Men Who Killed Kennedy

This artfully constructed five-part series offers chilling evidence that American democracy has become a convenient lie; that a conspiratorial coup d'état removed a sitting president and then hid that fact from the American people. This sounds like the stuff of wild-eyed paranoia, but these filmmakers did their homework well--interviews include levelheaded witnesses, suspicious government agents, and Dallas cops present in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Some of the "proof" (especially in Episode 2, "The Forces of Darkness") seems a bit far-fetched, but the sheer number of unexplained facts is riveting. An autopsy attendant describes a procedure botched by meddling Secret Service agents. A deaf-mute eyewitness shares his recollection of uniformed men hiding a rifle and leaving the site of the assassination unchallenged. Eisenhower's security chief, present at the shooting, discusses fatal safety lapses--as well as mysterious shots coming from the opposite direction of the Texas School Book Depository. District Attorney Jim Garrison points out that Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine assigned to Russian reconnaissance, operated a "Communist" organization out of a government intelligence office. Senator Ralph Yarbrough, present in the motorcade, tells of Kennedy's order to recall the troops from Vietnam--an order rescinded by the Pentagon three days after his death. But the most powerful elements of this documentary are the most personal, as hardened cops confess to lasting nightmares, as senatorial investigators tearfully recall the moment they realized the official story did not match the facts, and as simple bystanders share their lasting grief at having witnessed the gory death of America's innocence. --Grant Balfour