tv President Kennedy CNN November 22, 2013 12:00am-2:01am PST
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>> i feel like mr. mcelderry gregor. >> whether it's peter rabbit stealing vegetables or beard net droppings, it's a fable for the ages and for "the ridiculist." the cnn special the assassination of president kennedy starts now. two or three emotional experiences burned into his heart and his brain and no matter what happens to me, i remember november the 22nd as long as i live. >> there has been an attempt on the life of president kennedy. >> they are combing the floors of the texas depository building to find the assassin. [ gunshots ]. >> oswald has been shot at point blank range fired into the stomach. >> police are working to the assumption oswald's murder was to shut him up. >> the element of a simple
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intelligence agency killed john kennedy. >> the story has been suppressed. witnesses have been killed. we have a right to know who killed our president and why he died. ♪ >> i stand here tonight on ♪ >> i stand here tonight on what was once the last frontier. the pioneers gave up their safety, and sometimes their lives to build our new west. beyond that frontier, are uncharted areas of science and faith, unsolved problems of peace and war, promises of ignorance and prejudice but i believe the times require imagination and courage. i'm asking each of you to be pioneers towards that new frontier. in dallas, preparations were already underway for extraordinary police protection when the president should arrive. you anticipate any trouble on
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the president's arrival? >> because of what has happened here previously, we would be in dallas, preparations were already underway for extraordinary police protection when the president should arrive. you anticipate any trouble on the president's arrival? >> because of what has happened here previously, we would be foolish i think not to anticipate some trouble. i don't, really, i don't anticipate any violence. ♪ >> here comes air force number one, the president's plane now touching down. plane now touching down. there is mrs. kennedy, and the crowd yells and the president of the united states. i can see his suntan all the way from here. >> looking at how things
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actually went, it wasn't just a trip to dallas. it was a political trip preparing for the 1964 elections. >> shaking hands now with the dallas people, governor and mrs. conley. governor conley on your left. >> it was whether kennedy could use his charisma and influence to get the squabbling democrats in texas to come together before the election the next year. >> and here comes the president now, in fact, he's not in his limousine. he's departed the limousine and reached across the fence shaking hands. >> in those days everybody could get closer to the president. i was standing behind mrs. kennedy and saw a hand reach through the chain link
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fence and break off one of the red roses. >> thousands of children swarming, trying to get over the fence. the dallas police trying to keep them back. this is great for the people and makes the egg shells thinner for the secret service. >> the trip had gone terrifically well in texas. pretty hard to write a script for it going any better. >> thousands will be on hand for that motorcade now, which will be downtown dallas. >> a number of my classmates were gone. they were at the parade. my father had been invited to have lunch with kennedy at the trade center. there was a mood, a climate of excitement. >> the speech of president kennedy will be broadcast. stay tuned for the president's speech on 570 radio. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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>> this just into the kilt news. dallas police, shots were fired at the motorcade of president kennedy in downtown dallas. >> police radios are carrying that the president has been hit. >> the hospital has been advised to stand by for a severe gunshot wound. >> this is walter cronkite in the newsroom and there has been an attempt on the life of president kennedy. >> turn the mic on. i can't hear you, johnny. you want me to move back a little bit? is it all right now? is this all right? ladies and gentlemen, i would
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like to introduce the chief camera man and assistant news director of faa television. burt, we brought the people pretty much up to date. would you tell them exactly what you know as of this point? >> jay, i was standing at the trade mart waiting his arrival there. all of a sudden, we saw them approaching. they didn't slow down, matter of fact they were going 70, 80 miles an hour past us and i jumped in the police car and went to park land. these two men came running in, one had a large machine gun and they was hauling stretchers and cots and everything and the governor went in first. >> what happened after this? >> the president come in behind him and they took them, both of them back. >> albert thomas, democratic texas is standing outside the corridor of the emergency room, said he's been told the president was still alive but in very critical condition.
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>> the president has not arrived here. a group of secret servicemen and other officials has gathered where the president normally would enter and discussing repeatedly with one another some subject or other. of course, we have no idea what. >> here is an announcement. mr. erik johnson with an announcement. >> it is true that our president, governor connally, the motorcade was shot. we should tell you as much assy know as soon as we know anything. thank you. a gentlemen just walked in honestly, i'm a little old fashioned. i love chalk and erasers. but change is coming.
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a gentlemen just walked in the studio i'm meeting for the first time, as well as you, this is wfaa tv in dallas, texas. may i have your name, sir. >> mr. zaputta. >> zaputta? >> yes, sir. >> tell us your story, sir? >> i get out to shoot some pictures. >> 5-year-old boy and myself were on the grass there and joe waved and i waved and -- >> it's all right, sir. >> go ahead. >> he was waving back. he was -- the shot rang out and he slumped down in the seat. >> all of a sudden, this next one popped and governor connally grabbed his stomach and went to the side and another one and president kennedy grabbed his ear and blood started gushing out. >> i didn't see any person fire the weapon. >> you only heard it?
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>> i only heard it and looked up and saw a man running up this hill. >> if it's a conspiracy, not only the president was hit, the governor was hit, who knows if the next shot would have been for lyndon johnson. johnson's car pulls into the emergency bay at the hospital. four agents reach in and grab johnson and pull him out and start to run him down one corridor looking for a safe place. >> mr. johnson's whereabouts are being kept secret for security reasons. if anybody knows where mr. johnson is, it is not us at this moment. >> there was a signal moment in the cultural history. suddenly it occurred the right thing to do is turn on television. >> the reports continue to come in, but in a confused fashion. >> president kennedy has been given a blood chance fusion at parkland hospital in an effort to save his life. >> it was odd. there were no commercials, just
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a continuing experience. >> two priests entered park land hospital where he rests after the assess nation attempt which was about a half hour ago. >> what are your feelings right now, mom? >> we have the same birthday and i am just crazy about him. >> who would want to shoot the president? did he do? he's been doing so much for the country and somebody shoots him? >> a flash from dallas. two priests who were with president kennedy say he is dead. >> bullet wounds, this is the latest information we have from dallas. i will repeat with the greatest regret two priests who were with president kennedy say he has died of bullet wounds.
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>> malcolm, the assistant press secretary was filling in for the regular press secretary and then he had to draw himself up to give the most fateful announcement that a press secretary might have ever had to give. >> all the cameras were rolling and i remember he put his fingers like this on the desk and pressed very hard to stop his hands trembling. >> john f. kennedy died at approximately 1: 00 central standard time today here in dallas. he died of a gunshot wound in the brain. i have no other details regarding the assassination of the president. >> the people standing here are stunned just as all of us are beyond belief, but the president of the united states is dead. >> all over the world, people are going to remember all their
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lives what they were doing when they first heard that president kennedy had been killed. >> the crowds are standing around in silence and sorrow in the rain and the strange thing, you don't even notice it's raining, and if you do notice, you don't care and you can't believe it. >> i feel like someone in my own family is dead. i just can't believe it. >> ma'am? >> i can't -- >> you don't know what is going on, why? why did it happen? who would have done such a thing is the question? >> in the first minutes and hours chaos and confusion was radiating out from the scene itself.
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it was very pervasive. >> secret service agents, think it's an automatic weapon fired possibly from a grassy until. >> i saw police run, i thought they are chasing a gunman, i followed them. >> the attempted assassins, we heard it is a man and woman. >> i got up, looked around, a policeman went over the fence. i went over the fence, too. there was nothing there. >> the television news man said he looked up after the shot was fired and saw a rifle being with drawn from a fifth or sixth floor window. >> there was originally thought the shots came from in here and now it's believed that the shots came from this building here. >> police officers running back towards the texas depository building. they will continue searching in that building for the would be assassin of the president. >> the center of downtown dallas is at a virtual state of seeing. they are combing the floors to find the suspected assassin.
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>> the building on the sixth floor we found an area near a window that had partially been blocked off by boxes of books and also, the three spent shells that had apparently been fired from a rifle. >> lieutenant j.c. dade came out of the building with a british 303 rifle. >> a 7.65. >> a high powered army or japanese rifle of . .25 caliber. >> a 30/30 rifle. >> much of the first things you hear will be wrong, and to some degree you are consciously trying to separate out what seems to be a fact. >> in dallas, a dallas policeman just a short while ago was shot. police jumped this man and grabbed this man trying to run with him.
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they shot and the officers hustled him into the car and ran away as fast as they could. as we mentioned a short while ago, a number of arrests have been made in dallas in the wake of president kennedy's death. as we mentioned a short while ago, a number of arrests have been made in dallas in the wake of president kennedy's death. we have scenes of one of those arrests in the downtown area. this was just after a dallas policeman was shot in the vicinity of a downtown movie house. >> bently. >> approaching --
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>> as he approached him, the man hit mcdonald in the face with his left hand and reached for the pistol with his right hand and as he reached for his pistol, i grabbed him with two or tried officers. >> what did he say after he was arrested? >> he said this is it. it's all over with now. every piece is important... this part... makes my eyes blue... i might have an increased risk of heart disease... gallstones... hemochromatosis... i'll look into that. the more you know about your dna, the more you know about yourself... now i know. know more about your health. go to 23andme.com and order your dna kit for only 99 dollars today. learn hundreds of things about your health at 23andme.com you give them the giggles. tylenol cold® helps relieve your worst cold and flu symptoms.
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someone name lee harvey oswald is arrested. oswald may be a suspect in the assassination. who is he? >> lee oswald of dallas, a form erma rein that spent time in russia and applied for soviet citizen ship. >> the description that we have of the suspect in ocliff was similar to the description we have as the assassin but we haven't been able to connect the two. >> down there a crowd of camera men, reporters wait for a possible appearance of the man accused of killing president kennedy and a dallas police officer. >> it will be a great deal of confusion, mr. oswald is put through the door. i don't know if you saw him. oswald lives at 1026 meckley. an employee of which they believe the police and secret
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servicemen believe was shot today. >> mrs. kennedy accompanied the body in the ambulance from the hospital to the airport where it will be flown back to washington. >> the emergency room at the hospital on the first floor there and they come out and told us that we would have to help her move the remains into a gas knit. >> lyndon johnson had ordered that the body be brought immediately to air force one so there was a little tug-of-war. almost shook the crucifix off of the top of the coffin as they were trying to get that coffin out of the hospital. >> took him out and put him into the hurst and one of the secret servicemen, well, about two or three of them got into the hurst and drove off and mr. o'neil and the rest of us standing there. >> vice president johnson is expected to be sworn in as president aboard an airliner before flying back to the nation's capitol.
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>> not everyone realized johnson was the president because he took the oath in january '61, the same oath the president takes. >> johnson wanted to show the american people that the government was functioning without interruption. also, perhaps, he wanted to show that his predecessor's family boar him no ill will for the assassination. >> lyndon baynes johnson is flying back to washington to take the reigns of government, at which time president johnson will have to take into his hands the reigns of the most powerful nation in the world. >> we think november 22nd, 1963 as a date when a president was killed. but it was also a day when the
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president was created. >> is there any doubt in your mind chief that oswald is the man that killed the president? >> i think this is the man that killed the president, yes, sir. >> is there any evidence any one else may have been linked with oswald in this shooting. >> at this time we don't believe so. >> i don't know what this is all about. >> sir? >> did you shoot the president? >> i work in that building. naturally if i work in that building, yes, sir. >> back up, ma'am. >> taken in because of the fact that i lived in the --
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>> president -- >> this is room 317, homicide burro here at the dallas police station. as you see, they are bringing the weapon allegedly used in the assassination of john f. kennedy this afternoon at 12:30 here in dallas. >> 6.5 made in italy in 1940. >> police have traced a rifle purchased in chicago by mail order to oswald. he bought it under the alias, the price of $12.78, the life of the president of the united states apparently was bought. >> in the wake of the kennedy assassination, the dallas police on the one hand were committing resources to try and solve a crime. >> move in the doorway, get him in the doorway. >> there they had -- they were ill equipped to handle this tsunami of reporters. >> well, i was questioned by protesters, at that time i was
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not allowed -- >> in bringing oswald out, they were of course doing something that you would never see happen today, but they were trying to cooperate with the press, with the understanding that there would not be questions shouted to him. >> did you kill the president? >> no, i have not been charged with that. in fact, nobody has said that to me yet. the first thing i heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question. >> you have been charged. >> sir? >> you have been charged? >> nobody said what?
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>> okay. >> oswald. >> a policeman hit me. >> at 1:35 this morning, a complaint was read. it charged that quote, lee harvey oswald did voluntarily and with malice aforethought kill john f. kennedy by shooting him with a gun end quote following the reading of the complaint oswald said that's ridiculous. >> within hours of the assassination, it's obvious to virtually to everyone in dallas law enforcement that oswald had killed kennedy. >> chief, can you tell us in summery what directly links oswald to the killing of the president? >> well, the fact that he was on the floor where the shots were fired from immediately before the shots were fired. the fact he was seen carrying a package to the building, the fact that -- >> what was in there. >> yesterday morning. >> yesterday morning in the dilly plaza he was the only one in the book depository that fled the building. 45 minutes later he kills the officer and he resisted arrest
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by pulling a gun on an officer. during 12 hours of interrogationy the dallas police department over the weekend, he told one provable lie after another. >> did you buy that rifle? >> that's the facts you people have been given but i deny the charges. >> within a day or so thereafter when they discovered what a complete nut this guy was, they were satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that oswald had agent -- acted alone. >> this case has cinched. this man killed the president. there are no question in my mind about it. >> we plan to transfer this man, not tonight, he will be here by no later than 10:00 in the morning. that will be early enough. >> chief, do you have any concern for the safety of your prisoner in due of the high feeling of the people in dallas
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all right. let's move. >> lee oswald is to be taken soon to the county jail. >> that's true. >> and you are going to take him there how, sir? >> we are going to use an armored motor vehicle to take him. >> dallas police meant to transfer lee into the regular prison during the night to avoid the press, and then someone must have over ruled them so that lee could be photographed by the press during the transfer. >> standing by waiting the transfer of oswald from city jail to county jail, and for that report, here is abc's bill lord at the city jail. bill, what is the situation? >> i'm presently in the basement of the dallas municipal building and it's like an armed camp. police officials are frankly worried. they don't want anything to happen to oswald. >> there is news men, photographers and news men that
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oswald will be brought to a vehicle for transfer to the dallas county jail, a distance of about 15 blocks, which ironically is just across from the scene where president kennedy was assassinated on friday. >> anticipation has built up here in downtown dallas in front of the county jail. they are waiting for a glimpse of lee oswald. >> there he is. here he comes. >> the prisoner. >> let me have it. i want it. >> he went out by captain fritz. >> there is lee. he's been shot. he's been shot. lee oswald has been shot. there is a man with a gun. >> there is lee. he's been shot. he's been shot. lee oswald has been shot. there is a man with a gun. it's absolute panic. absolute panic in the basement
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of the dallas police headquarters. detectives have their guns drawn. there is no question about it. oswald has been shot at point blank range fired into his stomach. >> he's shot. he is shot. oswald -- >> he is oswald. >> did he shoot the man? >> that's the man. >> immediately after the shooting, our only witnesses that we could talk to were other reporters. >> where did he go pierre? >> they just put the gun there. i saw the flash. right -- >> did you see the gun to his stomach? >> i saw right here. >> i thought it was one of the detective. he had a hat. >> the situation is now that lee harold oswald has been shot. the man that saw the shot fired said it was fired by a man
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wearing a black hat, a brown coat, a man that everyone down here thought was a secret service agent. we can hear sirens outside and ambulance apparently is moving down now into the basement. here comes the ambulance. and oswald will be removed now. the ambulance is being pulled up in front of us here. here comes oswald, he's -- he is unconscious at this time now being moved in. he is not moving. he's in the ambulance now. attendents, police are quickly coming in. the ambulance is leaving dallas police headquarters. where will he be taken? >> i'm assuming parkland hospital. >> park land hospital. ironies of ironies, the place where john f. kennedy died.
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>> i believe the man -- >> don't take the microphone. keep your head up. let's start again. what is your reaction to the shooting of oswald? >> well, i think it's a deplorable situation. the man is entitled to a fair trial. >> give him a fair trial because killing him just like that ain't nothing because that ain't going to bring president kennedy back to life and after you get him, let him out on the street and let the people kill him. >> they should not only smooth him but cut him up in pieces. >> put him everywhere in the fryer and set it up for a next day and the next day start again. >> thank you. >> the man that i believe i didn't see it. i think it's the man. >> you got him? does he look like? >> i can't give you a description now. he is known locally. >> immediately after the ambulance left, somehow i begun to suspect that maybe the shooter was someone who was known to the police. >> do you know this subject?
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do you know him? have you seen him before? >> yes, i do. >> is he from dallas? >> yes. >> i couldn't tell you. >> do you know what kind of business he happens to be? >> bob, i wouldn't want to say. >> right. >> dallas city hall is normally a public building, but today it was really under armed guard. >> we -- is this a confirmed report as to who did the shooting? >> as far as i know. >> vehicle robertson from city hall reports that jack ruby, the owner of the carousal, which is a bar in dallas did the shooting. >> my statement will be very brief. oswald expired at 1:07 p.m. >> he died?
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>> he died at 1:07 p.m. we have arrested the man. the man will be charged with murder. >> who is he? >> the man -- the suspect's name is jack ruben stein, i believe. he goes by the name of jack ruby. >> here at associated press, a still picture of the moment, the splint second as the shot was fired. this is the man dallas police have identified as jack ruben stein and this of course is lee harvey oswald. you see the gun in the hand of ruby and just about to be fired. >> i know my own feelings were and i think they were assured by many, if not most americans. this can't be coincidental. the assassin is assassinated at the police station. what in the hell is going on?
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>> just learned from city hall from an authoritative source, police are working on an assumption there is a connection between jack ruby and lee oswald and in some manner of speaking, oswalt's murder was to shut him up. >> captain just told me ruby said he did it, that it was his gun, and that he had build up a tremendous grievance over the death of the president. >> in jack ruby's mind he thought he would be a hero. he killed the guy who killed the president. >> i commend what he did. i think he ought to win the congressional honor for it and a lot of other good american citizens think he did the right thing in shooting down this communist. >> word in from dallas, that homicide chief captain will fritz said the case of president kennedy's assassination is closed with the death of os watt. it may not be the opinion of the secret service or the federal burro of investigation.
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our nation is bereaved. the whole world is poor because of his loss, but we can all be better americans because john fitzgerald kennedy has passed our way. because he has been our chosen leader at a time in history when his character, his vision and his quiet courage have enabled him to chart a course for us, a safe course for us through treacherous seas that encompass the world. and now that he is relieved of the almost superhuman burden, we imposed on him, may he rest in peace. ♪ dallas today had even more to mourn. it held funeral services for one of its own a victim of friday's tragedy.
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officer j.d.tippit. >> the funeral of lee harvey oswald. the mourners included his mother, his wife, his brother robert, and oswalt's two children, one with baby in arms. the six pallbearers were news men. there were not enough relatives or friends on hand to serve as pallbearers. >> now there is a new flag of the president of the united states flying in the white house. in president kennedy's old oval office, mrs. evelyn lincoln, her secretary and aids removed every scrap, every ves take of the signs of the personal touches of president kennedy. >> we know from history that one
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test of society is how do they handle the transfer of power at the top? lyndon johnson, whatever you thought of him, a lot of people disliked him greatly, some hated him would be the president of the united states. i think it shouted about the strength of the country and the root of law. >> the president of the united states. [ applause ] >> my fellow americans, all i
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have, i would have given gladly not to be standing here today. >> johnson knows he has to show the country that the ship of state is sailing on under the regular captain. but at the same time, he can't appear to be too anxious to assume power. and he has to keep the kennedy people on board with him. so that speech means everything. >> no words are strong enough to express our determination to continue the forward thrust of america that he began. [ applause ] >> the people of europe just cannot believe that a lone awenger made his way into a major police station and killed without difficulty the most
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celebrated and infamous criminal in the united states. >> one of the most important things that happened after oswald's murder was that we were forever denied the why. i mean, people at the time believed he did it. the question was why. >> there are questions continually coming up about the possibility of an international plot. >> there is still an old story that the russian an might be behind it or cuba might be behind it. johnson sees the real danger in that. you want to put these rumors to rest. >> investigations into all the facts of these last four days may not be limited to the state of texas or the fbi. some congressmen already have suggested a congressional investigation. >> killing a president wasn't a federal crime at the time.
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so you had the federal government intervening in still what was a local murder. there certainly was a concern of competing investigations. there was the dallas criminal investigation, there was the state of texas court of inquiry, and there were committees on both sides of congress while of course the fbi had been given the job to conduct the full-scale investigation. >> johnson realizes something has to be done. he realizes that he has to appoint a body that the public will respect to look into this. >> yes, mr. president. >> i've got to have a top blue ribbon presidential commission to investigate this assassination. i want to ask several and chief justice as chairman. >> one justice universally respected for his integrity is the chief justice of the supreme court, earl warren. if there's one person in
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congress that everyone respects it's richard russell of georgia. he has to get them both on the commission. there is, however, a problem. russell is a segregationist through and through and despises warren for the decisions that he's made on the court. >> johnson thought if they can agree on a verdict, that ought to be satisfying 90% of american public opinion. >> going to direct you to 911. >> i don't know how you think but i don't like chief justice warren. i don't like that man. you can serve with anybody for the good of america and you're going to do it. i can arrest you and i'm not going to put the fbi on you. but you're [ mute ] going to serve i'll tell you that. >> lyndon johnson was known as the greatest salesman one-on-one
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who ever lived. so he meets first with warren and says, if i asked you to put on your uniform and fight for america you'd do it. i'm asking you to fight for america in a different way." then johnson has to get richard russell. >> mr. president, please now. >> no, it's already done. it's been announced. >> you mean you've -- >> yes, sir, the announcement. it's already in the papers. you're on it. >> i think you did wrong getting warren. i know damn well you did wrong getting me. >> that's what you do. that's the kind of american bulldog you are.
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>> produced by nbc news which is solely responsible for its content. >> the warren commission appointed friday night will investigate and make a report on the murder. as yet it has said nothing about how it will proceed or when. in the meantime, again, the fbi is investigating every lead it can find and will turn its report over to president johnson probably this week. >> it was the fbi's hope that its report would be if not the final word, the semifinal word, and that the commission's job would be to read it and then essentially endorse the findings of the report. >> the members of the warren commission, earl warren, john sherman cooper, jerry ford, allan does, hale boggs, richard russell and john j. mccloy realized at their initial meeting they had to do an independent investigation. they didn't want to be a stamp
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for the fbi or the secret service. >> there are three issues the commission had to grapple with. did oswald commit the physical act of the murder? and even if he did the physical act, did he have forces behind him? and then of course, what's ruby's involvement in this? >> you had various branches of the investigation traveling, interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, bringing it back to the commission. >> the time of day was about -- not very far from two hours from it. >> there were questions how would they deal with the different stories about shooters from the grassy knoll and shooters from different directions. >> the lawyers from the commission took 395 depositions. and there were 94 witnesses that appeared before the commission. lyndon johnson wants to report
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out so it doesn't interfere with the election in november. n lef because he was a man who had spent his early career as a courtroom prosecutor. >> the hour glass of time was running out on them. >> can you say if you still think it was one man? >> i think we'd better not get into that area, you know. the report will cover all of that in great detail. >> this committee labored ten months, then brought forth a document close to 1,000 pages.
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president johnson received that report today. >> what the public understood and what i understood is these were very honorable men. they thought the commission had done a good job, and they would come up with an answer. >> when the warren commission report came out, i believed it. we were still in a time when you tended to believe what officials told you. >> it is now 15 seconds after 6:30 p.m. eastern daylight time, sunday, september the . as of this moment, the report of the president's commission is public record. for the next half hour, we will search it for answers. first must come the answers to the two great overriding questions. who killed john f. kennedy? the commission answered unequivocally lee harvey oswald.
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was oswald acting alone or was he a member of a conspiracy? the commission answers he acted alone. >> we knew most people were not going to read all of the warren commission report. so cbs news wanted to bring to air an understandable form for the public at large what the warren commission itself found. >> there was nothing to support the speculation that oswald was an agent, employee or informant of the fbi or the cia or any other governmental agency. >> oswald owned the murder the mail order purchase slip for rifle. the mail order purchase slip for that rifle was in his handwriting. oswald's palm print was found on a surface of the gun. >> the media had all concluded that this was the most exhaustive investigation, case closed.
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oswald did it alone. >> the commission concludes that three shots were fired. all of them from this sixth floor window in the texas school book depository. >> the cumulative evidence of eyewitness, firearms, and ballistic experts and medical authorities demonstrated that the shots were fired from above and behind president kennedy and governor connally. >> when the warren commission came out with the report, the majority of americans accepted the findings of the warren commission. >> the bullet entered here, came out just below the president's adam's apple. the commission believes that the same bullet then entered the right shoulder of governor connally, passed out through his chest, continued through his right wrist and on into his left thigh. >> the report has been generally accepted throughout the country. i think it reflects the thoroughness with which they went into it. and i think at least it has dispelled many of the rumors and the speculation that has surrounded this quite tragic event. >> it's been very well-covered entirely. it leaves no doubt in my mind that lee actually did assassinate the president of the
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united states and kill officer tippet. >> in the end, we find confronting each other the liar, the misfit, the defector on the one hand, and seven distinguished americans on the other. and yet exactly here we must be careful that we do not say too much. oswald was never tried for any crime, and perhaps therefore there will forever be questions of substance and detail raised by amateur detectives, professional skeptics, and serious students as well. we are the jury, all of us, in america and throughout the world. >> the reaction to the report initially was very positive, but that didn't last very long. >> this book is the number one best seller on the nonfiction list in the country "rush to judgment" by mark lane. it's gained a vast number of readers in the recent groundswell of skepticism about the findings of the warren report. >> we did not envision the breadth and the scope of the criticism. >> the author has some highly provocative and controversial things to say, so please greet mr. mark lane. [ applause ]
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>> no matter how illustrious the members were, we were not going to be reassured by a commission. >> we're already having a little disagreement here while the commercials were on. what were you saying, david? >> well, i think i disagree almost totally with mark lane on several counts. i don't know where to begin. >> let me show you something just in case we have a chance. that is a picture of jack ruby. and this was taken five minutes after the assassination in front of the texas school book depository building. the commission said ruby was not there. the commission published it. he wasn't there when they published the picture because they cropped him out. >> you're accusing chief justice warren and that group of notable americans -- you're accusing them of deliberate malfeasance. >> you are part of the media which prevented the american people from finding out what happened. >> you are alarming the american people! >> i say the american public should be alarmed. >> the public had been kept in
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the dark for so long about this, but had an undying thirst, which could only be quenched by getting facts. >> we have a right to know who killed our president and why he died. and we can't get that from reading the warren report. >> the critics of the warren commission have three different points of view. one, we were simply incompetent. two, we were thoroughly corrupt. some say both of the above. i want someone to tell me that to my face.
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at the start, lane was almost alone. now he's just one among a growing band of doubters. their books and articles are on the newsstands, they're in the supermarkets. now according to a recent poll, only one in three americans remains convinced that the warren report has the whole story. >> when you have a great number of people devoting their lives
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to looking at every word, every comma, they can create a lot of mischief. >> i believe very firmly that ruby and oswald knew each other, and certainly tippet and ruby knew each other. >> before we proceed with that kind of questioning, let me ask you. what kind of conspiracy do you think? was it a communist? left wing or right wing conspiracy? >> i am convinced that there were two riflemen. >> the warren commission was set up, as you know, at the request and urging of the communist party. >> it's obvious that he was working for somebody else at that moment, and that somebody else could not be anyone else than fidel castro. >> there's no doubt of oswald having been in the window of that building. >> my opinion, castro -- violence.
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>> there was an entire world of assassination. but some raised valid questions. >> could a bullet which have done as much come out looking like bullet 399? >> it is another one of the very many highly improbables that we are asked to accept by the warren commission if we are to accept the validity of their full report. >> some had completely mad theories. >> cody was killed by a karate chop to the throat in september of, i believe, 1964. >> but everyone i believed had a right to give their views. >> you have apparently succeeded in persuading the majority of the american people that we cannot trust the most august conceivable panel to do a responsible job. >> you talk about faith in these institutions or faith in the fbi as if it's a religious experience to read the warren report. i think to the contrary, you're always supposed to have faith in a democracy in our own
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ability to look at the facts and reach our own conclusions. >> the decreasing trust by americans in their government all started with the kennedy assassination. >> by 1966, there's this cultural revolution in the united states. i mean, we're deeply enmeshed in vietnam. there's a lot of protests and riots. and there's a sense that things have seriously gone wrong. we've gone off the rails since november '63, and the warren report is a very important part of that loss of confidence in the government. >> i don't think that all the facts were brought out. i think something was held back. >> i think they were more involved it it than just oswald. >> i don't know how in the world they could ever reach a conclusion that one person assassinated him. it's ridiculous. i saw the whole thing on television. i just happened to be home at that time. and i don't think that oswald -- i think that he was working for the cia myself. >> why doesn't america believe the warren report?
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>> because of the conspiracy theories, who have put this case under a high-powered microscope, splitting hairs and then proceeding to split the split hairs. the kennedy case is now the most complex murder case by far in world history. nothing even remotely comes close. >> we are left with the series of real and critical questions about the assassination. questions which have not been answered to the satisfaction of the people of the united states. >> when president kennedy was killed, he was not killed by one man. he was shot from a number of different directions by different guns. the story has been suppressed. witnesses have been killed. and this is your country. >> we aren't trying to hide a thing from you or from mr. epstein or mr. lane or the world. we are laying it all out. that's right here in the notes of testimony. and if we have transposed in error a possibly into a probably, then we are delighted to have you point it out to us.
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but you can do so only because we've laid it on the line. >> the warren report said that lee harvey oswald shot the president from his window in the texas school book depository. three years after kennedy's assassination, the major question is still a simple one. did the warren commission, with all that time and all these resources, get its answers right? tonight, we'll go over those arguments one by one, area by area. as the assassination was taking place, a dallas businessman called abraham zapruder stood behind that low concrete wall looking down at elm street. >> as the president was coming down from houston street and making his turn, it was about halfway down there, i heard a shot. and i heard another shot or two. i couldn't say whether it was one or two. and i saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything. and i kept on shooting.
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>> the warren commission could use the film and each frame to reconstruct each moment of the assassination. >> part of the reason why i think the film captured the american imagination is because it pushes us to think about something more complex. and each person who looks at it, you know, people see different things. >> where did the shots come from? if the shots did not all come from the book depository window, then there was most likely some form of conspiracy. >> i think that the massive head wound where the president's head was literally blown apart came from a quartering angle on the grassy knoll, it struck and his head doesn't go directly back this way but it goes back and over this way, which would be consistent with the shot from that direction and newton's law of motion. >> seven men on a railroad bridge right here said that when the shots were fired, they looked toward the wooden fence and each of the seven said he saw puffs of white smoke come from here. >> you glance over underneath
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that green tree, and you can see a little puff of smoke. it looked like a puff of steam or cigarette smoke. >> when you stopped to think about it, no one saw anyone with a gun, rifle on the grassy knoll. no expended cartridges from a weapon were found there. not one bullet, other than those fired from oswald's rifle, has ever been found and linked to the assassination. >> now, there were two doctors and one priest who claimed -- who said flatly that there were entrance wounds in the president's neck. >> if the wound in the president's throat was an entrance wound, then clearly, this would be proof that the bullet came from the front. >> mark lane has suggested that this wasn't an exit wound by the president's tie but an entry wound. that kennedy was hit in the throat from the front. >> the doctor at parkland didn't want to talk about the president's injuries, but the press, more or less, forced him to. and the wound in the president's throat was pretty clean.
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he thought it was an entrance wound. >> what about this wound that you observed in the front of the president's neck? >> actually, i didn't really give it much thought. and i realize that perhaps it had been better had i done so. >> there was a wound in the back of the neck that had not been seen by the parkland doctors because they never turned the body over. >> you did not turn the president over? >> no, there was really no reason. to me, made very little difference to me, since my immediate concern was with attempted resuscitation. >> you can explain this ad infinitum and people will only remember that a doctor at parkland said he'd been shot, you know, from possibly the front. so it's kind of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. >> a bullet hit the president from the back, bullet hit him from the front. the bullet which killed him came from the right front. unless the laws of physics were not working that day, the
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reaction of the president tells us where that shot came from. >> some critics say by the very fact that in the picture, you can clearly see the explosion of the bullet on the front side of the president, that that certainly indicates the bullet came from the front. >> well, i don't believe any physicist has ever said that. quite contrary, it does indicate that the bullet was coming from behind. it's a minor explosion where pieces of material go generally in the direction of the bullet. >> if you look at the individual frames of the zapruder film, at 312, frame 312, the president's head's okay. at frame 313, 1/18th of a second later, the president is struck in the head. and what direction is the president's head pushed? not backwards, but slightly forward. >> is there any doubt that the wound at the back of the president's head was the entry wound? >> there is absolutely no doubt, sir.
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>> there was a lot of attention being given to the zapruder film and exactly when the president was hit first and second. >> cbs news had a tower and target track constructed to match exactly the heights and distances in dealey plaza. >> if there wasn't enough time, then you would have a second shooter. oswald was not an expert shot. he was a good shot. but making the shots was not that tough at all. cbs did it. a guy from the military did it. >> three shots he got off in 2.6 seconds. >> the zapruder film became the lens through which the assassination was seen. if it didn't happen on the zapruder film, it didn't happen. zapruder started his camera after the limousine was about 70 feet into dealey plaza. well, oswald had the president in his sights for many seconds before that. and this gets into the whole questions, how much time did oswald have to shoot the president?
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>> there are so many interesting questions and problems that come from the film. we believe so much in the image. we believe so much in the sort of ultimate truth of film and of images. then they become our memory. >> is it impossible that the bullet would have gone through president kennedy, gone through governor connally and not suffered any more damage than is shown in this photograph? >> i would hesitate really to say that it is absolutely 100% impossible. but it is highly improbable. >> could a single bullet have wounded both president kennedy and governor connally? the single bullet theory has perhaps become the most controversial aspect of the report. >> if one bullet couldn't shoot men, it meant there were two shooters and there was a conspiracy. >> the conspiracy theorists claim that the second shot was a magic bullet. they argue that a bullet would have had to make a right turn
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then a left turn in mid-air. the reality is that connally was not seated directly in front of kennedy. >> if you figure out the alignment of where the men sat, and if you look down as i did and as the others did who conducted the on-site tests, and had the automobile placed in the position, it is perfectly plain, i submit to you, that the bullet that exited from president kennedy's throat would have to strike either the automobile, which it did not, or someone else in the automobile. >> to believe that it didn't hit governor connally, that would be a real magic bullet, one that disappeared in thin air. >> we go to the dallas county courthouse for more developments on the jack ruby verdict. jack ruby has just been found guilty of murder with malice and has been given the maximum sentence, death in the electric chair after the jury deliberated 2 hours and 25 minutes.
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>> just what do you think of this verdict? >> i believe that jack ruby was a paid killer to close the mouth of my son, lee harvey oswald. >> the question of whether ruby knew oswald before or was in cahoots to kill him is one of the most important questions. because ruby knew people in criminal activities, there was a lot of investigation about a potential conspiracy. >> ruby would have been one of the most unlikely and worst hit men that the mob could ever get. >> on november the 24th, 1963, lee harvey oswald is supposed to have been transferred at 10:00. at 10:00, the evidence is undisputed that jack ruby was at home asleep. then he got dressed and drove downtown. >> the receipt shows that ruby was sending a money order to one of his strippers from a western union office across from the courthouse at 11:17 a.m. >> we know that at 11:20, three
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minutes later, a block away, jack ruby killed lee harvey oswald. the evidence showed that he was down there anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds. 5 to 15 seconds. if this is a hired assassin who is supposed to have some advanced information, he is the world's best gunman. >> what type of man is he? >> jack is a very emotional-type person. and as i was saying awhile ago, he's the type man that probably would give you the shirt off his back at one moment and then turn around and do something as nutty as this in the next. >> i never used the term "angry." that's not in my vocabulary. >> he was known for a quick temper. and later, as it turned out, he was hooked on two kinds of speed, preludin and benzadrine, at the time of the shooting. >> he had been here at the police station during the past
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two days talking with newsmen and distributing his card, also making friends. >> jack ruby was a police and media groupie. ruby thought he was our friend. >> so i'm in this very same room friday night when we had the defendant up here. if some of you will recall, he asked a question from out here. no, standing right back here. i didn't know who he was. i thought he was a member of the press. and he told me as we walked out of here that he was a nightclub operator. >> ruby's act was that of a vigilante. he wanted nothing more to be known -- people to flock to his nightclub to shake the hand of the man who killed the man who killed the president. >> i might add, if ruby silenced oswald for the mob, who was supposed to silence jack ruby? he died of normal causes over three years later. now, one would think that the conspiracy community would fold its tent and go home. but they continued undaunted and
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the most recent, most spectacular development in the oswald case involves the cia. it involves, too, the spectacular district attorney of new orleans, a man they call the jolly green giant. >> you believe that lee harvey oswald did not shoot president kennedy? >> i do not want to get involved in the speculations as to individuals, but i will say that there's no question about the fact that there was a plot and there were a number of individuals involved. >> in 1967, he announced "i've solved the case. i've found the real assassin." >> we will make arrests based on that, and we will make charges based on that, and we will obtain convictions based on that. >> now, you wouldn't have paid much attention to this, except he was district attorney of new orleans. >> i've spent hour after hour with jim garrison. he has presented his case to me, detail by detail.
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>> the mark lane's and the conspiracy theorists all flocked initially to garrison. >> and i can report that a powerful domestic force, a force that is still part of the american structure, planned and initiated those acts that resulted in the assassination of president kennedy. >> they all thought here's a guy who's finally going to bring the case that we have been, you know, arguing about for years. >> if i seem somewhat confident, it is because our office is in its fifth year and has never lost a murder case. >> the press initiatively built garrison up, because everybody believes no district attorney in his right mind would do this unless he had something. >> arrested this evening in the district attorney's office was clay shaw, age 54, of 1313 darby street, from new orleans, louisiana. mr. shaw will be charged with
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participation in a conspiracy to murder john f. kennedy. >> the charges filed against me have no foundation in fact or in law. i have not been apprised of the basis of these fantastic charges, and assume that in due course, i'll be furnished with the information and afforded an opportunity to prove my innocence. >> clay shaw was a very respected business man in new orleans. he had served in world war ii. >> the concept of clay shaw being part of an assassination conspiracy was too weird to be believed. >> clay shaw was also a homosexual and closeted, and i think that played a part. >> this decision to arrest clay shaw, i believe, was intended to get the national media back to town. as soon as he arrested clay shaw, they all came back. >> and then they realized the
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truth that there isn't anything there. >> garrison has based his case on the certainty that he can prove clay shaw is clay or clem bertrand. the name clam bertrand was first introduced by lawyer dean andrews who said a person by that name telephoned him, suggesting he provide legal defense for oswald. >> he described him as having gay tendencies and representing gays as a lawyer. therefore, garrison believed clem bertrand must be clay shaw. that was the extent of garrison's investigation. >> do you have enough evidence now to go to trial? >> well, if i answered that, i shouldn't be district attorney. >> the case he has built against clay shaw is based on testimony that did not pass a lie detector test that garrison ordered and garrison knew it. >> can you say positively that the person you knew as clay bertrand is not the person you have seen as clay shaw?
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>> scout's honor, he is not. >> garrison started bribing witnesses, intimidating witnesses. >> he said i could be made to serve this whole nine-year sentence. or i could be cut loose right away. >> hypnotizing witnesses. >> we decided to give him objectifying to make sure he was telling the truth. >> does he have a last name? >> oswald. >> would you say these methods were illegal? >> i would very say illegal and unethical. >> he had everyone and their grandmother involved in the assassination. at one time, it was oil millionaires. then it was the minutemen. then it was a homosexual killing. >> yes, sir. >> do you feel that homosexuality or the coercion of homosexuality was a factor in the planning or the assassination of john f. kennedy? >> no comment. >> at one point, he had 15 assassins in dealey plaza. with that many assassins, i
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don't know how kennedy made it to the autopsy table. >> garrison announced he had discovered a code. >> garrison said jack ruby's unlisted telephone number appears in address books belonging to shaw and oswald. >> you take p and o and use a telephone dial, p gives you 7, o gives you 6. >> he just changed the digits around, added digits, added letters. >> and you reconstruct the numbers, and then you subtract 1,300, and that gives you ruby's unlisted telephone number. >> mr. garrison, if the p.o. didn't exist until late '65, how could it then be jack ruby's phone? >> well, that's a problem for you to think over because you, obviously, missed the point. >> he pointed to cia agents supporting a conspiracy. >> who is suppressing all of this information on whose order? >> i'll tell you who is suppressing it. the federal government is suppressing it. >> who in the federal government? >> the administration. the administration of your government is suppressing it because they know that the central intelligence agency -- >> on whose order? >> on the order of the president
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of the united states. >> mr. garrison has come up with no credible evidence to support any of his theories. >> i think that it's unfortunate that the media of this country has become so hysterical for fear of what it might see, that it spends a good deal of its time and energy attacking the one serious investigation. >> the results of this four months of public investigation have been to damage reputations, to spread fear and suspicion and, worst of all, to exploit the nation's sorrow and doubt of kennedy's death. >> i can't make any more comments about the case except to say anybody that thinks it's just a theory is going to be awfully surprised when it comes to trial. >> roll one, sound on film, clay shaw trial. clay shaw came to court in good spirits today with his long-awaited trial under way, shaw seems almost relieved that his case is finally being heard. shaw sits quietly in this courthouse, chain smoking cigarettes. he does not react when the state talks about things like conspiracy.
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>> the trial went on for six weeks. it's important to note that not one witness produced by garrison survived cross-examination. they were all proven to be unreliable, at best. >> the most shameful thing you've ever seen. everyone knew in the courtroom that clay shaw couldn't possibly have been more innocent. >> in a unanimous verdict by a 12-man jury, shaw was found not guilty of charges that he conspired to kill the late president john kennedy. >> clay, we have our first question. why did you do it? [ laughter ] >> after the not guilty verdict, editorials around the country, one of the darkest chapters in american jurisprudence history. it's just a crime. >> from what i saw and heard, i didn't think he proven clay
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shaw's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. i would have voted not guilty for clay shaw. >> i think that garrison feels that the end justifies the means. and he felt that if he could bring to the american people what he considered the truth about the death of their president, any means whatsoever was supposed to be used. it didn't matter much who got hurt in the process. >> i would sum it up by saying that any society which allows a man like jack kennedy to have the top of his head torn off and then protects the assassins and obstructs any inquiry and attempt to find the truth is not a great society. honestly, as much as i love this job, i plan to do a lot more. i needed a new laptop for my pre-med classes, something that runs office and has a keyboard.
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cause of the death of your president has been withheld from you. >> to show you how uncredible the conspiracy theorists are, over the last 50 years, at one time or another, they have accused 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people of being involved in the assassination. >> could oswald really have done this? >> as a reporter, the greatest
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story for us would have been to find out somebody other than oswald did it. and we tried hard to do that. but at every turn with the kennedy assassination, things pointed to oswald as not only a shooter, but the shooter and the only shooter. >> at its core, this is a very simple case. >> did you kill the president? >> i don't know what this is all about. >> if a person is innocent of a crime, chances are, there isn't going to be any evidence pointing toward his guilt. why? because he's innocent. but with oswald, the physical evidence, the direct and circumstantial evidence, scientific evidence, everything points towards his guilt. we'll never know why lee harvey oswald killed kennedy because he's dead. but there are certain things we do know. >> at the age of 13, a probation officer said he remembered oswald as a truant, a troubled boy in need of psychiatric help without which he might turn violent. >> after starting in high
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school, he promptly joined the marines. oswald's marine career ended in 1959 when he was dishonorably discharged. a month later, he was in moscow where he announced his decision to renounce his american citizenship. >> are you an marxist? >> i would very definitely say that i am a marxist, correct. but that does not mean, however, i am a communist. >> he desperately wants to become a soviet citizen, renounce his american citizenship. they turn him down. what does he do? he slashes his wrists, tries to commit suicide. >> lee harvey oswald had these dreams or delusions that he'd been harboring for a long time of an act that would lift him from his obscurity. >> a squad mate of his in the marines said that oswald wanted to do something that 10,000 years from now, people would be talking about. >> it looked to me like a
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stupid, irrational act. the opportunity presented itself to him and he probably wanted to make a mark on society and it suddenly occurred to him that he could. >> people who think oswald was sort of a patsy and such an ineffectual, innocent person forgot that when oswald was stopped by a police car and a policeman gets out to talk to him, oswald shoots him four times in the middle of the body. that plus his previous attempt on general walker. interestingly on saturday morning in "the dallas morning news," it said that there may be a connection between this guy who was just arrested for killing a police officer and president kennedy. and this effort to assassinate general walker back in april. >> oswald used to attend a small discussion group. and he began to rail against this right wing general, edwin walker, who was calling for the invasion of cuba. >> general walker was about as right wing as you got in the
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early '60s. and oswald saw walker as an american adolf hitler. >> and oswald said someone should kill walker. he then ordered a rifle with a sniper scope, and he planned very meticulously his assassination of general walker. he took photographs from different angles, he figured out how to get his rifle there and how to escape. >> on march 31st, a sunday, he asked marina to come out and take his photograph. >> all in black, pistol, rifle in his hand, holding a few radical newspapers, and marina writes on the back "hunter of fascist" and dates it april 6th, 1963. >> and then he went on the night of the 10th of april, took up his place and shot at general walker.
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>> he came in the house 11:30. he was so pale, nervous. and i said, "what happened to you?" and he said -- he told, "i tried to shot general walker." >> will you describe for us just what happened last night? >> rifle shot was fired into the house, fired through the west window. and hit the sill and hit the wall across the room and went over the desk at which i was sitting. >> he was very disappointed to find out that he missed by less than an inch. >> it shows his ability to plan who his target was and that oswald was capable of violence. >> i think that was kind of the rosetta stone, that if you understood the walker shooting, you understood that lee was like a cocked rifle, and he could go off anytime. ♪
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it is true that the answers to some questions leave us restless. the theory that a single bullet struck down both the president and the governor, for example, has too much of the long arm of coincidence about it for us to be entirely comfortable. >> it doesn't satisfy our sense of narrative or justice that a small person of no distinction can be of such historical consequences to kill the president of the united states. >> but would we be more comfortable believing that a shot was fired by a second assassin who materialized out of thin air for the purpose, fired
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a shot, and then vanished again into thin air, leaving behind no trace of himself, his rifle, his bullet, or any other sign of existence? >> there were two groups of people. there's one group that will look at an extraordinary coincidence, a cataclysmic circumstance and say yes, that's the way the world works. there's another group of people for whom that's quite unsettling. >> they don't want to believe that something so random could have occurred. can you believe that you could step off a curb someday and be killed by an oncoming car? nobody believes in that kind of possibility for themselves, but it happens. is life that fortuitous, that uncertain? >> and for them, oddly, the notion of a conspiracy is more comforting than the absence of it. because if there's a conspiracy, at least there's a plan. >> i think the five bullets fired from at least two
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different directions were the result of a conspiracy. >> kennedy's killing touches off a belief in the idea, you can't trust government. >> there has been a loss of morale, a loss of confidence among the american people toward their own government and the men who serve it. that is perhaps more wounding than the assassination itself. >> they've lost so much faith in government that they actually think that the government is an accessory after the fact for the president's murder. it can't get too much worse than that. >> the assassination changed the trajectory of the '60s. america was a different place on the day before john f. kennedy was killed. so when you look at america as a whole in the 20th century, you look at america in the '60s, you really say, that day was a dividing point.
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>> i guess in the average man's life, there are two or three emotional experiences that he doesn't forget because they're burned into his heart and his brain. and no matter what happens to me, i'll remember november the 22nd as long as i live. and it's impossible for me now to this day, and i'm sure ten years from now, to go to dallas without looking at the school depository building, and it's impossible for me to drive by the texas hotel today and not think of that morning when president kennedy spoke there. it will always be with us. >> kennedy, alongside of the other presidents, johnson, nixon, gerald ford, jimmy carter, reagan, the two bushes, even bill clinton, people, they don't remember what they did, but they remember their rhetoric. and they remember the images.
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>> ask not what your country can do for you. ask what you can do for your country. >> this is what people wish for again in the government. they want someone who inspires them, who gives them hope, for whom they have a kind of admiration. kennedy's standing hold on the public, i think, will only fade if and when we get another president about whom they feel the same way as they currently feel about kennedy.
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this is nothing more than a power grab. >> gridlock. gridlock. gridlock. >> there are no rules in the united states senate. >> enough is enough. >> the senate goes nuclear. democrats toss out the rules and why republicans this morning are vowing war now. >> different subject. a real life nuclear deal hangs in the balance as talks with iran continue. we are live with the latest. her remark and i think she made it more than once, is, no, i'm going to leave these clothes on. i want them to see what they have done. >> 50 years ago today, preside
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