First draft of Oliver Stone's movie JFK

[Peter Lemkin]

I haven't yet attempted to download it with my slow connection. I'm guessing the annotations are probably Weisberg's angry scribblings about how inaccurate the script is. His archives are filled with half-finished manuscripts attacking other researchers for "stealing" his work or getting things wrong. I think his many health problems during his last years made him harder to get along with. RIP Harold.

Somewhere [here or EF?], long ago Jack white and I [who had both had exchanges with Weisberg] spoke to his brilliance, tenacity, and curmudgeonness. It was just him. A grumpy genius who solved the case long ago; however, not the only one. :gossip:

On the script, I haven't read it yet. Brings up bad memories. At the time of its being written I was contracted to do a book on Plumlee's life. I was lead writer, Marrs was co-author. The Plumlee story was considered, briefly, by the Stone 'staff' - and he was interviewed [and rejected] - as were many other sub-stories/theories of the JFK assassination. They obviously, at the beginning, had only a vague idea of what they were going to 'run' with and what not. My own very personal grip was that they bought Marrs right out from under my Project....I can't blame Jim - it gave him lots of publicity, renown, and more money than I could have offered. It did, however, upset my apple cart at the time. Sklar was, I believe, the woman who made most decisions with Stone and later with Marrs on what was and what was not kept in the film. Prouty was consulted a lot too. Given the complexity of the case, they did a decent job for the Public Mind. It is not a film for a researcher and Stone and his staff didn't devote enough time to fully understand all the complexities of the case. He's a filmmaker, not a researcher. The reaction and propaganda against/personal attacks to/for his JFK film [which started well before anyone knew it was coming out] 'educated' him more than his research about it, IMHO.