Speaker 1: What you're about to hear is one of the most
Speaker 1: incredible stories I've ever heard, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: getting quickly. So let me first introduce myself. I'm Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. A few months ago, the film director
Speaker 1: Rob Reiner called me and he asked me what I
Speaker 1: knew about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a
Speaker 1: crime that happened sixty years ago. I told him I
Speaker 1: thought I knew the story. It turns out I don't.
Speaker 2: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the greatest
Speaker 2: murder mystery in American history. I was sixteen years old
Speaker 2: when it happened, and it has never left me. In
Speaker 2: order to understand the magnitude of this world changing event,
Speaker 2: you have to start at the end of the story.
Speaker 1: That's Rob. He knows a thing or two about telling
Speaker 1: a good story. He's the creative powerhouse behind movies like
Speaker 1: The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, stand By Me,
Speaker 1: and Spinal Tab.
Speaker 3: That's just to name a few.
Speaker 4: John F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy was president at a time when the world was
Speaker 2: on the brink of nuclear war, and he tried to
Speaker 2: put us on a path towards peace.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even born when this happened, but the way
Speaker 1: Rob tells it, it's like it just happened, because, in
Speaker 1: a way, it's a story that's not over.
Speaker 2: In order to understand what really happened on November twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three, we're going to start at the end
Speaker 2: of the story with a paunchy, middle aged nightclub owner.
Speaker 4: His name is Jack Ruby.
Speaker 2: Ruby is wandering through a crowd in a parking garage.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a photo of this moment, I'd probably
Speaker 1: be thinking who is this guy?
Speaker 3: I mean, he doesn't look like he's a cop or
Speaker 3: a reporter.
Speaker 4: And it's not just any parking garage.
Speaker 2: It's the parking garage of the Dallas Police headquarters. Hundreds
Speaker 2: of reporters are gathered to photograph Lee Harvey Oswald, the
Speaker 2: ex marine who is suspected of assassinating President John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 2: on a street in Dallas in broad daylight. Oswald is
Speaker 2: being moved to the county jail, and Ruby is there
Speaker 2: to witness it, or so it seems.
Speaker 4: Oswald appears.
Speaker 2: The police are escorting him down a hallway toward a
Speaker 2: car that will take him to the county jail where
Speaker 2: he'll wait for trial. The trial where America will finally
Speaker 2: get an answer to the question who would want to
Speaker 2: kill the President of the United States. Oswald is in handcuffs,
Speaker 2: He's flanked by officers. Ruby weaves his way to the
Speaker 2: front of the crowd. People at the station know Ruby
Speaker 2: officers would often come to his local club, so Ruby
Speaker 2: is able to easily position himself just a few feet
Speaker 2: away from Oswald. Suddenly, Ruby reaches into his pocket and
Speaker 2: removes a thirty eight caliber Colt Cobra revolver. He lurches
Speaker 2: forward and from point blank range, fires into Oswald's stomach.
Speaker 4: Oswald crumples to the ground.
Speaker 2: One of the policemen who recognizes Ruby says, Jack, you
Speaker 2: son of a bitch.
Speaker 1: The entire incident is caught on live TV. Americans around
Speaker 1: the country watch stunned as the man suspected of killing
Speaker 1: their beloved president is himself murdered. It's astounding, and I
Speaker 1: just have to ask, Rob, you were watching this live?
Speaker 2: I was, and like the rest of the nation, I
Speaker 2: was in shock. I had so manyquestians who was Oswald?
Speaker 2: Did he actually kill the president?
Speaker 4: And why? Why would Ruby, a local nightclub owner take
Speaker 4: it upon himself to kill Oswalt.
Speaker 1: I know Jack Ruby says he did it because he
Speaker 1: wanted to spare Jackie Kennedy the grief of returning to
Speaker 1: Dallas for Oswald's trial.
Speaker 2: Right and the sun sets in the east. Knowing what
Speaker 2: we know about Jack Ruby's mob connections, that is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: To understand what Ruby was doing, all you have to
Speaker 2: do is listen to what Oswald said the day before
Speaker 2: he was shot. It comes down to this one sentence,
Speaker 2: and he said it to the press, and it's been
Speaker 2: over sixty years and you cannot get that sentence out
Speaker 2: of your head.
Speaker 3: I'm just a patsy. Usually criminals will say you got
Speaker 3: the wrong guy. But a patsy exactly.
Speaker 2: A patsy is a pawn who takes the fall for
Speaker 2: somebody else. It this way, if Oswald is a patsy,
Speaker 2: when he goes to trial, he's going to reveal who
Speaker 2: set him up. Jack Ruby was there to silence Oswald,
Speaker 2: to hide the truth about what really happened and who
Speaker 2: really assassinated the president.
Speaker 3: That leaves me with so many questions.
Speaker 2: It should when you think of Ruby as a loose
Speaker 2: thread and you start to pull on it, others come loose.
Speaker 1: Okay, for sixty years you've been pulling at those threads.
Speaker 1: But there have been lots of investigators, lawyers, journalists who've
Speaker 1: come to conclusions. You don't think conclusions means case closed.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: And in this podcast, I'm going to tell you why.
Speaker 1: This is who killed JFK sixty years later? What can
Speaker 1: we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history?
Speaker 1: And why does it still matter today? I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Solidad O'Brien. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest president
Speaker 1: in US history when he took office in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: He was also the youngest US president to die when
Speaker 1: he was killed by an assassin's bullet almost three years
Speaker 1: later on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three. He was
Speaker 1: forty six years old. On that fateful day, his flight
Speaker 1: arrived at Dallas love Field at eleven thirty seven am.
Speaker 5: And here is the President of the United States. How
Speaker 5: the crowd is after they're going wild?
Speaker 6: The President in very obvious good spirits, and the President
Speaker 6: and his wife are going to be visible all through Dallas.
Speaker 1: I think we all know this story Kennedy was riding
Speaker 1: in an open car motorcade through the city of Dallas.
Speaker 1: It was time to start campaigning for reelection, so he
Speaker 1: rode in the back of a convertible with his wife
Speaker 1: Jackie by his side, before an adoring crowd.
Speaker 5: President's card now turning onto Element Street, and it appears
Speaker 5: as though nothing has happened in the motorcade route. Something
Speaker 5: I repeat, harp happened and the motorcade route park and
Speaker 5: Hospital has been a by then by the bear guns
Speaker 5: got boon.
Speaker 1: We all know what happened because a man named Abraham Supruder,
Speaker 1: a local Dallas dressmaker, filmed it all on his eight
Speaker 1: millimeter camera. In the film, we see the motorcade entering
Speaker 1: Daily Plaza just before twelve thirty in the afternoon. Suddenly
Speaker 1: the president is shot in the neck. Seconds later we
Speaker 1: see the fatal shot.
Speaker 3: To his head.
Speaker 1: Then the President's limousine races to Parkland Hospital.
Speaker 7: Kennedy apparently got ahead.
Speaker 8: He fell fate down in back seat of his.
Speaker 9: Car the flash Apparently official.
Speaker 6: President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard.
Speaker 1: Time, approximately seventy minutes later. Lee Harvey oswae Xus Marine
Speaker 1: is arrested at a movie theater. I think I have
Speaker 1: about as much knowledge of this case as the average person,
Speaker 1: which is the basic Oswald kills Kennedy, Ruby kills Oswald,
Speaker 1: and then there are like a hundred theories trying to
Speaker 1: answer why. Sixty years later, we all still want to
Speaker 1: know why. How old were you when Kennedy was assassinated.
Speaker 2: I was sixteen, and like everybody else, I remember exactly
Speaker 2: where I was when I heard. I was in my
Speaker 2: physics class in high school. I remember one of the
Speaker 2: students walked in whispered in the ear of my physics teacher,
Speaker 2: and he turned to the class and he said, I
Speaker 2: have some terrible news. They sent us all home from
Speaker 2: school and we turned on our televisions and we watched
Speaker 2: non stop. It felt like we lost our father. It's stunning,
Speaker 2: and you have to understand that we all heard that
Speaker 2: Kennedy was assassinated at the same time. We all saw
Speaker 2: Lee Harvey Oswald killed by Jack Ruby.
Speaker 4: At the same time.
Speaker 2: So now you have a country of you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy million people at the time. I can't
Speaker 2: remember exactly all experiencing something at the same time. It's
Speaker 2: not like it was thrown up on social media and
Speaker 2: repeated over and over, and people saw it at different times.
Speaker 2: It is a profound collective trauma. In nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: sixty six, the war in Vietnam was ramping up. Kennedy
Speaker 2: had talked about getting us out of Vietnam.
Speaker 4: I was of draft age.
Speaker 2: So my generation got very upset by what had happened
Speaker 2: to Kennedy because it directly impacted us, and so we
Speaker 2: really started distrusting the government. There was a phrase an
Speaker 2: expression that we had during that period, and it was
Speaker 2: never trust anybody over thirty.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that people always seemed to frame the murder
Speaker 1: of JFK as the moment Americans started distrusting the US government. So,
Speaker 1: as someone who's not white, I can tell you people
Speaker 1: of color had plenty of reasons not to trust the
Speaker 1: government long before Kennedy died. When this happened, at the
Speaker 1: height of the Civil Rights Movement, black people were already
Speaker 1: speaking about systemic oppression at the hands of government. Young
Speaker 1: white men may have started distrusting the government because now
Speaker 1: they knew what it felt like too. But I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, I'm probably as interested in the mystery
Speaker 1: and the conspiracy theories around this murder as most people
Speaker 1: who grew up in the aftermath. But Rob feels a
Speaker 1: sense of urgency to understand the truth, and I want
Speaker 1: to understand why it matters so much. So I'm hosting
Speaker 1: this podcast with Rob, who's a storyteller and whose work
Speaker 1: is known for digging deeply into the American consciousness. I
Speaker 1: think Rob's fascination with this case and all the work
Speaker 1: he's done to find answers does exactly that. So Rob,
Speaker 1: tell me about the moment when you started to think, hmm,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I can trust the official story.
Speaker 2: Well, I maybe. I was nineteen at the time. I
Speaker 2: was performing at a club in San Francisco. It was
Speaker 2: called The Hungry Eye with my friend Larry Bishop, who
Speaker 2: was Joey Bishop's son, and we were opening for Carmen McCrae,
Speaker 2: now mort Saul, who was a brilliant political satirist. He
Speaker 2: was playing in the smaller room at the club, and
Speaker 2: so when we would finish our set, we'd go and
Speaker 2: listen to him and more. You know, at that time
Speaker 2: he wasn't doing as normal routine. All he talked about
Speaker 2: was the Kennedy assassination and how the government was lined
Speaker 2: to us, so I started reading up on it, and
Speaker 2: the first book I remember reading was a book by
Speaker 2: Mark Lane called Rush to Judgment. And the more I read,
Speaker 2: the more the Warren Commission report just fell apart.
Speaker 1: The Warren Commission refers to the government's official story, which
Speaker 1: was published in nineteen sixty four following a ten month
Speaker 1: investigation into what happened on that day in Dallas. They
Speaker 1: declared Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that he killed the
Speaker 1: president with shots from a rifle he fired from the
Speaker 1: sixth floor of a building called the Texas School Book Depository,
Speaker 1: which overlooked the president's passing motor cade. I know about
Speaker 1: the Warren Report because that's what I was taught in school.
Speaker 1: A lone gunman killed the president. And that was decades
Speaker 1: after Rob watched a skeptical Mortsaul. For decades, journal and
Speaker 1: civilian sleuths had continued their own intricate investigations into the story,
Speaker 1: and there are now separate theories that the mob murder
Speaker 1: JFK or the CIA set it all up, or that
Speaker 1: a population of Cuban exiles did it. There are so
Speaker 1: many theories. Where do you begin.
Speaker 2: You're right, I mean, there's a lot to sift through,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't until twenty fifteen. I was making a
Speaker 2: film LBJ with Woody Harrelson, and the producer Matt George,
Speaker 2: introduced me to Dick Russell. Now, Dick Russell wrote a
Speaker 2: book called The Man Who Knew Too Much, and after
Speaker 2: one conversation with Dick, all the pieces of the puzzles
Speaker 2: started to fall into place.
Speaker 1: The Man Who Knew Too Much is about a CIA
Speaker 1: agent named Richard case Nagel who knew Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 1: Dick Russell was a sportswriter in nineteen seventy five when
Speaker 1: he stumbled upon Nagel, and since then Dick's written three
Speaker 1: books about the sassination of JFK, making the investigation one
Speaker 1: of his principal beats as a journalist. Rob shared his
Speaker 1: fascination and after that one conversation they became a team.
Speaker 2: So we went to Dallas. We visited Dally Plaza, and
Speaker 2: we talked to as many people as we could who
Speaker 2: were still alive that were there that day. I talked
Speaker 2: to bul Frasier, who was a guy who drove Oswell
Speaker 2: to work that day. We talked to forensics experts, We
Speaker 2: met with CIA asset named Tosh Plumley, who flew CIA
Speaker 2: agent E Howard Hunt and mobster Johnny ROSSELLI to Dallas
Speaker 2: that day and was positioned on the south knoll of
Speaker 2: Daily Plaza when the shots were fired. We tried to cover,
Speaker 2: as they say, the waterfront.
Speaker 1: Those are all names that will make sense later in
Speaker 1: the series when we dive into the mystery of it all,
Speaker 1: But for now, Rob invited me to sit down with
Speaker 1: him and Dick Russell.
Speaker 3: You know, Dick, I'm always.
Speaker 1: Interested in helped people's obsessions be again. Is it wrong
Speaker 1: to say that you've had an obsession about this assassination? Yeah?
Speaker 10: I think it's absolutely true. I mean I have had
Speaker 10: an obsession with it for many years, and in the
Speaker 10: mid nineteen seventies, when I was living in New York
Speaker 10: and freelancing for a lot of different newspapers and magazines,
Speaker 10: I spent pretty much two full years on this trail.
Speaker 10: It was in nineteen seventy six, but a Senate committee
Speaker 10: headed up by Idaho Senator Frank Church exposed a trove
Speaker 10: of CIA secrets that prompted the formation of the House
Speaker 10: Select Committee on Assassinations. So the HSCA reopened the investigation
Speaker 10: into Kennedy's death, and a couple of years later, they
Speaker 10: determined that Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone, but
Speaker 10: the murder was likely a result of quote, a conspiracy.
Speaker 10: They didn't say anything specific about who else was involved.
Speaker 10: They just vaguely said others left the door open.
Speaker 3: What do you want people to walk away from this
Speaker 3: podcast with?
Speaker 2: I want the American people to know the truth, to
Speaker 2: be presented with all the facts, and that those facts
Speaker 2: will lead them to only one conclusion.
Speaker 4: This was a conspiracy.
Speaker 2: And if people don't know the truth about their government,
Speaker 2: the foundation of our democracy starts to crumble.
Speaker 1: So the reason that we're here, the reason that you
Speaker 1: are doing this is you want the truth.
Speaker 2: Yes, I want the truth, And to contradict a character
Speaker 2: in a film I directed, I think we can handle
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 1: So I guess I would say I'm doing something a
Speaker 1: little bit different here. I'm sort of taking off my
Speaker 1: journalist's hat for this one, because you're really the one
Speaker 1: who's done so much of the reporting on this story,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to let you lead me in this
Speaker 1: journey pushback where I think I need to push back,
Speaker 1: But largely I guess I'm trying to understand your point
Speaker 1: of view.
Speaker 3: So I guess we start with the biggie, who do
Speaker 3: you think kill JFK.
Speaker 2: Like any murder mystery, you start with the suspects who
Speaker 2: had the motive. To answer that, you have to understand
Speaker 2: that the JFK that was murdered in nineteen sixty three
Speaker 2: was a completely different JFK than the one who was
Speaker 2: elected in nineteen sixty. When Kennedy was running for president
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty, we were in the throes of the Cold.
Speaker 4: War with the Soviet Union. The stakes could not be higher.
Speaker 1: To understand that time, Rob suggested we talk to John Meacham.
Speaker 1: He's a historian and a Pulitzer Prize winner, and he
Speaker 1: talks to us about what it was like back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty when the nation was paralyzed by the looming
Speaker 1: threat of nuclear war with Soviet Russia.
Speaker 7: The fear was, and it was an ambient fear, that
Speaker 7: a small war, a small conflict one place, could be
Speaker 7: lead to a chain reaction where there would be total
Speaker 7: war that would be planet wide. The images we all
Speaker 7: have in our heads we have in our heads for
Speaker 7: a reason. Kids weren't getting under desks to practice in
Speaker 7: the event of a nuclear holocaust.
Speaker 1: Was it terrifying as a kid? I mean, were the
Speaker 1: kids like panicking when there were those drills?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was terrifying.
Speaker 2: This is the time that we were born in the
Speaker 2: whole idea of the domino theory that if one country
Speaker 2: went communist, another would go and then another and we'd
Speaker 2: be overtaken by the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: So then, John, did that existential anxiety lead to kind
Speaker 1: of a fervor against communism, almost to the point like that,
Speaker 1: you know, someone could be seen as a trader if
Speaker 1: they weren't against communism enough.
Speaker 4: That's the motive force of McCarthyism.
Speaker 1: McCarthyism comes from Congressman Joe McCarthy in the early nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He pioneered this atmosphere of fear in the US that
Speaker 1: communists were everywhere. Your neighbor could be a communist, your
Speaker 1: child's teacher could be a communist. People said, better dead
Speaker 1: than red. That's what things were like when Kennedy started
Speaker 1: to become a national figure.
Speaker 7: When John Kennedy runs for president in nineteen sixty, he
Speaker 7: wants to be sure that the Democratic Party is seen
Speaker 7: as as tough on communism as the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: I can remember the central question of the debate was
Speaker 4: could Kennedy in his youth stand up to Nixon and
Speaker 4: show his bona fides in terms of fighting communism?
Speaker 7: Robi're Wright, the question was, what are you going to
Speaker 7: do about Cuba? In nineteen fifty nine, the Cuban Revolution
Speaker 7: had broad Castro to power, Batista had fallen. Suddenly you
Speaker 7: had the pos ability of what would emerge as a
Speaker 7: communist country ninety miles off the coast of Florida.
Speaker 1: As an American of Cuban descent, I'll say that it's
Speaker 1: impossible to overstate the importance of Fidel Castro's communist Cuban
Speaker 1: Revolution in this moment in history. That put Cuba in
Speaker 1: alignment with the Soviets, which scared America, considering the island
Speaker 1: was only ninety miles off the coast of Florida. The Cubans,
Speaker 1: who were anti Castro and anti communists fled to the
Speaker 1: harbors of America, which welcomed them. Meanwhile, the Soviets were
Speaker 1: busy strategizing over how to take advantage of their new beachhead.
Speaker 2: Any misstep towards Cuba could have resulted in an all
Speaker 2: out nuclear war.
Speaker 7: And people wanted to note, was Kennedy up to the job.
Speaker 8: I do not shrink from this responsibility. I welcome it.
Speaker 8: Let every nation know, whether use us well or ill,
Speaker 8: that we shall pay any price, there any burden, meet
Speaker 8: any hardship, support any friend, op post any foe to.
Speaker 11: Assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Speaker 2: Prior to Kennedy taking office, the Eisenhower administration planned a
Speaker 2: secret attack on Cuba called the Bay of Pigs, and
Speaker 2: the objective was simple.
Speaker 7: Go into Cuba, start a revolution, toppel Castro, and bring
Speaker 7: Cuba back on side, if.
Speaker 4: You will, with the free world.
Speaker 2: The key to the Bay of Pigs was to make
Speaker 2: it look like this was solely expatriate Cubans and that
Speaker 2: the Americans had no involvement.
Speaker 7: Turns out, the Cuban people were not sitting around waiting
Speaker 7: for a bunch of exiles to come and do.
Speaker 3: This, just the opposite.
Speaker 1: People still talk about the Bay of Pigs today because
Speaker 1: of how much of flaming failure it was. Here's what
Speaker 1: ended up happening. When the Cuban exiles invaded the island,
Speaker 1: they were met with a fierce defense from Cubans on
Speaker 1: the ground.
Speaker 2: The CIA had urged Kennedy to send air support, but
Speaker 2: Kennedy he told them before the attack there would be
Speaker 2: no US fingerprints on this operation. And with no US
Speaker 2: air support, the exiles were left stranded and they were slaughtered.
Speaker 2: And now you got to remember, Kennedy inherited the Bay
Speaker 2: of Pigs from the previous administration. He had only been
Speaker 2: in office for about three months, and he went along
Speaker 2: with the wishes of the CIA to show you how
Speaker 2: tough he was. But after that disaster, he started to
Speaker 2: suspect that the CIA was trying to bully him into
Speaker 2: a war that he didn't want.
Speaker 7: He felt betrayed, he felt stabbed in the back, disappointed,
Speaker 7: and disenchanted.
Speaker 2: Publicly, he took full responsibility for the failure, but privately,
Speaker 2: after the Bay of Pigs, people heard him say that
Speaker 2: he would splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and
Speaker 2: scatter it to the winds. The CIA didn't know that
Speaker 2: he wanted to tear them apart, but they would soon.
Speaker 1: Rob said that if we were doing a podcast about JFK,
Speaker 1: we've got to talk to the guy behind the independent
Speaker 1: blog jfkfactx dot org. Since twenty twelve, Jefferson Morley has
Speaker 1: published a new development to the story nearly every single day.
Speaker 1: It's where a lot of JFK investigators go to get
Speaker 1: their information. Morley takes the fire hose of information and
Speaker 1: distills it into digestible bites. In another life, he reported
Speaker 1: on the CIA for the Washington Post.
Speaker 12: Kennedy and the CIA were very alienated after the Bay
Speaker 12: of Pigs, and he eventually gets rid of Alan Dulles.
Speaker 1: When you look up Alan Dulles, the guy has a
Speaker 1: nickname the Godfather of the CIA. He was the first
Speaker 1: civilian director of the CIA. He had close ties to
Speaker 1: the oil industry, the finance industry. President Kennedy fired him
Speaker 1: after the Bay of Pigs disaster.
Speaker 12: Then comes to Cuban Missile crisis. From CIA surveillance planes
Speaker 12: discover the Soviet missiles are being installed in Cuba.
Speaker 1: So this risk between the CIA and the president is
Speaker 1: happening in the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis YEP.
Speaker 2: After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy's relationship with the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union grew hostile. The Soviet threat was becoming much
Speaker 2: more direct and Khrushchev was not happy about the Bay
Speaker 2: of Pigs and A year later, pictures surface that show
Speaker 2: that the Soviets are installing nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Speaker 7: They bring the pictures to Kennedy. He's in his bedroom
Speaker 7: on the second floor of the White House.
Speaker 3: That's John Meacham.
Speaker 7: He's having breakfast. They bring it to him, and the
Speaker 7: first thing he says is how could they do this
Speaker 7: to me? He calls Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, who says,
Speaker 7: with great Ciceronian eloquence, sit, shit, shit, the sons of
Speaker 7: bitches Russians.
Speaker 4: A few days later, the President shares the news with
Speaker 4: the nation.
Speaker 9: Good evening, my fellow citizens. Within the past week, unmistakable
Speaker 9: evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive
Speaker 9: missile sites is now in preparation. The purpose of these
Speaker 9: bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear
Speaker 9: strike capability against the Western hemisphere.
Speaker 13: That moment must have seemed surreal. It was unbelievable nuclear
Speaker 13: missiles fired from Cuba could reach Washington in like twenty minutes.
Speaker 7: The President then convenes something called ExCom, the Executive Committee
Speaker 7: of the National Security Council. Every possible decision maker would
Speaker 7: be in the West Wing more or less around the
Speaker 7: clock for thirteen days.
Speaker 2: Behind closed doors, the conversations between various advisors and military
Speaker 2: leaders get very heated and dangerous. The military leaders saw
Speaker 2: the opportunity that they had been waiting for to invade
Speaker 2: Cuba and make sure that the Soviets understood the superiority
Speaker 2: of the United States.
Speaker 4: General Curtis LeMay is there.
Speaker 7: He's the cigar chompiing sort of slim Pickens guy from
Speaker 7: Doctor Strangelove. At one point he looks at the young
Speaker 7: president and says, you're in a hell of a fix,
Speaker 7: mister President. And Kenny says, what did you say? And
Speaker 7: LeMay repeats it, You're in a hell of a fix,
Speaker 7: mister president.
Speaker 4: There was a strict division forming.
Speaker 12: There were fifteen people in favor of immediate attack, and
Speaker 12: there were nine in favor of some kind of diplomacy track.
Speaker 3: Here's Jefferson Morley again.
Speaker 12: The majority of those people in that first week said
Speaker 12: just attack missiles, destroy them, invade, throw out Castro, and
Speaker 12: let's get this thing over with. And Kennedy was in
Speaker 12: the minority.
Speaker 2: Kennedy was frightened that he was hours away from having
Speaker 2: to push the button in a war that would have
Speaker 2: killed hundreds of millions of people.
Speaker 9: I call upon Chairman Khrushow to haul and eliminate this clandestine,
Speaker 9: reckless and provocative threat to world peace and the stable
Speaker 9: relations between our two nations.
Speaker 10: Kennedy writes a letter directly to kruz Job that's dick.
Speaker 10: They have been writing letters to each other since Kennedy
Speaker 10: took office. The letters started out as diplomatic, but with
Speaker 10: the start of the Cuban missile crisis, they take on
Speaker 10: a new tone. In the midst of the crisis, Khrushchov
Speaker 10: writes Kennedy back, saying quote, we must not succumb to
Speaker 10: intoxication and petty passions. I have participated in two wars,
Speaker 10: and I know that war ends when it is rolled
Speaker 10: through cities and villages everywhere, sowing death and destruction. Kennedy
Speaker 10: was a war veteran. He was a guy who nearly
Speaker 10: lost his life many times. He was not impressed by
Speaker 10: the generals who were telling him to go risk other
Speaker 10: people's lives. Khrushchov finishes his letter by saying, quote, you
Speaker 10: ought not now to pull the ends of the rope
Speaker 10: in which you've tied the knot of war, because the
Speaker 10: more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot
Speaker 10: will be tied, so let us take measures to untie
Speaker 10: that knot.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like these letters are a way for
Speaker 1: them to see clearly the one thing that they have
Speaker 1: in common. Right, they're both standing in a room with
Speaker 1: people they don't trust. I think Kennedy understands that, just
Speaker 1: like him, kruse Ship also has a military apparatus that's
Speaker 1: ready to take nuclear action, and maybe that's what neither
Speaker 1: of these leaders really want.
Speaker 7: Ultimately, the way we got out of it was through compromise.
Speaker 7: Through negotiation, we agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey.
Speaker 7: Khrushchev agrees, He stands up to his own hardliners in
Speaker 7: Moscow and agrees to take the missiles out of Cuba.
Speaker 12: And Kennedy begins to rethink the Cold War, and he
Speaker 12: goes from being a pretty conventional Cold War politician to saying,
Speaker 12: we got to end this thing. We need a strategy
Speaker 12: for peace.
Speaker 7: It's not nostalgic to say that the Kennedy of sixty
Speaker 7: one was not the Kennedy of sixty two, and that
Speaker 7: Kennedy of sixty two was not the Kennedy of sixty.
Speaker 2: Fe Kennedy gave a speech at American University in June
Speaker 2: of sixty three is now known as the Peace Speech,
Speaker 2: and it marks his transformation from cold warrior on the
Speaker 2: campaign trail to a peacemaker who is blazing his own path.
Speaker 11: I have therefore chosen this time in place discuss a
Speaker 11: topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth
Speaker 11: too rarely perceived. And that is the most important topic
Speaker 11: on Earth, peace for in the final analysis, our most
Speaker 11: basic common link here's that we all inhabit this small planet.
Speaker 2: The speech was so influential that it even reached the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, where was translated and broadcast across the country.
Speaker 2: Khrushcheff called it quote the greatest speech by any American
Speaker 2: president since Roosevelt. Kennedy plans to pull a thousand troops
Speaker 2: out of Vietnam. He drafts a plan for complete military
Speaker 2: withdrawal by nineteen sixty five. He issues a limited ban
Speaker 2: on nuclear testing, all part of a comprehensive plan for
Speaker 2: world peace. This infuriated the military hardliners in his administration.
Speaker 12: The national security leadership in general was disturbed by Kennedy's
Speaker 12: handling of the missile crisis. The Joint chiefs were furious,
Speaker 12: and the opposition within the CIA was the most bitter
Speaker 12: and virulent in the CIA station in Miami. Castro remained
Speaker 12: in power, which the Joint chiefs regarded as intolerable.
Speaker 1: And Castro was public enemy number one to the United States.
Speaker 4: He was.
Speaker 2: Now let's jump forward to November fifth, nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: Now this is one year after the Cuban missile crisis
Speaker 2: and two weeks before Kennedy gets shot. Atwood was a
Speaker 2: deputy US ambassador in the Kennedy administration, and he gets
Speaker 2: a secret invitation from none other than Fidel Castro. Castro
Speaker 2: wants to talk to Kennedy about the potential of a
Speaker 2: peace agreement between the two countries. Now listen to how
Speaker 2: this all goes down. What he's saying is Atwood now
Speaker 2: has an invitation to go down and talk with Fidel
Speaker 2: Castro about a change in relations with the United States.
Speaker 2: Can we get Atwood off the payroll before he goes?
Speaker 2: In other words, Kennedy is saying that these would be
Speaker 2: secret conversations. Two weeks after that phone call with Atwood,
Speaker 2: Kennedy writes a note and leaves it on his desk
Speaker 2: in the Oval office, and the note says, check in
Speaker 2: with Atwood.
Speaker 4: About the Cuba initiative.
Speaker 1: So Kennedy is backchanneling with Khrushev and now planning to
Speaker 1: do the same thing with Castro.
Speaker 4: Right he's out on his own.
Speaker 2: He's trying to find a path to peace, the complete
Speaker 2: opposite of what the CIA in the military wanted. So
Speaker 2: Kennedy leaves a note on his desk. Then he departs
Speaker 2: the White House for a campaign trip to Dallas. The
Speaker 2: date is November twenty second, nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 6: President and his wife are going to be visible all
Speaker 6: through Dallas.
Speaker 5: President cards now turning onto Elm Street, and it appears
Speaker 5: to something has happened in the motor Kate route. Something
Speaker 5: I repeeve hall happened in the motor Kate route.
Speaker 7: Kennedy apparently got him head. He fell the down in
Speaker 7: back seat of his car.
Speaker 9: The flash apparently official.
Speaker 6: President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard time.
Speaker 10: Christ Jeov's son Sergei wrote in his memoirs that when
Speaker 10: his father heard the news, he fell to his and sobbed,
Speaker 10: and all over Russia the church bells were ringing. In
Speaker 10: JFK's memory. Right after the President's funeral, Jackie Kennedy sat
Speaker 10: down to write a letter to Nikita kruz Job.
Speaker 1: Jackie writes, So, now, in one of the last nights
Speaker 1: I will spend in the White House, in one of
Speaker 1: the last letters I will write on this paper at
Speaker 1: the White House, I would like to write you my message.
Speaker 1: I send it only because I know how much my
Speaker 1: husband cared about peace, and how the relation between you
Speaker 1: and him was central to this care. He used to
Speaker 1: quote your words in some of his speeches. Quote in
Speaker 1: the next war, the survivors will envy the dead. You
Speaker 1: and he were adversaries, but you're allied in a determination
Speaker 1: that the world should not be blown up. I can
Speaker 1: understand why people are still asking questions. The president had
Speaker 1: just alienated the CIA and the million terry at the
Speaker 1: height of the Cold War, and then he's murdered, and
Speaker 1: then the guy who suspected of murdering him is also murdered.
Speaker 1: You have to ask is this a coincidence? And if
Speaker 1: it isn't, a rational person would ask, well, then what
Speaker 1: really happened?
Speaker 3: So I guess my.
Speaker 1: Next question is how in the world would the potential
Speaker 1: conspirators be able to pull something like that off.
Speaker 4: Well, like so many political stories, it's all about the
Speaker 4: cover up.
Speaker 3: Next time on Who Killed JFK?
Speaker 14: I came away with the feeling that agencies of the
Speaker 14: United States government have an interest in preventing a full investigation.
Speaker 1: We explore why so many Americans question the official investigation
Speaker 1: into the assassination of President Kennedy.
Speaker 4: That's the shot that blew off his head. It's an
Speaker 4: as the horrifying thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Who Killed JFK is hosted by Rob Reiner and me
Speaker 1: Solidad O'Brien. Our writer is David Hoffman, with research by
Speaker 1: Dick Russell. Our story editors are Rob Reiner and Julie Pignero.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Julie Pinneto. Our producers are Tristan Nash,
Speaker 1: Dick Russell, Michelle Goldfein, and Amari Lee. Our editors are
Speaker 1: Tristan Nash, Julie Pigneto, and Marcus de Laudo. Our project
Speaker 1: manager is Carol Klein. Our associate producer is emilse Kiros. Mixing,
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