Peter Jennings Reporting The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Air Date: 11/20/04
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) It was 40 years ago in this small plaza that John F. Kennedy was
murdered. What happened in Dallas that day shook America every bit as much as
Pearl Harbor and, more recently, the events of 9/11. In many ways, America never
got over it.
Reporter
The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street, and it will be only a matter of
minutes before he arrives at the Trade Mart.
Robert Dallek
Author, "An Unfinished Life"
Our tradition is so contrary to this idea, that you kill a president. And it just is so
traumatic for the country. It's such an assault on our sense of, uh, self, on our
institutions, on the United States.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On that November day, and throughout the sad weekend that followed,
there was a sense of horrible loss. But there was also a sense that events were
spinning out of control. A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested and paraded
before the press.
Reporter
Did you kill the president?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) As thousands of people paid their respects to the president in
Washington, Oswald was murdered on national television.
Reporter
He's been shot. He's been shot.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) And day by day in America, the confusion and doubt grew deeper.
What really happened in Dallas on November the 22nd, 1963? What really
happened here in Dealey Plaza?
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
The very first poll in regard to American sentiment about the assassination was
conducted that weekend. And that poll indicated that 2-3rds of Americans already
believed in a conspiracy against John Kennedy.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) They believed that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. And 40 years
later, the majority of Americans still believe in a conspiracy. For most people, the
idea that a lone assassin could kill the president, a man so widely revered, that idea
was simply too much to bear.
GRAPHICS: THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
BEYOND CONSPIRACY
PETER JENNINGS REPORTING
Peter Jennings
Good evening. I'm Peter Jennings. There is no other murder in history that has
produced as much speculation as the Kennedy assassination. And it would be
impossible in the two hours we have to examine the incredible number of conspiracy
theories that have been advanced in the last 40 years. And 40 years after the
assassination, the latest ABC News poll tells us that more than 2- 3rds of Americans
still believe there was a conspiracy to kill the president. But unless you are an
irredeemable conspiracy theorist beyond the pale, so to speak, what we will do
tonight is demonstrate that those theories are wrong. Forty years after this crime, we
know so much more about the case than we did in 1963, or even 1993. Tonight, we'll
see that when government covered up facts, conspiracy theories flourished. And
tonight, you'll see some stunning technology, which will make it clear precisely what
happened that November day in Dealey Plaza.
Reporter
There's Mrs. Kennedy, and the crowd yells. And the president of the United States. I
can see his suntan all the way from here.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The president and Mrs. Kennedy arrived at Love Field in Dallas on Air
Force One at 11:38, Central Standard Time. In less than one hour, the president
would be assassinated.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Reporter
And here they come, right down toward us.
Robert Dallek
Author, "An Unfinished Life"
Kennedy was someone who gave the country hope. He's become a kind of
mythological figure, an iconic figure. He's frozen in our minds at the age of 46.
Reporter
Mrs. Kennedy, right up. There's the president shaking hands with the people.
Theodore C. Sorensen
Special Counsel to President Kennedy
Here was a president who loved the people, the people loved him. He wanted to be
able to wade into a crowd and shake hands. He wanted to be able to see and wave
to people when his motorcade went down the street. He didn't want to be shut off
from his public in a democracy.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The president and Mrs. Kennedy, with Texas governor John Connally,
rode through Dallas in an open limousine. He was the last president ever to do so.
Evan Thomas
Author, "Robert Kennedy"
When something terrible happens in the life of a nation, there has to be a reason for
it. It's not good enough to say, "some nut with a rifle killed JFK." It's such a
monstrous thing, that there must be a monster plot.
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
At a time of emotional rupture, at a time of tragedy, conspiracy theories offer
purpose and meaning, purpose and meaning that make tragedy more than a simple
twist of fate at the hands of, in this case, a lone gunman.
Nicholas Katzenbach
Deputy Attorney General, 1962-1965
It was this young man, glamorous young man, whom I think had the potential to be a
really great president, shot down before he really had very much chance to prove it.
Hugh Aynesworth
Reporter, the Dallas Morning News, 1960-1966
They had made it through town and it had been beautiful. And then, all of a sudden,
the day turns to chaos. You know, and it's unbelievable.
Reporter
It, it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Reporter
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. You'll excuse the fact that I'm out of breath,
but ...
Reporter
Presidential motorcade has just passed through heavy crowds in downtown Dallas
when three shots suddenly rang out somewhere in the crowd.
Hugh Aynesworth
Reporter, the Dallas Morning News, 1960-1966
People were screaming, "Oh no. Oh no." They were running, running into each
other. It was just complete chaos because no one knew where to run.
Reporter
This is from the United Press in Dallas. President Kennedy and Governor John
Connally have been cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) As the motorcade raced to Parkland Hospital, no one imagined that
one man could wreak such havoc. Jackie Kennedy screamed, "They've killed him."
The wounded Governor Connally shouted, "They're going to kill us both." "They" had
done this. Something so horrible had to be the work of more than one man. And
America had many enemies. It had to be a conspiracy.
Government Official
President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 Central Standard Time today
here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain.
Reporter
This is WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas. May I have your name please, sir?
Abraham Zapruder
Eyewitness
My name is Abraham Zapruder.
Reporter
Mr. Zapruder?
Abraham Zapruder
Eyewitness
Zapruder, yes, sir.
Reporter
Zapruder. And would you tell us your story, please, sir?
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Abraham Zapruder
Eyewitness
I got out, and about a half an hour earlier, to get a good spot to shoot some pictures.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Abraham Zapruder, a local dressmaker, using his 8-millimeter movie
camera, recorded one of the darkest moments in American history, the moment at
which the president was murdered.
Gerald Posner
Author, "Case Closed"
The Zapruder film is a visual record of the assassination. To think that if the film did
not exist, that home movie of the assassination did not exist, we would never be able
to prove, with any certainty, what happened at Dealey Plaza.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The Zapruder film is the only film that recorded the shooting from start
to finish. The film itself has been cited as evidence of a conspiracy and used by
some as proof that Oswald was not the only gunman.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
Ninety-percent of what is out there is conspiracy-oriented. You can talk about all the
theories you want. This thing happened only one way.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Dale Myers is a computer animator who has been studying the
assassination for more than 25 years. To advance the analysis of the crime, Myers
has generated an exacting computer simulation of the Zapruder film. He began by
constructing a 3-dimensional, scale model of Dealey Plaza, the turn from Houston
Street onto Elm Street, the Texas School Book Depository, the Grassy Knoll. They
are all reconstructed exactly the way they were in 1963. On top of the Zapruder film,
he then animated the movements of President Kennedy and Governor Connally,
frame by frame. When all of these elements come together, we can now leave the
place where Zapruder was filming and see the shooting from any point of view, each
one an accurate representation of precisely what happened. If the crime were
committed today, forensic investigators would unquestionably use this technique.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
(Voice Over) Let's take a look at Abraham Zapruder's film in detail. Let's orient
ourselves, first off. Zapruder, of course, is standing on a 4 1/2-foot-high pedestal,
just west of the book depository. So he's looking up toward the corner. The
limousine has just finished and completed its turn and starting to glide down Elm
Street. Frame 133 is the first frame in which the president appears. As we advance
the frames here, around frame 160 is approximately the time of the first shot.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Apparently, a shot that missed. Governor Connally said that he was looking to the
left side of the car. He heard a shot. He immediately identified it as a high-powered
rifle shot. And so he said he turned to his right, because the sound seemed to come
from over his right shoulder. And so we see him right here looking to his left. And in
the next couple of frames, we see his head turn. And now he's looking to his right.
So it's a very quick head snap, 1/4 of a second, like this. Now the car glides down
toward the Stemmons Freeway sign. The car disappears for a moment. We see
Governor Connally emerge first from behind the sign. He does not appear to be
injured. Next frame, 223, you see the white shirt. You can see his jacket. You see a
little bit of gray area where his tie is. And something happens. Between frame 223
and 224, you can really pinpoint the moment that the bullet strikes. Watch the jacket.
You notice it changes shape. It's almost as if the jacket has popped out a little bit,
kind of bulged out. Before, after. Before, after. In fact, a bullet has struck him in the
right back. And it emerged about an inch below his nipple, blowing out about a 2inch, ragged hole. In the next frame, the president comes out from behind the sign.
We see kind of an anguished look on his face. And his hands immediately go up
toward his throat. And they come up in a guarded manner. And the elbows rise in a
very dramatic and a very high fashion. So he's kind of like this. But you'll note that
both men are reacting simultaneously.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) This moment gives rise to what is called the single bullet theory, that
the second shot hit both men. Passing through the president and into the governor.
This is challenged by those who say that President Kennedy and Governor Connally
were hit by different bullets from different guns. And two guns would make a
conspiracy.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
(Voice Over) Here we have President Kennedy and Governor Connally at the
moment of the second shot. This is the moment they're hit, the equivalent of
Zapruder frame 223. As we know, President Kennedy was struck in the upper-right
back. He had another bullet wound in his throat. It was believed to have passed
through his throat, moving back to front. Governor Connally, struck in the right back,
just near the armpit. That bullet emerged, his right chest, about one inch below the
nipple line. When we look at their positions based on the Zapruder film, this is
exactly how they were seated at that moment, at frame 223, Governor Connally
sitting slightly inboard of the president. In addition to that, he's turned sharply to his
right. You can already see from this, that any bullet striking the president in the
upper-right back and emerging out of his throat, that bullet is going to continue
forward. And it's going to hit Governor Connally exactly where he was hit. Connally
has to be hit. And the fact that they both react at the same time clinches it. So, it's
not a magic bullet at all. It's not even a single bullet theory, in my opinion. It's a
single bullet fact.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) So if President Kennedy and Governor Connally were hit from behind
by the same bullet, where did it come from? Using the men's body positions and the
locations of their wounds, Myers can isolate the source of the shot.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
(Voice Over) We can start with, for instance, Governor Connally's entrance wound
on his back. Connect that with the point of exit on the president's throat. And then
take that line and project it rearward. What we end up with is a line that goes right
back through the sniper's nest window, the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Dozens of witnesses pointed to the school book depository after
hearing the shots. One witness reported seeing a gun in the sixth floor window. This
is the building where Lee Harvey Oswald had been working as a clerk for five
weeks. Within minutes of the shooting, the police rushed into the building. The sixth
floor was a maze of boxes. At 1:12 PM, a deputy sheriff squeezed around a row of
boxes in the southeast corner facing Elm Street and discovered the sniper's position.
Two boxes stacked as if to support a rifle. Three shell casings scattered on the floor
below the window. Photographers and fingerprint experts swept the scene. Ten
minutes later, in the northwest corner of the building, behind other boxes, they found
a rifle. After the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was the only worker missing from the
building. The manhunt for him began. Police across the city were told to look out for
"a white male, 30, slender build, 5'10", 165 pounds, reportedly armed." It was on this
street that four witnesses saw Officer JD Tippit motion Oswald over to his patrol car.
As Tippit got out of the car, Oswald pulled a revolver and shot Tippit three times.
Oswald moved closer, and as the officer lay on the ground, Oswald shot him once
more in the head.
Gerald Posner
Author, "Case Closed"
The evidence of Oswald shooting Kennedy, I think, is overwhelming. But many
people contest that. The evidence of Lee Harvey Oswald killing officer JD Tippit is
overwhelming and ironclad.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Now, there were two manhunts underway in Dallas. The police did not
know that they were chasing the same man. Thirty-one minutes after the Tippit
murder, the police were told that a suspect was in a nearby movie theater. The
police arrested Oswald as he tried to pull his gun.
Reporter
Now, we're inside of the Texas theater. Of course, everything is black, the movie is
going on. Police suddenly jump this man and started to drag him out of the theater.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Reporter
At that time the scuffle ensued inside of the Texas theater.
Reporter
Approaching, the suspect jumped up, struck him in the face and yelled, "This is it."
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The police rushed Oswald away from an angry mob that had gathered
outside the theater. Shortly after 2:00 PM, he was taken into Dallas police
headquarters, where they began to question him.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
All right. These people have given me a hearing without legal representation or
anything.
Reporter
Did you shoot the president?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
I didn't shoot anybody. No, sir.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Those of us in the Press Corp, including those traveling with the
president, were now crowding into the Dallas Central Police Station, and all we
wanted to know about was Oswald. The FBI actually had an open file on Oswald.
And one of the men in the building that day was FBI Agent James Hosty.
James Hosty
FBI, 1952-1979
My immediate assignment was to go to the Dallas police station, to sit in on the
interview and to tell the Dallas police everything we knew about Oswald.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
I'd like some legal representation. These police officers have not allowed me to have
any.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The FBI knew that Oswald was a former marine who had abandoned
the United States and lived for almost three years in the Soviet Union. He had
returned to the States with a Russian wife. The FBI believed that he was a
committed Communist.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Reporter
Did you shoot the president?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
No, they've taken me in because of the fact that I've lived in the Soviet Union. I'm
just a patsy.
James Hosty
FBI, 1952-1979
I was trying to find him. But there was no urgency to find him. I mean, he hadn't said,
"I'm going to kill the president at November 22nd at 12:30, catch me if you can."
Nothing like that. He disappeared, and I figured, I knew I'd find him. But just a
matter, I had other things to do, and it wasn't the most urgent case on my list. Now
see, I should have known.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But no one in the FBI had any idea that Lee Harvey Oswald had the
mind of a political assassin. Alarm bells began to ring in government. Lyndon
Johnson, the vice president, had visions of World War III.
Jack Valenti
Aide to President Johnson, 1963-1966
We got on the airplane, it was heavily guarded by a cordon of menacing-looking men
with machine guns at the ready, 'cause nobody knew. Was this a coup? Who else
was to be murdered?
Michael Beschloss
Author "The Crisis Years"
Johnson had been briefed, even as vice president, that if there were a Soviet attack
on the United States, one of the first things the Soviets would probably try to do
would be to murder the president and the other top leaders of government.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On the plane, as Vice President Johnson was sworn in as president
with Mrs. Kennedy at his side, US armed forces throughout the world were put on
high alert.
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
President Johnson was convinced that there was a Communist conspiracy, a
Communist conspiracy engineered by Moscow. When were the missiles coming?
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The new president left Dallas for Washington with no idea if he would
make it.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Air Force One, carrying the president's body, arrived at Andrews Air
Force Base outside Washington at 6:05 PM Eastern Standard Time. Millions of
people watched on television as the coffin came into view. They watched Mrs.
Kennedy take her place in the hearse bearing her husband's body.
Reporter
Mrs. Kennedy is now coming down, following the casket.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Lyndon Johnson, who was now president, spoke briefly to the nation.
President Lyndon Johnson
I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help and God's.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Johnson had been afraid in Dallas that the assassination was the start
of an all-out attack on the United States. He was somewhat less anxious now. But in
the days ahead, he would be haunted by what he was learning about Lee Oswald
from the director of the FBI.
Michael Beschloss
Author "The Crisis Years"
Johnson gets a call from J. Edgar Hoover saying that this Oswald who we think was
probably the assassin had been seen in Mexico City at the Soviet embassy,
perhaps, or the Cuban embassy. Johnson almost immediately said, oh, my God. I've
now got to deal with another problem which is Americans are going to think that the
Soviets did this or the Cubans did this. They will say go to war against the Soviets or
the Cubans in revenge. He didn't want that kind of pressure on him. He knew that
that could lead us to a war that would kill, at the very least, tens of millions of people.
Reporter
Suspect is again coming down the hall.
Reporter
What did you do in Russia?
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Johnson's fears were based on fragments of information about a man
nobody really knew. Lee Harvey Oswald was a mystery, then and now.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Gerald Posner
Author, "Case Closed"
One of the things the American public misses here is they look at this case and they
have lost somebody in their thinking of conspiracy over 40 years. They've lost the
shooter, the assassin. They've lost Oswald. They have no idea of who he was, what
he had come from, what his background had been like. They have no idea of motive.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) And no idea where his journey to Dealey Plaza began. The person who
knew him best was his brother, Robert.
Robert Oswald
Brother
I turned the radio on, they were talking about a shooting of a police officer. And
about that time, they announced they had an individual in custody by the name of
Lee Harvey Oswald or Harvey Lee Oswald. And I said, "that's my kid brother." After
all these years, I think more than anything else, if I had an opportunity, had the facts
that said Lee was innocent, I would be out there shouting it loud and clear. It is my
belief, my conviction, no one but Lee was involved. Period. People need to look at
what transpired before that. Everything. You got to come all the way from childhood
on up and especially that last year of his life and understand what transpired in his
life. He was a lonely boy, needing attention, but not getting it.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Lee Harvey Oswald was born on October the 18th, 1939, in New
Orleans, Louisiana. His father had died two months before. Lee wrote of himself that
he was the "son of an insurance agent, whose early death left a far, mean streak of
independence, brought on by neglect."
Robert Oswald
Brother
My mother constantly told us that we were, you know, a burden to her. And very
early on, he'd learned that he wasn't wanted.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Lee and his mother moved constantly. By the age of 13, he had
attended seven different schools. He was often a truant. As a teenager, he lived in
New York City, where he had no friends. Sometimes he spent days riding the
subways alone. His interest in communism began when he was handed a flier about
the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Communist sympathizers executed as spies
for the Soviet Union. By 16, he had dropped out of school and was calling himself a
Marxist.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Robert Oswald
Brother
He wanted the attention by being unique. And if the rest of the world had been a
Marxist, he would have been American.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Lee's outspoken support of Communism did not prevent him from
joining the marine corps at 17. He did it to get away from his mother. He didn't hide
his infatuation with Communism, even though it turned other marines against him.
He began to teach himself Russian. He praised Cuba's new Communist leader, Fidel
Castro.
Robert Oswald
Brother
When he was in the marine corps, he was going the opposite direction from the rest
of the troops. He wanted to be different from the crowd, stand out from the crowd.
And whatever it took, he was willing to do it.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Oswald learned to shoot in the marines. He reached the grade of
sharpshooter. He was able to fire rapidly with accuracy at a target 200 yards away.
He stayed in the marines for just under three years. And nine days after being
discharged, he was on his way to the Soviet Union, where he intended to defect. He
arrived in Moscow on a tourist visa on October the 16th, 1959.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
I heard from a friend in the American embassy that there was a young defector
staying in my hotel. Everything about him spelt loneliness and aloneness.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Priscilla McMillan, who would later become Oswald's biographer, met
him in Moscow where she was working as a journalist.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
He told me he wanted to defect because there were a lot of things in the United
States which he did not like, particularly capitalism and raCIAl discrimination. He
said he was a Marxist, and this was it, the Communist paradise.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) It was a rare American who thought the Soviet Union was paradise.
"The New York Times" reported on Oswald's desire to stay in the Soviet Union. But
the Russians were skeptical of any would-be defector, espeCIAlly one barely 20
years old.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Oleg Kalugin
Former Major General, KGB
The initial reaction to any foreigner in the old USSR was to view them as CIA or
some other intelligence agents. But after some research, we found out he was not
good for the CIA. So, we thought maybe we'll turn him into a Soviet agent eventually.
But he was no good, either.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Six days after he got to Moscow, the Russians decided they didn't want
him and told him to leave.
Oleg Kalugin
Former Major General, KGB
Oswald, to us, looked like a misfit, an unhappy man. The man who did not know
what to do, the man who was looking for something. And he did not know himself
what he was looking for.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But the Soviets underestimated Oswald's determination and his flare
for the dramatic. When Oswald heard he'd been rejected, he went to his hotel room
and slit his wrist.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
He made a hysterical gesture. Probably didn't want to kill himself, really, but he
wanted to force them to let him stay. And believe it or not, he succeeded. He
blackmailed them, as he did everybody.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The Soviet authorities caved in and allowed Oswald to settle in the City
of Minsk, where he was given an apartment and a job in a factory. Oswald stood out
in Minsk. As an American, he was different. He enjoyed people's curiosity. He met
and married a Russian girl, Marina. They had a child. But they lived the life of
ordinary workers. And the bare facts of Oswald's life clashed with the image he had
of himself. He was without education, without skills, but seething with ambition.
People who met him throughout his life were often startled by it.
Volkmar Schmidt
Knew Oswald
He was so extremely fixed on making an impression with his life. Enormously
ambitious. Ambitious to achieve something beyond the normal.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But in June 1962, disappointed in Russia, Lee and Marina left the
Soviet Union and headed for Dallas, Texas. Lee was convinced that when they
arrived at Love Field, he'd be greeted by curious reporters.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Robert Oswald
Brother
One of the first things he said was "what, no reporters?" He seemed definitely
disappointed. He had his notes, how he was going to answer the reporters, and why
this and why that. Why he went to Russia and why he came back. But there was
nobody to talk to.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Home again in the United States, Oswald was a man of no importance
to anyone but himself. He found work demeaning. He had very little money. He had
no deep connections to other people except Marina, and he was physically abusing
her. In January 1963, using an alias, "A. Hidell," Oswald ordered a revolver, a Smith
& Wesson .38, the gun that killed Officer Tippit. In March, he ordered a rifle, using
the same alias. A Mannlicher Carcano, 6.5 millimeters, the gun that killed John
Kennedy. He asked Marina to take his photograph.
Michael Paine
Knew Oswald
When I first met him and brought him over to the house, the first thing he showed me
was a picture of himself, holding a rifle. And I could see he was proud of that picture.
I had the strong impression that it was an icon of himself that he liked.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Michael and Ruth Paine showed kindness to Lee and Marina. Ruth and
Marina spoke Russian together and became friends. Lee kept his distance.
Ruth Paine
Knew Oswald
He had these fantasies about who he was and what he could do and that nobody
was really paying attention or noticing or feeling that he was important.
Michael Paine
Knew Oswald
He'd been spending his life, the later half of his life, trying to be a revolutionary,
trying to have an effect, trying to be important, make a mark on the world.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) No one knows the exact moment that Lee Oswald decided to become
a political assassin. But in April 1963, he was ready to be one. When we come back,
the Walker assassination.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Lee Harvey Oswald had committed himself to being a political assassin
months before he killed the president.
Gerald Posner
Author, "Case Closed"
Oswald had decided that he was going to commit himself in his young life, at the age
of 23, to political assassination. He would put himself in the history books. And the
way he would go in the history books was not by killing Jack Kennedy, but was by
killing Edwin Walker.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Retired General Edwin A. Walker was a segregationist and vehemently
anti-Communist. He had a growing following in Dallas and elsewhere in the south.
Oswald spent more than a month plotting to kill him. He photographed Walker's
home. He worked out an escape route, he left Marina instructions, in Russian, about
what to do if he didn't come back.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
The Walker attempt of April 10th, 1963, is the Rosetta Stone of the Kennedy
assassination because it showed Lee getting ready to shoot someone and what
went into it. And the feelings that he projected onto public figures. And that is what
you have to study to understand the Kennedy assassination.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Using his mail-order rifle, Oswald fired at General Walker who was
sitting inside his house. The bullet was deflected by the window frame. The world did
not know any of this until after Oswald died.
Ruth Paine
Knew Oswald
This was entirely on his own. There wasn't anybody that he worked with. Nobody
knew about it except Marina, and she was keeping very quiet.
Wallace Heitman
FBI, 1940 - 1970
Marina told me that she was in fear all the time of what he might do.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) FBI Agent Wally Heitman spent months after the Kennedy
assassination with Marina Oswald, learning about Lee.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Wallace Heitman
FBI, 1940 - 1970
Lee Harvey was on his route then. He, it seems to me, was determined to make
himself somebody. He was going to have to assassinate somebody. And that
somebody would have to be big. They subsequently went to New Orleans. And one
of the principal reasons that they went to New Orleans was that Marina thought that
if she could get Lee Harvey out of Dallas, maybe he would not have all of these
strange ideas.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But returning to his birthplace turned out to be another twist of fate.
New Orleans was teeming with thousands of anti-Castro Cubans. Oswald launched
a one-man, pro-Castro campaign. He became the New Orleans chapter of the
National Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He stood out enough that local television
filmed him handing out leaflets. In August, he was arrested after fighting with antiCastro Cubans. Again, he stood out. And the local radio station interviewed him.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
However, I and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee does think that the United States
government, through certain agencies, mainly the State Department and the CIA,
has made monumental mistakes in its relations with Cuba.
Ed Butler
Radio Talk Show Host
When I listened, I couldn't believe my ears, because this was the most effective
presentation of the Castro line that I had ever heard.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Ed Butler debated Oswald on the radio.
Ed Butler
Radio Talk Show Host
Is it a secret society?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
No, Mr. Butler, it is not.
Peter Jennings
He was not a stupid guy. He was a competent, and I think, very effective
propagandist for that point of view.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Oswald appeared on television answering questions about Cuba.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Interviewer
In your work with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, what are you advocating?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
We advocate restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba.
Interviewer
Are you a Marxist?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
Well, I have studied Marxist philosophy. Yes, sir. And also other philosophers.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But the attention was fleeting. And his composure in public masked the
turmoil in his private life. Marina was pregnant again. And they were living on
unemployment benefits. In September 1963, Lee tried to convince Marina to help
him hijack a plane to Cuba.
Wallace Heitman
FBI, 1940 - 1970
A Russian woman who can't hardly speak English, with a baby in tow, to hijack a
plane. She thought that was the craziest idea that she had ever heard. She was able
to convince him that that just would not work.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In late September, Marina went back to Texas with Ruth Paine. Lee
and Marina would never live together again.
Ruth Paine
Knew Oswald
Lee seemed really sad when we drove off. So, I felt he cared. It's just that he didn't,
didn't really know how or, nothing seemed to be working well for him.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
Lee's life leading up to November of 1963 was just a series of disappointments. He
had very boring jobs. He'd barely been able to support a wife and children. And he
figured he'd run out his string.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On September the 25th, Lee traveled alone to Mexico City. He had told
Marina that he really wanted to help the Cuban revolution. But at the Cuban
consulate there, they turned him away. He went to the Soviet embassy and asked to
return to Russia. They turned him down, as well.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Author, "Marina and Lee"
In a way, this cut off his last exit, in a way. And when he left Mexico City, to go back
to Dallas, he went in a spirit of defeat and desperation.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Oswald arrived back in Dallas, where Marina was living, on October the
3rd. He had no job and no prospects.
Ruth Paine
Knew Oswald
I saw Lee. He'd come out on the weekends to see Marina. I realize I, I hadn't known
anything about him in that sense of knowing. I had no idea he was dangerous. I
didn't know he had made the attempt on General Walker in April. And I didn't really
realize how unstable he was.
Peter Jennings
Knew Oswald
(Voice Over) Oswald rented a room in Dallas for $8 a week and looked for work. It
was Ruth Paine who arranged for him to get a job at the Texas School Book
Depository. He started work on the 16th of October. On November the 19th, the
route of the Kennedy motorcade was published in the Dallas newspapers. The route
went right past the building where Oswald had a job. On November the 21st, the
night before the assassination, Lee visited Marina at Ruth Paine's house. It was the
only time he had ever arrived unannounced.
Ruth Paine
Knew Oswald
One of the things he did when he left that Friday morning was put most of the money
that he had on the dresser for Marina with a little note, "get some shoes for Junie."
And then he took off his ring, and put it in a cup. Ah, and I have wondered, I think he
was pretty discouraged about how things weren't going well for him. He wasn't
changing the world or whatever it was he thought he was supposed to be doing.
Robert Oswald
Brother
He had problems at home. He was completely frustrated about what was going on
around him. This is not excusing what he did. This is understanding what he did. He
wanted to be somebody. And this opportunity came about, coincidental, nothing
planned, nothing organized. It happened that way. It's one of those happenstances
of history.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On the morning of the 22nd, Lee Harvey Oswald went to work at the
Book Depository carrying a long object wrapped in brown paper. He told another
worker it was curtain rods.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Reporter
The suspect is coming down the aisle and into this interrogation room.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On November the 23rd, 12 hours after the president's assassination,
the world's press was descending on Dallas.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
Well, I was questioned. Questioned by a judge. However, I protested at that time
that I was not allowed legal representation.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Twenty-four year-old Lee Harvey Oswald was finally somebody.
Reporter
Did you kill the president?
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. First
thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that
question.
Michael Paine
Knew Oswald
When I saw him there, he looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. That he
was, he was proud of what he had done.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy Assassin
A policeman hit me.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Throughout that weekend, Oswald was questioned by the police, the
FBI and the secret service. He never confessed to killing the president. His brother,
Robert, went to see him in custody.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Robert Oswald
Brother
I'm looking into his eyes. I'm looking for some sign, something. And he says,
"brother, you won't find anything there." And he was absolutely right. There was
nothing there. There was no emotion that you could see. Whatsoever.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Even without a confession, the District Attorney Henry Wade said he
was confident.
Reporter
Do you figure you have a good case?
Henry Wade
District Attorney
I figure we have sufficient evidence to convict him.
Reporter
Is there any indication that this was an organized plot, or was it just one man?
Henry Wade
District Attorney
We had no one else but him.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Oswald would never go to trial.
Reporter
Now, this is the armored truck that will carry Lee Oswald from the basement here of
Dallas police headquarters downtown to the Dallas county jail.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On Sunday, November the 24th, the press had been told they could
cover Oswald's transfer from police headquarters to the county jail, to be at the
basement loading dock by 10:00 AM.
James R. Leavelle
Dallas Homicide Detective, 1950 - 1976
The captain instructed me to handcuff Oswald's right arm to my left arm. And while I
was doing all this, I said to him in jest more than anything else, I said, "Lee, if
anybody shoots at you, I hope they're as good a shot as you are." Meaning of
course, they'd hit him and not me. He kind of laughed and said, "Ah, you're being
melodramatic," or something to that effect. He said, "Nobody's going to shoot at me."
Reporter
There is Lee Oswald. He's been shot. He's been shot. Lee Oswald has been shot.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
James R. Leavelle
Dallas Homicide Detective, 1950 - 1976
I pulled on Oswald, jerked on him trying to pull him behind me. But I was too close to
him to move him. So, I turned his body so that the bullet, instead of it hitting him
dead center, it hit him about four inches to the left of the navel.
Hugh Aynesworth
Reporter, the Dallas Morning News, 1960-1966
It was like a cartoon almost, where you see a foot there and a hand there and a gun
there and a head there and, it was a little scary. But, but very fast, he was down.
And I didn't know who it was. I didn't know for probably five minutes who it was. And
then, when I found out, I went, "My God. I know that man." And I'm not really that
surprised.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The shooter was Jack Ruby. The police and the press in Dallas knew
him well.
Reporter
Why did you do it? Why did you do it, Jack?
Hillel Silverman
Jack Ruby's Rabbi
He said, "I did it for the people of America. He was my president. This man," he
never said the name Oswald, by the way, never. He said, "This man killed my
president."
Breck Wall
Friend of Jack Ruby
The first thing out of his mouth is, "I'm a hero." And that's what really floored me,
because everyone was still in shock over what happened. He said, "I'm a hero," and
I went, "No, you're not."
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Jack Ruby was 52. The tough operator of a local strip club. People
knew he carried a gun. Some people speculated that Ruby was a hit man sent to
silence Oswald, that he was part of a conspiracy.
Hugh Aynesworth
Reporter, the Dallas Morning News, 1960-1966
Jack Ruby was a wannabe/never-was. But it's really a joke if you think Jack Ruby
could be involved in a conspiracy. This is a man, if he knew anything, I guarantee
you, he'd tell somebody within one block. He wanted to be important.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Joyce Gordon
Former Exotic Dancer
All the people who know him know him as an emotional person. He does blow off
easily.
Reporter
You're an exotic dancer at the Carousel owned and operated by Jack Ruby.
Joyce Gordon
Former Exotic Dancer
That's right.
Reporter
How long have you been working for Jack Ruby?
Joyce Gordon
Former Exotic Dancer
Uh, let me see. I had been working for Jack maybe three months at that time. I was
20 years old. If you knew Jack, and a lot of people say this, that Jack did a lot of
things 'cause he thought he'd get a pat on the back, a medal, be praised for what he
was doing.
Hillel Silverman
Jack Ruby's Rabbi
I believe that Jack Ruby deep down, was a decent man. Very proud of President
Kennedy. Very thankful for the opportunity the United States gave him to be a
businessman. His problem was that Jack Ruby was Jack Ruby's worst enemy.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Jack Ruby grew up in Chicago, where he got the nickname Sparky
because of his temper.
Jack Clarke
Investigative Consultant, Chicago Police, 1950 -1973
I knew Sparky in the '40s and in the, in the '50s. He was in all the gymnasiums with
all the boxers. It was well known that Jack Ruby was meshuga. He was not playing
with a full deck. He was a nice guy. But he just wasn't playing with a full deck.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Ruby's early days in Chicago led many people to suspect that he had
ties to organized crime.
Jack Clarke
Investigative Consultant, Chicago Police, 1950 -1973
The Chicago mob had nothing to do with Jack Ruby. Jack Ruby was working with
the ragtag guys on the street, downtown Chicago. Some of them were bookmakers.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
They were just, you know, guys who made a buck through their wit and charm in
some cases. But they were not the gangsters. The gangsters would have nothing to
do with Jack Ruby.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In Dallas, Ruby achieved a measure of respectability, but his temper
was his trademark.
Breck Wall
Friend of Jack Ruby
I saw him get mad at customers where he'd be talking and nice and just very fine.
And all of a sudden, if he didn't like the way the guy was behaving, rather than
asking him to get up and leave, he would grab him, from the very back, and throw
him out the door. And I mean literally, no bouncers, nothing. He would do it.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The Carousel club was well known, and some of its regular clientele
were police.
Burt W. Griffin
Warren Commission Staff Lawyer
Ruby was a guy who hung out with the police. He, he had to make friends with the
police because he was running an operation that could be shut down by the police.
Joyce Gordon
Former Exotic Dancer
He kept coffee and sandwiches in the back for them. They were always in and out.
And he was always down there. He liked to know what was going on.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) And because Jack Ruby knew the police, he could come and go at
police headquarters.
Hillel Silverman
Jack Ruby's Rabbi
He knew that what happened on that Friday afternoon was something that will never
be forgotten in American history. And being Jack Ruby, he wanted be part of it. He
knew that there was gonna be action. And he wanted to be where action was.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Friday afternoon, only hours after the assassination, Jack Ruby closed
the Carousel club.
Joyce Gordon
Former Exotic Dancer
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Jack was hysterical. He said, "I will shoot the son of a bitch if I have a chance." And
he kept going on about Kennedy's children not having a father.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) At midnight on Friday the 22nd, Ruby was at police headquarters when
Oswald was paraded before the press. Over the weekend, he was described by his
sister and friends as "upset," "broken." On Sunday morning, the 24th, Ruby's
roommate described him as "mumbling, jabbering, not making sense." At 10:00 on
Sunday, the press was waiting for Oswald to be transferred. At 10:19 AM, Ruby got
a call at home from one of his strippers, Little Lynne. She wanted him to wire her
$25 so she could meet her rent. Just before 11:00, Ruby left his apartment with one
of his dogs that he loved dearly and drove to the telegraph office. He parked and left
the dog, Sheba, in the car.
Burt W. Griffin
Warren Commission Staff Lawyer
This makes no sense. You're going to plan to kill somebody and you bring your dog
down to the killing?
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) At Western Union, Ruby waited his turn in line. His wire transfer was
posted at 11:17. Ruby then walked the one block to police headquarters. Oswald's
interrogation had taken longer than expected and delayed a few minutes more when
Oswald asked to change his clothes. Jack Ruby walked in to the crowded waiting
scene at just about 11:20. Oswald appeared at 11:21.
Earl Ruby
Brother of Jack Ruby
Jack loved President Kennedy. And Oswald was walking with a smile on his face.
Jack told me. And he couldn't believe that. He was smiling for having killed the
president. And Jack became all excited. And he pulled out the gun and shot him.
Reporter
There is Lee Oswald. He's been shot. He's been shot. Lee Oswald has been shot.
There's a man with a gun. It's absolute panic.
Hillel Silverman
Jack Ruby's Rabbi
In his distorted mind, he did the right thing. That this man killed his president. And he
loved his president. And he was taking justice into his own hands.
Reporter
Here comes Oswald. He is ashen and unconscious.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The entire episode was on television. The public watched in disbelief.
In less than 48 hours, the president had been murdered and his assassin silenced.
The floodgates on conspiracy were wide open.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) On Monday, November the 25th, 1963, President Kennedy's body was
carried through the streets of Washington to Arlington National Cemetery. There are
indelible moments that day which are a painful part of modern American history. The
muffled drums for a dead president so young. The riderless horse. The President's
son, John- John, saluting as his father passes. The nation was deep in mourning. In
Texas that same day, Lee Harvey Oswald was buried. His wife, Marina, was there,
and his mother and his brother, Robert. And that was the day that Jack Ruby, under
very heavy guard, was transferred to the county jail.
Hillel Silverman
Jack Ruby's Rabbi
I said to him, "Jack, did you have any kind of connection with Oswald or with
people?" And he denied it vehemently again and again and again. He said, "I'll
swear on this Bible I had nothing to do with anybody else. I did it all by myself." This
is what he said to me.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The people who knew Ruby didn't believe he was part of a conspiracy.
But millions of Americans did. And President Johnson worried about it.
Jack Valenti
Aide to President Johnson, 1963-1966
What he wanted was a report that would hopefully would allay the fears, the
anxieties and some of the conspiratorial darkness that had, was populating too many
people's minds at the time.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The President decided to appoint a commission to investigate the
assassination. And he persuaded the nation's Chief Justice, Earl Warren, to lead it
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
The Warren commission was created for two main reasons. One was to settle the
mood in the United States. But there was a second very key reason, and that was to
dispel any rumors of foreign intrigue. We're living at a time of Cold War, where there
is great tension in the air, great fear in the air that there is a Communist conspiracy,
directed out of Moscow, which is seeking to destroy the free world and then the
United States.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Many Americans believed that Oswald's time in the Soviet Union and
his admiration for Fidel Castro were proof somehow of a Communist conspiracy.
G. Edward White
Author of "Earl Warren"
The longer the Warren Commission takes, the longer the rumor mills turn. So the
pressure is enormous.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) President Johnson pressed the commission to work quickly and finish
before the 1964 presidential election. The investigation lasted for only ten months.
But it built an overwhelming case against Oswald. 25,000 interviews were done.
Oswald's wife, Marina, was called. So was his mother and his brother, Robert. There
were 3,000 pieces of evidence. Firearms tests showed that the bullets which hit the
President could only have come from Oswald's rifle. His palm print was on the stock.
His prints we on the boxes in the sniper's position at the book depository. The
commission found persuasive evidence that President Kennedy and Governor
Connally had been hit by the same bullet. The commission concluded that Lee
Oswald acted alone. There was no evidence, the Warren Commission said, of a
conspiracy. But when the commission published its report in September 1964, many
Americans simply did not believe it.
Local Resident
I think there were more involved in it than just Oswald.
Local Resident
I think he was working for the CIA, myself.
Local Resident
I don't think that all the facts were brought out.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The commission was accused of covering up a conspiracy.
Burt W. Griffin
Warren Commission Staff Lawyer
The accusation that we had a predetermined idea to find that there was no
conspiracy and that Oswald was the assassin is completely false. Let me say to you
that, the one thing I wanted to do was find a conspiracy. I was a 32-year-old lawyer
at that point. And I had political ambitions. If I could have found that Oswald didn't do
it, I'd have been the Senator from Ohio and not John Glenn.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
William T. Coleman
Warren Commission Staff Lawyer
I would say we did a thorough search and we discovered all of the evidence. And I
think the best proof is, it's 40 years later, and nobody's come up with any statement
of anybody else who did it.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But those Americans who pored over the 888 pages of the Warren
Report, and its 26 volumes of supporting evidence, found inconsistencies and
outright mistakes, which simply fuelled the conspiracy theories. And there was
hardly a word in the Warren Report about the Kennedy Administration's
determination to get rid of Fidel Castro, whom Oswald so admired. Castro had
established a Communist government allied with the Soviet Union within 100 miles
of Florida. The secret campaign to get rid of Castro was so important to President
Kennedy that his brother, Robert, the Attorney General, ran the operation. The CIA
supported guerrilla raids into Cuba. It recruited assassins, Cuban exiles and
members of the mafia, to get rid of Castro in any way they could.
Sam Halpern
Former CIA Official
It was top priority. Nothing else mattered. And that was the feeling we got from
Bobby, particularly. The object was very simple. And I'll give you the exact words
that were used. "Get rid of Castro and the Castro regime."
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) And then on September the 9th, 1963, in a widely published interview
with the Associated Press, Castro threatened American leaders. "We are prepared
to fight and answer in kind," he said, "the United States leaders should think that if
they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not
be safe." The people who wrote the Warren Commission Report were never told why
Castro would make such a threat.
Michael Beschloss
Author "The Crisis Years"
If Americans now look back at the Warren Report and say, however good it may be,
the people who wrote it did not know a Cardinal fact, and that was that the Kennedy
Administration was trying to kill Fidel Castro.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) There is not a word in the Warren Report about this. Not a word which
suggests that Castro had a motive to assassinate President Kennedy. President
Johnson always expressed his public confidence in the Warren Commission's
finding that Lee Oswald acted alone. In private, he believed something else.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Joseph A. Califano Jr.
Aide to President Johnson
President Johnson said to me, on more than one occasion, you know, his statement
was, Kennedy tried to get Castro, Castro got Kennedy first. There's no doubt in my
mind that President Johnson went to his grave believing that Castro was behind Lee
Harvey Oswald's assassination of John Kennedy.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In the 1970s, during Vietnam and Watergate, Americans had to
confront a painful reality. Their government had lied to them on a very grand scale.
And maybe the government had lied about the Kennedy assassination, too.
Anchor
The pattern that we have now established for Lee Harvey Oswald, is obviously the
pattern of a man being run by the CIA. There's no question of it.
Anchor
Just want to tell you that 72 percent of the American people do not buy your report.
They think at worst it's fallacious. At best it's incompetent.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The Warren Commission was being denounced in many quarters as an
outright fraud and part of a far-reaching conspiracy.
Commission Official
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony ...
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Under this kind of pressure, in 1976, the House of Representatives
created a Select Committee on Assassinations to deal with conspiracy once and for
all.
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
When the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination was made public, critics and
people generally ...
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The committee's chief counsel directing the investigation, was G.
Robert Blakey.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
We made it our central program to see what might have changed since 1963. And
what had changed since 1963 are advances in science and technology.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Using the latest technology, the committee reexamined the Warren
Commission's evidence. Experts analyzed the bullets that hit the president, the xrays and the photographs from the president's autopsy, and the movements of
President Kennedy and Governor Connally in the Zapruder film. The committee
reviewed all the evidence, and reaffirmed that President Kennedy was shot and
killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. But was he part of a conspiracy? The committee
combed Oswald's life for links to foreign governments. It heard testimony from one of
the KGB officers who had handled Oswald's file when he defected to Russia.
Uri Nosenko
Former KGB Official
He was nobody. He was a tumbleweed.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Yuri Nosenko later defected to the United States and still lives here
under an assumed name.
Uri Nosenko
To recruit such person who defected in Russia, American, returns back in America
and to give him mission to kill, no way. KGB never will go on this. Because it's so
obvious.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) As for a Cuban connection, the CIA's plots to kill Fidel Castro had been
uncovered and made public a year before the House Committee began its work.
Committee investigators went to Mexico City to look into allegations that Oswald,
during his 1963 visit, conspired with Cuban agents.
Edwin J. Lopez
Investigator, House Select Committee
We spent hundreds of hours following up stories that when Lee Harvey Oswald was
in Mexico City, that he'd met with Castro sympathizers, that he'd met with people
from the Communist party and we were able to verify not one of them, not a one.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In 1978, Chief Counsel Blakey and several members of the committee
actually went to Havana to interview Fidel Castro.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
I sat in President Castro's office. And albeit diplomatically, looked at him, in his eyes,
and said, "Did you kill John Kennedy?" and he said "No." and then he told me why it
would have been a foolish thing for him to have done.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Castro told Blakey that it would have been "insanity" for him to attack
Kennedy. "That would have been the most perfect pretext," Castro said, "for the
United States to invade our country, which is what I have tried to prevent for all
these years."
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
We looked as best we could for evidence that he might have done it. And we
couldn't find it. That doesn't mean he didn't do it. It just means on the basis of the
evidence that I have, I don't think that he did.
Official
They be so identified and so ordered into the record.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The SpeCIAl Committee of Congress spent two years on its
investigation. And near the end was preparing a report saying that the Warren
Commission was right. Oswald had been the sole assassin and no one had
conspired with him, not the CIA, the FBI, the Soviets or the Cubans. But in the very
last week of the investigation, a team of scientists surprised the committee with
evidence that appeared to prove a conspiracy.
Official
With a probability of 95 percent or better, there was indeed a shot fired from the
Grassy Knoll.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The scientists had analyzed a sound recording, overlooked for almost
15 years, that was made at the time of the assassination. The scientists said that as
the president was shot, a motorcycle policeman in the president's motorcade was
driving through Dealey Plaza with his microphone stuck in the "on" position. The
sounds the microphone picked up were recorded at police headquarters. The
recording was noisy, with static. Listen. But the scientists said that with speCIAl
equipment they could identify four gunshots.
Official
What you have just heard were the sounds picked up ...
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) To the House Select Committee on Assassinations, this was a huge
shock. Four shots was one more than Oswald had time to fire.
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
Four shots in the plaza. That meant there were two shooters in the plaza. Two
shooters in the plaza equal a conspiracy.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Chief Counsel Blakey was convinced by the scientists. And he became
a believer in conspiracy. Blakey was an expert on organized crime, and he decided
that the mob had conspired to kill Kennedy. The key to his theory was Jack Ruby.
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
I see Jack Ruby's assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald as a mob hit. I got organized
crime connections for Ruby that just go on and on and on. Why would the mob want
to take out Lee Harvey Oswald? To ask that question is to answer it. There is only
one answer to that, they had a hand in the assassination.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the president's brother, had been
leading an unprecedented war by the Federal government on organized crime. In
April, 1961, Carlos Marcello, the mafia boss of New Orleans, was seized by Federal
agents, forced onto a plane, and deported to Guatemala. According to Blakey,
Marcello became so angry at the Kennedy administration that he conspired to kill the
president.
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
He took the deportation personally. He hated the Kennedys. He had the motive, the
opportunity and the means in Lee Harvey Oswald to kill him. I think he did.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Marcello eventually got back into the United States, and according to
Blakey, he recruited Lee Oswald to shoot the president, and Jack Ruby to make
sure that Oswald never talked.
Ralph Salerno
Expert
I have the greatest respect for Robert Blakey. But I cannot join him in this
hypothesis.
Official
Committee calls Mr. Salerno.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The late Ralph Salerno knew as much about organized crime as
anyone in America. He was hired by Blakey to be the committee's mob expert. He
thought his former boss's theory was wrong.
Ralph Salerno
Expert
The theory is Ruby is taking out Oswald so Oswald can't say anything. Somebody
has to take out Ruby so he can't say anything. And then, somebody has to take out
the guy who took Ruby out. It becomes an unending dilemma. So, it doesn't work
quite that way.
Ralph Salerno
Expert
Mr. Genovese was at that meeting.
Ralph Salerno
Expert
I reviewed for the committee the electronic surveillances that the FBI had in, on
organized crime figures all over the country. And there was no indication at all of
their involvement. Since that time, since that time, up to the current day, you have
had a large number of high-level members of organized crime, have made a deal
with the government and testified against their fellows. None of them has ever
suggested that they knew of, or even heard of involvement by organized crime in the
death of President Kennedy.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The most critical evidence in the Blakey theory was the police
recording, the sounds picked up by the motorcycle policeman's microphone. It was
this evidence, the scientists said, a gunshot tests in Dealey Plaza, that established
the near certainty of two shooters, one in the Book Depository, and the other on the
Grassy Knoll. But the scientists admitted that their conclusion was based on a major
assumption. On November the 22nd, the motorcycle with the open microphone had
to be in a very particular place when the first shot was fired. Within this pink circle, at
the corner of Houston and Elm Streets, right next to the Book Depository. The
committee said that HB McLain was the motorcycle officer with the open microphone
and that he was within that circle when the first shot was fired. But McLain told the
committee that he was half a block away when he heard a shot.
HB McLain
Dallas Police Officer, 1953 - 1981
So they just assumed that it was mine, where their acoustic people said it should be.
But I don't care what they say. It wasn't mine.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The committee found otherwise.
G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel, Select Committee
Our best judgment with what we knew then, was it was HB McLain. If you could
prove to me that there was no police officer in the place where he had to be, you
would falsify my theory.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Computer animator Dale Myers has done just that.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
This is the film taken by Robert Hughes. The president's car now turning the corner
underneath the Texas School Book Depository. Moments later we see HB McLain
rolling into the shot, as he heads up Houston Street. What's important to note,
though these cars that are seen here on Houston Street are also seen in another
film, the Zapruder film.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) By analyzing all of the films of the motorcade, Myers has created a
second-by-2nd timeline of Officer McLain's movements through Dealey Plaza.
Dale Myers
Computer Animator
By comparing common elements we've tied all of these films together in time so that
now we know, beyond any doubt, with absolute certainty, where HB McLain was at
the time of the first shot. Now, this view right here represents that moment. The
equivalent of Zapruder frame 160. The limousine is here on Elm Street. HB McLain
is back here on Houston Street, about 170 feet from the pink circle. So, in fact, HB
McLain is not where the acoustics evidence predicted he was. And therefore the
acoustics evidence is invalid.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The committee's acoustic findings were rejected by the FBI and by an
independent panel from the National Academy of Sciences. The three scientists who
presented the evidence supporting a fourth gunshot declined to be interviewed for
this program. The House Select Committee tried, as the Warren Commission had
tried, to convince most Americans of what really happened in Dealey Plaza. They
both failed. For millions of people, the man with the answer would be the Hollywood
filmmaker, Oliver Stone.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In 1991, the movie director, Oliver Stone, introduced a whole, new
generation to the Kennedy assassination. No book or television program, no
investigation has done more to promote the idea of conspiracy than Stone's "JFK."
Kevin Costner plays the District Attorney in New Orleans, Jim Garrison.
Kevin Costner
Actor, as Jim Garrison
President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy that was planned in advance at
the highest levels of our government. And it was carried out by fanatical and
disciplined cold warriors in the Pentagon and CIA's covert operation apparatus.
Among them, Clay Shaw, here before you. It was a public execution. And it was
covered up by like- minded individuals in the Dallas police department, the secret
service, the FBI, and the White House, all the way up to, including J. Edgar Hoover
and Lyndon Johnson, whom I consider accomplices after the fact.
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
Stone has convinced me that the most powerful historians of the 20th century are
filmmakers. It is those images that we remember. And most Americans know of the
Kennedy assassination through Oliver Stone's mind and Oliver Stone's images.
Actor
Do you realize that you're damaging the credibility of the country, possibly destroying
it?
Kevin Costner
Actor, as Jim Garrison
Let me ask you, let me ask you, is the government worth preserving when it lies to
the people?
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The film makes a hero out of Jim Garrison, who was the DA in New
Orleans from 1962 to 1974.
Oliver Stone
Director
He is the only public offiCIAl who did bring a prosecution in the murder of John
Kennedy. I think he should be applauded for being the first person in the United
States to say the Warren Commission was wrong.
Jim Garrison
District Attorney
Philosophically, this is a conflict of truth versus power.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Garrison was widely regarded by many who knew him as unethical and
even cruel. And obsessed with proving a conspiracy, regardless of the evidence.
Jim Garrison
District Attorney
I certainly wouldn't say with confidence that we would make arrests and have
convictions afterwards if I did not know that we had solved the assassination of
President Kennedy, beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Milton Brener
New Orleans Assistant Distract Attorney, 1962 - 1963
You see, when a public offiCIAl says something, people assume that he knows what
he's talking about. And Garrison would frequently say such things that "it's obvious,"
or "I'm absolutely convinced," or "I know," and people say, "well, he must know what
he's talking about."
Jim Garrison
District Attorney
We are going to obtain many convictions in this investigation, because we have
found out what happened.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Garrison promoted himself as the only one brave enough to pursue the
truth in the face of a Federal government bent on burying the facts of the
assassination. He said he was uncovering a web of conspiracy with many plotters,
with complex motives to kill the president.
Jim Garrison
District Attorney
Shots from the front in the Grassy Knoll area, where there's a picket fence, where
several of them were. And the stone wall where there were three of them behind the
stone wall.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But in the end, Garrison put only one man on trial.
Reporter
Arrested this evening in the District Attorney's office was Clay Shaw, age 54, of 1313
Dauphine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Mr. Shaw will be charged with
participation in a conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy.
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
(Voice Over) Clay Shaw was a prominent civic leader. His arrest stunned New
Orleans.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Clay Shaw
Accused Civic Leader
I've always had only the highest and utmost respect and admiration for Mr. Kennedy.
The charges filed against me have no foundation in fact or in law. I have not been
apprised of the basis of these fantastic charges and assume that in due course I will
be furnished with this information and will be afforded an opportunity to prove my
innocence.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Garrison never explained to the public why Shaw might have wanted to
kill the president. He never explained Shaw's alleged role on November 22nd and
rested his entire case on the testimony of a troubled 25 year-old insurance agent
from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Perry Raymond Russo.
Perry Raymond Russo
Insurance Agent
No, I can't talk about this now.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Russo was prepared to testify at trial that while he was visiting the
apartment of a friend, David Ferrie, He witnessed Lee Oswald, Clay Shaw, and
Ferrie plotting to kill the president. When David Ferrie died of natural causes, Russo
was left as the only witness to this alleged conspiracy.
Milton Brener
New Orleans Assistant Distract Attorney, 1962 - 1963
Ferrie was dead, Oswald was dead. Whoever else was there was gone. Perry
Russo was the only one who could place, supposedly, Clay Shaw in that room when
assassination was being discussed.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But Russo's testimony was a lie. And Jim Garrison knew it. A polygraph
techniCIAn for the New Orleans police department, Ed O'Donnell, gave Russo a lie
detector test.
Ed O'Donnell
Polygraph Technician
I asked him, "Did you ever see Clay Shaw at Dave Ferrie's apartment?" He said,
"Mr. O'Donnell, I don't know." I said, "What do you mean, you don't know?" I said,
"Perry, Mr. Shaw is a tall, distinguished- looking man. If he was there, you would
know it." I said, "Now, was he there or wasn't he? Give me a yes or no answer." He
said, "If I have to give you a yes or no answer, it would be, no, he was not there." It
really, it just hit me like a sledgehammer. When I told Garrison this, Garrison went
into a rage, I mean, just absolute rage, hollering and screaming, that he sold out to
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
something, I walked out. At the end of that, I said no way can Garrison ever take
Clay Shaw to trial. No way. His only witness, star witness, was just lying.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) But Garrison did put Clay Shaw on trial. And Russo was his star
witness. It took 54 minutes for the jury to decide that Russo's testimony and
Garrison's case were baseless.
Salvatore Panzeca
Defense Attorney for Clay Shaw
It's very sad what happened here in New Orleans, where an innocent man was
prosecuted for a crime he did not commit. What Jim Garrison and his staff did will go
on, will go into history, I guess, as one of the great injustices of the legal system in
this country.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The entire sorry episode was fading into well-deserved obscurity when
Oliver Stone's film resurrected Garrison as an American hero. In Stone's film,
Garrison is meant to represent all those who advocate conspiracy.
Oliver Stone
Director
Jim Garrison is a metaphor. He's the protagonist. I tried to put all the researchers
from the '60s and '70s and the '80s into Jim's case. I took that liberty, that's dramatic
license.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Dramatic license to Mr. Stone, something more sinister to others.
Jack Valenti
Aide to President Johnson, 1963-1966
This was a package of unfathomable lies, packaged together, though, with a cinema
artist's great skill. It was a blending and a m'lange of real photographs and fictional
scenes, merged together with such skill that you were unable to tell the difference.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The film also takes dramatic license, as Mr. Stone would put it, with
several fundamental facts that are beyond dispute.
Actor
Oswald was at best a medium shot. The scope was defective on it, too. I mean, this
is the whole essence of the case to me. The guy couldn't do the shooting. Nobody
could. And they sold this lemon to the American public.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) Fact, the distance from the sniper's nest in the window to the president
in the car at the time of the fatal shot was 88 yards. For a former marine
sharpshooter, which Oswald was, the shot was well within his capability.
John Lattimer, MD
Author, Kennedy and Lincoln
Well, I have here Oswald's scorebook from the marine corps, where he, when he did
his practicing with this, more or else the same kind of rifle that he used against
Kennedy. He demonstrated that he was highly competent as a marksman. For
example, here is the type of target, which is shaped very much like the head and
shoulders of President Kennedy, sticking up above the rear seat of the car. And this
is at 200 yards, which is more than twice the distance of Dallas. And it's rapid fire,
which certainly was true in Dallas. And he scores 48 out of a possible 50, which I
can tell you is excellent. Well, you say that's one day, well, here's another one.
Same thing, 200 yards, twice the distance, and rapid fire. And he scores 49 out of a
possible 50. So he was not only a very good shot at this long distance, but he was
consistent.
Actor
They're telling us that Oswald got off three shots, with world class precision, from a
manual, bolt-action rifle, in less than six seconds. And according to his marine
buddies, he's got Maggie's drawers. Ya know what that means? He wasn't any good.
The average man would be lucky to get two shots off. And I tell ya, the first shot
would always be the best. Here, the third shot's perfect.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The Stone film is wrong. The first shot was fired around frame 160 of
the Zapruder film, the second at frame 223 and the last shot at frame 312. Three
shots in 8.3 seconds, for Oswald, that was plenty of time. Dr. Lattimer has simulated
the Kennedy shooting dozens of times. He is 89 years old.
John Lattimer
Author, Kennedy and Lincoln
This is exactly like the gun that Oswald used. Since he got his shots off in 8
1/2seconds, I'll show you that it's possible to come close to that. And here we go. So
we'll sight in our telescope and get off one shot and then a second and then a third.
Taking a little more time for the last one, as he did.
Kevin Costner
Actor, as Jim Garrison
The magic bullet enters the president's back, headed downward at an angle of 17
degrees. It then moves upwards, in order to leave Kennedy's body from the front of
his neck, wound number two, where it waits 1.6 seconds, presumably in midair,
where it turns right, then left, right, then left, and continues into Connally's body at
the rear of his right armpit, wound number three.
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The single bullet that struck President Kennedy and Governor Connally
did not hang in midair. It did not zig-zag right and then left. It went straight through
the president and into the governor. In the Stone film, diagrams have Governor
Connally sitting directly in front of the president, facing forward at the time of the
second shot. Not true. The governor was sitting six inches inboard from the
president and turned sharply to his right. The Stone film also shows the two men
sitting at the same height. Not true. The governor was three inches lower than the
president, on a jumpseat. When the men are seen in their correct positions, it
becomes clear. There was nothing magic about this bullet at all. This is Warren
Commission exhibit 399, the bullet that passed through the president's neck and the
governor's chest, that broke the governor's wrist and lodged in his left thigh. It was
found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. In Stone's film, it is referred to as the
pristine bullet. There is no way, the Stone film says, that the bullet could have
caused so many wounds and come out at the end virtually unmarked.
Robert Dallek
Author, "An Unfinished Life"
The problem was that people were denying that there was any damage. They were
calling it pristine. And it's absolutely, positively not pristine. It's flat.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) According to the Stone film, the so-called "pristine" bullet was planted
on a hospital stretcher by Jack Ruby as part a conspiracy to frame Oswald, but lead
fragments from the bullet were found in Governor Connally's wrist, and the bullet
was fired from Oswald's rifle.
Larry Sturdivan
Ballistics Expert, House Select Committee
In fact, the microscopic scratches that were made as this bullet spun down the rifle
barrel, exactly matched that of the test bullet that was fired from Oswald's rifle. This
proves conclusively that the stretcher bullet was fired from this same rifle, the
Oswald rifle, that was found on the sixth floor of the depository.
Kevin Costner
Actor, as Jim Garrison
This is the key shot. The president going back and to his left, shot from the front and
right, totally inconsistent with the shot from the depository. Again, back and to the
left, back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) "Back and to the left." For some conspiracy theorists, this is proof that
the president was shot in the head by a second gunman who was ahead of the
president's car on the Grassy Knoll. But "back and to the left" in no way indicates
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
where a bullet came from. Bodies struck by bullets sometimes go forward and
sometimes backward.
Evan Thomas
Author, "Robert Kennedy"
The evidence that's definitive in determining whether it was a shot from the front or a
shot from the back is the entry wound, the cratered entry wound on the back of
Kennedy's skull, which proves that that shot was from the back, not from the front.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) This is the president's position at the moment before he was hit the
second time. His autopsy x-rays and photographs show the precise location where
the fatal bullet entered the back of his head. Shooting from the Grassy Knoll, it would
have been impossible to hit the president in the back of the head. From the sixth
floor window of the Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald had a direct shot.
Salvatore Panzeca
Defense Attorney for Clay Shaw
I think the young people of this country, bright and intelligent people believe
everything that was said in the movie. And that's sad.
Michael Beschloss
Author "The Crisis Years"
The problem that I and most historians would have with Oliver Stone is not his talent,
he's a wonderful filmmaker, but that he's used this to put certain myths into the
American bloodstream that abide to this day.
Kevin Costner
Actor, as Jim Garrison
Do not forget your dying king. Show this world that this is still a government of the
people, for the people and by the people. Nothing, as long as you live, will ever be
more important. It's up to you.
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) The real Jim Garrison never made this speech.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In the wake of Oliver Stone's "JFK," there was much greater pressure
on the government to release all the records it had about the Kennedy
assassination. In 1992, Congress established the assassination records' review
board, with the power to unseal and declassify thousands of documents from the
CIA and the FBI, the Warren Commission, the files from the House Select
Committee. Millions of pages were made public for the first time. At the National
Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy
Archives, people pore over these documents, looking for that one piece of evidence
that will answer the question for them, "Who was behind the assassination?"
Robert Goldberg
Author, "Enemies Within"
Every effort was made to turn out the material that existed. Did that end the
conspiracy thinking? The answer is absolutely not, because what the conspiracy
theorists said is, "Well, we see all this information. But what are they still hiding?
What are they still hiding? Because they're still hiding the truth."
Peter Jennings
(Voice Over) In all these years, there has not been a single piece of credible
evidence to prove a conspiracy.
Hugh Aynesworth
Reporter, the Dallas Morning News, 1960-1966
Have to admit to you, at the beginning, I did think it was a conspiracy. But when you
honestly take a look at it, you honestly pursue every avenue, at some point, you
have to be honest with yourself. I don't care how much you want it, believe it, feel it,
whatever else. At some point, you have to say, there is no evidence.
Robert Dallek
Author, "An Unfinished Life"
I know that millions and millions of people in this country believe there was a
conspiracy. People want to believe that the world is not that random, that things are
not that chaotic. That something larger, bigger, was at stake here. Because I think
it's very difficult for them to accept the idea that someone as inconsequential as
Oswald could have killed someone as consequential as Kennedy.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Peter Jennings
Those of us who have worked on this project know that millions of people, all these
years later, still have a hard time accepting that it was Oswald alone. William
Manchester, who wrote "Death of a President," identified this yearning for a better
answer. "If," he says, "to use an odd metaphor, you put six million murdered Jews on
one side of the scale and the Nazi regime on the other, you have a rough balance,
greatest crime, greatest criminals. But if you put the murdered president on one side
of the scale and that wretched waif, Oswald," as Manchester calls him, "on the other,
it doesn't balance. You want to add some weight to Oswald. It would invest the
president's death with meaning. Kennedy would have died for something."
Manchester says, "A conspiracy would do the job nicely." I'm Peter Jennings. Good
night.