The late Jim Garrison's book "On The Trail Of The Assassins" was in
large part the basis for Oliver Stone's 1991 motion picture "JFK",
which is a film containing so many lies, half-truths, and
misrepresentations of the facts surrounding John F. Kennedy's 1963
assassination, it's literally difficult to keep up with all of them.
I cannot watch one single scene of Oliver Stone's film without finding
some distortion of the evidence in the real JFK or J.D. Tippit murder
cases. Some are small things being distorted; and some are great big
ones. One example (among dozens) being: Oliver Stone's version of shoe
clerk Johnny Brewer's testimony re Lee Harvey Oswald's manner of dress
when Brewer encountered Oswald shortly after Oswald had shot and killed
policeman Tippit.
Stone, in his film, has Oswald (Gary Oldman) wearing a jacket as he
enters the Texas Theater and is seen by Brewer....and in one of the
movie's "Deleted Scenes" (on the DVD version of the film), Kevin Costner
(playing Garrison) even does a voice-over (lie) re Brewer's testimony,
with Costner saying "Brewer said the man was wearing a jacket".
Brewer, in reality, said exactly the opposite during his Warren
Commission testimony:
Mr. BELIN -- "Will you describe the man you saw?"
Mr. BREWER -- "He was a little man, about 5'9", and weighed about 150
pounds is all. ... And had brown hair. He had a brown sports shirt on.
His shirt tail was out."
Mr. BELIN -- "Any jacket?"
Mr. BREWER -- "No."
Another interesting part of the Tippit portion of the movie "JFK" is
Oliver Stone's Audio Commentary during this part of the film, which is
riddled with inaccuracies. Stone has the audacity to spout the
following lie re the Tippit shooting on the DVD's Commentary
soundtrack:
"Not one credible witness has really identified Oswald as a single
shooter [of Officer Tippit]. In fact, the only significant testimony
applies two to three shooters." -- Oliver Stone
Therefore, per Mr. Stone (and Garrison said pretty much the same thing
years earlier), the "only credible" witness must have been Acquilla
Clemmons, who, as far as I am aware, was THE ONLY witness who ever said
there was more than one person involved in the Tippit slaying.
Stone, like Jim Garrison before him, would simply rather believe his
OWN version of events, rather than the multiple witnesses who never saw
more than one shooter (with that one single shooter being positively
identified as Oswald by said witnesses).
It's interesting, indeed, that Stone thinks the "only significant
testimony" re the Tippit crime came from Clemmons. Whereas, people
like Markham, Tatum, and Scoggins (who were all closer than Clemmons to
the scene of the murder) are deemed less "significant", merely, no
doubt, because they don't fit into Stone's (or Garrison's) conspiracy
landscape surrounding the murder.
I wonder if people realize just how many outright lies are contained in
Oliver Stone's 3-hour, 15-minute motion picture? The number is simply
staggering. And that number of distortions is increased considerably on
the DVD version of the film, when the Audio Commentary Track by Mr.
Stone and all of the "Deleted and Extended Scenes" are included as
well.
And a great deal of this deliberate misinformation put forth on the
movie screen came directly out of this book authored by Jim Garrison.
Another great place to see more of Mr. Garrison's skewed views of the
JFK case is to read Garrison's 1967 Playboy Magazine interview. Like
Stone's movie, that Playboy article will keep you busy as you try to
keep up with the inaccurate things Garrison keeps saying in that
lengthy piece.
Selected examples of Mr. Garrison's paranoia and loony-toon conspiracy
talk, taken from his Playboy interview, are provided via the quotes below.
My own rebuttal arguments follow each quote:
"Though he [Oswald] may not have known why he was instructed to do so, this was undoubtedly why he got the job at the Texas School Book
Depository Building. The conspirators knew this would place him on the
scene and convince the world that a demented Marxist was the real
assassin." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
The above Garrison gem totally distorts (or just flat-out ignores) the
true and documented facts about how Oswald got his job at the
Depository in mid-October of '63. It was suburban Dallas housewives
Linnie Mae Randle and Ruth Paine who were directly responsible for
placing Lee Harvey Oswald in the TSBD, by way of ordinary
garden-variety happenstance.
Garrison must, therefore, believe that Mrs. Paine, who arranged
Oswald's job interview with Depository boss Roy Truly, was one of the
main "conspirators" who was setting up Oswald to take the fall for
JFK's murder the following month (which would also have to mean that
Paine had detailed knowledge of the President's motorcade route more
than a month before November 22). Garrison must also think that Roy
Truly was a big part of the patsy plot, because it was Mr. Truly who
actually hired Oswald (even though nobody was holding a shotgun to
Truly's head forcing him to hire Lee).
The commonly-held belief that Lee Oswald was "placed" in the Texas
School Book Depository by evil plotters prior to 11/22/63 is a desperate
attempt by conspiracists like Mr. Garrison to attach unprovable and
unsupportable conspiratorial "strings" to a random event that involved
several individuals...individuals whose collective and synchronized
actions could not possibly have been foreseen and controlled by a
group of behind-the-scenes conspirators.
---------------
"Anyone who takes the time to read the Warren Report will find that of
the witnesses in Dealey Plaza who were able to assess the origin of the
shots, almost two-thirds said they came from the grassy-knoll area in
front and to the right of the Presidential limousine and not from the
Book Depository." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
This is pure nonsense. There were, indeed, several witnesses who said
they heard shots coming from in front of JFK's car, but Garrison has
severely skewed the stats to support his claim of Knoll shooters. His
"almost two-thirds" figure is not even close to being accurate when
talking about the number of witnesses who said they heard frontal
shots. And even amongst other CTers, virtually no other pro-conspiracy
author has ever rigged those stats in such an out-of-whack manner.
The fact is that more than half of all earwitnesses heard shots coming
from the direction of the Book Depository, and not from the Knoll. And
an even more illuminating statistic reveals that less than 5% of all
earwitnesses heard shots from more than just a single general location
(front vs. rear). That stat speaks volumes....because even CTers admit
to SOME rear shots.
An interesting tabulation of this data can be found HERE.
---------------
"The second shot struck the President in the back; the location of this
wound can be verified not by consulting the official autopsy report,
but by perusing the reports filed by two FBI agents who were present at
the President's autopsy. Both stated unequivocally that the bullet in
question entered President Kennedy's back and did not continue through
his body." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
Therefore, Mr. Garrison is, in essence, saying that he is much more
likely to trust the word of FBI agents (who, of course, were not
doctors and were not conducting the President's autopsy) rather than
take the word of the three physicians who each signed the official
autopsy report. After all, why believe the autopsy doctors when you
COULD just trust as Gospel the word of a bystander? ~sarcasm alert~
Plus: Why didn't these two FBI agents get the conspirators' memo which,
if CTers are right about the success of the Patsy Plot, must have been
passed out to nearly everyone in Officialdom on 11/22, a memo that
probably said: "Attn. All Agents -- We're framing Oswald tomorrow; so
remember to falsify as much evidence as humanly possible to ensure
conviction of patsy".
Evidently some people who needed to see it never received that
important document.
---------------
"We have also located another man who was not involved in the shooting but created a diversionary action in order to distract people's
attention from the snipers. This individual screamed, fell to the
ground, and simulated an epileptic fit, drawing people away from the
vicinity of the knoll just before the President's motorcade reached the
ambush point." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
Yet another outright lie from the lips of District Attorney Garrison.
The man who had the so-called "simulated epileptic fit" was fully
identified by the FBI on May 26, 1964. His name was Jerry Belknap,
a 23-year-old man who had regularly suffered from fainting spells
after being hit by a car several years earlier.
Contrary to popular belief, however, Belknap's fainting spells were
probably not related to any form of epilepsy. [See Commission
Document 1245; Pages 9-10.]
Commission Document #1245 also indicates that Belknap paid
his $12.50 ambulance bill on December 2, 1963.
Would a conspirator have come forward in order to pay that
ambulance bill? And would a conspirator have given his real
name, running the risk of possibly being exposed?
As a footnote to the Belknap story, here's a quote from Vincent Bugliosi:
"With forty-four years to investigate Belknap, I'm still waiting for conspiracy
researchers to connect him with the plot to kill JFK. Maybe they haven't had
enough time yet to get to the bottom of it." -- Vince Bugliosi; Page 24 of
"Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)(c.2007)
---------------
"President Kennedy was killed for one reason: because he was working for a reconciliation with the U.S.S.R. and Castro's Cuba. His assassins were a group of fanatic anti-Communists with a fusion of interests in preventing Kennedy from achieving peaceful relations with the Communist world." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
Any solid, verifiable proof of such accusations, Mr. Garrison? Any
physical evidence whatsoever that shows JFK was killed by more than one
gun? .... The answers to those two questions are: No and No.
But the lack of physical evidence never stopped a hard-boiled conspiracy
theorist. That's been proven over and over again by a vast assortment
of conspiracy nuts who have more theories up their sleeve than a dog
has fleas.
---------------
"In summation, there were at least five or six shots fired at the
President from front and rear by at least four gunmen, assisted by
several accomplices. At this stage of events, Lee Harvey Oswald was no
more than a spectator to the assassination -- perhaps in a very literal
sense. James Altgens snapped a picture that shows a man with a
remarkable resemblance to Oswald, standing in the doorway of the
Depository. The Altgens photograph indicates the very real possibility
that at the moment Oswald was supposed to have been shooting Kennedy, he may actually have been standing outside the front door watching the motorcade. .... I don't believe that Oswald shot anybody on November 22nd -- not the President and not Tippit." -- Jim Garrison; 1967
It seems as though these devilishly clever conspirators forgot one
important thing when they were setting up LHO -- they forgot their
brains. For, who WITH brains would allow their lone "Patsy" to casually
drift outside and be photographed and seen by countless witnesses when
the plotters need to have Lee Harvey on the 6th Floor at 12:30?
According to Garrison's account of Oswald possibly being "Doorway Man",
evidently the real assassins were indeed brainless and lacked the common
sense to keep Oswald where he wouldn't be able to establish a credible
alibi for his 12:30 whereabouts.
Just think about these Garrison remarks for a moment longer too -- "At
least five or six shots were fired at the President from front and rear
... by at least four gunmen".
Doesn't a "4-Shooter, 6-Shot, 1-Patsy" assassination plot seem a bit
unlikely to anyone else but this writer? Would any professional killers
actually attempt to "frame" a lone fall guy in that type of overkill
fashion? In my opinion, no pro hit men would go about the complicated
task of setting up Oswald (or anybody else) in such a needlessly
reckless way.
A single "pro" hit man could (and would) have easily killed JFK with
one or two shots (probably just one) from Oswald's "nest", without the
need to clog the works with needless back-up gunmen hiding all around
Dealey Plaza.
There is no possible way the conspirators could have ensured the
success of a multi-shooter plot to frame JUST Oswald in the minutes
during and after the shooting. No way. There are way too many
uncontrollable factors that could block the success of that One-Patsy
venture that Jim Garrison placed his faith in.
"Uncontrollable" items such as:
1.) A frontal shooter might very well have been seen by witnesses (and
to think that EVERY witness under the sun could be easily "bought",
"taken care of", and/or coerced by these plotters is, again, just too
much wishful thinking on the conspirators' part, IMO).
2.) A frontal shooter might strike other occupants in the car, or
strike somebody else in Dealey Plaza. But even if ONLY Kennedy is hit
by a frontal gunman, there are massive problems to be "corrected" by
the conspirators....bullets to be hidden and, of course, who knows how
many obvious frontal wounds on the victim to be (somehow) eliminated --
and eliminated immediately before any non-conspirators can spill any
beans. .... Only a person straight out of the booby hatch could believe
that anyone, regardless of "power" or "pull", could get away with such
a thing. It's just plain loony.
3.) The one "Patsy" (Oswald) could have easily, by pure accident and
happenstance, established a perfect alibi for himself at the time when
he was supposed to be on the 6th Floor shooting the President (as Mr.
Garrison apparently DID think occurred, with Oswald being seen in a
photo taken as the bullets were flying; even though all reasonable
researchers know full well that "Doorway Man" was actually Billy
Lovelady, and not Oswald; Lovelady even testified to that effect in
1964). ....
Plus -- If Oswald had really been in that doorway at 12:30, WHY ON
EARTH DIDN'T HE SAY HE WAS THERE?! If he's got an ironclad alibi like
that, why wouldn't he use it? Instead, he says not a word about being
outside on the steps at 12:30, and even tells the police a provable lie
re his whereabouts (the lie about "having lunch with Junior [Jarman]"
at the time of the shooting). How much sense does that make if Oswald
had really been in the Depository doorway? ....
And the very fact that Oswald did NOT have a usable, provable alibi for
exactly 12:30 PM is absolutely remarkable IF he had really been
wandering around on the lower floors of the Depository (or was outside
the building), as many CTers firmly believe; and even the most rabid of
conspiracy theorists have got to admit, that from the "CT/Patsy" POV,
Oswald's not having a usable/believable/solid alibi is certainly, by
far, the biggest piece of LUCK in the whole "Patsy Plot". ....
These amazing Patsy Plotters just lucked out, evidently, in that Oswald
was not seen by a single person inside or outside the TSBD at precisely
the time of the assassination -- except by Howard Brennan, Ron Fischer,
and Robert Edwards, of course, who saw Oswald or a nicely-arranged
Oswald "imposter" in the Sniper's Nest at 12:30 or just seconds before
12:30.
4.) And the likelihood that all of the non-TSBD bullets are going to
somehow get swept under the rug is extremely remote, especially in a
Bob Groden-like scenario. Mr. Groden (per his book "The Killing Of A
President"), incredibly, thinks it's very likely that ZERO of the shots
that were fired at President Kennedy came from Oswald's sixth-floor
window, out of up to TEN shots that Groden thinks were fired that day
in Dealey Plaza, with ALL of those gunshots coming from rifles other
than the one rifle the idiot plotters were attempting to frame Oswald
with! Could Groden's scenario BE any more reckless and preposterous?!
I doubt it.
5.) And a biggie, that most CTers evidently don't think could have ever
happened before 12:30 on November 22nd -- The one Patsy (Mr. LHO)
could "get wise" to the plot that is brewing all around him and take
measures to guarantee he could never be blamed for the actual
assassination of John Kennedy.
When thinking about any "Frame Lee Oswald As The One Patsy" plan, I
just cannot visualize any professional assassins (even for a minute)
contemplating the use of multiple shooters; let alone some gunmen
firing from the Grassy Knoll, i.e., the exact opposite direction from
where their single dupe is supposed to be located.
---------------------
As the previously mentioned quotes from the mouth of Mr. Garrison amply demonstate, if anyone has a desire to set out "On The Trail Of A Lunatic Conspiracy Theorist" -- look no further than Earling Carothers (Jim) Garrison.
David Von Pein
February 2006
June 2010
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (APRIL 15, 2006)
