Original subtitles

[melancholy music]

[gunshot echoing]

[melancholy music]

MALE REPORTER: There's Mrs. Kennedy, and the crowd yells.

And the President of the United States.

The President is up to the fence now, shaking hands with people,

the president and his wife.

This is great for the people and makes the eggshells even

thinner for the Secret Service, whose

job it is to guard the man.

[mysterious music]

BRADLEY KIZZIA: I think probably a lot of people who weren't

around at the time probably don't realize that on November

22, 1963, there was no federal law prohibiting

assassination of a president.

And so the whole thing became a disaster,

because Kennedy had rescinded the original edict that

the B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua,

and he was going to, quote, "cut the CIA or break the CIA

into a thousand pieces."

So this was, again, great motivation

on the part of the CIA to try to eliminate John F. Kennedy.

The House also found that the Mafia

had the motive, the means, and the opportunity

to kill President Kennedy.

They were clearly the leading suspect.

MARK LANE: For more than one year after those

shots were fired, not one word, not one word of dissent,

not one word of question was permitted on a single radio

or television network show.

Not one word.

Believe what you will about the JFK assassination,

who perpetrated it, what the reasons were, et cetera,

believe what you will, you've got

to be honest in saying that the Warren Commission was

just totally inept.

JOSIAH THOMPSON: This whole case is like this, folks.

Everywhere you look, you pull on any single thread,

any single fact, and you're soon besieged with a tangle

of subsidiary questions.

You can find features in the Zapruder film

that substantiate the analysis I've been

giving in frame 313, 314, 315.

Of course, you see Jack reacting by falling to the left

and to the rear, as though he had been hit by a shot

from in front.

Oh, I think he's a man that planned this murder weeks

or months ago, and has laid his plans carefully and carried them

out, and has planned at that time what he

was going to tell the police that

are questioning him at present.

The question is not, can you get off

three shots in 5.6 seconds or 8 seconds

or any other number of seconds?

The real question, and the one that they never ask

is, can you get off those first two shots in 1.6 seconds?

[gunshot echoing]

MALE REPORTER: It appears as though something has happened

in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

NARRATOR: November 22, 1963, a date

that is etched into the memories of most Americans.

Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, the 35th President of the United

States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was assassinated in broad

daylight in front of hundreds of spectators who

had turned out to greet him.

This program will present various theories

about what may have happened in Dealey Plaza that day,

a day that forever changed history.

For years, many investigators have painstakingly

reviewed volumes of documents in the National Archives

and available evidence to try and piece

together credible solutions to the JFK assassination.

However, more than 40 years later, many disputes about what

really happened still remain.

In 1964, a formal government investigation

into the assassination was conducted

by the Warren Commission, chaired by Supreme Court Justice

Earl Warren.

Their findings indicated three shots by a lone assassin,

Lee Harvey Oswald, fired from the 6th floor of the Texas

School Book Depository.

The first shot hit JFK and Texas Governor John Connally.

The second shot missed.

The third shot was a fatal head shot on JFK and the term "single

bullet theory" was born.

However, many Americans did not believe the original government

position supplied by the Warren Commission of a single assassin.

In 1978, the US House Select Committee on Assassinations

conducted an investigation that determined that four

shots were fired by two gunmen.

One of the shots coming from the grassy knoll area, which

would indicate a conspiracy.

Over the last four decades, as many as 80% of Americans

do not believe in the Warren Commission

findings of a single gunman and no conspiracy.

Many independent investigations have

led to numerous assassination theories

about what really happened the day JFK was killed.

The JFK Assassination Theories Program

will cover the main credible assassination theories

and let you decide.

Theory 1, the Warren Commission Report, the JFK

was killed by a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.

MALE REPORTER: It appears as though something has happened

in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

And we agreed with the Warren Commission, bottom line,

the Warren Commission that determined that the only shots

fired came from the Book Depository 6th

floor window where Oswald was.

NARRATOR: Theory 2, the JFK was killed

by a CIA/Mafia conspiracy.

[tense music]

I think the government is, for whatever reasons,

and I think it's obvious to me that they're

covering up something here.

As people have said in this case for many, many years,

if Oswald did it and did it unaided by himself,

what is there to cover up?

Why wouldn't you release everything?

If you had no confederates and no affiliations

with the Cuban government, the Soviet government,

our government, why not release all this information if that's

all it's going to show?

NARRATOR: Theory 3, the Soviet Union/KGB investigation.

[tense music]

ILYA SEMYONOVICH PAVLOTSKY [INTERPRETED]:

Kennedy was shot by a professional assassin hired by

French and Vietnamese agents.

Our group found that the Corsicans hired French hitman

Michel Mertz sometimes known as Jean René Soutre,

to carry out the assassination with the cooperation

of the American Mafia bosses.

NARRATOR: Theory 4, JFK was killed by Mafia hitmen.

PIERCE ALLMAN: There were three loud, reverberating explosions.

Nobody moved.

Everyone seemed stunned.

A few seemed to look around, wondering

who has the firecrackers.

They'll never forget the afternoon that Nicoletti said,

"well, James, we are going to have a big job down in Dallas."

It comes down to the crucial moment in time,

and it's not clear at all to Files

that there's been any major hit.

So he knew that it was his job for a headshot.

NARRATOR: Theory 5, JFK was killed by a CIA/Cuban

exiles conspiracy.

[tense music]

Kennedy did the deal with Castro following the Cuban

Missile Crisis that where we agreed

or the United States agreed that we

would not continue our attempts to overthrow Castro.

I think that as far as the Cuban exiles in the United States

that were working with the Mafia and the CIA,

that was what led them to just turn around these assassination

teams they already had trained and ready to go

to use against President Kennedy, sad to say.

NARRATOR: Each theory has some merit, but it is up to you

to decide what really happened on November 22, 1963.

[film projector whirring]

[snare drums beating]

In 1963, the Soviet Union and the United States

had begun a working relationship.

President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev

installed a direct hotline between Washington and Moscow

to establish better communications

between the two superpowers.

On the home front, President Kennedy

wanted to begin his quest for re-election

by doing political fence-mending among leading Texas

Democratic members.

Some Dallas Conservatives objected

to Kennedy's peace acts, labeling him

weak and a Communist Liberal.

Because of this, Kennedy's aides were

against him making this trip.

But Kennedy enjoyed public appearances

and wanted to win the confidence of Texas voters.

Upon their arrival in San Antonio,

the President and Mrs. Kennedy were joined by Vice President

Johnson and Governor Connally for a motorcade

through the city.

After speaking at a dedication, Kennedy and his party

flew onto Houston for another motorcade

and speech at Rice University Stadium,

followed by a dinner reception.

In Texas and the nation, change has been the law of life.

Growth has meant new opportunities for this state.

Progress has meant new achievements,

and we dare not look back now.

NARRATOR: In Dallas, anonymous handbills

designed to look like FBI wanted posters

began appearing on the streets.

The handbills used two photos of the President

in full face and profile, with the caption

"Wanted for Treason."

Before leaving the hotel, Kennedy

noted that if anybody wanted to shoot

the President of the United States,

it wouldn't be a difficult job to do.

[gunshot]

The presidential party arrived at Love Field

around 11:22 in the morning.

MALE REPORTER: --and the President of the United States.

[crowd cheering]

And I can see his suntan all the way from here.

NARRATOR: Because President Kennedy wanted

to be able to wave to the crowds along the route,

the protective bubble on top of his limo was not installed.

According to plan, the motorcade slowly

moved West down Main Street, passing cheering Texans

on sidewalks and onlookers waving from windows

and tall office buildings.

At the corner of Houston Street, the motorcade slowed to make

a 90-degree left-hand turn onto Elm,

moving past the Texas School Book Depository

and then the grassy knoll.

Pleased by the warm reception, Mrs.

Connally turned to President Kennedy and said,

"Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you."

[gunshots]

In the front seat, Agent Roy Kellerman heard a sound

like a firecracker, and the president saying,

"my god, I am hit."

Governor Connally thought he was mortally wounded and cried,

"my god, they are going to kill us all."

Mrs. Kennedy saw her husband's skull blown

open by the bullet's impact.

Just after President Kennedy was hit by the fatal headshot,

Special Agent Hill jumped up from the follow-up car

and ran to the presidential limo.

Hill recalled Mrs. Kennedy turning around

to reach for a portion of her husband's brain tissue

from the car's rear bumper, but Hill

pushed her back onto her seat.

The presidential limousine then accelerated quickly

and raced to Parkland Hospital.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

You'll excuse the fact that I'm out of breath,

but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing,

from all indications at this point,

has happened in the city of Dallas.

Let me quote to you this, and I'll-- you'll excuse

me if I am out of breath.

A bulletin, this is from the United Press from Dallas.

"President Kennedy and Governor John Connally

have been cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas.

They were riding in an open automobile

when the shots were fired."

NARRATOR: Motorcycle Police Officer Bobby Hargis,

riding to the rear passenger side of the president's car,

was sure the last shot came from a short, sloping hill referred

to as the "grassy knoll."

Running up the hill, Hargis was followed

by a crowd of about 200 witnesses,

who responded spontaneously.

Among the first to reach the top were Dallas Police officers.

Others were met by men flashing Secret Service credentials, who

told them to leave the area.

Patrolman Mary Ann Baker also heard the shots

and observed pigeons scattering into the air

from the roof of the School Book Depository.

Baker rushed into the building and was met by building

superintendent Roy Truly.

Running up the stairs, they encountered employee Lee

Harvey Oswald in the 2nd floor snack

room with a bottle of soda.

Truly identified Oswald as an employee,

and he and Baker continue to the upper floors.

Within that time frame, about two dozen people in Dealey Plaza

were rounded up and questioned in the aftermath

of the shooting.

[melancholy music]

At 1:00 PM, President Kennedy was pronounced dead.

WILBORN HAMPTON: I have just talked

to father Oscar Hubert of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

He and another priest told me that the pair of men

have just administered the last rites of the Catholic Church

to President Kennedy.

I asked the Father, "is Mr. Kennedy dead?"

And his quote, "he's dead, all right."

And just a few seconds ago, I talked

to Theran Ward, the Justice of the Peace of Garland.

He's now here at the hospital to apparently officially declare

that the Chief Executive of the United States has expired.

President Kennedy has been assassinated.

It's official now.

The president is dead.

[melancholy music]

NARRATOR: Aboard Air Force 1, Vice President Johnson was

sworn-in as the 36th President of the United States,

with his wife and Mrs. Kennedy at his side.

This is a sad time for all people.

We have suffered a loss that cannot be waived.

For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy.

I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs.

Kennedy and her family bear.

I will do my best.

That is all I can do.

I ask for your help, and God.

NARRATOR: In Dallas, police discovered what they described

as a sniper's nest on the 6th floor of the Texas

School Book Depository.

At the opposite end of the room, police later found a rifle,

which was identified as a 7.65-millimeter

Mauser with a telescopic sight, along with two bullets.

The description of the Mauser was later

changed to a 6.5-millimeter bolt action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

A third bullet was later found nearby.

About 40 minutes after the assassination and several miles

away, Dallas Police Officer JD Tippit

was shot to death in the Oak Cliff section of town.

At about this same time, a short distance away,

Oswald was seen entering the Texas Movie Theater.

Police were called to the theater where

they confronted Oswald inside.

He was arrested at around 1:50 PM and taken to the Dallas

Police Department.

MALE REPORTER: Here comes Oswald down the hall again.

Did you buy that rifle?

I don't know what dispatches you people have been getting,

but I emphatically deny these charges.

MALE REPORTER: Oswald is hustled through a doorway.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD: I have not committed any acts of violence.

MALE REPORTER: He says he has nothing against anybody.

He has not committed any act of violence.

Oswald makes this claim as he is hustled

from the interrogation room.

NARRATOR: The rifle discovered on the 6th

floor of the depository was traced back to Oswald.

Late on Friday evening, Lee Harvey Oswald was questioned

at a press conference.

Jack Ruby attended the conference,

standing only a few feet away with a loaded gun in his pocket.

Did you kill the president?

No, I have not been charged with that.

In fact, nobody has said that to me yet.

The first thing I heard about it was

when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.

You have--

- Nobody's said what? - Sir--

- You have-- - Nobody's said what?

NARRATOR: On Sunday, November 24,

Oswald was to be transferred from the Dallas jail

to the county jail.

Oswald walked from the elevator in the presence

of over 70 uniformed police officers,

numerous reporters, and a television audience of millions.

[overlapping conversation]

[gunshot]

[oswald grunting]

Jack Ruby stepped out.

[gunshot]

And shot Oswald once firing into his abdomen.

Is this a confirmed report as to who did the shooting?

MAN [ON PHONE]: As far as I know,

I just got it from Vic Robertson.

Vic Robertson from City Hall reports

that Jack Ruby, the owner of the Carousel, which is a bar

in Dallas, did the shooting.

That's a report from City Hall.

NARRATOR: At 1:07 PM, Oswald was pronounced

dead at Parkland Hospital.

Within an hour of Oswald's death,

the Dallas Police announced the case was closed.

[film projector whirring]

Here's a piece of copy that was rushed to me

and was torn off from the United Press in Dallas.

President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas,

has been shot in Dallas, Texas.

He was shot as the motorcade--

NARRATOR: Through the unblinking eyes of television,

people of all races joined together in witnessing

a terrible chapter in history.

An Associated Press photographer James Altgens,

A-L-T-G-E-N-S, reports he saw blood on the president's head.

The AP man said he heard two shots

but thought someone was shooting fireworks until he

saw the blood on the president.

NARRATOR: The Kennedy assassination

was the first event in American history

that we can call a collective experience.

Millions across the nation mourn.

Most Americans were not satisfied

with the official position of Oswald as the lone killer.

On November 29, 1963, one week after President Kennedy's

murder, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11130

for the purpose of creating a presidential committee

to investigate President Kennedy's assassination.

Politically, it made sense for Lyndon

Johnson and the government to put something together.

However, in December of '63, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

had put together their report on the assassination

that they submitted to Johnson.

And there was a lot of pressure from Hoover to President Johnson

to just accept that report from the FBI and release it.

But Johnson and his aides felt that they needed to come up

with some independent, bipartisan committee,

meaning the Warren Commission, to evaluate the evidence

and look into it.

NARRATOR: Johnson personally chose seven members

to undertake a formal investigation

into John F. Kennedy's death.

The bipartisan blue ribbon panel was

headed reluctantly by Chief Justice Earl

Warren of the US Supreme Court.

Though he didn't want to take on the responsibility

for the investigation, Johnson persuaded him to do

it for the good of the country.

As the Chief Justice told us, the president said there

is unrest around the world.

There are questions as to whether the Soviets might

have been involved, whether the Cubans might have been involved.

And it was a matter that the President urged

the Chief Justice to undertake.

The Chief Justice told us, "I said to the president,

I can't do it because the case might come before the court

and I have very heavy duties."

And then, according to Chief Justice Warren,

President Johnson said, "if the commander-in-chief asked you

to put on the uniform of your country in time of national

emergency, would you decline?"

And Warren said, "at that point, I couldn't say no.

So I said yes."

And he undertook the assignment.

NARRATOR: President Johnson told the nation

that the Warren Commission would evaluate all the facts

and circumstances surrounding the Kennedy

assassination, and also the murder of alleged assassin, Lee

Harvey Oswald.

The group would then report their findings and conclusions

directly to the president.

The commission was to be assisted by all branches

of the federal government.

Behind closed doors, they worked for 10 months,

relying on the FBI and CIA to do their investigating.

The Warren Commission Report was presented on September 24, 1964.

It was immediately backed by the press.

This is the building that the witnesses

said they had seen a man up there and some with a rifle.

And also we found some empty rifle shells on the 5th floor.

So he would have been directly above us?

Directly above us.

Indications were that he had been there for some time.

NARRATOR: The summary of the findings

were: President Kennedy was struck by two rifle

shots fired from behind him.

The shots striking President Kennedy came from the 6th floor

window of the southeast corner of the Texas

School Book Depository.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine,

owned the 6.5-millimeter bolt action Italian-made World War II

surplus Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was used to fire the shots

from the 6th floor window.

Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the assassination,

had access to and was present on the 6th floor of the Texas

School Book Depository.

Lee Harvey Oswald's other actions

supported the conclusion that he, a lone, nut gunman,

assassinated President Kennedy.

GARY MACK: There is evidence that there is more to it

than just Lee Harvey Oswald.

And in fact, when you talk to the investigators,

the ones who were involved in the original investigation

in 1963 and 1964, what you find is it wouldn't surprise them

if someday it came out that Lee Harvey Oswald had

some kind of assistance, whether it was a getaway car,

or he was going to meet somebody in some other city,

that wouldn't surprise them.

The problem is, there just is no hard evidence

that there was a conspiracy.

So there's a difficult part, because there certainly

is a lot of evidence indicating that Oswald really did do it.

The question is, what did he do?

NARRATOR: The Commission concluded

that there was no evidence whatsoever that anyone else was

involved, or that the assassination

was the result of any conspiracy,

either foreign or domestic.

The Commission's most detailed witness was Howard Brennan,

who sat about 120 feet away from the 6th floor window.

He was described as 5' 6" to 5' 8", slight build,

brown hair, having on a jacket, white shirt, and dark trousers.

NARRATOR: Later that evening, Brennan singled out

Oswald in a police lineup as the person who most resembled

the man in the window, but he was unwilling to make

a positive identification.

As the president was coming down from Houston Street

making his turn, it was about a halfway down there,

I heard a shot.

And he slumped to the side like this.

Then I heard another shot or two,

I couldn't say whether it was one or two,

and I saw his head practically open up, all

blood and everything, and I kept on shooting.

[film projector whirring]

NARRATOR: No one anticipated the film by an ordinary bystander,

Abraham Zapruder, which showed the sequence of shots

during the motorcade route.

[film projector whirring]

GARY MACK: Just an amazing film, and as

intriguing and as important as it is, the problem with the film

is you can use it to prove most anything you want.

That fatal shot to the President's head

is clearly one bullet, but you can't tell when

the other shots were fired.

There's no specific movement or action or reaction

in the film that tells you when the first shot was fired

or the second shot.

It was clearly crucial to investigators' understanding

of what happened, but it also leaves

other questions unanswered.

NARRATOR: After viewing the film and to account for only one

assassin, the Commission needed to demonstrate

how only three shots were fired from above and behind the limo.

The first shot struck both Kennedy and Connally.

In order to make that first bullet account for seven wounds,

two on Kennedy and five on Connolly,

Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter came up

with the single bullet theory.

Arlen Specter put together a hypothetical question which

was as long as many paragraphs.

Assuming the gunman was standing where Oswald was, basically,

a certain distance away, and the bullet was going this fast,

and the bullet didn't hit any bone on the way through,

is it possible, is it at all possible

that the bullet could have exited from the throat

and caused that wound?

Actually, the question was even longer than that.

So it was a very hypothetical, lengthy question.

And under those very, very specific circumstances,

the Dallas doctors said, yes, it was possible.

And the 399 matched ballistically to that gun.

KENNETH A. RAHN: The pristine bullet, when you look at it

this way, it looks pretty good.

When you look at it this way, it is anything but.

Vice-like forces had to deform this end.

It was used for 50 years routinely

in Africa, before the assassination,

for hunting elephants.

Folks, if it can hunt an elephant,

it can pass through two men, especially

when the first passage doesn't hit anything,

doesn't hit any bone.

ARLEN SPECTER: And that was the essential beginning

of what I had, at first, said was the single bullet theory.

And when ABC, on a re-examination,

they came to the conclusion that it was a single bullet fact.

That bullet came out of that Mannlicher-Carcano

rifle by all ballistic standards then and now.

I don't know exactly how long he's been under question.

It's been intermittent.

It has not been continuous.

NARRATOR: The Commission also concluded that Oswald lied

to the police after his arrest.

According to their research, Oswald

had tried to assassinate Major General

Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963.

The commission reasoned that this murder

attempt showed Oswald's tendency to disregard human life.

Witnesses at the Tippit shooting also positively identified

Oswald as the killer, and cartridge casings at the scene

matched Oswald's revolver.

As a result of these findings, the Commission

concluded that 45 minutes after the president's assassination,

Oswald killed Officer Tippit.

The Tippit killing is a real mystery,

and it's one of those unsolved portions

of this case that has just a lot of questions

about what really happened.

The official record is that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the officer,

took off his jacket, and fled to the Texas

Theater, where he went in without paying

and got arrested there.

Tippit was shot four times, three in the chest,

once in the right temple.

According to the commission, Oswald was responsible.

This led to a massive response in force by dozens of police

vehicles and many officers, who, during

their apprehension, called out, "kill the president, will you?"

When they-- when we came through the door with Oswald,

they begin taking their pictures.

And in the ensuing time that they

were snapping pictures and talking,

I saw this man come from the crowd.

And at the time he emerged from this crowd of people,

he was not more than 6 or 7 feet from us, from me.

And I dare say that had I known that he was going to be there,

the swiftness with which it happened,

I doubt if anyone could have prevented it.

NARRATOR: The Commission also reasoned that Jack Ruby

killed Oswald out of empathy for the slain

president and his family.

They found no evidence linking Oswald to Ruby.

The Commission concluded, as you know,

that Ruby did not have anything to do with the assassination.

The events at the Dallas Police Station

were bizarre, to say the least.

And you know his explanation that he wanted to be a hero.

And you can draw your own conclusions

as to the validity of it when we were flying back

to BWI the next day, Bill Herndon

said to me that he thought Ruby was telling the truth when he

said that he had no connection with Oswald

and was not part of any conspiracy.

NARRATOR: Based on their findings,

the members of the Warren Commission

felt the case was closed.

I think had there been a conspiracy,

we would have come to light a long time ago.

My experience is that nothing stays secret in our society.

And somebody would have told him about it a long time ago.

Everything falls in place.

The physical evidence is cemented

into an impregnable wall.

It remains highly unlikely that there's anything

material left to be discovered.

We are dealing, folks, in my opinion,

with 40 years of failed speculation.

It's enough.

It is time to admit that there was no conspiracy,

and it never was any compelling evidence for it.

The real story of the assassination,

one misfit guy, a cheap but effective rifle, a good vantage

point, and some luck.

It's over.

And it's inconceivable to many people that one nobody,

one nutty person, Oswald, could single-handedly kill a president

of such great stature.

And I think that fits into our concepts of conspiracy theories.

There's got to be a lot of people involved to hurt a hero.

[film projector whirring]

The most shocking and disappointing aspect of the case

was the lack of thoroughness and completeness

of what the Warren Commission had done.

It's mandated to tell the truth to the American people,

and our government investigates.

I cherish our government.

I'm a believer in our system, and I have spent my career

supporting our system.

And as someone who serves in the government,

both as an assistant district attorney

and as a mayor of a city and on a city council,

it's incumbent upon representatives of the people

to tell the people the truth.

And Warren Commission didn't do that.

And that, to me, is terribly regrettable.

The American people were absorbed by television coverage

of the assassination that day, which reported two shots, one

to the throat, the other to the right

temple, which blew out the back of the president's skull, which

had been fired from in front.

When the Warren Commission was released,

however, those trajectories had been reversed,

and now the only shots that had been fired

had come from above and behind.

ZACK SHELTON: How can the head of the world's best law

enforcement agency, by the end of the day,

make the comment that we have the lone assassin, Lee Harvey

Oswald?

Having worked big cases, having worked murders, and particularly

on this one, it would take weeks, maybe months

to really know the truth.

And this man is already saying we have him.

Disregard everything else, we have him.

NARRATOR: But was the case really closed?

Most of the public never thought so.

The House of Representatives acknowledged the demand

by creating another panel, the House Select

Committee on Assassinations.

From 1976 to 1979, they conducted

a second hearing into President Kennedy's assassination.

The House Committee tried to track down his every,

I should say, aspect of the investigation

into the assassination of President Kennedy.

And that included an analysis of the Warren Commission

to determine, from our point of view, what the evidence was

to support it, if any, and the culpability, if any,

of Lee Harvey Oswald.

There were no preconceptions in our minds

whether or not it was Oswald and he did it alone,

as the Warren Commission found.

Or it was Oswald with others, or Oswald

had nothing to do with it, and others may have been involved.

So we had a clean slate with respect

to the manner in which we approached this.

We also checked out leads with respect

to so-called organized crime involvement and any other group

or organization, foreign or domestic,

that we were able to get involved in during the months

that we were investigating the assassination

s of President Kennedy.

NARRATOR: Representatives from both the CIA and the FBI

admitted in sworn public testimony to the HSCA

that both organizations withheld evidence

from the Warren Commission that would have led

to the findings of conspiracy.

It is very clear that both the CIA and the FBI

had very good reasons to try to mislead the Warren Commission.

And I found it interesting that Senator Specter, who's,

of course, the senator now from Pennsylvania, who wrote

a book, Passions for Truth,indicated clearly

that in his own team that here it was,

Allen Dulles, who had previously been head of the CIA,

had misled the Warren Commission,

and that J. Edgar Hoover had withheld information.

I don't know if you need any more information than somebody

on this so-called other side.

NARRATOR: In 1979, the HSCA issued

its report reversing the Warren Commission's findings.

Based on scientific acoustical evidence,

the HSCA concluded that President Kennedy had probably

been killed by a conspiracy involving another gunman

on the grassy knoll.

And then as the car got directly in front of us

with a gunshot apparently from behind us, hit the president

in the side of the temple.

Do you think the first gunshot came from behind you, too?

I think it came from the same location,

apparently back up on the knoll--

I don't know what you call it.

For the benefit of nomenclature,

all you folks have gone out under the viaduct.

And as you turn going under the viaduct on the left-hand side,

there's some grass.

Do you think the shot came from up on top of the viaduct

toward the president. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

No, not on the viaduct itself, but up

on top of the hill, a little mound of ground near the garden.

NARRATOR: The afternoon of the shooting

at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the doctors were interviewed.

Malcolm Perry, in particular, a specialist

in ear, nose and throat, had performed a tracheostomy.

He actually made a very faint incision through the throat

wound, and he told the press three times

that afternoon that the wound appeared

to be an entrance wound.

In other words, the shot to Kennedy's throat

appeared to have been coming from the front.

So he said that three separate times.

Went into trauma room 1, and when I pushed the door

open, I immediately saw that there

were a number of other people, physicians,

who had arrived before me.

And in fact, Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter

had already begun performing the tracheostomy on the president

when I entered the room.

And I walked by the cart, the gurney that he was lying

on where they were working on him,

and walked around to the side and Dr. Perry said, "Bob," said,

"if you would go to the head of the cart,

I'd like to hand you a retractor and get you to retract

the wound here so we can see we're having

a little trouble seeing."

So I was only about maybe 12 to 18 inches above the wound,

so I could see directly into the wound.

I got, I think, the best view of the wound of anybody.

Other people in the room were not as close.

They were moving around and doing other things.

And I was just staring into the wound.

NARRATOR: The former Warren Commission evidence was

found to have discrepancies.

Autopsy photos and x-rays differed

from those seen by Parkland Hospital Memorial

staff and the autopsy doctors.

I pleaded with Professor Blakey, who was the Chief

Counsel of the House Assassinations Committee,

to please show the Dallas doctors the autopsy photographs

and get their comments.

For two solid years, he refused to do it.

In the end, he never did, so I did.

I took my copies.

I showed them to them.

And every single one, not one, not two, more than 20,

have said that the photographs that show the rear of the head

intact are forgeries.

That is not the way the president's head looked.

It was obvious that it was a very large and undoubtedly fatal

wound.

It was difficult to judge the size of it exactly,

but it was in the back and side of the head, as I'm

indicating here with my hand.

And it probably involved the area

that I'm showing with my hand.

Although the actual hole in the skull itself

was difficult to judge its size, I

would say it's probably was, oh, something like

2 or 3 inches in size at least.

And that may be underestimating it.

That fatal shot was fired from the front.

There's no question about it.

The autopsy picture showed it, and that's

why they were suppressed and kept from public view.

There's no question at all, not just in my mind,

but in anybody's mind.

It became clear to me that I didn't

want to be part of a historical investigation that

would be anything less than 100% disclosure

to the American people.

The House Assassinations Committee came very

close to finding the truth.

And they could have.

If Richard Sprague had stayed there,

they would have found the truth.

Even when Richard Sprague had left,

Robert Tanenbaum, who took over as the temporary chief counsel,

was doing a remarkable job.

Remarkable.

He called me into his office one day and said,

"Robert, you were right."

I said, "about what?"

He said, "this conspiracy goes to the highest

levels of government, and we're going

to blow them out of the water."

And he meant it.

Had he stayed, he would have done it.

NARRATOR: A further investigation into President

Kennedy's assassination was recommended,

but nothing was ever done.

All official records have been sealed from public view

until the year 2039.

This is the most important murder in our history.

Why can't we see what's happening?

Every word taken was marked top secret.

They worked in absolute secrecy, to their shame

and to the degradation of the media.

All of the media, not one representative

of a media outlet in America, said there's

something wrong with this.

I wonder who, in fact, decides who reads unredacted documents.

I never saw one document that in any way

not only should never have been redacted, but in any way

should have been preserved for the year 2080 or whatever.

What kind of show is that?

What are they afraid of?

There are no sources and methods.

This was a murder case.

The only source and method we would have found out

is who, in fact, killed the president.

And that's what we were supposed to do.

NARRATOR: Despite the report of a probable conspiracy,

the members of the Warren Commission

stand by their original decision,

that President Kennedy's assassination

was accomplished by a lone, nut killer, Lee Harvey Oswald.

It became the first time in history

that two different official governmental reports existed,

each contradicting the other.

There is something that is so appalling and disgusting

about this continuing acceptance of the Warren

Commission as an entity.

The fact of the matter is, believe

what you will about the JFK assassination, who perpetrated

it, what the reasons were, et cetera, believe what you will,

you've got to be honest in saying

that the Warren Commission was just totally inept.

NARRATOR: As the vast majority of Americans believe,

perhaps the answer lies in the beliefs supporting a conspiracy.

Well, as I've said many times in the past,

and it's just as true now as it ever was,

it may be too late for justice in this case,

but it's never too late for the truth.

[film projector whirring]

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill,

that we shall pay any price, bear any burden,

meet any hardship, support any friend,

oppose any foe to assure the survival

and the success of liberty.

NARRATOR: The CIA/Mafia conspiracy, a theory suggesting

that President John F. Kennedy was

killed by operatives of the Central Intelligence

Agency and the Mafia.

Prior to JFK's inauguration, the CIA

had entered into a secret contract

with members of the Chicago Crime Syndicate.

What you have to understand is that prior to November 22, 1963,

the mob were in bed with CIA.

Years before, they connected through a guy

by the name of Robert Mayhew, who was a former,

or let's say, a retired FBI agent that put the Chicago

mob together with the CIA and came up with the operation

to kill Castro.

Through that relationship, the plans

were made for the execution of the president

on November 22, 1963.

NARRATOR: The CIA had already been

successful in plotting to overthrow other

foreign leaders in the 1950s.

But, you know, it was loose cannon, to put it mildly,

for the CIA to be able to do whatever they damn well pleased.

And there's no question about the fact

that they were directly involved with the assassination

of heads of state.

It is clear that this nation, in concert

with all the free nations of this hemisphere,

must take an ever closer and more realistic

look at the menace of external Communist intervention

and domination in Cuba.

The American people are not complacent about Iron

Curtain, tanks, and planes less than 90 miles from their shore.

NARRATOR: After the Bay of Pigs fiasco,

President Kennedy then took all covert military actions away

from the CIA.

He put them under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

and shut down most covert operations against Cuba.

JOHN R. HUGHES: Well, this was Kennedy's big problem,

and it was a big embarrassment to him.

So what do you do but blame somebody else,

you blame the CIA.

So this was, again, great motivation

on the part of the CIA to try to eliminate John F. Kennedy.

NARRATOR: On October 3, 1963, Arthur Krock of The New York

Timeswrote, "if the United States ever experiences

an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government,

it will come from the CIA.

The agency represents tremendous power and total

unaccountability to anyone."

President Kennedy was also intensely hated

by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who served as FBI director

since its inception.

J. Edgar Hoover, who served for nearly five decades

as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

had a sordid and tawdry career, running the FBI virtually

as a private police force.

The man was not above a blackmail and eavesdropping

and wiretapping and other surreptitious methods

within the United States, regardless

of their degree of legality, to extend his influence

over American life.

NARRATOR: During the Kennedy administration,

Hoover realized that he would be forced

to take a mandatory retirement after the 1964

presidential election.

Hoover also despised Robert Kennedy, who was

his boss as attorney general.

J. Edgar Hoover had reached the age

of retirement, proper age of federal retirement.

And the Kennedys, of course, despised J. Edgar Hoover,

particularly John Kennedy, because J. Edgar had

learned about his love affairs.

And so he even had lunch with him to say, "listen,

I know about your love affairs, and you want to be

careful that I may expose you."

So here was J. Edgar Hoover and his dislike,

intense dislike, and hatred toward the Kennedys,

and they were going to remove him.

NARRATOR: The ties between Hoover and the Mafia

were strong.

Although Hoover couldn't stop Robert Kennedy's Mafia

prosecutions, after President Kennedy's death,

the prosecutions of Mafia figures

dropped to almost nothing.

If you watched the mob and if you watched as far

as investigations against them, the only time

they were really hurting and they were being looked at

is from 1960 to 1963.

And that was by Robert Kennedy.

Upon the death of JFK, basically, the day

after, all the heat was off of them and the heat

was not back on until after J. Edgar Hoover died.

NARRATOR: After the assassination,

Hoover said to his friend Billy Byars Jr.,

"if I told you everything I know,

it would be very dangerous to this country.

Our whole political system could be disrupted."

The alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald,

was presented as a lone nut, but actually had ties

to the intelligence community.

In fact, Oswald was an ex-Marine and trained

intelligence operative.

The perfect choice for a patsy.

Oswald even recognized he was being set up.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD: No, they're taking me in because of the fact

that I lived in the Soviet Union.

I'm just a patsy.

Whatever role Oswald may have played,

we didn't find significant evidence that would establish

a case, let's put it this way, to prove

beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

So it was very questionable the evidence against him

that the Warren Commission had laid out.

There were a lot of explanations for questioning the evidence.

The palm print on the rifle, for example, the Mannlicher-Carcano

that was allegedly found in the Depository,

the single bullet that went through the President

and Governor Connally.

There are substantial questions that

exist when you carefully analyze the evidence against Oswald.

And at the time that I was on the committee,

it was clear that many of us believed

that the evidence was lacking with respect

to Oswald as the sole gunman.

NARRATOR: How does this conspiracy

tie back to the Mafia?

One obvious link is the hidden background

of Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby.

Ruby was a shadowy underworld figure

who grew up working for Mafia leader Al Capone in Chicago.

Now, Jack Ruby certainly worked for organized crime.

I mean, going back to the 1930s, he was arrested for the murder

of a man named-- or involvement in the murder of a man named

Leon Cooke, the secretary of the Garbage

Handlers Union in Chicago.

Well, he was held and eventually released.

And very soon after that, he left Chicago.

But this was the mob takeover of the Garbage Handlers Union.

And Leon Cooke's murder was part of this.

And Jack Ruby was certainly connected with that.

Ruby was well-known to the police

and clearly had assistance in being

in that position at that time.

MALE REPORTER: There is Lee Oswald.

[gunshot]

[oswald grunting]

He's been shot.

Lee Oswald has been shot.

There's a man with a gun.

ROBERT MCCLELLAND: You've seen the pictures

of the man in the big Stetson hat standing

beside him when he was shot.

And he said, "well, you know, doctor," he said,

"as soon as that happened and Oswald had fallen to the floor,

I got down on my hands and knees over his face.

And he was still conscious.

His eyes were open.

And I said, 'son, you're hurt real bad.

Do you want to say anything?'

And he looked up at me."

Oswald did, "looked up at me for a long time,

like he was thinking.

And then after some time," I mean, not some time,

but 20 seconds, 30 seconds, something seemed like a long

time, "Oswald shook his head slowly from side to side,

like that.

And then lost consciousness."

And that was the end of his consciousness.

[melancholy music]

NARRATOR: After he was convicted for the murder

and sentenced to death, Ruby wanted to talk.

The world will never know the true facts of what occurred,

my motives.

The people that had so much to gain

and had such ulterior motive to put me in a position I'm in

will never let the true facts come above board to the world.

Are these people in very high positions, Jack?

Yes.

Then "hey, Jack.

Here's a chance to be a hero.

Here's a chance to go down in history.

You killed the horrible evil monster

who murdered this young, dynamic, popular president.

You'll be a hero, Jack.

Forget trial and execution.

They'll give you parades and put wreaths on your head

and around your neck.

You'll be acquitted.

They'll say that you were mentally insane at the time.

You just lost it for that moment.

Don't worry, Jack, we'll get you the very best attorneys.

You'll be out of there.

And nobody will be a bigger hero in America than you."

They had a perfect setup.

Perfect.

But Jack Ruby was anything but a little minor player.

The Warren Commission said they could find

absolutely no links between Jack Ruby and any member

of organized crime.

The House Assassinations Committee

went to the extreme measure of just simply looking

at his telephone records, and found something

like 52 calls in the month prior to the assassination

to major mob figures all around the country.

Jack Ruby did not act as a grieving US citizen

when he killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

One of two things is the probable answer.

Number one, either he was ordered by mob superiors

to do it, and he did it without any chance

of resisting this order.

He couldn't refuse, number one.

Or number two, Jack Ruby had been involved

in this from the very, very beginning,

and Oswald somehow knew it and could

have blown the whistle on Ruby.

Now, if you were a Ruby and you had been involved

in the murder of the president, which would

you rather take the chance with?

Being accused of shooting the president

or getting the guy who was accused

of shooting the president?

The answer is very simple.

His easiest way out is to shoot Oswald

and go for public sympathy.

It's that simple.

I think that in the field of organized crime,

I think it's a very serious situation

that's facing the country at the present time.

I think a lot of steps can be taken in order

to deal with the problem.

I think it's gotten much more serious

over the period of the last 10 years.

NARRATOR: Let's turn to the Mafia's passion

to eliminate President Kennedy.

They certainly had plenty of reasons for revenge.

Losing millions of dollars through the closing

of their Cuban businesses was bad enough.

But there were other reasons, more personal ones.

When Bobby, as attorney general,

ruthlessly cracked down on organized crime, whose very

existence had been denied in the past

by the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover,

the mob felt as though it had been betrayed.

In the spring and summer of 1963,

according to credible federal witnesses, three major Mafia

figures were all discussing plots to kill

John and Robert Kennedy.

NARRATOR: For Sam Giancana, his connection to the Kennedy family

went back to the 1920s when JFK's father,

Joseph Kennedy, kept a secret bootlegging business.

While selling liquor during Prohibition,

Joseph Kennedy crossed into territory belonging to the mob.

Joe Kennedy made a lot of money in the liquor industry

when he gained evidently inside information

about the end of prohibition, and got

a lock on the importation of Scotch from the British Isles.

This made Joe Kennedy a fabulous sum of money.

There are also a lot of stories about Joe

as having been involved in bootlegging during Prohibition.

Without any doubt, he was an extraordinarily controversial

man, very powerful, willing to put

his money where his ideas were.

And he, of course, aggressively promoted

the political aspirations of his sons.

NARRATOR: Members of the Mafia were

offended and took out contracts to eliminate Joseph Kennedy.

As a favor to Joseph, Sam Giancana

was instrumental in removing those contracts.

Sam felt that Kennedy owed him a big favor.

When Joseph's son was running for the presidency,

a new promise was made.

Joe Kennedy promised the mob the White House.

You elect my son, and the White House is yours.

Well, what do they did?

They thought they elected his son

because Illinois is the one that flipped it in West Virginia.

Well, who flipped it in Illinois?

None other but Chicago.

And they felt like they got Kennedy elected.

So when Bobby steps in, they felt betrayed.

NARRATOR: Giancana felt he had helped John Kennedy get elected

through the workers unions, which were controlled

by the Illinois Mafia.

In return, Giancana felt the Kennedy brothers would

honor their father's promise.

However, Attorney General Robert Kennedy

increased Mafia crackdowns.

The Top Hoodlum Program targeted leaders

like Sam Giancana of Chicago, whose life

was made miserable with the continuous monitoring

of his every move.

What happened in six months is that when

Sam Giancana got up to go to the bathroom,

FBI agents went with him.

And it was a lockstep arrangement,

which was so over the top that Sam Giancana got through

in the legislature, as a matter of fact,

that this must not ever occur again.

It was removing his privacy rights.

There were a lot of reasons why, of course,

Sam Giancana wanted to eliminate Kennedy, but that started it.

ROBERT KENNEDY: Is there any question in your mind

that Mr. Goldblatt is a Communist, Mr. Hoffa?

JIMMY HOFFA: I don't know whether he is or not,

but that isn't the question.

And I'm not dealing with Khrushchev,

I'm dealing with Goldblatt.

And I deal with Goldblatt like our Secretary Herter deals

with Khrushchev--

NARRATOR: Jimmy Hoffa, head of the Teamsters Union,

also found himself pitted against the Kennedys.

Although there might be some question about Mr. Bridges,

there is absolutely no question about Mr. Goldblatt.

Don't you say that I'm a Communist

or even affiliated with one.

You said that enough around this country,

and I want the American press to know that I resent the fact

that there is any inference that I'm a Communist,

that I'm associated with or controlled by communists.

And don't use this as a sounding board

for headlines for that purpose.

NARRATOR: Hoffa never forgot Kennedy's public criticism

and carried a grudge.

Mafia Don of New Orleans, Carlos Marcello,

whose territory also encompassed the South and Dallas,

had plenty of reasons to hate the Kennedys,

especially Robert Kennedy.

Marcello and his lawyer were together

when he signed up, as he had to every year,

in immigration office.

He walked out of the office, and Bobby Kennedy and Bobby

Kennedy's guys picked him, both of them up,

Mike Maorun was his name, and took them to the New Orleans

airport, put on to a plane, went a whole way to Guatemala City,

put onto a bus, and driven into the jungles of San Salvador.

Left there to die.

NARRATOR: Marcello almost did die, but managed

to escape and harbored intense hatred and resentment

against the Kennedy family.

For Santos Trafficante, his anger against the Kennedys

went beyond the millions of dollars lost from his destroyed

Cuban gambling casinos.

He also didn't like to see his associates

in trouble because of the Kennedys'

crackdown on mob leaders.

And so Santos Trafficante was real upset with Kennedy

for having made sure that the Bay of Pigs

was a disaster and therefore his fortune,

his empire still was in the hands of Castro.

NARRATOR: Trafficante confessed, "Bobby

Kennedy made life miserable for me and my friends.

I think Carlos Marcello screwed up in getting rid of JFK.

Maybe it should have been Bobby."

In recent released evidence, retired CIA agents

reported that a plot to kill President Kennedy

was being planned.

An abort team, of which Oswald was undoubtedly one,

was supposed to stop the killing.

Obviously, it didn't work.

There is probable cause here to go beyond the evidence that

is gathered.

There is reason for a reasonable person

to believe further in-depth investigation is required,

and that this investigation is required

not only to answer the questions that are in millions

of the minds of the American people

to this very day of what happened.

The impression that I was under at that time,

we were flying a team into Dallas

to abort the assassination.

And John Roselli was on board that flight, as well as

a couple of other Cubans and people

that were connected with organized crime in New Orleans.

I said, "how come Johnny's not going to be a shooter?"

He said, "well, he doesn't want to go

against the orders of the CIA."

He said, "what he wants to do, he wants to call off."

He said, "he flew in here as an abort team."

He said, "they flew a plane here, specially with him on it

to tell us to call it off."

We had been told that an incident was going to be

created, which could be laid at the door

of the pro-Castro Cubans.

The word "attempted assassination" was never used.

We assumed that because of all this light-loaded ammunition,

that probably somebody was going to maybe

take a shot from somewhere.

Johnny's a little bit paranoid on this.

He says, "the CH called the hit off."

He said, "they don't want the hit to go down."

And I said, "what do you say?"

Chuck's exact words were, "fuck 'em.

It's going anyway."

The objective was to stop the ambush.

We had prior knowledge that an attempt was going to be made.

The information that came down earlier,

that the attempt was going to be made outside the Adolphus Hotel.

And for whatever reasons, it was changed at the last minute

to the Dealey Plaza.

The Dealey Plaza would have been the most

logical place to make an ambush style

hit at cross triangulation.

At the time of the shooting, the minute

all these shots were fired, we knew

that something had gone awry.

We didn't know why, but from all the screaming and carrying on,

we knew that there had been one hell of a bad incident.

And at that time, it ran through our mind

that, hey, we've gotten ourselves into something

that's way over our head.

And then the shots came out, and that's

when all hell broke loose.

And at this point right here, I remember seeing Kennedy's

head go way back like that.

And Sergio turned to me.

He said, "oh my gosh, we effed up.

Let's get the hell out of here."

And so at this point, I turned like this

and then made a step to come up and around.

And Sergio was about right along here.

And we went up here.

There was a gentleman down here in a parked car, a truck.

As we got to about this area, he hollered something to Sergio.

Sergio was maybe a little bit down.

He says, "it looks real bad."

And that might have been something

how that story about the conspiracy being called off

at the last minute may have been something that

led Lee Harvey Oswald to walk into the situation he

was in as a Patsy.

To be there that day when maybe he wasn't going to be there

if the assassination was going forward and other things

and probably led to him leaving the School Book

Depository like he did, I think that the original plot was

that he was going to be killed there in the School Book

Depository, and he wasn't going to get out and go, you know,

go to Oak Cliff or to the Texas Theater.

I have felt--

I always felt a sympathy for Oswald.

And I just don't feel it's right that he would be--

or his children should be stuck with that stigmatism.

That's all.

At the time Kennedy died, a certain spirit,

a certain essence of what it means to be

an American passed with him.

And has left an impression on the psyche

of the American people that exists to this very day.

[film projector whirring]

NARRATOR: The Soviet Union/KGB assassination theory, a theory

that suggested President Kennedy was killed by assassins hired

by French-Corsican drug dealers who had the backing and support

of the American Mafia.

The theory's strongest merit is that the Soviet

Union and KGB came to this conclusion

about Kennedy's death.

VLADIMIR SEMICHASTNY [INTERPRETED]:

My feeling is that there were the big money

of taxes, the magnets.

But who was used by them in the concrete situation,

whether that was FBI or CIA, that I'm

not in a position to discuss.

But it was definitely the result of Kennedy's

efforts to find better relations with the Soviet Union.

You can call that an American coup d'état,

but I would think this was simply an effort to those forces

to substitute Kennedy with a more forthcoming president,

and Lyndon Johnson was exactly that kind of person.

NARRATOR: While the world was in shock over the assassination

of President Kennedy, Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet

Union, stunned by JFK's death, feared

there would be a backlash against Russia

and that they would be blamed for his murder.

He authorized the KGB to perform their own investigation.

VLADIMIR SEMICHASTNY [INTERPRETED]:

Judging by the footage, it did look like the shots

had come not only from the rear and out of the window

somewhere in the Book Depository,

but also from the front.

Well, in my opinion, the first impression that it was a very

well-planned assassination in which participated

more than one people.

NARRATOR: The KGB discovered that a contract had originated

out of Marseille, France, with French-Corsican drug

dealers working with elements of the American Mafia.

ILYA SEMYONOVICH PAVLOTSKY [INTERPRETED]:

Kennedy was shot by a professional assassin hired by

French and Vietnamese agents.

Our group found that the Corsicans hired French hitman

Michel Mertz, sometimes known as Jean René Soutre,

to carry out the assassination with the cooperation

of the American Mafia bosses.

NARRATOR: It should be noted that the KGB performed

their investigation and came to a conclusion

about the assassination well before the Warren Commission

issued their findings.

Then are you a Marxist?

Well, I have studied Marxist philosophy

and also other philosophers.

But are you a Marxist?

I think you did admit on an earlier radio interview

that you consider yourself a Marxist.

Well, I would very definitely say that I am a Marxist.

That is correct.

But that does not mean, however, that I'm a Communist.

NARRATOR: They first focused their investigation

on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Based on their knowledge of his background

and their experience with him during his time in Russia,

they did not feel that Oswald had the competence

to pull off the assassination.

VLADIMIR SEMICHASTNY [INTERPRETED]:

He was just a mediocre kind of an individual.

He was just an ordinary American.

ILYA SEMYONOVICH PAVLOTSKY [INTERPRETED]:

My group, the special section for analysis,

concluded that President Kennedy was not killed by Oswald.

There was a lot of difference of opinion in the KGB,

but one thing we all agree that was Oswald

was too incompetent to pull this off.

NARRATOR: But Oswald's time in the Soviet

Union cannot be overlooked.

Oswald has a 201 personnel file with the CIA,

and of course, they don't have files on just anybody.

They have files on people that they work with.

But the purpose of his mission seems to have been

to stop the Paris peace talks.

Khrushchev was a psychotic, no question about that.

Oswald goes over there, gives the Soviets

the information about the U-2 spy flights, gets

Francis Gary Powers shot down.

This whole mess infuriates Khrushchev so much he calls

off the Paris peace talks and the CIA-backed Cold War

goes on and on and on for years to come.

That seems definitely to have been what the situation was,

and that was Oswald's mission and why he was sent there.

And Oswald claimed, you know, to people privately,

like Judyth Vary Baker, that he was an agent of the government.

And it seems to me that he was and that he had to be silenced.

I believe the original plan was for Oswald to have been killed

that day, November 22, '63, in the Texas

Theater where he was arrested.

There was a scuffle and there was some shouting and a gun,

and this and that, and he just got arrested.

But I think he was supposed to have been killed that day.

And when he wasn't, I think these conspirators

were in a real panic.

And Jack Ruby was brought in two days later to kill Oswald.

NARRATOR: The KGB also conducted their own ballistic tests

using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to duplicate the JFK shooting.

Their findings coincide with many American experts' beliefs

that Oswald could not have fired that many

shots from the Mannlicher-Carcano

within a 5.6-second time frame.

Professional marksmen of the highest caliber

were unable to replicate Oswald's result.

And in my judgment, he would have

been unable to perform that feat even

with the world's best weapon.

The question is not, can you get off

three shots in 5.6 seconds, or 8 seconds,

or any other number of seconds?

The real question, and the one that they never ask

is, can you get off those first two shots in 1.6 seconds?

The acoustics tape, their sound recordings of the shots,

and the Zapruder film both show exactly, completely

matching 1.6 seconds apart.

The FBI, the military, the House Assassinations Committee,

every group that's ever investigated this has found

that the minimum, the very fastest, minimum time

to fire that weapon twice without even taking time to aim

is 2.3 seconds.

What does this mean?

Two shots were fired from behind.

Too close together to come from that weapon.

NARRATOR: In 1963, America was involved in Vietnam as advisors

and provided military aid and equipment

to South Vietnam, headed by President Ngo Dinh Diem.

When a CIA-backed coup of the regime

resulted in the death of Diem and his brother, Ngo Nhu,

the flow of heroin was slowed, affecting

the lucrative drug trafficking.

And it angered the Mafia bosses in Asia and the US.

Although Kennedy backed the coup,

he didn't intend for Diem to be killed.

As a result, President Kennedy became their prime target.

Diem's death was just three weeks

before JFK's assassination.

The Corsican Mafia leader, Antoine Guerini,

upset by the flow of heroin now coming out of South Korea,

turned to the American mob for support.

He had close ties with Mafia boss Santos Trafficante,

Carlos Marcello, and Sam Giancana,

who also benefited and stood to lose from the disruption

of the drug supply.

Any one of them would have had no problem assisting

with the assassination plot.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV [INTERPRETED]: The Warren Commission,

I think, either was unable to learn the truth

and to complete the investigation,

or they decided to conceal some of the truth

based on what they saw as the vital interest of the nation.

Whatever has been written more recently about John F. Kennedy,

about his personal life, and some personal weaknesses,

I hold that he was a great president.

He had great plans for the future,

for the future of the United States,

and the world that had great promise for the entire world.

The world could have turned out quite differently

if those plans were realized.

And my question is, was this really

to the liking of some people, both in your country

and perhaps in our country and elsewhere?

That's my question.

[film projector whirring]

Over 60,000 documents and records were

withheld from the American people on the grounds

of national security.

They were bottled up by the Warren Commission for 75 years.

But if the government's official story is true,

if Jack Kennedy was killed by lucky shots

by a lone demented assassin, then there

was no national security aspect to the assassination, which

can only lead to the inference that those documents and records

were withheld because of what they might have revealed

about the true causes of death and the factors that were

involved in bringing it about.

[tense music]

NARRATOR: The Mafia, a theory suggesting

that President Kennedy was killed by Mafia hitmen.

Throughout the 1950s and early '60s, the Mafia's relationship

with the CIA had allowed them to be

incorporated with coups and assassination

plots around the world.

The Mafia was extremely powerful.

During the time of the assassination,

they ran police departments, cities, state.

They were-- their network of corruption

went to the highest levels.

And I think it's pertinent to note

that J. Edgar Hoover himself had very suspicious direct ties

with organized crime.

I mean, this is well-documented, accepted history

that Hoover met with New York Mafia boss

Frank Costello, several times around the years

of the assassination.

So they had penetrated the head of the FBI,

and that obviously had serious consequences

for how the investigation was conducted.

NARRATOR: This relationship with the CIA

provided easy resources for the Mafia

to organize potential teams of assassins

to help carry out their own agendas.

It's really difficult for an American to think this

and to say it, but there was a period in our history

when you couldn't tell where the CIA ended and the Mafia began.

The CIA utilized the Mafia in assassinations

that the CIA planned.

NARRATOR: The Mafia was originally working with the CIA

to try and eliminate Fidel Castro under the program

called Operation Mongoose.

Well, Operation Mongoose was the ill-conceived,

almost idiotic plan to assassinate Castro,

in which they decided of the plans that they had had,

the one that ended up with Mongoose was the most ridiculous

of all in which they started, they decided

they would use organized crime.

Feeling, I guess, that organized crime is

skillful at that sort of thing.

They may be certain types of assassination they're good at,

but other types they're not.

But never came to fruition.

I think that organized crime entered

into it simply because they wanted to get

little leverage on the CIA.

They had recruited, among others, an Air Force officer

by the name of Edward Lansdale, who had collaborated

with the CIA in conducting assassinations

in many parts of the world.

In any case, these repeated efforts

to kill Castro were unsuccessful,

and there is strong reason to believe that one of these teams

was actually used in Dealey Plaza

to take out Jack Kennedy under the supervision

of the same man, Edward Lansdale,

they had recruited to take out Castro.

NARRATOR: This access to information

put them in a unique position to take action against JFK,

with the confidence they could get away

with it without retaliation from any government

investigative units, including the FBI.

When you speak of the mob, they're one and the same

as far as the CIA at that particular time.

They're more really CIA than the mob.

I think it's my opinion that the mob

utilized these particular mob people for the hit on JFK.

NARRATOR: Over the years, investigation

into the assassination of President Kennedy

has resulted in the declassification

of many internal government, FBI, and CIA documents.

Unique and different from any previously disclosed operation,

the plan for a coup in Cuba was authorized by JFK

and run by Robert Kennedy.

The CIA's codename for their supporting

role in the coup was "M-World."

The CIA arranged for a leading figure in the Cuban government

to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The death of Castro was to be followed

by an armed invasion of US military-trained Cuban exiles.

These men would have been veterans

of the Bay of Pigs operation.

The Senate Intelligence Committee

documented that the CIA and the Mafia

worked in partnership to try to kill Castro.

The CIA enlisted the help of the Mafia

in various assassination plots, and they both had--

the mob certainly had their own motive

for trying to get rid of Castro based on the fact

that Castro had kicked them out of their Cuban rackets.

NARRATOR: By linking Kennedy's death to the top secret plan,

the Mafia chiefs could present a proper investigation

into the assassination.

They were confident that any such exposure could

push America to the brink of war with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

I believe that historians will conclude that Jack Kennedy

navigated this nation through the most

treacherous shoals in its history,

where nuclear war was in the offing.

And without his wise judgment, notwithstanding how

it may have been interpreted as others,

he saved the world to live another day

and avoided World War III.

NARRATOR: Within days of the assassination,

associates of Robert Kennedy said that Bobby thought

Carlos Marcello was behind his brother's death,

but he didn't want to reveal what he knew to the public

or to the Warren Commission without C-Day being uncovered.

The role the Mafia may have played in JFK's assassination

clearly had affected the fate of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Lee Harvey Oswald has a very, very long intelligence

background, going back to officially

anyway, to the time when he was in the Marine Corps.

He was sent to Atsugi Air Base.

He had a higher security clearance

than his own commanding officer, which is extremely odd.

When I wrote my book, The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald,which

is his biography, the hardest time I had

was dealing with his military background

because he always appears to be in more than one place

at the same time.

Sometimes thousands of miles apart.

But the same guy, the same Marine private, the same number,

the same Social Security number, everything, but parallel careers

identically at the same time.

And some of that period of time, he's in the Marines,

but he's also a civilian and being paid

as a civilian in other places.

There's whole gaps within his military career.

He becomes deactivated.

Then he comes back to Dallas, gets

a job 5 weeks before the assassination in the Texas

School Book Depository.

The motorcade route is changed to put it to go

by the depository building.

Bingo, Oswald is blamed for the crime.

The rest is history.

It's classic.

So it shows you this thing, this entire matter

was programmed.

I don't need to get paranoid and become

an incredible conspiratorialist as Warren Commission

defenders like to call us in a derogatory, denigrating fashion.

Just stand back.

Anybody who knows a little bit about the law,

about investigation of criminal cases,

and so on, anybody with basic intelligence in America

knows that this is not the way that things should be done.

And anybody who would think a little bit about the case

for one moment would say that it would not have been possible

simply from the standpoint of accumulation of evidence

and the collection of knowledge, vis a vis the entire case,

to have permitted them to say within a few hours

that they had solved the case.

Anybody would know that.

I came into contact with a man by the name of Joe West in 1992,

who was a private investigator in Houston, Texas.

I read an article in the local newspaper

here, discussing the assassination

of President Kennedy and his basic theory on what happened.

And in this article, he mentioned

two individuals by the name of Chuck

Nicoletti and John Roselli.

And this piqued my interest enough for me to call

this particular individual.

At which time, I told him about the comment of James Files,

and made the statement to the effect

that if the American people really knew what happened,

they wouldn't be able to handle it.

To know what teams were present there,

it's really hard to know.

There's been allegations of Mafia teams.

There's a gentleman at the time of this filming named

James Files who's in prison.

He claims to have been the grassy knoll shooter,

and that he was working for the Chicago mob,

in particular Sam Giancana and Tony Accardo, who were

the head of the Chicago mob.

At the same time, he claims to have had affiliations with David

Atlee Phillips and the CIA, and that he was working

for both of these people.

Is he telling the truth?

We really don't know.

He could have been.

NARRATOR: To reinforce the Mafia hitman

theory, witness the confession from former Mafia

associate James Files.

Files states that he was in Dallas

on the day of the assassination, with Mafia

leaders Rosselli and Nicoletti.

Additionally, he claims to have been the shooter

on the grassy knoll.

Motorcade come down.

I believe that's Main Street there.

Come down on Houston.

Turn back around on the Elm there, and come down

that little side drive there.

When they come down and made this first right,

that's when I brought the weapon up.

And then I'm over the fence and as they come down,

made the turn on down there, that's

when I started focusing through the scope and following the car.

I've got this sign there for the Simmons freeway that is fixing

to come into my field of fire.

At this point, either I shoot or I can put it in a suitcase

and leave, one or the other.

I took the shot.

After the shot, I knelt down, put my weapon back,

put the fireball back into the case, the gun case,

closed it back up.

And as I stood back up to walk away, I looked over the fence,

and at this point, I saw Jackie Kennedy crawling

out on the back end of the car.

And when she picked up--

I figured she had to be picking up a piece of John F. Kennedy.

But I've seen a lot of people might say,

you can't see nothing through a scope.

But I'm going to tell you something.

When you see something burst, his head like a watermelon,

you're going to see pieces of stuff flying

in different directions, and people are

going to be splattered by it.

Joe West died.

He passed away never knowing that I was one of two shooters

there in Dealey Plaza that day.

Joe West never knew I was on the grassy knoll.

But I believe Files and I am a person that has been involved

with medicine, with some accurate

kind of data, namely electroencephalography

and epileptology.

And so I live a life of skill and precision and accuracy,

and I have to, doing what I do, and so I believe

100% of what Files says.

I do, and I feel 100% that he was

the man that really shot the shot that really killed Kennedy.

There was a photograph taken by Mary Moorman, a bystander

from the south side of Elm Street.

Mrs. Moorman took this black and white Polaroid photograph

at the exact moment of the fatal shot to the president's head.

What it shows has been a matter of debate for years and years.

It shows what may be 2 to three people

on the grassy knoll firing or potentially firing shots.

We're talking about a man who was standing 8 feet to the west

of the corner of the stockade fence,

and he's blocking our view to the sky.

What's the irony there?

The irony is that the acoustics evidence

that the independent blind test of the sound recordings

of the shots show that a man would be at exactly

that spot during the shooting.

When the scientists gave their testimony about that,

they had not seen the photograph.

They didn't know he was there in the photograph.

This is the man who killed the president.

[film projector whirring]

MALE REPORTER: The assault has begun on the dictatorship

of Fidel Castro.

Cuban Army pilots opened the first phase

of organized revolt with bombing raids on three military bases.

Two of the B-26 light bombers then seek asylum in Florida.

On the heels of the air raids, landings were affected by rebels

at several places on the Cuban Coast,

and the rebellion against the red-tinged dictator was on.

To understand the John F. Kennedy assassination,

you have to understand Cuba.

And that's not to say Castro or the Cubans did it,

but that I believe the Cuban connection in this whole case

is the key to understanding what happened.

NARRATOR: The CIA/anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy,

the theory that renegade agents from the CIA and anti-Castro

Cubans could have worked together in carrying out

the murder of John F. Kennedy.

When Kennedy did the deal with Castro

following the Cuban Missile Crisis, that where

we agreed or the United States agreed that we would not

continue our attempts to overthrow Castro,

I think that as far as the Cuban exiles in the United States,

they were working with the Mafia and the CIA,

that was what led them to just turn around these assassination

teams they already had trained and ready to go to use

against President Kennedy, sad to say.

[mysterious music]

NARRATOR: Both groups were upset with President Kennedy

over the handling of the Bay of Pigs Invasion,

as well as other CIA-backed anti-Castro actions.

[tense music]

During the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Kennedy

realized the political backlash that

would result if he endorsed Nicaragua's air

support to back-up the anti-Castro Cubans.

At 1:30 in the afternoon on April 15 in 1961,

Kennedy issued an edict that he was going to permit the B-26s

to fly out of Nicaragua to support the anti-Castro

Cubans to take back Cuba.

And so the whole thing became a disaster,

because Kennedy had rescinded the original edict

that the B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua.

NARRATOR: JFK resented the CIA's military promises

to the Cuban exiles without his approval.

He was angered when the CIA not only misjudged the support

they'd received from the Cubans, but also the effort

needed to get a foothold into the country.

I am convinced that the plan was a bait and switch,

that everyone knew the operation had no chance of success,

but it was going to place the young, inexperienced president

in the difficult position of allowing the United States to be

embarrassed by its failure, or by sending

in the United States Marines.

He wisely chose not to send in the Marines,

but it was an embarrassing feat.

NARRATOR: He was also unaware that Cuba's secret agents

had infiltrated the CIA.

They leaked information to the Cuban government

that an attack was being planned.

The invasion went forward only because the CIA assured Jack

that there would be a popular uprising to overthrow Castro,

and that the these forces would almost certainly

meet only light resistance.

And if they encountered difficulties,

they would disappear into the mountains

to conduct guerrilla warfare.

However, they were actually landed in a swamp.

Castro had obtained information that Soviets had secured

at least a week in advance as to the date

of the invasion, which everyone knew

except for the commander-in-chief.

The forces had not been trained in guerrilla warfare,

and Castro handily rounded them up forthwith.

The invasion was an abject failure,

grossly embarrassing the young president of the United States.

NARRATOR: Without the backup by air,

114 Cuban exiles were killed and 1,189

were captured and tortured.

The cause for the CIA's anger was

that Kennedy's actions threatened

the agency's survival.

In 1962, John F. Kennedy ordered the CIA to stop assassination

attempts against Castro, but the CIA

ignored the presidential order.

First of all, the CIA had no known budget, meaning it

was unlimited many billions of dollars.

nobody seemed to have any knowledge of how much was ever

spent and how much was ever given to them,

but it was open book for them.

But it became clear to a certain members of Congress

that the CIA may have been involved with the assassination

of heads of state.

So Senator Frank Church from Idaho

decided that he would put together a committee on this.

And so he had a committee hearing on it.

And even General Schneider of Chile was assassinated,

and we had Diem from Vietnam assassinated,

and Lumumba of the Congo was assassinated, all

through the efforts of the CIA.

NARRATOR: According to Senator Smathers,

Kennedy said he had to do something about the CIA

and warned that the agency needed to be

stripped of its extreme power.

Kennedy's actions infuriated both the CIA

and the anti-Castro rebels.

Even though JFK took public blame for the failed invasion,

he privately blamed the CIA and threatened

to destroy the agency.

This created shockwaves throughout the CIA that

were just unbelievable and did not

make Kennedy, who was basically a brand new president,

very young, 43 years old, did not

make him friends with the CIA.

He privately told people he was going

to scatter the CIA into a thousand pieces

and scatter to the winds.

He was not pleased.

NARRATOR: JFK fired Director Allen

Dulles, who later became appointed

to the Warren Commission.

And discharged General Charles Cabell, whose brother

served as the mayor of Dallas.

Cabell, a Lieutenant General in the Air Force,

would return to the Pentagon, describing Jack Kennedy

as a traitor to his country.

Ironically, Cabell was born in Dallas in 1903.

His brother Earl was born near Dallas in 1906,

and became the mayor of the city of Dallas

in 1962, in which capacity he not only supervised

ceremonial activities and motorcades, but the police,

the Department of Police, in which capacity

I believe he would have had a role in determining what

route the motorcade would take.

NARRATOR: In August of '63, Oswald

participated in a pro-Castro campaign

in New Orleans that lasted 12 days.

He was caught on television cameras as he passed out flyers.

The flyers were stamped with an address

that matched the same building as ex-FBI agent Guy Banister.

The stuff that Lee Harvey Oswald

was doing that summer seemed to be intelligence-related.

Now, there's a lady that's come forward named Judyth Vary Baker,

who claims to have had a relationship, an affair

with Lee Oswald that summer.

She was a chemist and she was a biologist,

and she's alive to this day and she very strongly will tell you

that Lee Oswald was an agent of the government on a mission

to help kill Castro.

So that his stance really wasn't pro-Castro, and that

in conjunction with the mob and the CIA,

they were planning on getting rid of Castro.

And when that plan fell through, it seems like the wheels started

turning and said, if we can't get Castro,

we're going to kill Kennedy.

NARRATOR: These actions created a public record

of an Oswald-Cuban connection.

But none of this information was shown to the Warren Commission.

In order to create a case against Oswald,

the Commission had to believe in credible witnesses

and disregard believable witnesses.

It had to accept evidence that had been fabricated

and exclude evidence that was genuine.

The Warren Commission, unfortunately, did not

fully investigate this case.

Even President Ford, who was a former-- who

was one of the commissioners, indicated that they should have

involved themselves with the anti-Castro Cuban connection,

which is a significant connection to the case in that

anti-Castro Cubans had a deep and abiding hatred for President

Kennedy, regrettably, because of the whole Bay

of Pigs fiasco that occurred.

And they blamed President Kennedy

for not giving air support to that invasion

that was planned before President Kennedy took office.

There were a lot of connections of we--

we found out from our investigation

of Lee Harvey Oswald involved with anti-Castro Cubans.

And CIA personnel involved with Lee Harvey

Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans.

So that was a very, very important area to look into.

At the time I left the committee,

that was probably the most productive

area of our investigation.

And that doesn't mean that I'm saying that the CIA was involved

with the assassination.

It simply means that that should have been probed.

President Ford has so indicated, and that was just one area,

a major area, significant area, that the Warren Commission

didn't do its job properly, and it

didn't really report to the American people honestly.

And that, of course, to me, was a big negative about what

the Warren Commission has done.

NARRATOR: By 1963, relations between the US and Cuba

were improving.

Some anti-Castro forces regained faith in Kennedy

after his conciliatory actions, but rogue elements

remained embittered.

In September 1963, Castro publicly warned the US

about American leaders not being safe if they

thought they could kill him.

Without doubt, the course of history

was altered by the death of JFK.

The principal reason for taking him out

appears to have been to put in place the policies of Lyndon

Johnson, in lieu of those of John Kennedy,

apart from the motive of revenge or retribution

on the part of anti-Castro Cubans,

who believed they had been betrayed.

NARRATOR: President Kennedy took several more

steps to upset the status quo.

He shut down exile activities staged from the US

and made secretive overtures of peace to Castro.

These actions, combined with the pent-up anger over the failed

Bay of Pigs operation and the failure

to invade during the Cuban Missile Crisis,

further enraged members of the CIA

as well as anti-Castro Cubans.

Many officers felt Kennedy had betrayed them

and their Cuban exile allies.

When he negotiated in 1962 the settlement of the Missile Crisis

with Cuba, and found a settlement with Nikita

Khrushchev that didn't force us to go to war,

he was a hero to some people, but to the right-wing Pentagon,

military people, and CIA people, and especially the anti-Castro

Cubans, he really blew his chance

in their minds and he was portrayed as being

very soft on communism.

It is clear that the forces of communism

are not to be underestimated in Cuba or anywhere else

in the world.

The advantages of a police state,

its use of mass terror and arrest to prevent the spread

of free dissent cannot be overlooked

by those who expect the fall of every fanatic tyrant.

If the self-discipline of the free cannot match the iron

discipline of the mailed fist in economic, political, scientific,

and all the other kinds of struggle,

as well as the military, then the peril of freedom

will continue to rise.

There are many reasons to believe

that the powerful forces, institutional and otherwise,

that were responsible for the death of Jack Kennedy,

continue to exert their malevolent

influence upon American government and world history

to this day.

[film projector whirring]

PIERCE ALLMAN: One witness says he definitely

was shot, that he was hit twice, that he saw the president

slump in his seat.

As I say, this is not confirmed at this time.

From where I am, the police have two witnesses.

They are bringing them in now.

I'm in the Texas School Book Depository building.

They're bringing some witnesses in now.

We will try to learn further and relay word to this station.

Why is it so important?

It's so important because if it happened 40 years ago,

it could still be happening today.

Having worked people for my career, I know people.

One lie leads to another.

If you lied about it, then you got

to lie about it 10 years later to cover up the lie

that you said 10 years before.

So it's a constant lie.

Texas still has an unsolved murder case.

In my personal opinion, that the attorney general for the state

of Texas should immediately empower a grand jury,

giving them full authority to investigate a murder case

and basically cover the leads, gather the evidence.

If people need to be charged, charge them.

And basically, what I'm telling you is let

the chips fly where they may.

If there's evidence to show that there was a conspiracy,

even if there was a conspiracy, forget the government cover-up,

the American people need to know.

It's part of their history.

It's part of being an American.

This man was killed in front of God and everybody.

It was a public execution.

And they need to know.

And beside that, don't you think John F. Kennedy needs to know?

Wouldn't you want to know if somebody

put a bullet in your head?

From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official,

President Kennedy died at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time,

2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

[melancholy music]