Oliver Stone Talks to Jacobin About JFK’s Killing

[Richard Smith]

Oliver Stone is entitled to his own opinions, I'm entitled to my own, and you're entitled to your own.

Here's my opinion:

I don't agree with Stone's thesis that 'JFK was killed for refusing to escalate in Vietnam'. My opinion is, if there was a conspiracy plot against JFK, I suspect it had more to do with Cuba and the Mafia, than Vietnam.

However, in the bigger picture, Stone isn't wrong about the Military Industrial Complex and the Cold War. Like most great artists, his work appeals to such a wide range of people because there's a lot of truth in it even if some specific details are wrong. For example, Stone's 1991 film, 'JFK', is heavily dramatized and shows lots of things that didn't really happen but Stone nailed the broader narrative of how many Americans 'feel' about the JFK assassination. The film works as a political thriller because of the feelings (and an all-star cast), not the facts. 'JFK', 'Platoon', 'Wall Street', and 'The Doors' were great and iconic films because of the compelling stories, not the fact that they accurately portrayed the subjects. Unlike Stone's feature films, 'JFK Revisited' is a documentary and while there are a few things in the film that I don't agree with, it's a solid documentary in terms of facts and accuracy.

I don't know as much about Jim Garrison's political views but I know that both Stone and DiEugenio have far-left political opinions outside of the JFK topic as do I. So for that reason I'm sympathetic to how they attach the Kennedy assassination to the broader cultural war against the Left in the 1960s. What I mean is, many on the Left don't view the political assassinations of Liberal/Left leaders in the 1960s as isolated events. The Leftwing narrative on the JFK/Malcolm X/MLK/RFK murders is that villains like J Edgar Hoover and the CIA conspired to destroy the most charismatic Liberal/Left leaders of the 60s in order to destroy the Progressive movement in the US. No, I don't know for a fact that all those assassinations had "Deep State" conspiracies behind them but we know a great deal about the COINTELPRO operations that went on in the 60s and 70s. I feel that it's broadly true that people like Hoover in fact were very proactive in their efforts to take down Leftist leaders and Leftist movements in the US (and the CIA did the same abroad).

If you're not politically on the Left, I doubt that you spend much time thinking about COINTELPRO. I'm just bringing this up to explain that our contemporary political views affect how we interpret history.

As for the Cold War, I think the truth is in the middle but the paranoia and threat inflation within the US national security State likely did extend the Cold War longer than it needed to last. And I'm fully aware that I'm speaking with 20/20 hindsight. Back when the Cold War was happening, it was difficult to see it for what it was so I'm not arguing that the decision makers in those times intentionally made mistakes. Just acknowledging that mistakes were made and noting the patterns of behavior which led to those mistakes. 

It's not reverse engineering. The vast majority of Americans accepted the conclusions of the Warren Report until researchers began to actually READ the entire 26 volumes and take a closer look at the evidence. And the problem back then as well as today is that there was a rush to judgement by investigators, not a good faith effort to figure out if others were involved.

So we're left with only two plausible conclusions:

A) The Warren Commission got it right in spite of the flawed evidence, cover-ups, and omissions of relevant information.

or

B) There was a conspiracy plot and we may never know the whole truth about it due to the botched investigations and government secrecy.

Not me. I think it's plausible that Oswald alone did it. I'm just not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt due to the mountain of questionable and inconclusive stuff in the case. Once you see certain things, you just can't unsee them and the LN side doesn't have answers for every inconclusive piece of evidence.

The starting and ending point of this case is the rifle.  Do you accept that Oswald owned the MC rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD?  The evidence of that fact is substantial.  There are order forms, PO Box, use of a known alias, prints, photos, and other circumstances that link Oswald to that particular rifle beyond any reasonable doubt.  Once you accept the fact that it was Oswald's rifle left at the crime scene, you have arrived at the simplicity that lies on the far side of CTer complexity.  Oswald had an opportunity to explain the presence of his rifle there, but instead he lied about his ownership of any rifle.  His rifle was not in the place where his own wife indicated that he stored it when the DPD searched the Paine's garage.  And there is no accounting for any other rifle ever belonging to Oswald EXCEPT for the one found on the 6th floor.  Oswald's rifle was found at the crime scene.  He had no explanation for it being there or alibi for the moment of the assassination.  Witnesses confirm that they saw a rifle in the 6th floor window at the moment of the assassination.  Fired bullet casings from Oswald's rifle were found by that window.  His prints are on the very SN boxes and bag by that window.  The basic evidence convicts him a million times over.  The prisons are full of criminals convicted with much less evidence.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

JFK had been gone for a while before the Gulf of Tonkin events happened. LBJ’s mindset regarding Vietnam was different than JFK’s mindset. No one can say with certainty what JFK might have done regarding Vietnam if he had not been assassinated. But he never strayed from his opinion that the conflict was one that the Vietnamese had to resolve. He believed that the U.S.’s role should be to assist the South Vietnamese, not to fight the war for them with American combat forces. LBJ, on the other hand, let his ego and insecurities get in the way of good judgment. He said that “HE wasn’t going to be the first U.S. President to loose a war.” The conflict was Vietnam’s war until LBJ decided to Americanize it by sending U.S. combat forces. Once Nixon became President, he began to re-Vietnamize the war by reducing U.S. forces and training Vietnamese forces to take the place of them. This, by the way, was exactly what JFK was doing when he was assassinated.

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK decides to leave, the South falls, in a year? six months?, and the entire region is likely thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South (as they did in 1975) and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. So all of SE Asia "dominoes" into communist control. Can JFK allow that to happen? Politically? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? What happens in the rest of the world? Again, we're all guessing about what he'd do if he decided it was unwinnable without putting ground troops there.

I insist on one thing though: If you asked JFK on November 22, 1963 what he was going to do if the South couldn't defend itself, it his policy of building a self-sustaining government after removing Diem failed, what would you do? He would say, "I don't know."

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

[Charles Collins]

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK leaves the South falls and the entire region is thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. Can JFK allow that to happen? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? Again, we're all guessing.

I insist on one thing though: If you asked JFK on November 22, 1963 what he was going to do if the South couldn't defend itself, it his policy of building a self-sustaining government after removing Diem failed, what would you do? He would say, "I don't know."

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

I think that Oliver Stone’s belief in the Vietnam situation being the reason that JFK was assassinated is nonsense. I don’t believe it whatsoever. My point is simply that I believe that JFK would not have sent U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. The plan at the time of his death was to reduce the number of U.S. military advisers back to the level it was before he took office. I think JFK probably would have been willing to negotiate a settlement after the 1964 elections. Sadly, LBJ had a different viewpoint. He took the situation personally. And he was willing to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight so that HE wouldn’t be the first U.S. President to loose a war.

[Jon Banks]

The starting and ending point of this case is the rifle.  Do you accept that Oswald owned the MC rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD?  The evidence of that fact is substantial. 

I don't know if the rifle found on the Sixth Floor is the same one Oswald allegedly ordered. The facts surrounding the rifle evidence remain as murky as lots of other stuff in the case.

And we learned just a few years ago that we can't conclusively say that all the bullets came from one rifle:

Bullet Evidence Challenges Findings In JFK Assassination
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070517142528.htm

There are order forms, PO Box, use of a known alias, prints, photos, and other circumstances that link Oswald to that particular rifle beyond any reasonable doubt.  Once you accept the fact that it was Oswald's rifle left at the crime scene, you have arrived at the simplicity that lies on the far side of CTer complexity.  Oswald had an opportunity to explain the presence of his rifle there, but instead he lied about his ownership of any rifle.  His rifle was not in the place where his own wife indicated that he stored it when the DPD searched the Paine's garage.  And there is no accounting for any other rifle ever belonging to Oswald EXCEPT for the one found on the 6th floor.  Oswald's rifle was found at the crime scene.  He had no explanation for it being there or alibi for the moment of the assassination.  Witnesses confirm that they saw a rifle in the 6th floor window at the moment of the assassination.  Fired bullet casings from Oswald's rifle were found by that window.  His prints are on the very SN boxes and bag by that window.  The basic evidence convicts him a million times over.  The prisons are full of criminals convicted with much less evidence.

I fully aware of all of the above. However, I pay attention to the parts of that which remain contested while you choose to ignore it.

No one would ever be exonerated in court if only Prosecutors, not Prosecutors and Defense attorneys, were allowed to present evidence. That's pretty much what basing your opinion on the Warren Report is. It's a prosecutorial document. They didn't allow counter arguments from people who wanted to challenge the evidence at that time. 

Oswald never got his day in court so the stuff that would've been challenged in court by his Defense attorneys has never faced legal scrutiny. It can only be debated in the court of public opinion.

[Jon Banks]

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK leaves the South falls and the entire region is thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. Can JFK allow that to happen? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? Again, we're all guessing.

What we can say with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight is that the Communist threat (ie. the Domino Theory) was inflated.

The north Vietnamese were more Nationalist than Communist. Hence why they went to war against China following our exit from Vietnam.

Most of the anti-colonial movements of the post-WWII era were driven by Nationalism and the desire for Independence moreso than political ideology. There's evidence that JFK understood and sympathized with some of the anti-Colonial movements of the early 60s. He was not nearly as rabidly anti-Communist as Eisenhower and Johnson. So it's fair to speculate that he indeed wouldn't have followed the same path as Johnson (who didn't like Kennedy and was taking advice from Eisenhower on Vietnam).

I'm fully aware that Kennedy was also anti-Communist, I just don't think he agreed with most of the national security establishment's views on how to deal with Africa, Asia, and Cuba.

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

The declassified documents since the 1990s vindicated Stone's view that JFK wanted to get out of Vietnam. Whether the political circumstances would've allowed Kennedy to do so if he had lived to serve a second term remains an open question. But Stone's view isn't baseless. It has corroboration.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

JFK's intentions regarding Vietnam:

https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/11/without-dallas-john-f-kennedy-and-the-vietnam-war/

[Martin Weidmann]

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

JFK's intentions regarding Vietnam:

https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/11/without-dallas-john-f-kennedy-and-the-vietnam-war/

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

BS. Even if Oswald did write the order form documents (and we only have a photocopy and an FBI agent's word for that) how does that even begin to prove he actually owned the rifle?

Are you really saying that there is no other explanation for Oswald writing the order forms.