The rifle bullets that killed John F. Kennedy were fired by a member of his own presidential guard, as part of a deep state “inside job,ˮ according to a deathbed confession given to the film director Oliver Stone.
After making the acclaimed film JFK – about the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Stone was contacted by a man claiming to be a former member of the presidential guard. Riddled with cancer and close to death, the man wanted to share a secret he had previously only told his son, that “somebody from his own team… had fired on the President.ˮ
The man used the code name “Ronˮ when reaching to Stone in a series of enigmatic letters. Stone eventually gained his trust and the two men met.
Stone said he was naturally skeptical about such a claim, as there have been so many conspiracy theories since Kennedy was killed by two rifle bullets while travelling in an open limousine through Dallas in November 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of shooting the president from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, only to be shot dead himself two days later by a local nightclub owner with connections to the criminal underworld. Since then there have been question marks over whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots or – if he did it – who was he working for?
There have also been suggestions that at least one of the fatal shots was fired from a nearby grassy knoll.
Stone said his doubts about “Ronˮ were dispelled. As a former marine in Vietnam, the film-maker was convinced by the “military jargonˮ and intricate details within an account that he describes as “plausible and very authenticˮ. He decided to reveal the man’s confession for the first time to Matt Zoller Seitz, who is the author of a book on Stone, the Oscar winning screenwriter and director whose classics include Platoon, about the trauma of the Vietnam War. When asked why Stone waited until now, Seitz said “I think it was because he trusted me, and also because both the father and the son have been dead for a while. Nobody has ever heard this story. I’m the first person.ˮ
Stone’s co-operated with the book by making himself available for interview giving Seitz free access to his extensive archive without any editorial control. The book reproduces Stone’s recollections of “Ronˮ. In one passage, he says that he “didn’t have any ulterior motives: He came to me through a series of weird letters through post office boxes. Everything would go to a PO Box, and he’d locate it from offshore, from Bermuda.ˮ
Recalling their meeting in a hotel in Rochester, New York. Stone said “He said he didn’t want money or recognition. He said something like, «I want you to know this is from my conscience». The scenario he laid out was very practical. It’s the way I would do it, if [I] were going to do something like that. You kill the president, and your cover is security, and if the sniper or snipers who kill the president are hidden in with the guys who are supposed to protect him, guys who have no knowledge of this plot… It makes a lot of sense. And his memory of it was so technical, filled with military jargon, details about radio communications right after the shots.ˮ
Seitz pointed out that when Stone served in Vietnam, he “participated in what he calls coordinated kill zones where you have a rifleman stationed at different locations to catch people in a cross fire in more than one direction.ˮ
The book is titled The Oliver Stone Experience, was published on September 13 2016.
yogaesoteric
October 25, 2017
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