Joe Discusses the JFK Assassination with Oliver Stone

There's a thing about your films though that I think like you keep getting back to this. But because you did go over there, it's almost like in your films like you have something you have to tell people. But you're yeah, it's like you have to give them medicine, but you got to give it to them in sugar. I didn't think of it that way. I wanted to take I take thorny subjects. Yeah, but they're entertaining too because I want to know what happens next like you. I think you have an interest in so even political matters can be fascinating. Yeah, who else would do Nixon's life? Right. I mean, come on. He was not the most popular guy. No, he's an odd man. For me, it was a challenge. Yeah. Same thing with the JFK murder. I mean, it was so so gnarly. That one's extra complex, right? Because you took some liberties there to try to move the plot along. Yeah, but liberties in the spirit of the of the I didn't violate the truth. Right. No, in this. I mean, I had to combine characters and so forth. That is a complex story. The story of JFK's assassination is very complex because I can learn a lot from a person in what their opinion is. Like, what do you think happened? Well, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. You get these very specific character types where these people have these predetermined patterns that they plug into. And the Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone is one of the weirder ones. Yeah, sure. That is one of the weirdest arguments. And when when I talk to them about the magic bullet, you know, like, and they go, well, that's actually been proven that that can happen. I mean, that drives me nuts. Yeah, sure. Because I'm a guy who shoots guns. I'm a hunter. And I know what happens when bullets hit bones. It doesn't ever come out like that ever. And also, I think, you know, it was a hell of a shot. Well, the hell of a shot can happen. I don't think it's that bad of a I don't think it's that big of a deal. I think that's overstated. There's many things that are overstated. One of the things that's overstated is the scope was off. You know, people always say, well, the scope was off. Well, fucking anything can knock a scope off. You can drop a gun in the evidence room and the scope's off. That's nonsense. That's people don't understand guns. But the bullet hitting those two people and finding its way on the Connelly's gurney magically with very little distortion, the bullet at all is straight up horseshit. And the fact that that still gets touted as being well, this is actually how it could have happened. And weird things happen with bullets. Sure. Weird things happen with bullets. The weird thing that never happens with bullets is when they hit bone and shatter bone, they always distort. Always. Yeah. I'm making it. I made a documentary. It's almost finished about we went back to the case again, taking all the information from the assassination records review board that came out of the film. They passed an act, the JFK Act, Congress did. It was amazing. And they allowed the board to exist for five years and they went through a lot of detail. They weren't out to prove anything, but they found a lot of little detail that we put into this documentary, which I think you'll love. I'm sure I'll love it. It goes into CE 399, the bullet, but also goes into so much else on the autopsy that's screwed up. The two autopsies, the one in Bethesda and also the one in Dallas. There was no one in Dallas. Well, they did some examinations of what happened to him in examinations in Dallas. Everybody saw a huge gaping wound in the rear right of Mr. Kennedy's head. And that was covered up. Yeah. There was also the reason why they needed to make that magic bullet work. The guy who got hit under the underpass. Oh, yeah. I know you're, I could see your enthusiasm on this. Deep. Yeah. And also, you know, come on. I mean, if you're an infantryman, you can't fire three shots like that. Why aren't you not firing at him when he's coming towards you? If you're serious. It's very unlikely, but possible. I mean, it can be done. The shot can be done. But that's one of the least ridiculous things about that story is whether or not one person could have pulled off those shots. I don't think it'd be done. I don't think it'd be done. I think the world's best marksman couldn't do it. I remember reading something about that. No, it's a hard shot. It's a hard shot. But hard shots can be made. Hard shots can be made. In that time period. Depending upon how much he trained for it, depending on, I mean, I've, I've know some people that are spectacular marksmen that can do some ridiculous shit and do it so fast. He wasn't, but he was also trained. And if he did, depending upon how much training he did between his time in the service and his time actually getting ready to shoot Kennedy, you can get a lot better. I don't know how much training he did. I mean, you could take someone who's three years ago, a terrible shot, and then they kill someone. Well, he couldn't have done it. He's a terrible shot. Look, three years ago, he was a terrible shot. Well, if that guy was training the entire time, well, I don't think the rifle, look, it can be done. But again, whether it's likely or not, that could be debated. But it's the least ridiculous thing about that story. Well, wait till you see the documentary. I can't wait. We go. I think we pretty much prove that there's no chain of evidence on the rifle either. No, no, I'm sure. I'm sure. Did you read David Lifton's book, Best Evidence? Years ago. Yeah. I was in the beginning of the assassination. Somebody gave it to me, a friend of mine, a musician friend of mine, when I was on the road. And I read it, unfortunately, all day, right before my stand-up comedy shows that night. And I was so depressed. I didn't think anything was funny. And I went on stage. I had a terrible show. And then I had to shake myself out of it for the second show because I was bummed out. I was like, I had never considered it before. I'm like, Jesus Christ, they killed the president and they covered it up. Yeah. I'm paying for it to this day because I think Mr. Kennedy was one of the, really, on the road to being a great president. I think he did a lot of great things that people don't even know. And we put that in the documentary. What he was actually doing in Africa, people don't know. What he was doing around the world, in Asia, in Cuba, obviously, South America. What his plans were. People don't understand that it was a big divide between Lyndon Johnson, who he was about to get rid of him as vice president for the next election. There was a big divide in thinking between Kennedy and Johnson. Kennedy was, without doubt, pulling out of the war. There was a directive. We bring it up from the SECTF conference in Hawaii from earlier that year. He was pulling out. He made that very clear. Well, there was also the Northwoods document, which is really crazy. Oh, that's shocking. Yeah, that's great. Shocking. Because this is not speculation or any kind of conspiracy theory. This is all from the Freedom of Information Act signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They were going to blow up a jet airliner and blame it on the Cubans. They were going to arm Cuban friendlies and attack Guantanamo Bay. They were going to do all this to get us to go to war with Cuba. It's stunning that this is an actual plan by the United States government vetoed by Kennedy. Wasn't there a plan also to fly a plane into a building? I don't know if there was. There was a plan to blow up a drone jetliner. They were going to take a jetliner, fly it, and blow it up in the sky and attribute it all these deaths to that. That came about, actually, the Northwoods came about as a result of the movie because that was what they was found by the Assassination Records Review Board. Really? Yeah. Wow. So it's one of many documents that have come out. That's why it's important for my space peace of mind to finish this thing. It's kind of like, okay, this is the end. I have to just put down the evidence because I couldn't do it in a film. Right. That's what I was going to get to. What is it like when you have this passion for this story and this is a critical story in the history of the United States? And a clear piece of ... I mean, it's a clear historical record of an assassination of a president and most likely, I don't know, who do you think was behind it? I think I'm not going to get sued because they're all dead, but I think that Alan Dulles has to be looked at a lot closer. I think he was no longer in the CIA, but he had a tremendous amount of influence. And I think he needed some organized, very organized top people to help him. So I think it could have been a group of people that were involved and maybe involving certain people in the Pentagon too, because there was an awful lot of strange things that happened. He certainly had some ideas that didn't jive well with the people that were in power. Dulles was fired by Kennedy. Let's call it, call it, call it, call it, which had never been done. This was a shock to the American way of government. I mean, we come from a pro-military system and here was Kennedy questioning it. And then, you know, when after he was killed, I mean, it was insane for Lyndon Johnson to appoint him to the Warren Commission, where he managed to control pretty much the hearings and who was heard, who wasn't heard, and what the CIA was delivering to the ... It was a joke. It was transparent, a joke. There's a couple things that are a joke. Arlen Specter being the guy who comes up with the magic bullet theory is another joke. There's a lot of that that's just very disturbing. It's one of those things where you go over that subject and you just leave in this state of discomfort and unease, and it's very hard to relax afterwards.