WEBVTT - The Investigations 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:14.840 It's November twenty ninth, nineteen sixty three, seven days after 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:19.560 the assassination of President Kennedy. The White House is in chaos. 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.520 Lyndon Johnson is now president, having been sworn in on 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.079 Air Force one while it was still on the ground 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:27.400 at Dallas Love Field. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.320 That moment's become memorialized in an iconic photo that shows 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.000 Jackie Kennedy standing at his side with the blood of 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.800 her dead husband splattered on her pink suit. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.160 A week into his job, President Johnson is sitting behind 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.160 the desk in the Oval Office. He's fielding calls from 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.479 world leaders who want to know what's going on. He's 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.440 holding the hands of politicians, assuring everyone that it will 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.120 not throw off the global balance of power, that World 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.400 War III is not imminent. The country needs to know 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:01.840 that they're in safe hands. 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.680 They need answers. The man suspected of murdering the president 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:08.920 has just been murdered too. 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.320 On live TV, by a two bit nightclub owner named 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.760 Jack Ruby. Everyone wants to know who is responsible for 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.080 all this. President Johnson is concerned about the attention that 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.560 a public investigation would bring. He gets a call from 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.839 the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, who will 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.280 be leading the initial investigation. Hoover wants to keep it contained. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.640 Of course, we're saying that it would be bad to 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.720 have a rash of investigations, but that's exactly what started 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.319 to happen. There were rumblings in the House and Senate 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.440 about forming committees to expand on the FBI's investigation. Johnson 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:51.600 wants to shut it down. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.440 Tehouse to go ahead with an investigation. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.400 Yes, a bunch of televisions going, and I ought they 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.240 see that to be a three ring circuit. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.120 So Rob, what's at stake here? 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.880 Well, if it's discovered that Kennedy's assassination was somehow connected 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.120 to the Soviets or the Cubans, it could trigger a 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.680 nuclear holocaust. Another reason they want to keep a tight 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.760 lid on the investigation is because they're afraid that a 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:31.200 broad investigation would expose the CIA and the FBI. In 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.280 another attempt to limit the investigation, this document I'm holding 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.359 is considered by many to be a smoking gun. I'm 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.000 going to let Dick Russell explain. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.760 This memo was hidden from the public for a decade 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.959 after the assassination. It's referred to as the Katzenbach Memo. 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.440 Nicholas Katzenbach was the Deputy Attorney General. He wrote the 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.320 memo to Hoover just a few days after the murder. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.160 So here's what the document says, quote, the public must 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.720 be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he did 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.160 not have confederates who are still at large, and that 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.440 the evidence was such that he would have been convicted 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.880 at trial. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off. 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.960 It says that the goal of the investigation is to 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:24.200 convince people of a specific, predetermined result. Two days after 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.880 the assassination. These are marching orders from the official investigation 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.600 into the assassination of President Kennedy. If Oswald had been 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.640 allowed to stand trial, his lawyers would have had a 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 field day with a statement like that, this was not 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.360 an investigation, It was a fate, a compleat. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.920 This is who killed JFK. Sixty years later, What can 0:03:54.960 --> 0:04:00.000 we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history? 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.480 Why does it still matter today? I'm your host, Solidad O'Brien. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.800 To recap JFK reputedly threatens to splinter the CIA into 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.560 a thousand pieces, then fires Dulles and his top two lieutenants. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.480 He completely goes around the military industrial complex to avoid 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.040 World War three during the Cuban missile crisis, and then 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.640 he starts a back channel with Khrushchev and Fidel Castro. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.159 Then at American University, he publicly proclaims that he wants 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:37.560 to forge a new path towards peaceful coexistence. He's alienating 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.720 a lot of incredibly powerful and determined people. 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:43.679 And then he's murdered. 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:45.760 And then he's murdered. 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.599 We're deep into the murder mystery. And now rob has 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.479 just handed me this letter where j Edgar Hoover, the 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.480 head of the FBI, is basically advising that they make 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.760 sure to pinned it all on Oswald. 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.600 Of course, President Johnson sent a completely different message to 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:07.240 the country. 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.560 He put out an executive order in nineteen sixty three 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.440 that said the Commission would quote evaluate all the facts 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:20.960 and circumstances surrounding such assassination. President Johnson called on Earl Warren, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.919 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to head up 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:29.719 the investigation. Warren initially said no, but Johnson then bullied 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.080 him into it, telling him the nuclear war was hanging 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:38.880 in the balance Warren eventually said yes. Years later he 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:40.080 said he regretted it. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.839 President Johnson and j Edgar Hoover came up with a 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.600 strategy on how to handle the investigation. 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:50.560 Here's President Johnson. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.920 The only way would stop on it put somebody into it, 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:54.719 pretty good on. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:59.080 It, that I could select out of the government. 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:01.320 He's saying, the only way to stop them is to 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.080 put somebody that's pretty good on it that I can 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:05.480 select out of the government. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.840 What do you think about Alec dun I think he 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:09.679 would be a good. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:14.599 Man, Johnson suggests Alan Dulles. Hoover says he'd be a 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.120 good man. They figure they can make it work for 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.080 them if they appoint someone they can trust. 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.440 He suggested. Alan Dulls the man Kennedy fired after the 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.480 Bay of Pigs. He's known as the godfather of the CIA. 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.680 Alan Dellson's role on the Warren Commission was not to 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.360 find the truth, was to cover up the truth. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.400 That's David Talbot. Rob says that if we're going to 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.919 talk about Alan Dallas, you have to speak to David Talbot. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.400 He's the founder of Salon magazine. He literally wrote the 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.760 book on Dalles. It's called The Devil's chessboard. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.479 Do you think that it's an accident that Alan Dulles 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.359 was put in charge of being the gatekeeper to the 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:57.280 Warren Commission. 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.880 No, I believe that he lawed to be put on 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.320 that commission. There is no better figure, from a cover 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.919 up point of view, to have on that commission. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:07.919 The now a Dalls. 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.720 He leaks up to the press, to the CIA. He 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.840 essentially led them down. The Primrose Path said that Lee 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:17.400 Harvey Oswold act alone. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.520 So after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy fires him, why 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:22.640 is he on the commission? 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.360 That what was surprising there was no discussion in the media. 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.600 There's no controversy around the appointment. The media herald of 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:37.160 Dallen Dalls as a very respected figure above politics. Nothing 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:38.800 could be further from the truth. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.679 This was a moment in history when the general public 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.120 didn't question the government in the same way we do today. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.520 In nineteen sixty four, seventy seven percent of Americans said 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.840 they trusted the government to quote do the right thing. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:05.640 In twenty twenty three that numbers sixteen percent. American exceptionalism 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.280 was in full force, and the media was not intent 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.000 on bringing that down. And you can't help, but wonder 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.640 what they could have uncovered if they'd just been looking. 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.160 So the Warrant Commission publishes its report in nineteen sixty four, 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.480 and they do essentially what they set out to do. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.720 They pinned all on Oswald case closed. There were a 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.640 few journalists who started poking around at the Warren Report 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.960 just because they thought it was odd, but some came 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.440 into it accidentally, like Gayton Phonsie. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.560 There's quite a bit about Fonsie in the archives, thanks 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.680 in part to his wife Marie, who continues to tell 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.719 his story today. In the nineteen sixties, Gaydon Fonsie was 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:58.319 an investigative journalist for Philadelphia Magazine. Phonsie, like most Americans, 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.600 was shocked and saddened the loss of Kennedy, but it 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.760 wasn't something that was on his radar as a journalist. 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.800 A year after the report was published, Arl Inspector, who 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.040 had made a name for himself as a member of 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.640 the Warren Commission, returned to Philadelphia. He ran for District 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:18.040 attorney and he won, and Phonsie thought it would be 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.680 a good piece to be written Amonspector. Returning home after 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.600 his time on the Warren Commission, Arl Inspector is largely 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.720 known for creating something called the single bullet theory. 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.680 Yeah, I know all about the single bullet theory, right, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.000 and we will dig into the science and the forensics 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.079 of that later on, But for now, all you need 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.360 to know is that the single bullet theory is the 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.120 backbone of the Warren Commission report. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.080 Without the single bullet theory, you cannot pin the crime 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.920 on Oswald alone. Now, just to give you an idea 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.440 of what this is, the Commission made a contention that 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.920 only three shots were fired. The first one missed. That 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.440 left two shots hitting President Kennedy. The third shot was 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:05.920 the fatal shot. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:06.319 To his head. 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.760 The second shot that was the single bullet. And because 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.200 Governor Connolly, who was sitting in front of Kennedy, was 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:19.560 also shot, that single bullet had to travel through Kennedy's neck, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.840 then hit Connelly in the back, go through to his wrist, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.319 and wind up in his thigh. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:30.040 So Gayton Fonsie is preparing for his interview, he comes 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.600 across Spector's single bullet theory. He starts looking into it 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.640 and as you can imagine, he finds several discrepancies and 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.800 then a confront Spector in a series of interviews. 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.079 The interviews are hard to follow without getting too deep 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.440 into the weeds of the single bullet theory, but just 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.960 know this. When Phonsie presses Specter about whether he factored 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.560 eyewitness accounts into the construction of his theory, Specter responded 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.920 by saying, quote, that's a good question. You're the first 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.360 person to ask me that question, and I have to 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.160 think about it for a minute. Phonsie publishes his article 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:13.120 in Greater Philadelphia Magazine on August first, nineteen sixty six. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.160 He wrote, quote, Arlen Spector knows it is difficult to 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.319 believe some of the fundamental conclusions of the war On 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:25.640 Commission report. Well, it came out years later. At Specter, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.320 the man responsible for investigating the source and path of 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.120 the bullets, did not directly speak to the Secret Service 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.360 agents riding in the car behind Kennedy, who had a 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.840 clear view of the shots, and he ignored the statements 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.960 of several eye witnesses that he never looked at photos 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:44.760 of the autopsy or woods. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:46.359 He only looked at sketches. 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:52.000 And then he pieced his incomplete evidence together by manipulating 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.839 the path of one single bullet into something that made 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.360 absolutely no sense. The things he ignored or twisted to 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.559 make his theory work is legendary. But it wasn't just Specter. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.000 The whole investigation was a mess. They didn't interview Jack 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.360 Ruby for nearly a year. Ruby even said that he 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.040 would tell them everything if they moved him from Dallas 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:15.880 to Washington, d C. 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:17.520 And they declined. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.800 They also didn't interview JFK's personal doctor, who was with 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.320 Kennedy within minutes of him arriving at Parkland Hospital, and 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.520 then when a witness approached with new information two months 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.959 before they were supposed to publish, General Counsel Jay Lee 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.559 Rankin said quote, at this stage, we are supposed to 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.600 be closing doors, not opening them. A Secret Service agent 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.800 even offered a lead, and then that agent was thrown 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:49.320 in jail. Investigators uncovered the Dulles had this habit of 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.600 briefing the members of the Warren Commission on what questions 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.960 to ask the CIA witnesses, and he would brief the 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.280 CIA witnesses and tell them what questions were coming and 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.720 what to say. John mccoon, who was director of the 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.920 CIA at the time, even admitted that he lied to 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.720 protect the agency during the Warren Commission's investigation. 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:16.320 In twenty fifteen, Politico reported that a declassified CIA report 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.360 showed that mcohne and other senior CIA officials were quote 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:26.240 complicit in keeping quote incendiary information from the Warren Commission. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.480 The report says that macoone was at the heart of 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:34.920 a quote benign cover up at the spy agency. Didn't 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.240 any of these things come out? 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.160 They almost did. 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.360 A few weeks before the Warren Commission report came out, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.480 one of the staffers wrote a memo to the lead investigator. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.360 The author was Wesley Leebler, and his memo was twenty 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.600 six pages long. It detailed the reasons he was uncomfortable 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.920 with the way evidence was being used selectively to make 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.400 sure Oswald was proven guilty. Well, the lead investigator refuse 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.320 to accept the memo. Well, clearly, this was not a 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.840 serious investigation. And in the end they found out exactly 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.440 what they wanted to find out, and they thought that 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.480 the public was just going to buy it, that we 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.920 would just accept the report because it was from people 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.720 like Warren and Dulles, and that we would just move 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:20.640 on with our lives. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.800 When the Warren report came out, that was fall of 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.720 nineteen sixty four, polls showed that fifty six percent of 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:32.520 Americans agreed with that lone gunman theory, and then only 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.400 two years later a new poll showed that that number 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.360 dropped a thirty six percent, So only a third of 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.040 Americans believed that Oswald acted alone. That's a huge drop 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:44.960 in a very short period of time. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.920 Yeah, but that doesn't surprise me. By then, the report 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.600 was met with a lot of scrutiny. People started to 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.120 talk about it publicly. In nineteen sixty six, Mark Lane 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.600 published his book Rush to Judgment, and he was critiquing 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:03.080 the Warren Commission. It kicks started public suspicion, which bubbled 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.800 beneath the surface for ten years until finally in nineteen 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:21.400 seventy five, the story broke through. In nineteen seventy five, 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.600 the Church Committee, headed up by Idaho Senator Frank Church, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.200 had just released a trove of documents exposing the CIA 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.120 and other government officials of some very horrific abuses of 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.040 power throughout the sixties. 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.160 The Church Committee hearings of nineteen seventy five revealed that 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.680 there were at least three foreign assassination operations mounted by 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:49.200 CIA officials in the nineteen sixties against the leaders of Cuba, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.040 the Dominican Republican, the CONGO. 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.400 That's Jefferson Morley again, former Washington Post reporter and creator 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.400 of jfkfax dot org. 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:03.960 So the exists of an organized CIA capacity for political 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:09.520 assassinations was revealed and convincingly, without any doubt, well documented. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.280 So that was the first time that the CIA was 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.720 really called to account for these types of activities. It 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.240 was the first time that the public ever knew that 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:19.840 that's what the CIA was doing. 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.240 And then on March fifth, nineteen seventy five, thanks to 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:29.280 a stand up comedian who appeared on an evening talk show, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:31.000 everything changed. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:33.880 How Are You? 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.800 Dick Gregory is one of America's foremost comedians. His comedy 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.480 doesn't just make people laugh, it makes them think as well. 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:43.000 Please welcome Dick Gregory. 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.200 In nineteen seventy five, Heraldo Rivera hosted a monthly show 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.040 on ABC called good Night America. 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.600 Now, if you can remember back and be honest to 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:00.800 when all these theories about conspiracies first came out in 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.159 the mid sixties, then we treated the researchers and the 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.760 people doing this investigation is kind of paranoid coups. I mean, 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:08.679 let's be honest, that's. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.800 The way it was. But now we've all lived through the. 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:16.080 Pentagon papers, Watergate, dirty tricks, and even the allegations. And 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.159 I stressed the point that there are only allegations that 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:23.200 the CIA and the FBI institutions that are so solid 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.359 in American history, in the fabric of American society, have 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:32.159 engaged in illegal operations against American citizens. Well, because of 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.400 all that, I think that most people are now more 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.000 willing to listen to opposing points of view. And I 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.160 think one thing is certain. There are just too many 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.280 loose ends. John Kennedy was murdered, and we at least 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.240 owe him the duty of doing everything possible to find 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.560 out who all was involved. Now, possibly, just possibly, the 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.040 Warrant Commission was right, but what if it wasn't. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.280 As I started meeting various people that was looking for 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.320 something else, I found out that there was a whole 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.320 like a cult out here that didn't believe it. But 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.439 we just kept looking and kept waiting for the press. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.480 That's comedian Dick Gregory. He was also suspicious of the 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.920 Warren Report, so in the early seventies he started going 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.040 to these gatherings kind of like conferences where other doubters 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.440 brought all their independent research in an attempt to piece 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.919 it all together. In nineteen seventy five, at one of 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:28.040 these early conferences, Dick Gregory meets a young guy named 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:33.720 Robert Groden. Groden is sitting on something incredible. He's got 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.120 an original copy of the Subruder film. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.119 The Zubruder film is famously an eight millimeter film shot 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.639 by a local dressmaker named Abraham Zabruder. He just happened 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.280 to be set up at Dealey Plaza with his camera 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.159 and captured the whole thing on film. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.960 In the film, you see everything that happens, from when 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.840 the motorcade turns onto Elm Street to the President getting shot, 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.120 and then the car speating away down the underpass. There 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.280 were a few other people filming that day, but nobody 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.600 captured it quite as clearly as Zapruter. The Secret Service 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.240 promised Suppruter that the film would only be used for 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.480 an official investigation. It was quickly taken to a Kodak 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.119 film processing facility in Dallas, where it was developed and 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.480 three copies were made. Two of the copies were handed 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.200 off to the Secret Service and sent to Washington. The 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.080 third copy of the film was given back to Zapruter. 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.000 The media caught wind and immediately there was a bidding 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.639 war for the rights to Zubruder's film. He eventually sold 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.320 it to Life Magazine for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.840 a lot of money at the time. Life printed several 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.200 still frames in their magazine, and after the Warren Commission 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.280 used the film for their investigation, they also published black 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.719 and white stills, but the moving image was never shared 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:54.480 with the public. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.720 Then, one day Life Magazine reached out to a film 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.560 lab for a standard contract job. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.240 We blew up eight millimeter home movies up to thirty 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.879 five millimeters so that we had a professional grade that 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.280 could be transferred to final print, and nobody else did 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.280 the work we did. Five Magazine found out about it, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.280 and they wanted to see if the Zabruder film would 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.399 hold a resolution and clarity blowing up from eight to 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:22.080 thirty five. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.840 That's Robert Groden at the time in nineteen seventy one. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.000 He was a twenty six year old staff technician in 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.800 the film lab. That day the Zabruder film landed on 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:33.439 his desk. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.480 Well, they brought it to us. We did it and 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.160 sufficed to say an extra copy was made they didn't 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:41.639 know about. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.480 Roden was shot by what he saw, and he made 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.560 his own personal copy of the Zapruder film. 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.080 That's what I released on the TV show Good Night 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.160 America back in nineteen seventy five. 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.479 And I want to introduce another guest. We have Robert Groden, 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.480 who was celebrating his eighteenth birthday on the twenty second 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.960 of November in nineteen sixty three. Robert, welcome, and I 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.360 wish you could set up the Zapruta film a bit 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:10.920 for us, and we'll get right into it. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:11.359 Okay. 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:17.200 Abraham Supruter was a Dallas dress manufacturer and it was 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.680 pure accident that he brought the camera with him that day. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.200 He got what his frame for frame, the most valuable 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:24.800 historical document of all time. 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.800 I was scared of him, out of my wits because 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.320 I wasn't supposed to have the film in the first place. 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:31.960 I was afraid to release it. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:33.560 You became a whistleblower. 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.959 Really, yeah, that's exactly what I was. 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.840 I'm telling you right straight out that if you are 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:44.880 at all sensitive, if you're at all queasy, then don't 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:49.080 watch this film. It's the execution of President Kennedy. Okay, 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.800 so the cars are coming along now into d Lee Plaza. 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.040 He is shot. Then Governor Connolly is shot. 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.320 Now Jackie doesn't realize what's happened yet, she goes to 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:57.760 his aid. 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:04.800 And now that's a live audience reacting to the fatal shot. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.360 That's the shot that blew up his head. That's an 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:10.120 Austin horrifying thing I've ever seen. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.720 Now, the Warree Commission said that all of the shots 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.800 were fired from behind by Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassin 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.520 firing out the president. And as you could see clearly, 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.200 the head is thrown violently backwards, completely consistent with the 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:24.080 shot from the front. 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.960 The President's head goes back and to the left. There 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.480 is no way that could happen if he was shot 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:32.200 from behind. 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.119 And this is the very first time the American public 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:39.880 is seeing this footage correct. 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.320 And then Dick Gregory closes the show with an incredible 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:45.159 call to action. 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.119 I'm outraised over the fact that the American press should 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.639 be doing what we are doing today. I would like 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.200 to see the American press, even the press that say 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:58.320 everything we have is not true, to come out and 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.280 do the research and let the American people know. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:02.720 Was it a trick? 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.919 Was it a conspiracy? And let's open up the Warren report, 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:11.520 let's talk about a new investigation. If we don't, I 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:13.560 think this country's going to be in a lot of trouble. 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:14.080 All right. 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:35.119 And amazingly, that's exactly what happened. In nineteen seventy six, 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.960 after the Zappruder film aired on Good Night America, a 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:44.600 new congressional committee, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, officially 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:45.679 reopened the case. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:50.120 Gaydon Phonsie was appointed to the committee. You'll remember him 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:54.040 as the journalist who questioned Specter on the single bullet theory. 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:58.480 The commission also appointed Robert Grodin to the investigation team. 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:00.879 I was more than half mean to do it. I 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:03.280 was very proud to be able to do it. And 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:06.400 there's a history to the House Committee, and. 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:11.560 That history starts with a man named Richard Sprague. 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:17.560