06-11-2013, 03:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-11-2013, 06:17 AM by James Norwood.)
[FONT=&]This is the third program produced by the Reelz network on the JFK assassination. At a briskly paced sixty-minutes, the show provides short responses to fifty questions about the assassination.
While the producers retrieved good documentary footage as the backdrop for the fifty questions, the content was superficial and reflected no attempt to research the new findings in the JFK case over the past twenty years. The show could have virtually been produced in the pre-Oliver Stone, pre-ARRB era.
Another major drawback was the commentators on the program. Featured prominently once again on a television documentary about the assassination was journalist Hugh Aynesworth. During the assassination weekend, this most fortunate member of the mainstream media had the singular opportunity of being present in Dealey Plaza for the assassination, at the Texas Theater for the arrest of Oswald, and in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby. Instead of using what he calls his "dumb luck" to try to learn the truth about these three events, Aynesworth has for five decades served as the poster boy for the Warren Commission. In this program, Aynesworth calls the Clay Shaw trial "a terrible miscarriage of justice," and he asserts that people don't accept the Warren Commission's story because "it's more fun to believe in conspiracy." Aynesworth apparently cannot see that for a half century, people have raised genuine concerns about the Warren Commission's version of the assassination.
Another commentator on the program was Ruth Paine, who is seen weeping on camera and saying, "the grief is always there." However, it is unclear what is the source of her bereavement. Is it perhaps her own complicity in the setting up of Oswald? The most interesting observation made by Ruth Paine was when she recalled speaking to Oswald in Russian when he arrived at her home in Irving on the fateful night of November 21. But she does not comment on how it would be possible for an American boy who never made it beyond his freshman year in high school to have acquired a complete mastery of the Russian language.
The best clips are those in which Jim Marrs appears to provide a dictionary definition of the word "conspiracy." He then raises this question: If Oswald was indeed the lone assassin, why has the government failed for fifty years to provide a defensible rationale for the two murders he was alleged to have committed? The program accepts on blind faith that Oswald shot Tippit. And it goes so far as to suggest that the apartment at 604 Elspeth was the site where Oswald "planned" the assassination because that was where he ordered the gun that killed Tippit. The program's researchers obviously did not study John Armstrong's findings which demolish the proposition that Oswald ever ordered the pistol just as thoroughly as the recent razing of the Elspeth apartment building.
Sadly, this slick program barely scratches the surface of so many complex topics. Without providing any background on the ballistics, the claim is made as fact that the "first shot" from the Depository Building was the so-called "magic bullet" wounding both the President and Governor Connally. Even the Warren Report was unable to draw such a precise conclusion about the sequence of the gunshots. After fifty questions and fifty insubstantial answers, the predictable conclusion of the program is "we may never know the whole truth." It is clear that the American public will indeed never learn the truth if people have to rely on shallow documentary programs like this one.[/FONT]
While the producers retrieved good documentary footage as the backdrop for the fifty questions, the content was superficial and reflected no attempt to research the new findings in the JFK case over the past twenty years. The show could have virtually been produced in the pre-Oliver Stone, pre-ARRB era.
Another major drawback was the commentators on the program. Featured prominently once again on a television documentary about the assassination was journalist Hugh Aynesworth. During the assassination weekend, this most fortunate member of the mainstream media had the singular opportunity of being present in Dealey Plaza for the assassination, at the Texas Theater for the arrest of Oswald, and in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby. Instead of using what he calls his "dumb luck" to try to learn the truth about these three events, Aynesworth has for five decades served as the poster boy for the Warren Commission. In this program, Aynesworth calls the Clay Shaw trial "a terrible miscarriage of justice," and he asserts that people don't accept the Warren Commission's story because "it's more fun to believe in conspiracy." Aynesworth apparently cannot see that for a half century, people have raised genuine concerns about the Warren Commission's version of the assassination.
Another commentator on the program was Ruth Paine, who is seen weeping on camera and saying, "the grief is always there." However, it is unclear what is the source of her bereavement. Is it perhaps her own complicity in the setting up of Oswald? The most interesting observation made by Ruth Paine was when she recalled speaking to Oswald in Russian when he arrived at her home in Irving on the fateful night of November 21. But she does not comment on how it would be possible for an American boy who never made it beyond his freshman year in high school to have acquired a complete mastery of the Russian language.
The best clips are those in which Jim Marrs appears to provide a dictionary definition of the word "conspiracy." He then raises this question: If Oswald was indeed the lone assassin, why has the government failed for fifty years to provide a defensible rationale for the two murders he was alleged to have committed? The program accepts on blind faith that Oswald shot Tippit. And it goes so far as to suggest that the apartment at 604 Elspeth was the site where Oswald "planned" the assassination because that was where he ordered the gun that killed Tippit. The program's researchers obviously did not study John Armstrong's findings which demolish the proposition that Oswald ever ordered the pistol just as thoroughly as the recent razing of the Elspeth apartment building.
Sadly, this slick program barely scratches the surface of so many complex topics. Without providing any background on the ballistics, the claim is made as fact that the "first shot" from the Depository Building was the so-called "magic bullet" wounding both the President and Governor Connally. Even the Warren Report was unable to draw such a precise conclusion about the sequence of the gunshots. After fifty questions and fifty insubstantial answers, the predictable conclusion of the program is "we may never know the whole truth." It is clear that the American public will indeed never learn the truth if people have to rely on shallow documentary programs like this one.[/FONT]