Original subtitles

November the 22nd, 1953,

Dallas, Texas, 12 .30 in the afternoon.

Everyone knows where they were when they hear that John F. Kennedy, America's

most charismatic president, has been shot while his motorcade passed through

Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Three or four shots ring out, and America's 35th president has been shot.

Who wanted to assassinate America's youngest ever president?

November the 22nd, 1963,

Dallas, Texas.

President John F. Kennedy has just been shot.

His car is now heading at top speed for the Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Six minutes later, the stricken president is being worked on by a team

desperate to revive him.

At this stage, no one is sure whether he will live or die.

January the 20th, 1961, Washington, D .C.

Since being sworn in as U .S. President, aged just 43, Kennedy has made a great

many friends.

But he has also made a number of powerful and dangerous enemies.

They all regard him as a threat and would be happy to see him dead.

When Kennedy wins the election in November 1960 by the narrowest of

he's not only the youngest ever president, He's also the first Roman

This does not sit easily with the American Bible Belt, particularly in the

southern states.

Kennedy is also regarded as a liberal, something which does not go down well

with the country's more traditional elements.

But if a terribly wounded president hovers between life and death in a

hospital, the prime suspects can be narrowed to four far more deadly groups.

First off is the Mafia.

One of the new president's most important backers during his election

was his father, Joseph.

And this in itself would place him in grave danger.

An immensely wealthy, self -made businessman with interests in banking,

property, movie -making and liquor importing, Kennedy Sr.

the one -time U .S. ambassador to Great Britain, is ruthlessly ambitious to see

his family in power.

And he doesn't much care how he does it, or who he involves.

Following the end of Prohibition, a 13 -year -long nationwide ban on alcohol in

1933,

Kennedy Sr.

is believed to have consulted with a number of leading mafia figures.

He will maintain these contacts.

So in the 1960 presidential election, desperate to ensure victory for his son

any price, Kennedy is alleged to have done a deal with Chicago mafia boss Sam

Giancana.

He asks the mobster to fix the vote in some of the city's more marginal wards,

thus ensuring Kennedy wins the Illinois nomination, a traditional swing state.

But, or so the story goes, once Kennedy is installed in the White House, his

father refuses to pay Giancana,

The Mafia leader is incandescent with rage.

He swears that one day he'll get even.

The second powerful group who represent a dangerous threat are the people

heading the Teamsters, the giant US trucking trade union.

One of Kennedy's first and most critical appointments as president was that of

his younger brother, Robert, as U .S. Attorney General.

Convinced that Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster's leader, is corrupt and

-in -hand with the Mafia, the young Kennedy goes after him with a vengeance.

He's determined to see Hoffa put away behind bars.

Who did he talk to? Who else did he talk to in making this report to you?

I assume the people who were involved.

At the same time, Robert Kennedy cracks down hard on organized crime in general.

He does this with the active support of his brother, the president.

The Mafia's hatred of the Kennedys is compounded by the failure of a CIA

invasion of Cuba in April 1961.

When Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba two years earlier, one of his first acts

was to take over the mafia -controlled gambling industry.

The mafia hope that if Castro is toppled, they can resume their lucrative

activities on the island.

But the invasion is a disaster.

The fury of the mafia knows no bounds.

Now they begin to think the unthinkable, assassinating the president.

With him out of the way, they reason, Robert Kennedy would back off from his

fight against organized crime and leave them alone.

The third U .S. group who feel they have good reason to hate the president are

the white segregationists and ultra -right -wing conservatives in America's

southern states.

They're angered by Kennedy's enthusiastic backing of Martin Luther

civil rights leader, as well as his general support for the complete

emancipation of black Americans.

Lastly, the fourth group who could have been out to get Kennedy were communist

-backed sympathizers.

They hate him for humiliating Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the eyes of

world when he forces him to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis in

1962.

The people who now want Kennedy dead are well -financed. They also have a long

history of organized violence and a reputation for skillfully covering their

tracks.

Most successful Mafia hits have been carried out by contract killers.

while the people employing them and giving the orders have cast -iron

For instance, when, on February 14, 1929, seven men were shot to death in a

Chicago warehouse in what became known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the

man behind it, notorious mobster Al Capone, was a thousand miles away at his

home in Miami, Florida.

The attempt on Kennedy's life in Dallas, 34 years later, would be no different.

By November 1963,

President John F. Kennedy is busy campaigning for a second term in office.

He's particularly anxious to pick up votes and tap into election funds in oil

-rich Texas.

But in order to do this, he needs to raise his profile and be seen on the

ground.

So he decides to make a personal visit to Dallas, a city he'd failed to win in

the 1960 election.

His aides are deeply concerned.

Dallas is a hotbed of crime and violence, with more than a hundred

having been committed in the previous ten months. But Kennedy won't listen.

Another headache for those responsible for the president's safety is that he

insists on taking his wife, Jackie.

He knows everyone will want to see her, and that her undoubted glamour and charm

will reflect well on him.

November 22nd, 1963, Dallas, Texas.

As the President and the First Lady arrive in Dallas, surprisingly, only

-weight security precautions are put into effect, so it's impossible to check

everything and everybody.

A short time later, Kennedy's motorcade is moving slowly along Main Street,

Dallas. It's 12 .28 p .m.

The president, accompanied by his wife and Texas Governor John Connolly,

together with his wife, Nellie, is riding in an open -top Lincoln

limousine.

At 12 .29 p .m., the motorcade turns right into Houston Street.

After a short distance, the vehicles turn left into Elm Street.

The president is now on his way through Dealey Plaza, heading for an underpass

at the end.

From there, much to the relief of his anxious security detail, it's a straight

run to the Dallas trademark, where he's due to make a speech.

Kennedy's car is now just 65 feet from the Texas Book Depository, which

overlooks the route.

His car is traveling at 11 miles an hour.

A little further ahead... A man is standing between the depository and the

of the underpass.

He's focusing a home movie camera at the president's car, which is coming

towards him.

His name is Abraham Zafruder, and what he's about to film has been the subject

of controversy, argument and conjecture ever since.

As the car passes the depository, Kennedy suddenly jerks and clutches his

He's heard to say, my God, I'm hit.

He's been shot.

Governor Connolly, who is sitting in front of Kennedy, is then struck in the

shoulder.

There's another shot.

This hits Kennedy in the back of the head, violently throwing him forward.

A split second later, the president's head jerks back as he's struck in the

right temple, shattering his skull.

Now, as Jackie screams, oh, my God, they've killed Jack, they've killed my

husband, the car and its stricken occupant races at full speed for the

Memorial Hospital, where it arrives six minutes later.

Connolly will survive.

But it's too late to save the president, and at 1pm he's pronounced dead.

Meanwhile... Police flood the book depository when a witness reports seeing

man running from the building immediately after the shooter.

They soon come across a high -velocity rifle, as well as three spent cartridges

lying near a window on the sixth floor.

Meanwhile, another witness says that earlier she'd seen a man carrying a

narrow case disappear behind some bushes on a grassy knoll on Elm Street.

Fifteen minutes after Kennedy dies, a police officer, J .D. Tippett, is shot

dead in full public view as he approaches a man who fits the

person running away from the book depository.

His killer then ducks into a nearby movie theatre.

Half an hour later, police drag him out. He's 24 -year -old Lee Harvey Oswald,

and he's been working at the book depository for the last month.

Then his palm print is found on the stock of the rifle recovered earlier.

Oswald had once been a sharpshooter in the U .S. Marines.

It's beginning to look like an open and shut case.

In fact, it's anything but.

November 22, 1963,

Love Field, Dallas, Texas.

Watched by Jackie, still wearing a blood -spattered suit, Kennedy's vice

president, Lyndon B. Johnson, is sworn in as his successor.

The president's body is then flown to Washington, D .C.

A few hours later, Oswald is charged with his murder.

November 24, 1963, Dallas, Texas.

As Oswald is being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail,

man rushes forward and shoots him with a revolver at point -blank range.

Oswald dies a short time later.

His assailant is Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner.

He says he did it for Jackie.

November 25, 1963, Washington, D .C.

More than a million people line the streets of the nation's capital as

funeral procession passes by.

November 29, 1963, the White House, Washington, D .C.

Lyndon B. Johnson, the new president, sets up a commission to investigate the

circumstances surrounding Kennedy's assassination.

It's headed by U .S. Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The commission reports back to the president towards the end of September

following year.

After weighing the available evidence and interviewing around 190 witnesses,

commission concludes that Kennedy was killed by just one man, Lee Harvey

with two out of three shots fired from the Texas book depository.

And there the matter might have rested, except, despite the commission's

findings, a great many people refused to believe that Oswald acted alone.

Skeptics immediately see the Warren Commission report as a whitewash.

put into effect merely to give public relations closure to the alarming

alternative conclusion that the nation's presidents were now being decided by

organized crime, or the Russians.

What most Americans prefer to believe is that there was more than one killer

lying in wait for John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza back then.

Some of the most detailed accounts of the assassination of President Kennedy

were published not long after the event.

Their authors appear convinced that the audio and ballistic evidence points to

three assassins, not one.

One of the most compelling is Six Seconds in Dallas, a book written by Dr.

Josiah Thompson, an American university professor, in 1967, just four years

after the event.

He claims that Kennedy was targeted by four shots, not three, as the record

shows.

By minutely studying each frame in the 22 -second film shot by Abraham Zapruder

in Dealey Plaza, as well as news footage and photographs,

Thompson states emphatically that the first and second shots were fired from

sixth -floor window of the now -famous Texas Book Depository.

According to Thompson, Kennedy's car was passing the depository, heading towards

the underpass and away from the lunchtime crowds, when he's hit by a

which appears to have been emptied of some of its powder.

This low -powered bullet struck his back before lodging in soft tissue near his

throat. However, no one found it during the subsequent autopsy.

It could have worked free when he was undergoing emergency cardiac massage,

because a relatively undamaged bullet was apparently discovered on a stretcher

trolley after Kennedy's body was removed from the hospital.

The second bullet to strike Kennedy hit him in the right rear side of his head

and left a huge hole, which was identified when doctors pieced together

fragments of his skull at a hastily conducted autopsy in Dallas.

However, a third bullet also hit the president almost simultaneously,

his head at the front right -hand side, leaving a large exit hole in the back of

his skull.

The brain and bone matter from his skull was later found behind his car in the

road. This appears to suggest the fatal shot would have had to have come from

his front right side.

But according to Thompson, there were four shots.

So where were they fired from, and by whom?

He appears convinced that the first and second shots came from the sixth floor

of the book depository on Elm Street.

The third shot, the one which fatally wounds the president, is apparently

from the Dallas County Records building on Houston Street.

Then the fourth comes from what's described as the graphy knoll on Elm

where a woman reported seeing a man carrying a long, narrow case.

It's also alleged that one of the three spent cartridges found on the floor in

the book depository is a plant.

So, Thompson claims, if two shots were fired from the depository and two more

from separate locations, then there must have been three gunmen.

He also cast doubts on Oswald being the depository sixth floor shooter, despite

his palm print found on the rifle.

True, Oswald was in the building at the time.

But as Thompson points out, his avowal that he was in the canteen on the first

floor, not the sixth, might well be true.

Dealey Plaza appears to be the perfect killing zone.

It is a lot smaller and more compact than it looks in photographs.

The first bullet which hit Kennedy, as corroborated by subsequent audio

of the rifle shots, struck him at a very steep angle.

This angle seems much steeper than would be possible had the shot been fired

from the sixth floor window in the book depository.

In fact, it is quite likely that only one bullet fired from the famous window

actually hit Kennedy.

If there was time in the six seconds between the first and last shot to fire

again, It seems probable that the second shot from Oswald's Mannlicher -Caucano

telescopic -fighted sniper rifle probably passed through the limousine

the nearside curb on Main Street.

So, suggests Thompson, the high shot which struck Kennedy from the steep

could only have been fired from the top of the County Records building, or the

Daltex building on Houston Street.

Both are higher than the window in the Texas Book Depository and slightly to

right.

As the second bullet strikes the back of Kennedy's head, the force of the impact

throws him forward.

Then suddenly his head is jerked violently backwards, suggesting he's

struck again, but this time to the front and to the side of his head.

Such a shot, according to Thompson, must have come from an assassin in front or

to Kennedy's right side.

The only vantage points which could provide this angle of shot would be a

railway bridge over the underpass, where there were sightseers, or a car park

behind the fence on the grassy knoll to Kennedy's right.

This would be a sniper's ideal position.

The actual shooting spot is covered by trees, and a parked car could easily

obscure the loading of a rifle.

As this likely shot is heard, many people in the thin crowd turn towards

grassy knoll and run to see where the shot had come from.

They report seeing and smelling cordite.

Footprints are found where an assassin might have stood, making maximum use of

this vantage point.

Other suspicious characters carrying strange -looking long packages were

apparently seen leaving the Daltex building in a great hurry shortly after

shooting. jumping into cars and speeding off.

All of the things that suggest that Oswald was not working alone.

This is given particular credence by the fact that as the entire shooting had

allegedly taken only six seconds, the chances of one man loading and aiming

accurately and hitting his target three times seem virtually impossible.

And when Oswald's rifle is tested later by an expert FBI marksman, he fails to

emulate the alleged rate of fire.

So it might well be that Oswald was indeed a patsy, as he protested at the

He was obviously in the depository, and his palm print was found on the rifle.

But what is far from clear is whether or not he actually pulled the trigger.

This could mean Oswald had an accomplice.

or that he really was downstairs in the depository canteen, as he claimed, and

that someone else fired the fatal shot.

It's reported that suspicious characters were seen leaving the depository just

after the shooting.

So perhaps Oswald was indeed a safe patsy, who was simply framed by highly

experienced hitmen, three of whom fired the actual three shots which killed

Kennedy.

There is no doubt that Oswald shot and killed police officer Tibbetts later

day when making his escape.

Maybe he's also guilty of shooting Kennedy.

And did he have one or more accomplices who have never been identified?

The mystery deepens when the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby is brought into the

equation.

Ruby, a small -time nightclub owner, is believed to have had mafia connections.

Might he have been ordered to guarantee Oswald's silence by killing him?

If so, it seems a remarkable sacrifice because Ruby would receive a death

sentence, later commuted to life when convicted of murder in March 1964.

Controversy and speculation has now surrounded the assassination for more

40 years.

In April 2007,

An exhaustive 1 ,600 -page book entitled Reclaiming History, written by US

attorney Vincent Bugliosi, dismisses pretty well all the conspiracy theories

concludes that Oswald acted alone.

The following month, researchers writing in the US journal Annals of Applied

Statistics argue that it cannot be assumed that Oswald was the only

By analysing bullets from the same batch apparently used by Oswald, and by

applying scientific techniques not available at the time, they suggest the

might be revealed once and for all if fragments from the original bullets

in Dealey Plaza are re -examined.

In later years, a prominent but unnamed mafia leader from Florida claimed

responsibility for setting up the Kennedy shooting.

He did not live for very long.

Certainly a large number of material witnesses died or disappeared after the

assassination. This implies considerable planning and organization.

It's even suggested that the actual assassins were probably eliminated,

the trail to go cold.

It's since been left to conspiracy theorists to scrutinize the available

evidence in order to prove the case one way or the other.

This was an archetypal... Modern assassination, carried out in the full

film and television cameras.

And with such a charismatic target, the mystery will probably go on forever.