The JFK 100

JOHNSON There have been a number of reports in reputable news media -- Time, Newsweek, our own NBC -- that you have gone way beyond the legal means available to a prosecutor, that you've intimidated and drugged witnesses, bribed them, urged them to commit perjury. What is your response?

JIM Your faith in the veracity of the major media is touching, Jerry. It indicates that the Age of Innocence is not yet over. But seriously, Jerry, people aren't interested in Jim Garrison -- they want the hard evidence! They want to know why he was killed and what forces were opposed to . . .

JOHNSON (interrupting) Some people would say you're paranoid.

JIM Well, if I am, why is the Government concealing evidence?

JOHNSON Are they? Why would they?

JIM (pulling out his briefcase) That's exactly my question, Jerry. Maybe I'd better show you some pictures so you can begin to understand what I am talking about.

He pulls out a large blowup of the Allen photo of the three hoboes and starts to hold it up in front of the camera.

JIM (CONT'D) These arrests were photographed minutes after the assassination, and were never shown to the American public. They show . . .

It takes Johnson a few moments to realize what's happening. When he does, he lunges like a cobra for the photographs, pulling Jim's arm down so the pictures are out of the camera's view.

JOHNSON (sharply) Pictures like this don't show up on television!

JIM (holding the picture up again) Sure they do. The camera can pick this up.

JOHNSON (yanking his arm down) No, it can't!

Jim swings the picture up a third time, but the stage director gives a "cut" signal -- finger across the throat -- and the red light on the camera blinks off. The monitor shows another camera panning the audience.

JIM (quickly realizes he's about to be cut off) Those men you just saw were arrested in Dallas minutes after the assassination. They were never seen again. No record of arrest, no fingerprint, no mugshot, nothing. They all got away.

The director frantically gives Johnson the "cut" sign.

JOHNSON We'll be back after these messages.⁽¹⁾

 

But anyone can listen to an audio recording of the broadcast and hear that nothing even remotely like this incident ever happened. Garrison was making the whole thing up.

Also, the three men in the photographs mentioned in this scene have been identified; they had nothing to do with the assassination.

Once again, Oliver Stone relies on Jim Garrison for the facts, and gets taken for a ride.

NOTES:

1. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), pp. 142-43. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.

2. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (New York: Warner Books, 1992), pp. 244-47.