JFK (film) - Plot

Plot

The film's opening encompasses newsreel footage (with narration by Martin Sheen), including President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, warning about the build-up of the "military–industrial complex". This is followed by a summary of John Kennedy's years as President, emphasizing the events that, in Stone's thesis, would lead to his assassination. Events shown are the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis and the early days of the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War. This builds to a reconstruction of the assassination on November 22, 1963. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) subsequently learns about potential links to the assassination in New Orleans. Garrison and his team investigate several possible conspirators, including private pilot David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), but are forced to let them go after the federal government publicly rebukes their investigation. Kennedy's alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) is killed by Jack Ruby (Brian Doyle-Murray) before he can go to trial, and Garrison closes the investigation.

The investigation is reopened in late 1966 after Garrison talks to Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana on a chance encounter while on a plane. Garrison then reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes are numerous inaccuracies and conflicts. Garrison and his staff interrogate several witnesses to the assassination, and others who were involved with Oswald, Ruby and Ferrie. Upon Garrison's informal questioning, Ferrie denies any knowledge of meeting Oswald, but he's soon suspected of conspiring to murder the President. Another witness is Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon), a male prostitute serving five years in prison for soliciting. As well as briefly meeting Oswald, O'Keefe was romantically involved with a man he knew as "Clay Bertrand" — also known as Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones). O'Keefe reveals he witnessed Ferrie discussing the assassination with Shaw, Oswald and several Latin men. In Dallas, Texas, others come forward, including Jean Hill (Ellen McElduff): she tells the investigators that she witnessed shots fired from the grassy knoll and she heard four to six shots total, but U.S. Secret Service agents threatened her into saying only three shots came from the Texas School Book Depository; the implication is that the Warren Commission made changes to her testimony. Garrison and a staff member also go to the sniper's location in the book depository and aim an empty rifle from the window through which Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy. They conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and two of the shots were much too close together, indicating the involvement of two additional assassins.

After discovering electronic surveillance microphones planted in his offices, Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington, D.C. who identifies himself as "X" (Donald Sutherland). "X" suggests there was a conspiracy at the government's highest levels, implicating members of the the military-industrial complex, the Mafia, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and Vice President during the Kennedy administration, Lyndon B. Johnson, as either direct co-conspirators, or, as having motives to cover up the truth after the assassination. "X" explains Kennedy was assassinated because his foreign policy would have meant diminished profit for the military-industrial complex, and enraged high-ranking military officials who viewed such diplomacy as weakness. Kennedy ordered control of covert para-military operations to be removed from the CIA and handed over to the U.S. Defense Department's Joint Chiefs of Staff. This would have diminished the CIA's power. Further, the Mafia had helped Kennedy win the U.S. presidential election in 1960 as a favor to his father, Joseph, who had done business with mafiosi dating back to the 1920s, and felt betrayed that he had let his brother, Robert, continue his crusade against them. Furthermore, they wanted revenge for the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco, which they had helped fund and support in order to get their Cuban casinos — their biggest moneymakers — back from the Castro regime.

"X" reveals how his superior, Brigadier General "Y", had "X" sent to Antarctica just before the assassination. One of "X"'s duties was to supplement presidential security. He points out all the security lapses during Kennedy's trip to Dallas: the open windows along the route, the hairpin turn from Houston Street to Elm Street which slowed the limousine, and bystander activities which wouldn't have been allowed. "X" suggests he was ordered out of the country in order to strip away the normal security measures he would have had in place during the trip.

On his way back from Antarctica, "X" touches down in New Zealand. He reads a local newspaper which mysteriously presents a full dossier on Oswald and his guilt in Kennedy's death. This was hours before Oswald would be charged with the crime and anyone investigating the case knew much about him. "X" views this as clear proof of a cover story of the type used by CIA black ops. In other words, CIA assets in the media were being used to persuade the public of Oswald's guilt.

"X" further states that Kennedy was intent on pulling U.S. troops from Vietnam by the end of 1965 as evidenced by National Security Action Memorandum 263. This was countermanded immediately by Lyndon Johnson with National Security Order 273. Therein, concludes "X", lay the Vietnam War's foundation. "X" encourages Garrison to keep digging and make further arrests.

Two of Garrison's staff quit the investigation, doubting his motives and methods, the latter warned by a "friendly" FBI agent, who claims that Fidel Castro is Kennedy's sole assassin, and tells the latter that if the truth comes out, there would be a war and it would be more important than Garrison. Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz (Sissy Spacek) complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw because of Shaw's homosexuality. Additionally, the media launches attacks on television and in newspapers attacking Garrison's character and criticizing the way his office is spending taxpayers' money. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ferrie, die under suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that he believes people are after him, and reveals there was a conspiracy around Kennedy's death that involved co-conspirators that were involved in a CIA operation, Operation Mongoose.

Bill Broussard meets Garrison at the airport where Garrison is boarding for Phoenix, Arizona and tells him the Canadian mob will attempt to assassinate him and is about to get Garrison some serious protection when Garrison confronts Broussard about his orders not to pass rumors about someone going to be killed. Broussard tries in vain to get Garrison to listen, but Garrison refuses, dismissing it as "paranoid garbage". He accuses Broussard of disobeying orders and decides to take him back to New Orleans as punishment. Broussard tries to apologize, but Garrison is too busy to accept it. After a few minutes, he has to flee from a public restroom when he hears strange noises in the adjacent stall and is approached by an unknown man who pretends to be a friend of Garrison's. After Garrison returns to New Orleans, he and his staff discovered that Broussard has joined the FBI and disappeared from his apartment. They argue about the real reason why Shaw has been brought to trial. As they discuss, he sees Robert Kennedy on TV. Later, Robert is assassinated, and Garrison and Liz reconcile.

Shaw's trial takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with further evidence of multiple killers while attempting to debunk the single bullet theory, proposes a scenario involving three assassins who fired six total shots, but the jury acquits Shaw on all charges. However, the DA's office wins a conviction of perjury against New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews (John Candy), who repeatedly claims that an alleged phone call made by Shaw to Andrews in which Andrews was asked to represent Oswald in the assassination case was false. The film reflects that the jury's members publicly stated that they believed there was a conspiracy behind the assassination, but not enough evidence to link Shaw to that conspiracy. The film ends with Shaw acquitted of those charges, while Garrison states he'll continue to find out what else may be there in the cover up.

In the end credits, it's mentioned that Shaw died of lung cancer in 1974 and in 1979 Richard Helms testified under oath that Shaw had, in fact, been a part-time contract agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division. The end credits also state that secret records related to the assassination will be publically released in 2029. (see #Legislative impact below)