Documentary - JFK: Secret Killer- The Evidence
Not content with being heavily involved in the world's biggest Golden Anniversary (Doctor Who 50th Anniversary), Paul McGann decided that he wanted to be involved in the "other" 50th anniversary that year and can found narrating JFK:Secret Killer - The Evidence.
I love a good conspiracy and any wannabe detective, conspiracy theorist or US political historian has an opinion on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I have read the Warren Commission report (well most of it, gets a bit wordy in the middle) and seen numerous films, TV dramas, documentaries, and quite a few books and have my own opinion, which rarely gets a screen outing...until JFK:Secret Killer - The Evidence, proves me right!
Colin McLaren an Australian detective specialising in cold cases decides it's time for the evidence to be analysed with fresh eyes and arrives on Dealey Plaza in Dallas, set on finally proving the events that led to JFK's death. The start is very much like any other documentary, setting out the key players and their supposed involvement. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby et al all get a mention and the undeniable events are dealt with swiftly and without the derision you can find in some reports. Once the facts are established the programme becomes interesting.
The documentary follows McLaren as he goes back through witness statements and The Warren Commission report, righting the wrongs and explaining where the mistakes were, how a cover up happened and why the conspiracy theories have lasted so long. Using the investigations of Howard Donaghue, a ballistics expert that was asked to investigate the shooting by CBS and magazines, it was shown that the 'Magic Bullet' theory allowed by the Warren Commission was in fact true. The seating position of Texas Governor John Connelly would allow for the shot from the sixth floor of the Book Depository to be a straight full metal jacket shot that could very well have gone through Kennedy's neck into Connelly sat in front of the President.
It was determined by Donaghue, and witness statements to both the Dallas police and the Warren Commission, that this was in fact the second shot. The first from Oswald's rifle missed the President and struck the road with shrapnel coming into the car striking JFK meaning he spoke and made people aware he had been hit, which is why Connelly turned to face the President when he was struck.
It becomes complicated and starts smelling of a cover up when you look deep into the third shot that struck Kennedy, exploding the President's skull. It has been proved mathematically impossible for the fatal shot to have been fired by Oswald and Donaghue, during his investigation, actually traced the trajectory to the back left seat of the car behind the President's in the motorcade - the Secret Service chase vehicle.
Again with eye witness testimony, including seven Secret Service agents, a Congressman, and the Mayor of Dallas, it is decided that Secret Service Agent George Hickey had picked up the Semi-Automatic rifle kept cocked and loaded on the floor of the chase vehicle and the President is killed by his shot, not by Lee Harvey Oswald.
When the President and the entourage arrive at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the cover up begins. After the President is announced as dead, the Secret Service force the doctors to break Texas law "A person who dies in the State of Texas must be autopsied by the State of Texas" and JFK's body is flown back to Washington. In the autopsy room, as well as the medical team, there are politicians, the FBI, Secret Service and members of the Armed Forces all vying for attention. At the end of what can only be described as a scrum, the Secret Service in the shape of Agent Kellerman, collect all photographs and notes from everybody and none of these people are called to witness for the Warren Commission.
After President Clinton calls for the case to be de-classified in the 1990's its no surprise that the Secret Service documents have just recently been destroyed, however all the people in the hospital room are now free from the gag orders placed upon them and you find out X-Rays were tampered with, evidence was planted, and even JFK's brain was missing, all to hide the fact that a Secret Service Frangible bullet was the kill shot, rather than a Full Metal Jacket round as used by Oswald.
Hickey is never directly blamed for the president's death in the documentary and in fact McLaren and Donaghue are in agreement that this is possibly the world's most tragic accident. Hickey died in 2005 after never once being interviewed about his false statement of the events of the 22nd November 1963.
A must watch for the conspiracy nut and general viewer alike.
Image - Channel 5.
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