Original subtitles

Towards the underpass, I saw two men...

...standing behind a picket fence...

...looking up towards Main and Houston, as the caravan came down.

One of them was middle-aged...

...heavyset.

The other man was younger.

Two other men were on the east end of the parking lot.

They both had uniforms.

At the time of the shooting...

...there seemed to be some commotion.

I'm just unable to describe...

...a flash of light or smoke or something...

...which caused me to feel that something out of the ordinary...

...had occurred on the embankment.

Goddamn.

No!

- You all right? - Honey, it's incredible.

What?

The whole thing.

A Lt. Colonel testifies that...

...Oswald had a Russian language exam as part of his Marine training...

...only a few months before he defects to the Soviet Union.

A Russian exam.

It's 4:30 in the morning! I have five kids who'll wake up in an hour.

In all my years in the military, I never knew a single man who had a Russian test.

Oswald was a radar operator.

He'd have about as much use for Russian as a cat has for pajamas.

These books have gotten to your mind!

- Stop reading. - He makes it sound like nothing.

Oswald did badly on his test.

He got only two more Russian words right than wrong.

That's like me saying, Touchdown is not very intelligent...

...because I beat him three games out of five when we played chess.

Are you going to stay up all night, every night? For what?

To be the only man who's read all 26 volumes of the Warren Report?

Do I have to spell it out for you?

Lee Oswald was no ordinary soldier.

He was in military intelligence, that's why he was trained in Russian.

It was no accident he was in Russia.

- Go back to sleep. - I've been sleeping for three years!

'Morning boys. Ready for a walking tour?

7:30 Sunday morning? Not exactly fresh blood we're sniffing.

Old stains, but just as telling.

531 Lafayette Street.

Remember whose office this was in '63?

Sure. Guy Banister.

Ex-FBI man. Died a couple of years ago.

He headed the Chicago office. When he retired he became a private eye here.

I used to have lunch with him. John Birch Society, Minutemen.

To the right of Attila the Hun.

Recruited students to infiltrate radical organizations on campus.

Headed the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean.

All out of this office.

I want to show you something.

Take a look here.

544 Camp Street.

531 Lafayette Street.

Same building, right?

Different addresses, different entrances, both going to the same place...

...to the office upstairs.

Guess who used it?

Lee Harvey Oswald.

How do we know that?

This address was stamped on...

...pro-Castro leaflets he handed out in the summer of '63 on Canal Street.

The same leaflets they found in his garage in Dallas.

After the arrest, 544 Camp St. Never appeared on the pamphlets again.

He was arrested for fighting with anti-Castro Cubans.

But he'd contacted them already...

...as an ex-Marine trying to join their anti-Castro crusade.

When they heard he was now pro-Castro, they paid him a visit.

What's this Fidel shit? You lied to me!

Liar! Son of a bitch!

Do not take this Communist propaganda!

If you want to hit me, hit me.

You pinko shit!

Go back to Moscow!

There was no real fight.

The arresting Lieutenant later said he felt it was a staged incident.

In jail, Oswald has a private session...

...with Special Agent John Quigley of the FBI.

Oswald is released.

And Quigley destroys his notes from the interview.

The arrest gets Oswald a lot of publicity.

And he appears on a local TV debate.

You are a Communist, are you not?

No, Mr. Bringuier. I am not a Communist. I'm a Marxist-Leninist.

Communist, Marxist-Leninist, what's the difference?

What if I told you Oswald was trained in the Russian language in the Marines?

I'd say he got intelligence training.

You were a Marine. Who'd run it?

Office of Naval Intelligence.

Look across the street.

Post Office.

Upstairs, in 1963, that was the Office of Naval Intelligence.

By coincidence, Banister, before he was FBI, was ONI.

What's their saying?

"Once ONI, always ONI."

He likes working near his old pals.

We are standing in the heart...

...of the US government's intelligence community in New Orleans.

That's the FBI.

That's the CIA.

That's the Secret Service.

That's the ONI.

Isn't this a strange place...

...for a Communist to spend his spare time?

What are you driving at?

We're going back into the case.

The murder of the President.

Lord, wake me. I must be dreaming.

You're awake. I'm deadly serious.

Let's track down your anonymous source from three years ago.

How'd you find out David Ferrie drove to Texas that day?

I can't remember last night, let alone three years ago, Boss.

You're not being cross-examined.

I need clarification about the night Guy Banister beat you over the head.

Don't tell me you don't remember.

You called our office from your hospital bed. You were hopping mad about it.

Here's my problem.

You told me you and Guy were good friends for a long time.

- Over ten years. - And he never hit you before?

Never touched me.

Yet, on November 22, 1963...

...the day of the President's murder...

...the police report says...

...he pistol-whipped you with a.357 Magnum.

It also says you argued about the phone bill. Look!

Is an argument over a phone bill a believable explanation to you?

There's more to it.

How much more?

I shouldn't talk about it.

I'd ask Guy. We were friendly. Heart attack?

You buy what you read in the papers.

- You have other information? - I didn't say that!

All I know is he died suddenly. Just before the Warren Report came out.

Why did Guy beat you, Jack?

You were the only one here!

The only one here!

You didn't see a goddamn thing!

Hell, Guy's dead, so it don't matter no more. It was all about those...

...people that was hanging around the office that summer.

I was never part of the operation.

I just handled their private-eye work as it came in for Guy.

Not much did, but that's why I was there.

It was a nuthouse.

Cubans coming, going. And Christ, they all looked the same to me.

You going to play with this rifle or pack it?

Dave Ferrie.

- You know about him? - We know Dave. Was he there?

He practically lived there.

The whole thing was...

...all cloak-and-dagger stuff.

They called it "Operation Mongoose."

The idea was to train these Cuban exiles for another invasion of Cuba.

Banister's office was part of the supply line...

...from Dallas through New Orleans to Miami.

We stockpiled arms, explosives.

In view of the intelligence community in Lafayette Square?

Yes. Everybody knew everybody. They were all part of the network.

All worked for the CIA.

Pilots and black operators and civilians and the military.

Everybody was running guns then.

Ft. Jefferson, Bayou Bluff, Morgan City, you name it.

McAllen, Texas? Big gun-run operation.

Where does Banister fit in?

He was running his camp north of Lake Pontchartrain.

Ferrie did a lot of the training.

They had a shooting range and tropical territory, like in Cuba.

Some Americans were trained there too.

Nazi types. Mercenaries.

That Ferrie, though, Jesus, he was the craziest.

Late summer the party was over. Kennedy didn't want another Bay of Pigs.

He told the FBI, "Shut up the camp.

"Confiscate the napalm, C-4 and all."

The G-men were just going through the motions.

Their hearts were still with their old FBI buddy Banister.

Oswald?

He was there too.

Sometimes meeting with Banister.

With the door shut.

Shootin' the bull with Ferrie, whatever. But he was there, all right.

Anything more specific, Jack?

It's important.

One time, the secretary got upset.

I can't believe it, Mr. Banister, Oswald is down on Canal Street...

...handing out Communist leaflets supporting Castro.

It's okay, Delphine, he's with us.

Was anyone else involved at...

...Banister's level?

One guy. I don't know who.

Big. White hair.

I saw him in the office once. He looked out of place.

You know, a society guy.

Can't remember his name, but Oswald was with him.

He had something to do with money, because Banister never kissed ass...

...but he kissed his.

Clay something.

That was his name. Clay...

- Bertrand? - Yeah.

- Clay Bertrand? - I don't know.

- Maybe not. - No, that's right.

I must go.

He was in the Warren Report. He got Oswald a lawyer.

Was Kennedy discussed?

I don't know.

- The assassination? - No.

- Not with me. I've got to go. - Hold on.

- That's all I'll say. - What's the problem?

Do I have to spell it out for you?

Nobody knows what we're talking about here.

You are so naive.

- When'd you do business with Bertrand? - Pipe the bimbo in red.

- Lawdy. - She's not as cute as you.

- You should try a legitimate business. - Why are you dancing on my head?

- We've been friends since law school. - Because you're conning me.

- I read your testimony. - Grain of salt.

You said Clay Bertrand called you the day after the assassination...

...and asked you to be Oswald's lawyer. - Right.

That's pretty important.

You told the FBI he's 6' 2". Then you tell the Commission he's 5' 8".

How the hell does a man shrink like that?

They put the heat on me, like you. I gave them whatever popped in my cabeza.

Truth is, I never met the dude.

- One likes friends that have friends. - Indeed.

I don't know what that cat looks like or where he's at.