The Sixties (TV Mini Series) The Assassination of President Kennedy (2014) User Reviews

The Assassination of President Kennedy A Great Time Capsule

[gerrythree · 8/10 · 24 November 2013]

"The Assassination of President Kennedy" documentary that CNN aired over the 50th anniversary of the shooting of JFK is technically great, a combination of great editing and superior film and videotape restoration. The video clips of TV broadcasts from 50 years ago look just super. The Zapruder 8MM color film sparkles, looking better than I have ever seen it before. The closing credits show that this documentary was a co-production of companies that usually work on motion pictures, not TV documentaries. That must be why so much effort has been put into obtaining archival footage of TV news broadcasts shown in the aftermath of Kennedy's murder. American network TV stations nowadays would never put so much effort and expense into a documentary like this one. Unlike 20 years ago, when quality came first at network news operations, with magazine news shows like PrimeTime Live and the real Dateline NBC.

Almost nothing is perfect and this JFK documentary has one major flaw: the presence of Vincent Bugliosi, whose leaden comments defending the Warren Commission are completely out of place. Bugliosi's "expert" testimony consists of opinions from a boring former prosecutor. Instead of his talking head shots, I would have like more footage from regular folk who were in Dallas that day, comparable to the lady who told a reporter who asked that the CIA was behind the shooting. In other words, get a picture of the times from more eyewitnesses. One more eyewitness interview could have been James Tague, the car salesman who was watching the Kennedy motorcade pass by when he was struck slightly in the face by the ricochet of a bullet that missed Kennedy's vehicle and then bounced off the pavement at him.

Still and all, "The Sixties: The Assassination of President Kennedy" does a great job showing events in the aftermath of this murder of a president.

They're Still Out There

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 23 July 2016]

There are two focal points in this third offering of "The Sixties." The first is the factual material that we all viewed concerning the assassination of JFK. We the Zapruder film which has been enhanced and offered in stark detail. Of course, there are all the events of that week that will be left indelibly in the minds of those who lived through it. The coverage was actually quite amazing, considering the relatively primitive technology available at the time. I was doing a crossword puzzle, watching my little TV, when Ruby came out of the crowd and shot Oswald. I'll never forget how stunned I was, even at age 16. The second half deals with the conspiracy theorists that flooded the country. Of course, it was automatically assumed that the Warren Commission was corrupt. Our country is still rife with those that can't accept a simple explanation. Those who hated this presentation, seem to be doing the same thing the other naysayers did. If they had any hard facts, they should have presented them years ago and we would have their revised version. The problem is that there are so many theories with so many variable and little empirical evidence that they counteract each other. The cool thing for me was that all these guys even existed or even exist today.

Total Crap!!

[Mustang92 · 1/10 · 27 November 2013]

What a shame that Tom Hanks' company, Playtone, produced this piece of drek. This is a total whitewash of the Kennedy assassination, and a bad one.

Most of the evidence that is not congruent with the Warren Commission Report is missing from examination in this so-called "documentary." When I sat down to watch this, I thought, "Huh, Tom Hanks produced it... maybe it'll be decent." I didn't and wouldn't have expected total bullsh*t. But that's what we got.

For the few valid points raised by author Mark Lane, who believed it was more than Oswald involved, there were at least 2-3 talking heads spewing opposition -- all just hot air by people like Bugliosi. No facts, no examining of evidence, just vomit coming out of those who drank the Warren Commission's koolaid decades ago. In fact, Bugliosi at one point says Jack Ruby died of natural causes in prison -- which is a flat-out LIE. (He says this -- I guess -- to dispel the notion that Ruby sacrificed his remaining years knowing he would die -- to shut Oswald up.)

Fact is (and this is historical record, anyone can look it up), Ruby had lung cancer and died 3 years after killing Oswald. Oswald wasn't on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy, numerous witnesses placed him in the lunchroom when the shooting occurred. Oswald's own words on news cameras when paraded by them were "I didn't do it, I'm the patsy." (Psychology 101: A lone gunman/killer who kills someone famous wants the world to know they did it. Just look at all the examples in history.)

There are hundreds of things (and eyewitnesses) that should have been in the Warren Report but weren't. There are examples of things, like: A news photo was shot of the front entrance of the book depository shortly after the gunshots. Jack Ruby is in that photo, near the entrance. But the Warren Commission CROPPED Jack Ruby OUT of the photo. WTF? Hundreds of things like this were done by the Warren Whitewashers.

Heck, look at the famous photo of Oswald supposedly holding his rifle. Look closely at the shadows of that photo. If you do, you will see that the shadows on Oswald's face do NOT match the directional shadows around him. Clearly a doctored photo. (Yes, even in 1963 before Photoshop it was possible to doctor photos.)

Bottom line: Avoid this whitewashed crap program like the plague!!

Disappointing Whitewash

[naught-moses · 1/10 · 14 November 2013]

Virtually every logical fallacy I know of -- including selective elimination -- was used here to once again assure the school-trained and dulled that Lee Oswald was the sole shooter.

Look. I don't buy Garrison's or Prouty's or Ventura's or Stone's (or the other Stone's) or a lot of other peoples' "good ideas" about what happened in Dallas, either. But I do buy what my eyes can see on the film strip shot by Abe Zapruder from the grassy knoll. (Bugliosi's editing of it before the President's head jerks backwards was, well, perplexing.) As well as the means, motives and opportunities of the mob, the CIA, the Cuban freedom fighters, the far right crazies in Texas, etc.

And wonder about the four witnesses who all said Oswald was in the lunch room on the second floor when the shots were fired. And "downward and to the left." And those who heard more than three shots (including the Select Committee on the Assassinations in the House of Reps in '76). And the flawless (and bloodless) "magic bullet" that turned up on the empty gurney. And those who documented Jack Ruby's =long= history of connections to the mob. And Navy Dr. Hume's (and others') statement(s) that there was no brain in the skull when the body arrived at Bethesda... and no verification of who had done what to the body =before= it arrived there.

And. And. And.

Because there's a mountain of documents released via the Freedom of Information Act since 1966 that demonstrate that the Warren Commission Report selectively ignored hundreds of pages of deposed material from eye witnesses who later asked, "Why?"

A lot of people had a lot to gain with Kennedy out of the picture. That does not mean that they did anything to advance their interests, but where there is smoke, fires often burn... regardless of efforts to just plain ignore them.

That he was a (rather moderate by current standards, cold war) Democrat has no bearing on my questions. Not when I know whose son it was who put a hole in Ronald Reagan a mere nine weeks into his first term. Nor why it might be that two different people tried to knock Jerry Ford off.

The "psychotic lone assassin" notion has been around since the days of the pharaohs. And in many cases, a single whacko may have been the doer of the deed in question. But that does not mean such is always the case. Nor that when one has been documented as having been in regular contact with the CIA station chief in New Orleans though waving "Fair Play for Cuba" pamphlets is necessarily one thing or another. But it does make one wonder.

The most reasonable question one hears about the conspiracy theories regards the extent thereof. I for one don't think any of the possible assassination conspiracies could have been very extensive, and strongly question Prouty's, Garrison's and Stone's suggestions of a cast of thousands (please). But we do know -- via FOIA documents -- that Murder Inc. was still up and running in 1963, and that the CIA, as well as the "syndicate" were making contracts with them at the time.

I would simply like to see a presentation that was neither so riddled with holes as Prouty's and Stone's, nor as door-slamming as this and the cheesy TV movie on Murdoch's National Geographic Channel.

But after a half century, I'm not holding my breath.