JFK Quotes

Dean Andrews: You as crazy as your mama. Goes to show it's in the genes.

Willie O'Keefe: They can't buy me, you can't buy me... it means fuck all to me!

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

Dean Andrews: Kennedy's as dead as that crab meat, the government's alive and breathing. You gonna line up with a dead man, Jimbo?

Jim Garrison: "Treason doth never prosper," wrote an English poet, "What's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

Jim Garrison: "One may smile and smile and be a villain."

Jim Garrison: "Let justice be done though the heavens fall."

X: Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth. And the truth is on your side, Bubba.

Jim Garrison: The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case. Three bullets, one assassin. But two unpredictable things happened that day that made it virtually impossible. One, the eight-millimeter home movie taken by Abraham Zapruder while standing by the grassy knoll. Two, the third wounded man, James Tague, who was knicked by a fragment, standing near the triple underpass. The time frame, five point six seconds, determined by the Zapruder film, left no possibility of a fourth shot. So the shot or fragment that left a superficial wound on Tague's cheek had to come from the three shots fired from the sixth floor depository. That leaves just two bullets. And we know one of them was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy. So now a single bullet remains. A single bullet now has to account for the remaining seven wounds in Kennedy and Connelly. But rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further, the Warren Commission chose to endorse the theory put forth by an ambitious junior counselor, Arlen Spector, one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. We've come to know it as the "Magic Bullet Theory." This single-bullet explanation is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of a lone assassin. Once you conclude the magic bullet could not create all seven of those wounds, you'd have to conclude that there was a fourth shot and a second rifle. And if there was a second rifleman, then by definition, there had to be a conspiracy.

Jim Garrison: Back, and to the left... back, and to the left... back, and to the left.

Senator Long: One pristine bullet? That dog don't hunt!

Jack Ruby: Oswald!

Jim Garrison: Under the guise of a patriotic club-owner out to spare Jackie Kennedy from having to testify at trial, Jack Ruby is shown his way into an underground parking garage by one of his inside men on the Dallas Police Force, and when he is ready Lee Harvey Oswald is brought out like a sacrificial lamb and nicely disposed of as an enemy of the people.

Jim Garrison: Of course, when he had realized that something had gone wrong, and that the President had been killed, he knew there was a problem. He may have even known he was the Patsy. An intuition, maybe. The President killed in spite of his warning. The phone call that never came. Perhaps fear now came to Oswald for the very first time.

Willie O'Keefe: You don't know shit 'cause you've never been fucked in the ass!

Bill Brousard: This is Louisiana, chief! I mean, how do you know who your daddy is? Because your mama told you so?

Bill Brousard: You're way out there, boss, taking a crap in the wind, and I for one am not going along on this ride!

Jim Garrison: So what really happened that day? Let's just for a moment speculate shall we? We have the epileptic seizure around 12:15, p.m. distracting the police making it easier for the shooters to move into their places. The epileptic later vanished, never checking into a hospital. The A-Team gets on the sixth floor of the depository. They were refurbishing the floors that week, which allowed unknown workmen access to the building. They move quickly into position just minutes before the shooting. The spotter on the radio talking to the other two teams has the best overall view, the God spot. B-Team one shooter and one spotter with radio gear and access to the building, moves into the lower floor of the Dal-Tex building. The third team, the C-Team moves into the picket fence behind the Grassy Knoll, where the shooter and the spotter are first spotted by the late Lee Bowers in the watch tower of the rail yard. They have the best position of all. Kennedy is close and on a flat low trajectory. Part of this team is a coordinator who has flashed security credentials at people chasing them out of the parking lot. Probably 2-3 more men are in the crowd on Elm. 10-12 men. Three shooters. Three spotters. The triangulation of fire that Clay Shaw and David Ferrie discussed two months before. They have walked the plaza. They know every inch. They have calibrated their sight. They have practiced on moving targets. They are ready. Kennedy's motorcade makes the turn from Main onto Houston. It's gonna be a turkey shoot. They don't shoot him coming up Houston, which is the easiest shot for a single shot from the Book Depository. They Wait. They wait until he gets in the killing zone, between three rifles. Kennedy makes the final turn from Houston onto Elm, slowing down to some 11 miles an hour. The shooters across Dealy Plaza tighten, taking their aim, waiting for the radio to say "Green! Green!" or "Abort! Abort!". The first shot rings out, sounding like a backfire it misses the car completely. Frame 161, Kennedy stops waiving as he hears something. Connaly's head turns slightly to the right. Frame 193, the second shot hits Kennedy in the throat from the front. Frame 225, the President emerging from behind the road sign, you can see that he's obviously been hit, raising his arms to his throat. The third shot, frame 232, takes Kennedy in the back pulling him downward and forward. Connaly you'll notice shows no signs at all of being hit. He is visibly holding his Stetson, which is impossiable if his wrist has been shattered. Connaly is turning here now, frame 238 the fourth shot. It misses Kennedy and takes Connaly in the back. This is the shot that proves there were two rifles. Connaly yells out "My God! They are going to kill us all." Somewhere around this time another shot that misses the car completely, strikes James Tague down by the underpass. The car brakes. The sixth and fatal shot, frame 313 takes Kennedy in the head from the front. This is the key shot. The President going back and to his left. Shot from the front and right. Totally inconstant with the shot from the Book Depository. So what happens then? Pandemonium.

Jim Garrison: Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill, or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob appoint the Warren Commission to cover it up? could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the Mob used anything but .38's for hits, up close. The Mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, orders, times, schedules. This was a military-style ambush from start to finish... a coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.

Jim Garrison: The FBI says they can prove it through physics in a nuclear laboratory. Of course they can prove it. Theoretical physics can also prove that an elephant can hang off a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy! But use your eyes, your common sense.

Jim Garrison: Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald? Buried in a cheap grave under the name "Oswald"? Nobody.

Lee Bowers: At the time of the shooting there seemed to be some commotion... I just am unable to describe - a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel that something out of the ordinary had occurred there on the embankment...

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 and cooperate 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.

Lyndon B. Johnson: [to the Chiefs of Staff in the White House] Just get me the election; I'll give you your damn war.

Willie O'Keefe: People got to know, why he was killed.

White House Man: You can forget about your combat troops. He told McNamara he's gonna pull out the goddamn advisors! He fucked us in Laos and now he is gonna fuck us in Goddamn Vietnam!

Numa Bertel: There's a lot of smoke there, but there's some fire.

X: After I came back, I asked myself, why was I, the chief special officer, selected to travel to the South Pole at that time that any number of others could have done? And I wondered if it was because one of my routine duties if I had been in Washington would have been to arrange for additional security in Texas, so I decided to check it out. And sure enough, someone had told the 112th Military Intelligence Group at Fourth Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston in Texas to stand down that day, over the protests of the Unit Commander, Colonal Rike. This is significant because it is standard operating procedure, especially in a lnown hostile city like Dallas.

Dean Andrews: Is this off the record, Daddy-O?

Jim Garrison: About as subtle as a cockroach crawlin' across a white rug!

X: As early as 1961, they knew Kennedy was not going to go to war in South-East Asia. Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies, and something's underway, but it has no face, yet everybody in the loop knows.

Jim Garrison: All these documents are yours. The people's property, you pay for it! But because the government considers you children who might be too disturbed or distressed to face this reality, or because you might possibly lynch those involved, you cannot see these documents for another seventy-five years. I'm in my early 40s, 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 walk into the National Archives and find out what the CIA and the FBI knew! They might even push it back then, hell it may become a generational affair, with questions passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, but someday, somewhere, somebody will find out the damn truth.

Jerry Johnson: You know, I must say, we have heard some strange things coming out of your office in New Orleans. First, we heard that the Cuban exiles killed the President. Then the mob. Now your latest theory seems to be that the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, and the White House, all combined in some elaborate conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. Let me ask you, is there anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald who you think *didn't* conspire to kill the president?

Bill Brousard: Clay Bertrand is Clay Shaw?

X: We would have arrived days ahead, studied the route, checked all the buildings. Never would have allowed all those wide-open windows overlooking Dealy Plaza, never! We would have had our own snipers covering the area the minute a window went up! They would have been on the radio. We would have been watching the building, checking for baggage, coat under the arms... Never would have allowed a man to open an umbrella along the way! Never would have allowed the car to slow down to 11 miles an hour, much less take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm! You would have felt an army presence on the streets that day. But none of this happened. It was a violation of the most basic protection code we have, and it's an indication of a massive plot based in Dallas.

Oswald Imposter: No honest working man can afford to buy a car in this goddamn country anymore. Maybe I'll have to go to Russia and buy a car!

X: No one has said 'he must die'. There's been no vote, nothing on paper, it's as old as the crucifixion. A military firing squad; five bullets, one blank, no one's guilty.

Guy Bannister: Camelot in smithereens.

Numa Bertel: Anyone can get a gun in Texas!

David Ferrie: Man, you don't leave the Agency. Once you're in they got you for life!

Lyndon B. Johnson: You just get me elected, and I'll give you your damned war.

Jim Garrison: The war is the biggest business in America, worth $ 80 billion a year.

Jim Garrison: [while reading Bowers testimony] Ask the question, ask the question!

Lee Harvey Oswald: I am not resisting arrest! I am not resisting arrest!

title card: A Congressional Investigation from 1976-1979 found a "probable conspiracy" in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recommended the Justice Department investigate further. As of 1991, the Justice Department has done nothing.

X: That's the real question isn't it: why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, The Mafia, keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents 'em from asking the most important question: why? Why was Kennedy Killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

Jim Garrison: Telling the truth can be a scary thing sometimes.

Jim Garrison: If you let yourself be too scared then you let the bad guys take over the country, don't you? And then everybody gets scared.

Jim Garrison: White is black, and black is white.

Beverly Oliver: Oh, yeah. One time I came in, Jack introduces me to these two guys. He said, "Beverly, this is my friend Lee..." and I didn't catch the other guy's name. He was a weird-looking guy with those funny little eyebrows. The other guy, Lee, didn't make much of an impression either. He wasn't good-looking or nothin', he didn't look like he had any money, and he was in a bad mood, so I didn't pay him much mind. Well, I might not remember a name, but I always remember a face. When I saw him two weeks later on the television, I screamed, "Oh, my God. That's him! That's Jack's friend!" I knew right then it had something to do with the Mafia.

Jim Garrison: A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.