The JFK 100

Stone has a sinister individual phoning Jim Garrison's young daughter and arranging to pick her up after school for a "beauty contest."⁽¹⁾ While it's certainly possible that the real-life DA's family was threatened in such a fashion, the documented screenplay fails to indicate that this was based on an actual event, and Garrison himself does not mention it in his 1988 memoir, On the Trail of the Assassins, upon which JFK is partially based. One assumes, then, that the scene is fiction.

In a scene deleted from the theatrical release but included in the director's cut, a mysterious "Mr. Miller" pays the DA a visit and casually says he can guarantee Big Jim a federal judgeship if he'll agree to drop the probe into JFK's assassination. This is based on an incident in Garrison's memoirs.⁽²⁾

While the obvious implication is that "Mr. Miller" has some highly placed connections, JFK's documented screenplay says, "Researcher Gus Russo has established that 'Mr. Miller' is really John J. King, a Denver oilman with a strange history in the JFK case. His real name is found in Sybil Leek and Bert Sugar's book, The Assassination Chain, (Corwin Books, 1976), p. 311. . . . In the July 9, 1980, Dallas Morning News, reporter Earl Golz wrote that, in 1969, "Denver oilman John J. King . . . had spent $11,350 to try to acquire the (assassination) rifle and the .38-caliber pistol allegedly used by Oswald to shoot J. D. Tippit." Most recently Russo has contacted King's son (King is deceased), who confirms his father's actions." (Also noted is the information that a November 1963 FBI teletype identifies a "John J. King, prosperous Dallas businessman" as a "close friend" of Jack Ruby's.)⁽³⁾

It would seem to be a possibility, then, that Garrison's mysterious visitor was not a federal agent of some kind, but rather a wealthy assassination buff.

JFK's most elaborate depiction of an attempt by conspirators to strike at the DA is an apparent plot to entrap Garrison into a sex offense at Los Angeles International Airport. This is based on an incident in Jim Garrison's memoirs,⁽⁴⁾ but there is reason to doubt it ever occurred; as author Patricia Lambert notes in her groundbreaking study of the Garrison case, False Witness, this story may relate to an even more sordid episode in the DA's life that goes unmentioned in his memoirs and in JFK.

There are several reprisal-related incidents in JFK that Oliver Stone acknowledges to be fiction. At one point the DA tells his staff that "the National Guard has just asked me to resign after 18 years." ("We see his hurt," the screenplay states.) "Well, maybe that's good news," he adds, "it never was as good as combat . . ."⁽⁵⁾

As the documented screenplay concedes, "Jim Garrison actually resigned from the National Guard due to ideological differences. As he told James Kirkwood in 1969: 'I became so disgusted over Vietnam that I quit the National Guard.'"⁽⁶⁾ Apparently, Oliver Stone simply wanted to generate some sympathy for the hero of his movie.

Likewise, Stone has one of Garrison's assistants inform the DA that "the IRS has just requested an audit on your income from this office."⁽⁷⁾ This too never happened. (However, in 1971, Garrison was indicted on a charge of accepting gambling kickbacks and a related tax evasion charge; he acted as his own defense attorney and was acquitted.)

Another dramatic moment in JFK occurs when Garrison and chief investigator Lou Ivon (Jay O. Sanders) exchange tense words over another member of the DA's staff, "Bill Broussard," and Garrison demands Ivon's resignation.⁽⁸⁾ As the documented screenplay notes, "The real-life Lou Ivon did not quit Garrison's JFK investigation team,"⁽⁹⁾ nor did Garrison and Ivon experience any sort of falling out.

Again, Oliver Stone seems to be resorting to fiction to evoke sympathy for his beleaguered protagonist, Jim Garrison.

NOTES:

1. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), pp. 138-39.

2. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), pp. 96-99. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (New York: Warner Books, 1992), pp. 153-58. A John King is mentioned once in the Warren Commission's 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits; this John King was the editor of the Dallas Morning News. (Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2931, Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. XXVI, p. 380.)

3. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 99.

4. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (New York: Warner Books, 1992), pp. 217-221.

5. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 131. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.

6. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 131.

7. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 131.

8. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 138.

9. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 138.