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JFK (1991) More at IMDbPro »

The film was based upon a real court case that took place in New Orleans in the late 1960s. Jim Garrison, a New Orleans District Attorney, charged Clay Shaw, a local businessman and civic leader, with conspiracy in the death of president John Kennedy. The jury acquitted Shaw almost immediately, and the case was actually seen as something of a shambles.

Some of the characters in JFK are fictional, including Willie O'Keefe, played by Kevin Bacon and X, played by Donald Sutherland. In addition, many scenes, including several flashbacks, were invented by Oliver Stone for creative reasons.

However some of the characters Stone presents are indeed based upon real people, including David Ferrie, played by Joe Pesci, Guy Bannister, played by Ed Asner, and of course Shaw and Garrison, played by Tommy Lee Jones and Kevin Costner, respectively.

Mr. X (played by Donald Sutherland), as the character identifies himself, is loosely based on Col. Fletcher Prouty--who also served as advisor to the film. It was Prouty who claimed that NSAM 263 was proof that JFK was withdrawing from Vietnam--a serious misreading, which questions his credibility. Also, the claim that NSAM 273 signed by Lydon Johnson did not include the 1000 troop withdrawal as included in NSAM 263 is false. Inspection of NSAM 273 dated 11/21/63 reveals this: '2.The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U. S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963. Note that NSAM 273 is dated the day before Kennedy was assassinated, and "the President" here is JFK. So, NSAM 273 was issued UNDER the Kennedy Administration and signed by LBJ.

When Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) meets Mr.X (Donald Sutherland) at the Lincoln Memorial, Mr.X claims that when he was chief of Special Operations, he was instructed by a certain 'General Y' (his boss) to go to the South Pole as the military escort for a group of international VIP's. He goes on to say this was done because if he was present in Washington, one of his routine duties would've been to arrange additional security in Texas, which would of course interfere with the 'conspirators' plans to kill the President. Who is this General Y? In the movie-- according to the screenplay: "The status of Y is only clear by the sign on the desk, the name blocked by a passing figure." The name is General Edward Lansdale. But by the start of November 1963 Lansdale had already retired, and could not have received such an order from him even if Mr.X was involved with Presidential Security (which he was not; as Mr. X is based largely on Fletcher Prouty, it is known that Prouty was not at any time required to provide Presidential Security or privy to Secret Service information). Mr.X's claim that the '112th Military Intelligence Group at Fort Sam Houston was ordered to stand down that day' is also unverified. In fact, the 112th did provide protection for the motorcade. Colonel Robert E. Jones (Operations Officer of the 112th Military Intelligence group from June 1963-January 1965) when questioned by the HSC said that people were provided for Security in San Antonio and Dallas. He never mentioned any instruction to 'stand down' as Mr.X said.

Another composite character in the movie (played by Kevin Bacon)--and one of the real life characters he is based on happens to be Perry Raymond Russo. Russo claimed he attended a party at Dave Ferrie's New Orleans apartment where a Clay 'Bertrand' and Oswald was present, and there they discussed the plot to kill JFK by 'triangulation of crossfire'. No problems, right? You have all the key suspects conveniently in one room plotting to kill the president. Alas, that statement by Russo was made under hypnosis, and the name 'Bertrand' was fed to the character by the hypnotist. Later, when Russo was taken for a polygraph test he freaked out and recanted his statement.

David Ferrie (played by Joe Pesci) came into the conspiracy as a result of Jack S. Martin's (played in the movie by Jack Lemmon) accusation that Ferrie was seen with Lee Harvey Oswald. It is known that Jack Martin held a grudge against Ferrie, and as a result started the rumors that he was involved with Oswald. Though in the movie a claim is made that Ferrie's name keep 'popping up' among Oswald's associates, not a single person claimed to have seen Oswald and Ferrie together that summer in New Orleans--the connection was made solely upon Jack Martin's untruthful claim. Martin also claimed that Ferrie may have hypnotized Oswald into killing the president, among various other misleading and often spiteful information regarding Ferrie. He was also a drunk, and a sociopath with a history of giving false information to authorities.

At the end the movie says 'Richard Helms, a director of covert operations in 1963, admitted under oath that CLAY SHAW had worked for the CIA'. What Richard Helms really said was this: 'one time, as a businessman, [Clay Shaw] was one of the part-time contacts of the Domestic Contact Division'. Claw Shaw worked at Trade Mart, and Shaw--and many other people--were required to report to the CIA's Domestic Contact Service (DCS) in New Orleans. Shaw was one of literally thousands of US citizens debriefed each year about their travels and contacts abroad by the DCS. He was never a contract agent, and thus was never paid. All the information he gave to DCS can now be found at the National Archives.

No, not really. Garrison couldn't get any other people other than Russo to identify Clay Shaw as Clay Bertrand (even then, Russo's claims were made under hypnosis!), and though Garrison scoured the area for potential witnesses he could find none (Jim Garrison's method was to make up a theory, then find people to back the theory). The name Bertrand was largely a figment of Dean Andrews (played by John Candy) vivid imagination; he was known to be a lad who had a penchant for making up tall tales and delivering them in attractive lingo. During the time he claimed he got the call from a 'Bertrand' to represent Oswald, he was down with pneumonia, in a state of delirium and heavily sedated in Hotel Dieu Hospital.

Again, no conclusive evidence to prove this. In the movie there is a scene where the officer booking Clay Shaw asks for aliases, and Clay Shaw replies 'Clay Bertrand'. In reality, this never happened. Clay Shaw did not at any time admit using an alias. In a booking procedure such as this, a field arrest form would be supplied to the booking officer that would include any aliases used by the arrestee; which begs the question: why would Officer Habighorst need to question the arrestee when all the information was supplied to him? Further evidence contrary to Officer Habighorst's claim comes from Sgt. Jonas Butzman who was assigned to guard Shaw during the booking who said that Habighorst did not question Shaw and that the name 'Bertrand' was never spoken.

In the movie Stone shows the infamous 'LIFE' photo (Feb. 21, 1964) of Oswald being doctored--Oswald's head being pasted on somebody else's body; another piece of mere fictitious theorizing.LIFE's artists routinely outlined parts of the photo to clarify detail, such as the rifle. Oswald's wife Marina has also testified she took these photos--two snapshots, The Warren Commision investigators have one of the negatives. Experts have also studied the photos and their grain structure, coming to the conclusion that the photos were not doctored in any way.

Oliver Stone's 'JFK' misleadingly represents the baby boomer myth that JFK planned to pull out of Vietnam. The main point comes in the form the National Security Action Memorandum 263 JFK issued to the joint chiefs of staff including his plans to withdraw from Vietnam. Conspiracists point to the 1,000 man troop withdrawal in NSAM 263 as evidence that Kennedy was going to withdraw. But does the document as a whole suggest that U.S. policy makers had resigned themselves to a Communist victory, or that they rather intended to defeat the Communist insurgency? South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem was cracking down internal dissidents, and it was sending the country into chaos. In fear that this would help the Communist insurgents, Kennedy conceived of bringing home one thousand of the sixteen thousand American military advisers as a way of prodding Diem into behaving more leniently. Said JFK: Its aim was to "indicate our displeasure" with Diem and "create significant uncertainty" in him "as to the future intentions of the United States." This is hardly proof that JFK was withdrawing completely from Vietnam.

Yes, but the quote is dangerously lifted out of context as to buttress the fact that Lyndon Johnson was a warmonger. Stone got this quote from Stanley Karnow's book, and the author has suggested that the line was indeed said during a late1963 White House reception to joint chiefs of staff. But, the author claims that this was an example of LBJ giving different promises to different factions; LBJ was hoping to placate the brass so he could rally their conservative allies on Capitol Hill behind his liberal social agenda. At the same time, according to author Stanley Karnow, LBJ was also taking to members of congress who were hesitant about Vietnam that he had no intention of getting immersed in that "damn pissant little country". Oliver Stone, in order to make LBJ a warmonger lifted the quote out of context.

During the final court trail, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) says of a man who had a seizure in Dealey Plaza: 'The epileptic later vanished, never checking into the hospital'. Well, he did not exactly 'vanish' as Stone says, but was located by the FBI on March 26, 1964, where he identified himself as Jerry Belknap, an epileptic who had suffered seizures since childhood. He was actually taken to the Parkland Hospital after the seizure, but left without registering because he felt better after being given a glass of water and an aspirin. Also, he realized his chances of seeing a doctor was slim after seeing the President's motorcade pull into the hospital.

In the movie, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) says the man pumping the umbrella during the motorcade is actually signaling the shooters to 'keep shooting' ('He's not dead. Keep shooting.')--thus incriminating him in the 'conspiracy' to kill the president. This so-called 'Umbrella Man', as he is known among the CT community, was identified by the House Select Committee for assassinations in 1978 as Louie Steven Witt. It is interesting to note that when questioned by the committee as to why he had an umbrella with him, he said he bought it along to heckle the President's motorcade (as it was known the umbrella was a 'sore spot' with the Kennedy family;Witt said he took the umbrella as a rightwing protest against Kennedy's "softness" on communism. The symbolism came from Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, where cartoonists portrayed Britain being shielded by Chamberlain's trademark umbrella. Before WWII, Joseph Kennedy was Ambassador to England; he encouraged Chamberlain's efforts, and was thus accused of being a Hitler appeaser; Lyndon Johnson once called Joe Kennedy "a Chamberlain umbrella man"). So, it was not a sinister cue as portrayed in the film, but a political gesture intended to irk the President. None of this is revealed in the film.

This has been one of the most asked questions, since it was made known publicly in 1972 that the president's brain was missing from the National Archives. Conspiracy Theorists hastily assume that this was part of the massive cover-up--since the 'disappearance' of Kennedy's brain would conveniently stop people from finding out where the gunshots originated. But following investigations have revealed that all roads lead to Robert Kennedy; after the brain had been photographed and x-rayed Bobby had requested it to be turned over to him. According to a family spokesman, he did not tell other family members what he did with these parts of his brother's body. It is fairly assumed that he buried it along with JFK's body.