Quotes from the Movie JFK

There's a simple way to determine if I am paranoid. Ask the two men who profited most from the assassination former President Johnson and your new President, Nixon to release the 51 CIA documents pertaining to Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby. Or the secret CIA memo on Oswald's activities in Russia that was destroyed while being photocopied. These documents are yours. The people's property. You pay for it. But as the government sees you as children who might be too disturbed to face this reality or because you might lynch those involved you cannot see these documents for another 75 years. I'm in my 40's so I'll have "shuffled off this mortal coil" by then. But I'm already telling my eight-year-old son to keep himself physically fit so that one glorious September morning, in the year 2038 he can go to the National Archives and learn what the CIA and FBI knew. Hell, they may push it back then. It may become a generational affair. Questions passed from father to son, mother to daughter. But someday, somewhere, someone may find out the damn truth. We better. Or we might just as well build ourselves another government like the Declaration of Independence says to, when the old one just ain't working anymore. Just a bit farther out West.

Jim Garison

An American naturalist wrote: "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government." I'd hate to be in your shoes today. You have a lot to think about. You've seen evidence the public hasn't seen. Going back to when we were children I think most of us in this courtroom thought justice came automatically. That virtue was its own reward. That good triumphs over evil. But as we get older we know this isn't true. Individual human beings have to create justice, and this is not easy because the truth often poses a threat to power and one often has to fight power at great risk to themselves.

Jim Garison

These are people who cannot afford to send money but do. People who drive cabs who nurse in hospitals who see their kids go to Vietnam. Why? Because they care. Because they want to know the truth. Because they want their country back. Because it still belongs to us as long as the people have the guts to fight for what they believe in. The truth is the most important value we have because if it doesn't endure if the government murders truth if we cannot respect these people then this is not the country I was born in, or the country I want to die in. Tennyson wrote: "Authority forgets a dying king." This was never more true than for John F. Kennedy whose murder was probably one of the most terrible moments in the history of our country. We, the people, the jury system sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw represent the hope of humanity against government power. In discharging your duty to bring a first conviction in this house of cards against Clay Shaw "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Do not forget your dying king. Show this world this is still a government "of the people, for the people and by the people." Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important.

Jim Garison

It's standard procedure, especially in a known hostile city like Dallas to supplement the Secret Service. Even if we hadn't let him ride with the bubble-top off we would've put 100 to 200 agents on the sidewalk without question. A month before, in Dallas, UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was spit on and hit. There had been attempts on De Gaulle's life in France. We'd have arrived days ahead, studied the route checked all the buildings. Never would've allowed open windows overlooking Dealey. Never! Our own snipers would've covered the area. If a window went up, they'd have been on the radio! We'd be watching the crowd: packages, rolled-up newspapers, coats. Never would've let a man open an umbrella. Never would've let the car slow down to ten miles an hour. Or take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm. You'd have felt an Army presence in the streets that day. But none of this happened. It violated our most basic protection codes. And it is the best indication of a massive plot in Dallas. Who could have best done this? Black Ops. People in my business.

X

Sound like coincidences to you? Not for one moment. The Cabinet was out of the way. Troops for riot control were in the air. Telephones were out to stop the wrong stories from spreading. Nothing was left to chance. He could not be allowed to escape alive. Things were never the same after that. Vietnam started for real. There was an air of make-believe in the Pentagon and CIA. Those of us in Secret Ops knew the Warren Commission was fiction. But there was something deeper. Uglier. I knew Allen Dulles well. I often briefed him in his house. But why was he appointed to investigate Kennedy's death? The man who fired him.

X

I participated in drawing up National Security Action Memos 55, 56, 57. These are documents classified top secret. In them, Kennedy told Gen. Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs that from here on, the Joint Chiefs would be wholly responsible for all covert paramilitary action in peacetime. This ended the reign of the CIA. Splintered it into 1,000 pieces, as JFK promised he would. And now he was ordering the military to help him do it. Unprecedented! I can't tell you the shock waves this sent along the corridors of power. This and the firing of Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell, and Gen. Charles Cabell. All were sacred cows in Intell since World War II. They got some very upset people. Kennedy's directives weren't implemented because of bureaucratic resistance. But one of the results was the Cuban operation was turned over to my department as Operation Mongoose. Mongoose was pure Black Ops.

X

Don't underestimate the budget cuts that Kennedy called for in March of 1963. Nearly 52 military installations in 25 states. Twenty-one overseas bases. Big money. You know how many helicopters have been lost in Vietnam? Nearly 3,000 so far. Who makes them? Bell Helicopter. Who owns Bell? Bell was nearly bankrupt when First National Bank of Boston asked the CIA to use the helicopter in Indochina. How about the F-111 fighter? General Dynamics of Fort Worth, Texas. Who owns that? Find out the defense budget since the war began. $75 going on $100 billion. Nearly $200 billion will be spent before it's over. In 1949, it was $10 billion. No war...no money.

X

The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers. Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term. He wanted to call off the moon race in favor of cooperation with the Soviets. He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962. He set out to withdraw from Vietnam. But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963. Since 1961, they knew Kennedy was not going to war in Southeast Asia. Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies. Something's underway, but it has no face. Yet, everybody in the loop knows.

X

I think it started like that In the wind. Defense contractors, oil bankers. Just conversation. A call is made.

X

No one has said, "He must die." No vote. Nothing's on paper. There's no one to blame. It's as old as the crucifixion. Or the military firing squad. Five bullets, one blank. No one's guilty. Everybody in the power structure has a plausible deniability. No compromising connections except at the most secret point. But it must succeed. No matter how many die or how much it costs the perpetrators must be on the winning side and never subject to prosecution for anything by anyone. That is a coup d'Ètat.

X

I didn't think much about it at the time. Just bullshit, y'know, everybody likes to make themselves out to be something more than they are. 'Specially in the homosexual underworld. But when they got him I got scared. Real scared. And that's when I got popped.

Willie OKeefe

You're not a bad-looking man, Mr. Garrison. When I get out, I'm gonna come visit you. Have some real fun!

Willie OKeefe

If I answer that question you keep asking. If I give you the name of the big enchilada, then it's bon voyage, Deano. Like a bullet in my head, you dig? You're a mouse fighting a gorilla. Kennedy's as dead as that crab meat, the government's alive and breathing.

Dean Andrews

You as crazy as your mama. Goes to show it's in the genes. Do you know what you're getting into? The government will jump all over your head and go cock-a-doodle-doo.

Dean Andrews

Just a figment of my imagination. The cat's stewing you, I told him. You got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho. Bertrand is not Shaw, scout's honor. And you can tell him I said so.

Dean Andrews
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