You said it, Apple! It’s good entertainment. But most of it is fiction. To support his thesis that President Kennedy was murdered by the CIA, acting on behalf of unnamed right-wing interests, Oliver Stone had to create a picture of JFK as a liberal “flower child” who was knocked off because he irritated the Radical Right by sucking up to the Russians, opposing the oil depletion allowance, planning to dump Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson from his ticket in 1964, etc.

Nothing could be further from the truth. JFK was a dedicated Cold Warrior who took a much harsher line toward the USSR than did his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower; and who brought us to the brink of nuclear war several times during his brief administration. Kennedy never opposed the oil depletion allowance, either as a Congressman, Senator or President. And he valued LBJ for his skill in dealing with Congress (a skill JFK utterly lacked), and was depending on him to carry Texas in 1964 (as he did in 1960) and possibly other Southern states.

Stone tries to make a hero out of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison, a crackpot who had no credibility even with the most diehard conspiracy theorists. One of his own staffers said that “as an investigator, Jim Garrison couldn’t find a pubic hair in a whorehouse during rush hour.” Garrison’s reputation, never strong, took a terminal nosedive after the debacle of the Clay Shaw trial. Shaw was acquitted, and even Garrison’s fans were disgusted with the prosecution’s performance.