7/19/23
Newsletter #401
The Crack of Dawn
I’m of an age where I can just barely remember President John Kennedy being assassinated. I do recall his funeral on TV more clearly, and I vividly remember John Kennedy Jr., two years younger than me, saluting his dead father’s passing funeral cortege. Well, what are you going to do? Life moves on.
On March 6, 1975, the young, eager Geraldo Rivera managed to get the 8mm home movie of the JFK assassination shot by Abraham Zapruder out of a vault at the Time-Life Building in NY where it had sat unseen for eleven years and showed it on TV. It was a big deal, and everybody watched. I was 17 years old and up until then had never given JFK’s assassination a second thought. They said it was Lee Harvey Oswald, it was Oswald. But as I watched the “head shot,” the bullet that removed the right side of Kennedy’s skull, the physics in my brain, combined with having fired a sufficient number of weapons in my life, told me exactly where that bullet was coming from – the grassy knoll. The bullet strikes him in the forehead above his right ear, throwing him “back and to the left,” as Kevin Costner repeats many times in the movie, JFK (1990). Well, if the head shot came from the grassy knoll, and not the book suppository (har har), then there was more than one person involved and it was a conspiracy. In the split second of seeing the head shot, I was suddenly a believer in at least one conspiracy, whether I liked it or not.
Once again, I didn’t give it another thought until Oliver Stone’s movie JFK came out 15 years later. Stone’s movie is so good, so beautifully made, and presents every possible explanation, that I began thinking about it. If it wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald by himself, then who was it? The movie JFK lays it at the feet of Lyndon Johnson, which I don’t buy for a second. There is a lot of compelling evidence that LBJ took a totally different approach, meaning seriously increasing it, to the conflict in Vietnam – which is Stone’s bailiwick – but that doesn’t mean he killed his own boss, the head of his own party, and a fellow Democrat. One thing doesn’t nearly equal the other.
13-14 years later, in 2003-04, all of a sudden, the question presented itself to me: if it wasn’t Oswald alone, and it wasn’t LBJ, then who killed Kennedy?
OK, so then let’s read all the books and watch all the documentaries. The first important documentary, I think, is Rush to Judgement (1967), based on the book of the same name by Mark Lane from the year before. The movie is black & white and was made 3 years after the event so most of the witnesses are still alive. Oliver Stone used dialogue directly from this film, like, “Maggie’s drawers,” meaning you’re a crappy marksman. The other important documentary I watched was The Men Who Killed Kennedy (1988/2002), originally a two-part British TV movie of 100 minutes, that was completely recut into a six-part series at 300 minutes, and that’s the one to watch. And there are books, books, and more books, and I don’t recommend any of them, except Rush to Judgement, which is mainly about the bullshit Warren Report.
Anyway, I sifted through all of the information, and as a writer/detective, it became clearer and clearer to me that of all the possible candidates of who might have had John Kennedy killed, it seemed plain that it was Sam Giancana, the biggest mobster and heroin importer in America. I say it was at the behest of Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK’s dad, and the former lover of Gloria Swanson. I didn’t make this shit up. But I did have to make up the two scenes that cause everything else to happen.
First of all, let’s say in September of 1963, when it was looking extremely rocky for the JFK presidential campaign against Richard Nixon, and all of the polls had Nixon ahead, who could possibly deliver the needed votes to push Kennedy over the top? Could it be Sam Giancana, who controlled the mob in Illinois, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas?
OK, what are the connections? What’s the connection between Joe Kennedy and Sam Giancana? Easy. They were both bootleggers in the 1920s during prohibition. I don’t know that they specifically did business together, but since Joe Kennedy had the best hooch in Canada – Canadian Club, among others – that came in through Detroit (over the frozen Detroit River), I wouldn’t be surprised if they did know each other. OK, here it is, the motivation for the assassination of JFK. In desperation for his son’s presidency (which is really Joe’s dream), Joe Kennedy asks Sam Giancana for a favor – get my son the votes of Illinois and West Virginia, and he’ll win the presidency. Sam Giancana – Mooney or Momo to his friends – a smart, ruthless, bespectacled thug in Chicago, who was the American buying the heroin from the French Connection, who then sold it to the youth of America, could suddenly control the American president.
I’ve been using a lot of other writer’s dialogue recently. Here’s some of my dialogue, from my script Head Shot from 20 years ago. I find upon reading it again that it’s pretty utilitarian. But it’s a set-up for the second scene that I think is better. Joe Kennedy and Sam Giancana have two scenes together: asking for the favor; then Sam calling in the favor. This is the first scene. I’ll publish the second scene tomorrow.
INT. THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE/HALLWAY – DAY
Joe Kennedy and his two men step up to the double-doors marked “Presidential Suite” and one of the men knocks. A tough-looking mobster opens the door, sees who it is, nods and lets them in.
INT. THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE – DAY
Sitting on the couch is a round-faced man with a large nose, he’s fifty-one years old, bald on top with dark hair around the sides and back, and wears thick, black-rimmed glasses. A subtitle reads: “SAM “MOONEY” GIANCANA, head of the Chicago mob and one of the most powerful underworld leaders in the world.” Sam wears a perpetual scowl, which is why he’s known as “the sour-faced Don.” Sam stands up, removes his glasses and shakes Joe’s hand.
SAM
(without smiling)
Joe, good to see you.
JOE
(Boston accent)
Sam, good to see you. It’s been a long time.
SAM
Yeah, I used to see you occasionally in Vegas, but you
don’t come around no more.
JOE
Rose doesn’t like me going off to Vegas and leaving
her alone anymore.
SAM
(shrugs)
A man’s got to do whatever he’s got to do to keep his
family happy, right?
JOE
(nods)
How right you are.
Sam and Joe sit down on over-stuffed easy chairs. One of Sam’s men serves them iced tea. Sam pulls out a cigar case and offers one to Joe, who declines. Sam lights a cigar. They both sip their iced tea waiting for the right moment to continue. Finally, Joe speaks . . .
JOE
So, you’re probably wondering why I dropped by
today?
(Sam shrugs)
Well . . . I need to ask a, uh, favor.
Sam puffs his cigar.
SAM
Yeah?
JOE
The polls show that Jack is still running a little behind
Nixon.
SAM
(nods)
Uh-huh.
JOE
It wouldn’t take much at this point to push him up
over the top, you know?
SAM
Uh-huh.
JOE
So . . . If Jack could count on the Teamster, the AFL-
CIO, and Longshoreman vote, not to mention Chicago,
and the rest of Illinois, which I know you control, I have
no doubt that he’d win.
SAM
(nods)
He just might.
JOE
No, he would. That’s all he needs to push him over
the top.
SAM
Okay, so that’s all he needs. What do I care?
JOE
(seriously)
You want a red-baiting, commie-hunter like Nixon
in office? The man’s ridiculous. He was J. Parnell
Thomas’s puppet, then he was Joe McCarthy’s side-
kick. He’s a joke.
SAM
Maybe a commie-hunter is better than a fella whose
little brother won’t get off a lot of my friends’ backs.
If I say Kennedy around most of my friends, they think
Bobby and his Senate investigating committees, and they
don’t like it. And because he happens to be your son,
I’m sorry, Joe, but it rubs off on you and Jack.
JOE
(smiles)
That’s all gonna change. Once Jack’s president Bobby’s
gonna have bigger and better things to do, I assure you.
Sam gives Joe a long hard look.
SAM
Really?
JOE
Yeah, really.
SAM
(skeptical)
You’re sure of that?
JOE
Sam, they’re my sons. I’m sure. Jack wants to kick
Castro’s behind, then go flying off into space. He’s
also very concerned about civil rights. And that’s
what his administration will be doing.
SAM
And they’ll stop annoying me and my friends?
JOE
Yes. That’ll stop.
SAM
I’ve known you a long time, Joe. Since back when
we were both bootleggers during prohibition. I bought
a lot of Canadian whiskey from you and it was always
top-quality, and you always delivered when you said
you would. I respect that. So I have to believe what
you tell me.
JOE
Believe it.
SAM
You ask me for a favor, I’ll see what I can do. There
it is.
Joe smiles happily and shakes Sam’s hand.
JOE
If you could also talk to some of your Hollywood friends,
too, maybe, like Frankie and Deano, that would also help
a lot.
SAM
We’ll see what we can do.
JOE
Excellent. And when Jack is elected, you watch, it’s
going to herald a new age in this country. It’ll be better
for everybody.
Joe stands to leave and Sam stands with him, as do all of their men.
SAM
Yeah? Just so long as it’s better for me and my friends,
that’s enough for me. I don’t really give a shit what
happens to niggers or astronauts.
Joe nods and leaves. Sam watches him go and puffs on his cigar. A THUG speaks
THUG
It would be nice to get Bobby Kennedy off our ass, the
little prick.
SAM
Both kids seem like pricks, but Joe’s OK, I think.
Then you can attest to the fact that I've been honking the same horn forever -- the script. I'll bet this is at least 2500 years old, "If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage."
I rewrote the script one more time a few years ago as "I Killed Kennedy," trying to focus on Lucien Sartie, the French assassin. The story's problem is that it had no lead character. I don't know that I've fixed it. Since you Will are an old visitor to my website, Beckerfilms.com, it is back up and running.