rather than speculations, Mr. X uses his first hand knowledge of the events and why the government was involved.

Stone plays up Mr. X as the turning point in Garrison’s investigation, finally able to connect high ranking people and the assassination. This is the point in the film when the audience is shown how the government would conduct the assassination, rather than speculation on the connections between Oswald and random people. Mr. X is based on the real CIA agent Fletcher Prouty, which gives credibility to the film in the form a real connection to not investigation, but also to the assassination.
Mr. X first explains that,

“I was on my way back in New Zealand that I read of the resident's murder. That was 2 in the afternoon the next day New Zealand time, but already the papers had the entire history of an unknown 24-year-old man, Oswald - a studio picture, detailed biographical data, Russian information - and were pretty sure of the fact he'd killed the President alone, although it took them four more hours to charge him with the murder in Texas. It felt as if, well, a cover story was being put out like we would in a black op.”

Mr. X uses his knowledge of how this would have been done if he was in charge of the black ops. He then goes on to explain his duties for a situation like this, if her were in the secret service in a situation like in Dallas.

“One of my routine duties if I had been in Washington would've been to arrange for additional security in Texas. The Secret Service is relatively small, and by custom the military will augment them. I checked it out when I got back and sure enough, I found out someone had told the 112th Military Intelligence Group at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston to "stand down" that day, over the protests of the unit Commander, a Colonel Reich ... Now this is significant, because it is standard operating procedure, especially in a known hostile city like Dallas, to supplement the Secret Service. Even if we had not allowed the bubbletop to be removed from the limousine, we'd've put at least 100 to 200 agents on the sidewalks, without question! There'd already been several attempts on de Gaulle's life in France. Only a month before in Dallas UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been spit on and hit. We'd have arrived days ahead of time, studied the route, checked all the buildings ... We never would've allowed all those wide-open empty windows overlooking Dealey ... never ...We would have had our own snipers covering the area. The moment a window went up they'd have been on the radio. We would've been watching the crowds - packages, rolled up newspapers, a coat over an arm, never would have let a man open an umbrella along the way - Never would've allowed that limousine to slow down to 10 miles per hour, much less take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm. You would have felt an Army presence in the streets that day, but none of this happened. It was a violation of the most basic protection codes we have. And it is the best indication of a massive plot in Dallas. Who could have best done that? People in my business, Mr. Garrison, black ops. People like my superior officer could've told Col. Reich, "Look – we have another unit coming from so and so providing security. You'll stand down." That day, in fact, there were some individual Army Intelligence people in Dallas and I'm still trying to figure out who and why. But they weren't protecting the client. One of them, by the way, was caught in the Book depository after police sealed it off.”

The important part of Mr. X is the information he delivers to the audience. He explains specific points and policies that the government did not follow (despite being standard operation procedure). He explains the changes made to the route (which was touched on earlier by a connection with the Mayor of Dallas and the CIA).

Mr. X then continues explaining that Oswald was just a pawn in the plot, that it was someone larger pulling the strings.
“Army Intell had a "Harvey Lee Oswald" on file, but all those files have been destroyed. Many strange things were happening that day, and Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with them. We had the entire Cabinet on a trip to the Far East. We had a third of a combat division returning from Germany in the air above the United States at the time of the shooting, and at 12:34 P.M., the entire telephone system went dead in Washington for a solid hour, and on the plane back to Washington, word was radioed from the White House Situation Room to Lyndon Johnson that one individual performed the assassination.

Does that sound like a bunch of coincidences to you, Mr. Garrison? Not for one moment. The phones didn't work to keep the wrong stories from spreading if anything went wrong with the plan. Nothing was left to chance. I bet you there were even backup teams and cars on the other side of the underpass in the event that Kennedy got through wounded. They would have moved in with vehicles like they did with de Gaulle. He could not be allowed to escape alive. I never though things were the same after that. Vietnam started for real. There was an air of, I don't know, make-believe in the Pentagon and the CIA. Those of us who'd been in secret ops since the beginning knew the Warren Commission was fiction, but there was something ... deeper, uglier. And I knew Allen Dulles very well. I briefed him many a time in his house. He was also General Y's benefactor. But for the life of me I still can't figure out why Dulles was appointed to investigate Kennedy's death. The man who had fired him.

Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, Mafia, they keep people guessing like a parlor game, but it prevents them from asking the most important question - Why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefitted? Who has the power to cover it up? ... You know in '61 right after the Bay of Pigs - very few people know about this - I participated in drawing up National Security Action Memos 55, 56, and 57. These are crucial documents, classified top secret, but basically in them Kennedy instructs General Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that from here on forward ... the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be wholly responsible for all covert paramilitary action in peacetime. This basically ended the reign of the CIA - "splintered it", as J.F.K. promised he would, into a "thousand pieces", - and now was ordering the military to help. This was unprecedented. I can't tell you the shock waves this sent along the corridors of power in Washington. This and, of course, firing Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell, and General Charles Cabell, all of them sacred cows of Intell since World War II. You got some very upset people here. that's how the "black ops" people, people like General Y, ended up taking the rules of covert warfare they'd used abroad and brought'em into this country. Now they had the people, the equipment, bases and the motivation ... check out an old CIA man, Bill Harvey - ran something called "Executive Action", which carried out foreign assassinations. Harvey was also involved with the fake defection program that got Oswald into Russia...

Kennedy signed a treaty with the Soviets to ban nuclear testing, he refused to invade Cuba in '62, and he set out to withdraw from Vietnam. But that all ended on November 22, 1963. Only four days after J.F.K. was shot, Lyndon Johnson signed National Security Memo 273, which essentially reversed Kennedy's new withdrawal policy and gave the green light to the covert operations against North Vietnam that provoked the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In that document lay the Vietnam War.”

Mr. X went from explaining how the event would take place, to then explain how things would get covered up. He explained who could have been involved, and who had the power to make everything go away in the end. Piece by piece Mr. X is building a case in the minds of the audience against the government.

The film then creates a flashback that Mr. X and Garrison are creating in their minds regarding the creation of the plan. Mr. X explains that, “It started like that in the wind, defense contractors, big oil men, nothing official, just talk. Then a call is made, to a guy like myself, or someone like my boss Mr. Y.” The phone call begins with Mr. Y answering the phone, “Yeah?” A man that has no face to the audience says, “We need your help.” Mr. Y responds, “When?” The man tells Mr. Y, “In the fall, probably in the south, we want you to come up with a plan.” With the acceptance of the job, the plan is set in motion. The United States government officially began planning a coup against the president,“No one said he must die; no vote; nothing on paper. It’s as old as the crucifixion or the military firing squad 5 bullets, 1 blank, no ones guilty. Everyone who knows anything has deniability. But what’s paramount is it must succeed. No matter how many die, no matter how much it costs. Kennedy announces the Texas trip in September. At that moment, second Oswald’s start popping up all over Dallas, where they have the mayor and the cops in their pocket. General Y flies in the assassins. Pros. Maybe mafia hires, Cubans, locals. Separate teams. Does it mater who shot from what rooftop? It keeps the secrecy. You’ve become a serious threat to the national security of this country, they would have killed you already if there wasn’t such a spot light on you.”

Stone then begins to call the people to arms in future investigations of the Kennedy Assassination. Mr. X tells Garrison that, “You’re the only person to bring trial against the people involved in the Kennedy assassination.” Is this Stone’s call to arms? He claims that, “Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth! And the truth is on your side right now.” This quote essentially told the public that they are right and that the public can see that now.
In a recap of Garrison’s case, Garrison argues with his own staff about the plausibility of the government actually killing their leader in the United States.

JIM
I have a hunch that from the get go, Oswald had infiltrated this group, probably Cubans or right-wing extremists. He was at the Book Depository that day, told to be there by their handlers, either to prevent the assassination or to take part in it. They coulda told him anything, either one they were going to close down the plotters that day, or two they were going to fake an attack on Kennedy to whip up public opinion against Russia or Cuba and reverse his policies - it doesn't really matter what they told him, 'cause he was under orders, he was a foot soldier.

BILL
I don't buy it, chief - why would the FBI cover it up? You're talking the whole FBI here. A telex that disappears from every single FBI office in the country? We should be investigating all our Mafia leads here in New Orleans - Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante - I can buy that a hell of a lot easier than the Government. Ruby's all Mob, knows Oswald, sets him up. Hoffa - Trafficante - Marcello, they hire some guns and they do Kennedy and maybe the Government doesn't want to open up a whole can o'worms there because it used the Mob to get to Castro. Y'know, Castro being assassinated sounds pretty wild to John Q. Citizen. So they close the book on J.F.K. It makes sense to me.

JIM
I don't doubt their involvement, Bill, but at a low level. Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill, or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI, the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob appoint the Warren Commission to cover it up? Could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the Mob used anything but .38's for hits, up close? The Mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, orders, times,schedules. This was a military-style ambush from start to finish ... a coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.

BILL
Oh, now you're saying Lyndon Johnson was involved? The President of the United States?

JIM
If I'm so far from the truth, why is the FBI bugging our offices? Why are our witnesses being bought off and murdered? Why are Federal agencies blocking our extraditions and subpoenas when we were never blocked before?

BILL
Maybe 'cause there's some rogue element in the Government!


JIM
With a full-blown conspiracy to cover it up? Y'ever read your Shakespeare, Bill?

BILL
Yeah.

JIM
Julius Caesar: "Brutus and Cassius, they too are honorable men." Who killed Caesar? Twenty, twenty-five Senators. All it takes is one Judas, Bill - a few people, on the inside, Pentagon, CIA ...

In this argument, Jim compares the Kennedy assassination to the greatest Coup in literature, the killing of Caesar. Mr. X tells Garrison that “Kings are killed, politics is power.” When reporting to the media, Garrison said, “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.” JFK is a docudrama of an American event that the whole Country was lied to about, by our own Government. That's the point of the entire movie. Kennedy is a background to the point of the movie. Facts that are gathered to support the films overall claim; that the government lies to its own people. Garrison quotes Hitler saying, “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.”
The film ends with the fact that in 1979, Richard Helms, Director of Covert Operations in 1963, admitted under oath that Clay Shaw had worked for the CIA. It goes on to say “A congressional investigation from 1976-1979 found a “probable conspiracy” in the assassination of John F Kennedy and recommended the Justice Department investigate further.”

It is a mixture between the essence of believability and fact that creates an intrigue among viewers. Stone wants the audience to believe that this is possible, so he uses common knowledge that people know is true, and mixes it with fictional events that are presented as truth. Stone uses minimal fact and convinces the audience that it is true. Based upon the smallest connection between person A and person B, Stone uses visual creations of events that no person has seen and plays it off as if it was testimony of fact. He successful creates a fictional world that many believe is fact, simply due to the creation of smoke and mirrors.

Much like Garrison’s investigation and subsequent trial, no one has done more for the progress of the investigation into the Kennedy Assassination than Oliver Stone’s JFK. This film has convinced millions to create their own investigative campaign and not take everything that is being said at face value.