Original subtitles

In that document...

...lay the Vietnam War.

I can't believe they killed him because he wanted to change things.

- In our time, in our country! - They've done it throughout history.

Kings are killed. Politics is power, nothing more!

Don't take my word for it. Do your own thinking.

The size of this is...

...beyond me.

Testify.

- Me? - Testify.

No chance in hell.

No, I'd be arrested and gagged. Maybe sent to an institution.

Maybe worse. You too.

I can give you the background. You find the foreground, the little things.

Dig, you're the only one to bring a trial in Kennedy's murder.

That's important. It's historic.

I haven't yet.

I don't have much of a case.

You don't have a choice anymore.

You're a significant threat to the national security structure.

They'd have killed you already, but there's light on you.

So they'll destroy your credibility.

They already have in many circles.

Be honest.

Your only chance is to come up with a case. Something. Anything.

Make arrests. Stir the shitstorm.

Hope to start...

...a chain reaction of people coming forward.

Then the government will crack.

Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth.

And the truth is on your side, bubba.

I just hope you get a break.

Mr. Shaw?

You are under arrest for conspiracy...

...and entering into agreement with others for the purpose of murdering...

...President John F. Kennedy.

We have a warrant to search the premises.

It's my duty to inform you...

...you have the right to remain silent.

Name?

Clay LaVerne Shaw.

Address?

1313 Dauphine Street, New Orleans.

Ever use any aliases?

Clay Bertrand.

Mr. Clark, are you aware of the charges filed by District Attorney Garrison?

Yes, Mr. Shaw was included in our investigation.

No connection was found at all.

If the FBI did investigate him, why is his name not mentioned...

...in the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Report...

...even if it is to clear his name?

I doubt this Attorney General would qualify for my staff.

Mr. Garrison has presented absolutely nothing publicly...

...which would contradict our findings.

I know of no fact which would refute...

...the Commission's conclusion...

...that Lee Oswald was the lone killer.

I congratulate Mr. Shaw. Most defendants must wait for trial...

...before they produce sacred cows like a Chief Justice...

...as a character witness...

...who is not under oath and therefore free from perjury.

Even if it's partly true...

...you realize you're damaging the credibility of the country?

Is a government worth preserving when it lies to the people?

It's become a dangerous country...

...when you cannot trust anyone. When you cannot tell the truth.

I say let justice be done, though the heavens fall!

The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison.

- Honey, this is about you. - After an investigation in New Orleans...

...reporters have learned...

...that District Attorney Jim Garrison and his staff...

...have intimidated, bribed and even drugged witnesses...

...to attempt to prove a conspiracy involving businessman Clay Shaw...

...in the murder of John F. Kennedy.

John Chancler was a cellmate of Willie O'Keefe's at Angola.

He said he'd be cut loose if he copped to the DA's office.

I sent him up for burglary.

And there's his old buddy Miguel Torres.

We sent him up too.

They wanted me to say Shaw was Bertrand. They'd get me a pardon.

Janet Williams comments on Willie O'Keefe's...

...descriptions of having met Oswald.

Was he a homosexual?

Not the Lee I knew. Absolutely not.

Mr. O'Keefe must have seen someone he thought was Lee Oswald.

I didn't talk to nobody. I was on drugs at the hospital.

I told the FBI that call was a figment of my imagination.

I think he's quite ill, mentally.

With one half of his mind, he is able to fabricate evidence...

...then he convinces the other half that the fabrication is the truth.

Don't worry. There's only 20 or 30 million people watching this tonight.

My reputation's all right with the people watching Laugh In.

Has he ignored the Mafia connections to this conspiracy...

...because he's indebted to the mob?

The more one looks at Jim Garrison, the more one finds...

...he has destroyed reputations, spread fear and suspicion, and worst of all...

...exploited this nation's sorrow and doubt.

Jim Garrison has said:

"Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. "

He seeks the truth. So do we.

Dr. Martin Luther King's beautiful dream expressed so dramatically...

...during the 1963 march on Washington...

...was shattered tonight in Memphis, Tennessee by an assassin's bullet.

Police think the single shot came from across the street.

They found a Browning automatic rifle, fitted with a marksman's scope.

I'll get it.

Hello, is this Jim Garrison's daughter?

Virginia or Elizabeth?

Virginia, you're a lucky little girl.

Your daddy's entered you in a beauty contest. Like to be in one?

I don't know.

My God! What have they done?

It's lynching time.

That sounds fun.

You get out of school at 3:00?

Who are you talking to?

That's all I need to know.

Mommy, I'm going to be in a beauty contest.

Who is this? Who is this?

Did you enter Virginia in a beauty contest?

A man called and asked her height, her weight-

Some crackpot. Martin Luther King was killed.

Her life's been threatened!

A crank making calls. Happens a dozen times a day at the office.

Our home! A kidnapper, a murderer!

Only cowards make crank calls.

Nothing will happen.

You don't know what goes on here anymore! You're busy making speeches!

Getting every crazed Klansman after us!

I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving! I can't stand it anymore!

- The government wants us scared. - You and your government!

They want everybody too scared to speak out. They count on it.

- There's nothing to fear! - Don't you have feelings?

Your own daughter!

What kind of a man are you?

I'll take them to my mother's. You spend a week.

I'll change the locks, the phones. I'll get a bodyguard.

Get a hold of yourself!

Before this Kennedy thing, your children mattered most.

The other night you didn't even notice Jasper.

He came to me bawling his eyes out.

I promise I'll make more time for Jasper.

Is it such a chore?

Goddamn it! If I said I'll spend more time with him, I will!

I cannot fight you and the whole world too!

I'm not fighting you! I'm trying to reach you.

- You've changed. - Of course I've changed!

My eyes have opened.

And what once looked normal seems insane.

And now King. Don't you think this has something to do with that?

Can't you see?

I don't want to see, goddamn it! I'm tired. I've had enough!

You're ruining this man Shaw's life because he's a homosexual.

That's not why!

Did you ever once stop to consider his feelings?

You don't believe me?

- I don't know! - You never believed me?

I just want to raise our children and live a normal life.

I want my life back!

So do I, goddamn it!

I had a life too, you know!

You can't bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, Liz!

It's not about our well-being, our two cars, our TVs and your kitchen!

It's about our kids growing up in a shithole of lies. I'm angry!

My life is fucked because of it.

If you could see it that way, you'd see your life is fucked too.

You never talked to me this way.

If you don't want to support me, fine.

But don't make threats about taking the children.

I'm leaving you!

- I'm taking the children! - Go on! Get out!

- I am! - Go hide!

Join the rest! They'll say I'm crazy.

Plenty of people will tell you I'm crazy.

You won't have any problems filling out divorce papers.

But somebody's got to try, goddamn it!

Somebody!

Are we going away, Daddy?

I don't know, Jasper.

Because of Kennedy?

Will the same people kill us, Papa?

Nobody will kill us.

I'm scared.

I don't like it when you and Mommy fight.

I don't like it either, honey.

Why do we have to leave?

Don't you love us anymore?

Daddy loves you both.

There's nothing wrong with feeling a little scared, Jasper.

Telling the truth can be a scary thing sometimes.

It scared President Kennedy, and he was a brave man.

But if you let yourself be too scared...

...then you let the bad guys take over the country.

Then everybody gets scared.

Stay with Mom, Papa.

Please.

Here's another.

The US Attorney in Washington declines to serve our subpoena...

...on Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell, CIA Director Richard Helms, any FBI agent.

What'd you expect from a pig but a grunt?

Now it'll be near impossible to prove Shaw's connection to the CIA.

What's going on?

We've never been refused an extradition request.

Let's get Julia Ann Mercer in here.

No, she could get hurt.

Look what's happening to other people.

She's the best witness we have.

I just don't want to do it. Now, what else?

You got your hate mail here. And your fan mail here.

The bad news is that the IRS requested an audit of your income from this office.

I expected that two months ago. They're wasting their time.

The bad news is the National Guard just asked me to resign after 18 years.

Maybe that's the good news. Never was as good as combat.

But this is.

Any more on Oswald or Shaw?

They were seen together in Clinton in early September.

The Civil Rights Movement was running a voter's registration drive.

Rumor is, Shaw was working on some arms deal...

...to discredit the Civil Rights Movement.

Nobody really knows what they were doing there, but...

...hell, they stood out like cotton balls.

I got whites and coloreds that saw them there.

Last time I checked, it was not illegal to register to vote.

We still got the...

...the junkie, Vernon Bundy, who saw him talking at the sea wall.

This is tough. No one wants to talk about Shaw.

You keep saying that.

- I keep saying what? - You're not digging deep enough.

You want to do my job! You do my job, I'll do your job.

I think Clinton is a breakthrough now.

Shaw denies ever knowing Oswald, right?

That proves he's a liar.

- Keep on it, Bill. - This is the interesting part.

Oswald went to see the FBI two weeks...

...before the assassination.

May I see Special Agent Hosty?

He's not in. Can someone else help you?

Special Agent Hosty made three visits to Janet Williams' house...

...to keep an eye on Marina. He left a note.

Hosty told a newspaperman it was a warning...

...to stop questioning Marina when Oswald was not present.

She was not a citizen, so possibly he was threatening to deport her to Russia.

But what the note really said, no one knows.

Hosty tore it up and flushed it down the toilet.

This is just speculation.

But what if the note described the assassination attempt on JFK?

Come on, think!

That's the only reason to destroy it.

If it was a threat like Hosty said, they would have kept it.

It makes their case against the angry, lone nut that much stronger.

Remember the meeting with Agent Quigley...

...the day he was arrested?

Quigley destroyed the notes from the interview.

We can raise the possibility that Oswald was not only an informant...

...but he may have been the original source for the telex dated November 17...

...warning of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22.

William Walter, the FBI night clerk, gave me a copy.

It went all over the country. Nothing was done.

The motorcade went ahead on schedule. The Warren Report didn't mention it.

"A militant group may attempt to assassinate President Kennedy...

"... on his proposed trip to Dallas, Texas. "

Shortly after the assassination...

...Walter says the telex was removed from all the files...

...as an obvious embarrassment to the Bureau.

I believe Oswald sent information through Hosty.

I have a hunch Oswald had infiltrated this group:

Cubans or right-wing extremists.

He was told to be at the Book Depository that day...

...to either prevent the assassination or take part in it.

Either they told him they'd close down the plotters...

...or simulate an attack...

...on Kennedy to whip up public opinion...

...so Kennedy would have to reverse his policies on communism.

What they told him doesn't matter.

He was under orders.

He was a foot soldier.

You can't miss. He is a dead duck.

I don't buy it.

Why would the FBI cover it up?

A telex disappears from every FBI office in this country?

There's a word, Bill.

- Orders. - Or a cover-up.

Don't you have enough proof of the FBl's complicity yet?

I respect this country's institutions!

How the hell can you keep a conspiracy going...

...between the mob, CIA, FBl, Army intelligence and who knows what else...

...when you can't keep a secret in this room between 12 people?

I mean, we got leaks everywhere.

We are going to trial, y'all!

What the hell do we really got?

Oswald, Ruby, Banister, and Ferrie are dead.

Maybe Shaw is an agent. I don't know.

But as a covert operator...

...he is wide open for blackmail because of his homosexuality.

Shaw's our toehold. I don't know or care exactly how he fits.

But he's lying through his teeth. I won't let go of him.

That's why you're going to trial against Clay Shaw?

You will lose!

We should investigate our Mafia leads here.

I can buy that easier than I can the government.

Ruby is all mob, knows Oswald, sets him up.

Hoffa, Trafficante, Marcello, they hire some guns and do Kennedy.

The government doesn't want to open up a whole can of worms...

...because it used the mob to try to get Castro.

Castro being assassinated by the mob by us...

...sounds wild to John Q. Citizen.

So they close the book on JFK.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I don't doubt their involvement at a low level.

Could the mob change the parade route?

Or eliminate the protection for the President?

Could the mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back?

Get the FBl, the CIA and the Dallas Police to mess up the investigation?

Get the Warren Commission appointed to cover it up?

Wreck the autopsy? Influence the national media to go to sleep?

Since when has the mob used anything but. 38's for hits up close?

The mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude.

Assassins need payrolls...

...schedules, times, orders.

This was a military-style ambush.

A coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.

You're saying Lyndon Johnson was involved? The President?

Johnson got $1 billion for his friends, Brown and Root...

...to dredge Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

Boss, are you calling the President a murderer?

If I'm so far from the truth, why is the FBI bugging our offices?

Why are witnesses being bought off and murdered?

Why are federal agencies blocking our extraditions and subpoenas?

I don't know.

Maybe there's some rogue element in the government.

With a full-blown cover-up?

You ever read Shakespeare?

I do.

Julius Caesar?

"Brutus and Cassius, they too are honorable men. "

Who killed Caesar?

Ten or twelve Senators.

All it takes is one Judas.

A few people on the inside. Pentagon, CIA.

This is Louisiana.

How do you know who your daddy is? 'Cause your mama told you so.

You are taking a crap in the wind.

And I am not going along on this one.

I've had my doubts all along about Bill.

He's been fighting us.

We need him back.

He wasted a month trying to prove...

...that mob boys like Jack Ruby are hooked up with Hunt Oil.

- I don't trust him. - I will not hear this.

I value Bill as much as any person here.

It's time we made room for someone else's ideas, including me.

Maybe Oswald is what everyone says he is, and I'm...

...just plain dumb about it.

I've seen him copying files here late at night.

- I don't trust him. - Did you two hear me?

I won't tolerate staff infighting.

I'm afraid I cannot work with Bill Broussard anymore.

Is this an ultimatum?

Are you giving me an ultimatum?

If that's what you want to call it.

I never thought it'd come to this.

I guess I am.

I won't have any ultimatum put to me, Lou. I'll accept your resignation.

You sure got it.

You are one stubborn son of a bitch.

You're making a big mistake.

Boss, aren't you being a little hard?

No, I don't think I am.

Anyone else?

Now, Jerry, here's Jim Garrison...

...the District Attorney of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Welcome, District Attorney Garrison.

You're investigating the murder of President Kennedy.

We have heard some strange things coming out of your office.

First, we heard that Cuban exiles killed the President.

Then the mob...

Your latest theory seems to be that the CIA and the FBl...

...and the Pentagon...

...and the White House all combined in an elaborate conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

Is there anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald...

...who you think didn't conspire to kill the President?

Let's just say this, Jerry...

...I've stopped beating my wife.

Maybe you should ask Lyndon Johnson. He has some answers.

There have been a number of reports in reputable news media...

...Time, Newsweek, our own NBC...

...that you've gone beyond legal means as a prosecutor...

...that you've intimidated, even drugged witnesses...

...bribed them, and urged them to commit perjury.

Do you have a response?

Your faith in the veracity of the major media is touching.

It indicates that the age of innocence is not yet over.

But ask yourself...

...if we had learned on November 22, 1963...

...that the Russian Premier had been shot from a Moscow building...

...by a lonely capitalist sympathizer...

...who, himself, was then liquidated by a patriotic Muscovite within 48 hours...

...while surrounded by armed police.

I think it would be apparent to anyone...

...that a coup d'etat and a transfer of power had just taken place.

And we would not ask questions or attack Jim Garrison.

We would, in a free-thinking society...

...be asking why he was killed, and what forces opposed him.

There are some people who might say that you are paranoid.

I should show you some pictures so you can understand...

...what I'm talking about.

These are arrests.

These arrests were photographed minutes after the assassination.

They were never shown to the public.

I'm sorry, these pictures can't be shown on TV.

- Sure they can. - No, I'm sorry. They can't.

- The camera can pick these up. - Jim, I'm sorry.

They can't. We have libel laws.

Those men you just saw were arrested in Dallas minutes after the assassination.

They were never seen again.

No record of arrest, no mug shots, no fingerprints.

Hold that thought.

We'll be back, right after these commercials.

Bill, what the hell are you doing here?

I'm sorry about the other day. I didn't mean to walk out on you like that.

You came all this way to tell me the obvious?

No. Look...

...I just heard of an attempt to kill you between here and New Orleans.

A mob guy was brought down by Shaw from Canada.

This is serious. You'll need a bodyguard tonight.

When you were in the Army, did you ever find out what an order meant?

Do you remember my orders about passing on rumors...

...about someone going to be killed?

- Yes, I do, but this is- - No, there is no "but. "

There is no "but" in a military situation!

I don't appreciate you dumping this paranoid garbage on me...

...nor your inability to follow a simple order...

...especially when it means I have to pay for your flight back to New Orleans.

Let's get you a ticket.

Boss, I'm sorry. I'm just looking out for you.

Get a receipt.

Come on, come on. He's out here.

Jim, where are you going? It's me, Samuel.

- Hey, how long were you in that restroom? - None of your goddamn business.

Jim, bad news, Bill's turned.

I think he's given everything we've got to the feds.

We studied the memos and there was nothing there. Nothing.

We went to confront him and the landlady said the son of a bitch just left.

Left everything.

It's unbelievable. I'm sorry.

Mattie, could you get Mr. Garrison a drink, please?

Something sure scared him.

Bill doesn't scare that easy. Somebody got to his thinking.

- He was never that good a thinker. - He sure fooled us.

No, no, leave it. Don't turn it down. I want to see this.

You know what's happening, he's winning.

He'll never make it.

If he wins, they'll kill him. He'll stop the war.

They'll kill him before they let him be President.

With Broussard, they have everything...

...all our witnesses, our strategies for the trial.

We got to double check his work.

There could be false leads. We can't go to trial!

We don't have a prayer!

- I don't think so, Al. - I have to agree with Al, Boss.

This is not one we'll come out on.

You remember the Hemingway story, The Old Man and the Sea?

The old fisherman manages to catch this great fish...

...a fish so huge, that he has to tie it to the boat to get it back in.

By the time it reached shore...

...the fish had long since been picked apart by sharks.

Nothing was left, but the skeleton.

- And that's what will happen to us. - Then what did we do this for?

It's a means to an end.

This war has two fronts.

In a court of law, we hope to get Clay Shaw for conspiracy.

In the court of public opinion, it could take another 25, 30 years...

...for the truth to come out.

At least we'll strike the first blow.

What if you're wrong?

I never thought for a second I was.

Will you come to the trial?

I don't think so.

With 53% of the precincts reporting, Sen. Kennedy has a 48% to 41% lead...

...over Sen. McCarthy.

CBS News projects Sen. Robert Kennedy...

...the winner of the California primary.

Within the United States over the period of the last three years...

...the division, the violence, the disenchantment with our society...

...the divisions between blacks and whites...

...the poor and the affluent, between age groups...

...or Vietnam, we can work together.

We are a great country, an unselfish, compassionate country.

That's my basis for running.

Thank you all. It's on to Chicago and let's win there.

Senator Kennedy has been shot!

They killed him, honey.

He won...

...and they killed Robert Kennedy.

They shot him down.

Oh, my God!

Both of them?

Both brothers?

You were right.

It hasn't ended yet.