JFK by Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar Based on Books by Jim Marrs & Jim Garrison FADE in Credits Run in Counterpoint Throu
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JFK By Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar Based on books by Jim Marrs & Jim Garrison FADE IN Credits run in counterpoint through a 7 to 10 minute sequence of documentary images setting the tone of John F. Kennedy's Presidency and the atmosphere of those tense times, 1960 through 1963. An omniscient narrator's voice marches us through in old time Pathe' newsreel fashion. VOICE January, 1961 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation - EISENHOWER ADDRESS EISENHOWER The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government... In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist... We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted... Script provided for educational purposes. More scripts can be found here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/library ELECTION IMAGERY School kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. WPA films of farmers harvesting the Texas plains. Rain, thunderheads, a dusty car coming from far away on a road moving towards Dallas. Cowboys round up the cattle. Young marrieds in a church. Hillsides of tract homes going up. The American breadbasket, the West. Over this we hear Eisenhower's address. As we move into the election campaign of 1960, we see the TV debates, Nixon vs. Kennedy, Mayor Daley, Kennedy victorious... Against this is juxtaposed other forces: segregation, J. Edgar Hoover, military advisors, Castro, Marilyn Monroe, Lumumba... three frames of the Zapruder film counter-cut... ending with the Kennedy inauguration and the irony of Earl Warren administering the oath as he will Kennedy's eulogy. VOICE 2 November, 1960 - Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts wins one of the narrowest election victories in American history over the Vice- President Richard Nixon by a little more than 100,000 votes. Rumors abound that he stole the election in Illinois through the Democratic political machine of Mayor Daley... (inauguration shots) At his inauguration, at a time when American males all wore hats, he let his hair blow free in the wind. Alongside his beautiful and elegant wife of French origin, Jacqueline Bouvier, J.F.K. is the symbol of the new freedom of the 1960's, signifying change and upheaval to the American public, scaring many and hated passionately by some. To win the election and to appease their fears, Kennedy at first takes a tough Cold War stance. BAY OF PIGS IMAGERY The beach, the bombardment, the rounding up of prisoners, Kennedy's public apology, Allen Dulles standing next to Script provided for educational purposes. More scripts can be found here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/library Kennedy's public apology, Allen Dulles standing next to J.F.K., both uncomfortable with the small talk... VOICE 3 He inherits a secret war against the Communist Castro dictatorship in Cuba, a war run by the CIA and angry Cuban exiles out of bases in the Southern United States, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Castro is a successful revolutionary frightening to American business interests in Latin America - companies like Cabot's United Fruit, Continental Can, and Rockefeller's Standard Oil. This war culminates in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, when Kennedy refuses to provide air cover for the exile brigade. Of the 1600 men who invade, 114 are killed, 1200 are captured. The Cuban exiles and the CIA are furious at Kennedy's irresolution... Kennedy, taking public responsibility for the failure, privately claims the CIA lied to him and tried to manipulate him into ordering an all-out American invasion of Cuba. He vows to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and fires Director Allen Dulles, Deputies Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell, the top leadership of the Agency. SECRET WAR IMAGERY Cuban rallies, footage of training camps, espionage activities, boats, cases of weapons, Robert Kennedy... John Roselli, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante, Richard Helms (the new CIA chief), Bill Harvey, Head of ZR/RIFLE, Howard Hunt... VOICE 4 The CIA, however, continues it's secret war on Castro with dozens of sabotage and assassination attempts under it's ZR/RIFLE and MONGOOSE programs - The Agency collaborates with organized crime elements such Script provided for educational purposes. More scripts can be found here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/library as John Roselli, Sam Giancana, and Santos Trafficante of Tampa, whose casino operations in Cuba, worth more than a hundred million dollars a year in income, Castro has shut down. CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS Khrushchev, Kennedy, Castro on television, meetings with Cabinet, Russian vessels in Caribbean, U.S. nuclear bases on alert, civilians going to underground safe areas... the Russian ship turning around, the country smiling... VOICE 5 In October 1962, the world comes to the brink of nuclear war when Kennedy quarantines Cuba after announcing the presence of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles 90 miles off American shores. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA call for an invasion. Kennedy refuses. Soviet ships with more missiles sail towards the island, but at the last moment turn back. The world breathes with relief but backstage in Washington, rumors abound that J.F.K. has cut a secret deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev not to invade Cuba in return for a Russian withdrawal of missiles. Suspicions abound that Kennedy is "soft on Communism." NUCLEAR TEST BAN IMAGERY Closing down Cuban Camps, McNamara speaking, Khrushchev and Kennedy, the "hot line" telephone system inaugurated, Kennedy with Jackie and children sailing off Cape Cod... Vietnam introduction, early shots, Green Berets, counterinsurgency programs, De Lansdale, leading up to the Test Ban signings... then J.F.K. at American University, June 10, 1963. VOICE 6 In the ensuing months, Kennedy clamps down on Cuban exile activities, closing training camps, restricting covert operations, prohibiting Script provided for educational purposes. More scripts can be found here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/library covert operations, prohibiting shipment of weapons out of the country. The covert arm of the CIA nevertheless continues its plan to assassinate Castor... In March '63, Kennedy announces drastic cuts in the defense budget. In November 1963, he orders the withdrawal by Christmas of the first 1000 troops of the 16,000 stationed in Vietnam. He tells several of his intimates that he will withdraw all Vietnam troops after the '64 election, saying to the Assistant Secretary of State, Roger Hilsman, "The Bay of Pigs has taught me one, not to trust generals or the CIA, and two, that if the American people do not want to use American troops to remove a Communist regime 90 miles from our coast, how can I ask them to use troops to remove a Communist regime 9,000 miles away?"... Finally, in August 1963, over the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union sign a treaty banning nuclear bomb tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space... Early that fateful summer, Kennedy speaks of his new vision at American University in Washington. JFK What kind of peace do we seek? Not a pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war... We must re-examine our own attitudes towards the Soviet Union... If we cannot now end our differences at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal... Script provided for educational purposes. More scripts can be found here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/library CONCLUDING KENNEDY IMAGERY Diplomats at the United Nations... Adlai Stevenson, Castor... Martin Luther King and the March on Washington (a snatch of his "I Have a Dream" speech)... Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa going at it... U.S. Steel Chairman's remarks in the steel face-off, men going to courtrooms with briefcases,... Teddy Kennedy, Rose, Joe, the Kennedy family, all teeth and good looks... and of course John campaigning, always campaigning, shaking hands, smiling, that supremely warm smile and sense of grace and ability to convey to crowds their oneness with him... forever... culminating in the more specific Texas shots... with Jackie in San Antonio, and Houston... then at Fort Worth... then at Love Field moving through the clouds toward the Dallas/Forth Worth plain which suddenly breaks into view as we descend... LOUISIANA HIGHWAY - DAY (1963) A moving car carrying two Cuban males disgorges a rumpled, screaming woman, Rose Cheramie, a whore in her thirties, lying there bleeding in the dirt. The car drives off. HOSPITAL - DAY (1963) We see Rose, badly cut but quite lucid, trying to reason with a policeman, Lt. Fruge, and a doctor - in a remote black- and-white documentary. ROSE They're going up to Dallas... to whack Kennedy. Friday the 22nd, that's when they're going to do it. In Dealey Plaza. They're gonna whack him! You gotta call somebody, these are serious fuckin' guys. DOCTOR (to the police officer) Higher'n a kite on something. Been like this since she came in. BACK TO DOCUMENTARY IMAGES We see the last close-ups of Kennedy shaking hands on the tarmac at Love Field, smiling, into the motorcade... the downtown streets of Dallas, people packing the sidewalks clear back to the buildings, hanging out of windows ten Script provided for educational purposes.