Jim Garrison They created Oswald from day one. Like a dummy corporation in the Bahamas. Just move him around a board.
Played by Kevin Costner 
JFK (1991) · 57 quotes
JFK (1991) · 57 quotes
Most-quoted character in JFK (1991): in 36 of its 57 quotes
Most scenes with: Bill Broussard (6), Lou Ivon (4), X (3)
Is a government worth preserving when it lies to the people? It's become a dangerous country when you cannot trust anyone. When you cannot tell the truth. I say "let justice be done, though the heavens fall"!
See Fiat justitia ruat caelum. In the German dub of the film, this was translated to the German equivalent Fiat justitia et pereat mundus, "Let justice be done, though the world perish", the motto of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1558-1564)
More lines from Jim Garrison
19 quotes Jim Garrison Jim Garrison Ferrie was the only one to express any kind of remorse about the whole thing. I think it got him killed.
Jim Garrison [after watching a damning NBC special report]
At least my reputation is still fine with people watching "Laugh In".
Jim Garrison One may smile and smile and be a villain.
Jim Garrison [to his son, Jasper]
Telling the truth can be a scary thing sometimes. It scared President Kennedy, and he was a brave man. But if you let yourself be too scared then you let the bad guys take over the country. Then everybody gets scared.
Jim Garrison Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill, or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob appoint the Warren Commission to cover it up? could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the Mob used anything but .38's for hits, up close. The Mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, orders, times, schedules. This was a military-style ambush from start to finish... a coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.
Jim Garrison To prove there was a conspiracy involving Clay Shaw we must prove there was more than one man involved in the assassination. To do that we must look at the Zapruder film which my office subpoenaed. The American public has not seen the film. It's been locked in a vault the last five years in the Time-Life Building in New York. There's a reason for that. Watch. The picture speaks 1,000 words. The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case. Three bullets, one assassin. But two unpredictable things happened that day to make it virtually impossible. One, the film shot by Abraham Zapruder while standing near the grassy knoll. Two, the third wounded man, James Teague, nicked by a fragment while standing near the triple underpass. The time frame, 5.6 seconds, established by the Zapruder film left no possibility of a fourth shot. So the shot of fragment that left a superficial wound on Teague's cheek came from one of the three bullets fired from the Depository's sixth floor. That leaves just two bullets. We know one was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy. So a single bullet remains. A single bullet must account for the seven wounds in Kennedy and Connally. Rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further the Warren Commission endorsed the theory put forth by an ambitious attorney, Arlen Spector. One of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. It's known as the "magic bullet" theory...Some bullet. Any combat vet can tell you, never in the history of gunfire has there been a bullet this ridiculous. The government says it can prove it with some fancy physics in a nuclear lab. Of course they can. Theoretical physics can prove an elephant can hang from a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy. But use your eyes, your common sense. The Army wound ballistics experts fired some comparison bullets. Not one of them looked anything like this. Take a look at CE-856. An identical bullet fired through the wrist of a human cadaver just one of the bones smashed by the magic bullet. Seven wounds, gentlemen. Tough skin dense bones. This single-bullet explanation is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of one assassin. And once you conclude the magic bullet couldn't create all seven wounds you must conclude there was a fourth shot and a second rifleman. And if there was a second rifleman then by definition there had to be a conspiracy.
Jim Garrison So, what really happened that day? Let's just for a moment speculate, shall we? We have the epileptic seizure distracting the police and allowing the shooters to get into place. The epileptic later vanished, never checking into the hospital. The A-team goes to the sixth floor of the Depository. They were refurbishing the floors of the Depository that week allowing unknown workmen in the building. They move quickly into position, minutes before the shooting. The second spotter, talking by radio to the other teams, has the best overall view. The God spot. B-team, one rifleman and one spotter with access to the building moves into a low floor of the Dal-Tex building. The third team, C-team, moves in behind the fence above the grassy knoll where the shooter and the spotter are first seen by the late Lee Bowers. They have the best position of all. Kennedy is close and on a flat, low trajectory. Part of this team is a coordinator who flashed security credentials at people, chasing them from the area. Probably two to three more men are in the crowd on Elm. Ten to twelve men. Three teams. Three shooters. The triangulation of fire Clay Shaw and David Ferrie discussed two months before. They've walked the plaza. They know every inch. They've calibrated their sights. Practiced on moving targets. They're ready. Kennedy's motorcade makes a turn from Main onto Houston. It's going to be a turkey shoot. They don't shoot him on Houston, the easiest shot for a single shooter in the Depository. They wait till he gets to the killing zone between three rifles.
Jim Garrison The first shot rings out. Sounding like a backfire, it misses the car completely. Frame 161, Kennedy stops waving as he hears something. Connally's head turns slightly to the right. Frame 193, the second shot hits Kennedy in the throat from the front. Frame 225, Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign, you can see he's obviously been hit, raising his arms to his throat. The third shot, frame 232, hits Kennedy in the back, pulling him downward and forward. Connally, you will notice, shows no sign of being hit. He is visiby holding his Stetson, which is impossible if his wrist is shattered. Connally is turning now. Frame 238. The fourth shot. It misses Kennedy and takes Connally in the back. This is the shot that proves there were two rifles. Connally yells, "My God! They're going to kill us all!" Around this time, another shot that misses the car completely striking James Teague by the underpass. The car brakes. The sixth and fatal shot, Frame 313, takes Kennedy in the head from the front. This is the key shot. The President going back and to his left, shot from the front and right. Totally inconsistent with the shot from the Depository. Again. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
Jim Garrison The Commission would have us believe that after firing three bolt-action shots in 5.6 seconds, Oswald then leaves three cartridges neatly side-by-side in the firing nest, wipes fingerprints off the rifle, stashes it on the other side of the loft, sprints down five flights of stairs past witnesses Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles, who never see him, then shows up, cool and calm, on the second floor in front of Patrolman Baker. All this within a maximum of 90 seconds of the shooting.
Jim Garrison Of course, when he had realized that something had gone wrong, and that the President had been killed, he knew there was a problem. He may have even known he was the Patsy. An intuition, maybe. The President killed in spite of his warning. The phone call that never came. Perhaps fear now came to Oswald for the very first time.
Jim Garrison They have their man. It's already been decided in Washington. When he is brought from the theater a crowd is waiting to scream at him. Lee Oswald must have felt like Joseph K. in Kafka's The Trial. He's never given reasons for his arrest. He doesn't know the unseen forces ranging against him. At police headquarters, he was booked for murdering Tippet. No legal counsel was provided. No record made of the questioning. When the sun rises the next morning he is booked for murdering the President. The whole country, fueled by the media, assumes he is guilty.Under the guise of a patriotic club-owner out to spare Jackie Kennedy from having to testify at trial, Jack Ruby is shown his way into the underground parking garage by one of his inside men on the Dallas Police Force, and when he is ready Lee Harvey Oswald is brought out, like a sacrificial lamb, and nicely disposed of as an enemy of the people. Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald? Buried in a cheap grave under the name "Oswald"? Nobody.
Jim Garrison The official legend is created and the media takes it from there. The glitter of official lies and the epic splendor of JFK's funeral confuse the eye and confound the understanding. Hitler said: "The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." Lee Harvey Oswald, a crazed, lonely man who wanted attention and got it by killing a President was only the first in a long line of patsies. In later years, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, men whose commitment to change and peace made them dangerous to men committed to war, would follow also killed by such lonely crazed men. Men who remove all guilt by making murder a meaningless act of a loner. We've all become Hamlets in our country, children of a slain father-leader whose killers still possess the throne. The ghost of John F. Kennedy confronts us with the secret murder at the heart of the American Dream. He forces on us the appalling questions: Of what is our Constitution made? What are our lives worth? What is the future of a democracy where a President can be assassinated under suspicious circumstances while the machinery of legal action scarcely trembles? How many more political murders disguised as heart attacks, suicides, cancers, drug overdoses? How many plane and car crashes will occur before they are exposed for what they are? "Treason doth never prosper," wrote an English poet, "What's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
Jim Garrison The American public has yet to see the Zapruder film. Why? The American public has yet to see the real X-rays and autopsy photographs. Why? Hundreds of documents could help prove this conspiracy. Why are they being withheld or burned by the government? When my office or you, the people, asked those questions, demanded evidence the answer from on high has always been: national security. What kind of national security do we have when we're robbed of our leaders? What national security permits the removal of fundamental power from the people and validates the ascendancy of an invisible government in the US? That kind of national security is when it smells like it, feels like it, and looks like it you call it what it is: Fascism! I submit to you that what took place on November 22, 1963 was a coup d'?tat. Its most direct and tragic result was the reversal of Kennedy's decision to withdraw from Vietnam. The war is the biggest business in America worth $80 billion a year. President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy planned at the highest levels of our government carried out by fanatical and disciplined cold warriors in the Pentagon and CIA's covert-operation apparatus.
Jim Garrison There's a simple way to determine if I am paranoid. Ask the two men who profited most from the assassination former President Johnson and your new President, Nixon to release the 51 CIA documents pertaining to Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby. Or the secret CIA memo on Oswald's activities in Russia that was destroyed while being photocopied. These documents are yours. The people's property. You pay for it. But as the government sees you as children who might be too disturbed to face this reality or because you might lynch those involved you cannot see these documents for another 75 years. I'm in my 40's so I'll have "shuffled off this mortal coil" by then. But I'm already telling my eight-year-old son to keep himself physically fit so that one glorious September morning, in the year 2038 he can go to the National Archives and learn what the CIA and FBI knew. Hell, they may push it back then. It may become a generational affair. Questions passed from father to son, mother to daughter. But someday, somewhere, someone may find out the damn truth. We better. Or we might just as well build ourselves another government like the Declaration of Independence says to, when the old one just ain't working anymore. Just a bit farther out West.
Jim Garrison An American naturalist wrote: "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government." I'd hate to be in your shoes today. You have a lot to think about. You've seen evidence the public hasn't seen. Going back to when we were children I think most of us in this courtroom thought justice came automatically. That virtue was its own reward. That good triumphs over evil. But as we get older we know this isn't true. Individual human beings have to create justice, and this is not easy because the truth often poses a threat to power and one often has to fight power at great risk to themselves.
Jim Garrison These are people who cannot afford to send money but do. People who drive cabs who nurse in hospitals who see their kids go to Vietnam. Why? Because they care. Because they want to know the truth. Because they want their country back. Because it still belongs to us as long as the people have the guts to fight for what they believe in. The truth is the most important value we have because if it doesn't endure if the government murders truth if we cannot respect these people then this is not the country I was born in, or the country I want to die in. Tennyson wrote: "Authority forgets a dying king." This was never more true than for John F. Kennedy whose murder was probably one of the most terrible moments in the history of our country. We, the people, the jury system sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw represent the hope of humanity against government power. In discharging your duty to bring a first conviction in this house of cards against Clay Shaw "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Do not forget your dying king. Show this world this is still a government "of the people, for the people and by the people." Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important.
Jim Garrison 'Treason doth never prosper,' wrote an English poet, 'What's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.' The American public has yet to see the Zapruder film. Why? The American public has yet to see the real X-rays and photographs of the autopsy. Why? There are hundreds of documents that could help prove this conspiracy. Why are they being withheld or burned by the government? Each time my office or you the people have asked those questions, demanded crucial evidence, the answer from on high has always been 'national security.' What kind of national security do we have when we've been robbed of our leaders? What national security permits the removal of fundamental power from the hands of the American people and validates the ascendancy of an invisible government in the United States? That kind of national security, gentlemen of the jury, is when it smells like it, feels like it, and looks like it, you call it what it is: Fascism!
Jim Garrison I have here some $8,000 in these letters sent to my office from all over the country - quarters, dimes, dollar bills from housewives, plumbers, car salesmen, teachers, invalids. These are people who cannot afford to send money but do. These are the ones who drive the cabs, who nurse in the hospitals, who see their kids go to Vietnam. Why? Because they care, because they want to know the truth, because they want their country back, because it still belongs to us, as long as the people have the guts to fight for what they believe in! The truth is the most important value we have because if the truth does not endure, if the government murders truth, if we cannot respect the hearts of these people, then this is not the country in which I was born and this is certainly not the country I want to die in.
Scenes with Jim Garrison
16 scenes Jim Garrison Thank you for your time, David. I'm sorry this has to end inconveniently for you but I am going to have to detain you for further questioning by the FBI.
Why, what's wrong?
Jim Garrison David, I find your story simply not believable.
Really? What part?
Senator Long **** out of control. All of these hippies running around on drugs. You can't tell a boy from a girl anymore. I saw a girl the other day. Pregnant. You could see her whole belly. You know what she had painted on it? "Love Child." It's a mess down there, Jim. We've bitten off more Vietnam than we can chew. It figures with that polecat Lyndon in the White House.
Jim Garrison I sometimes think things have gone downhill since Kennedy died.
Senator Long Don't get me started on that. Those Warren Commission fellows were picking gnat shit out of pepper. Nobody's going to tell me that kid shot like he did from that bookstore.
Jim Garrison But the FBI test-fired the rifle to see if it could be done.
Senator Long Three experts and not one of them could do it. They say that Oswald got off three shots with world-class precision from a manual bolt-action rifle in less than six seconds. According to his Marine buddies, he got Maggie's drawers. That means he wasn't any good. Average man would be lucky to shoot twice. And the first would be the best. Here the third shot's perfect. And they got that bullet zigzagging all over the place hitting Kennedy and Connally seven times. One pristine bullet? That dog don't hunt.
Jim Garrison Something's always bothered me about that from day one. Think other men were involved?
Senator Long If I was investigating the case, I'd round up 100 of the world's best riflemen and find out which ones were in Dallas that day. You been duck hunting. Oswald's an old-fashioned decoy. What did he say? "I'm just a patsy!" Believe it.
Liz Garrison
You're the DA of New Orleans. Isn't the Kennedy assassination a bit out of your domain? All those important people studied it.
Jim Garrison I can't believe a man as intelligent as Earl Warren read those volumes.
Liz Garrison
Maybe you're right. You got an hour to solve the case while I get the kids in bed. Then you're mine. Mr. Kennedy will have to wait until morning.
Jim Garrison We are standing in the heart of the US government's intelligence community in New Orleans. That's the FBI. That's the CIA. That's the Secret Service. That's the ONI. Isn't this a strange place for a Communist to spend his spare time?
What are you driving at?
Jim Garrison We're going back into the case. The murder of the President.
Lord, wake me. I must be dreaming.
Jim Garrison You're awake. I'm deadly serious.
Jim Garrison The things you said will be attacked by many people.
Bring them on. Bring their college degrees in here, I got nothing to hide. No one can buy me. I don't even need this parole.
Jim Garrison What parole?
You're liberal, you don't know shit 'cause you never been **** in the ass. This ain't about justice! No, this is about order! Who rules? Fascism is coming back.
Jim Garrison Nobody wants to buy you. No one's promising you parole. What I need to know is why are you telling us this.
'Cause that mother****er Kennedy stole that mother**** election, that's why. Nixon was going to be a great President until Kennedy wrecked this country. **** wanting rights! Why do you think we have all this crime. He promised those mother****ers too much! Revolution's coming, bullshit! Fascism's coming back! The day that Communist son of a bitch died was a great day! A great day for this country. I hate to think they blame it on silly, **** Oswald. Didn't know shit, anyway. People got to know. People got to know why he was killed. Because he was a Communist. You go ahead, put me on the stand, I'll tell the same goddamned story! Don't matter to me!
None of their testimony is gonna hold up in court, Chief. Hell all three of them have reputations as low as crocodile piss.
Jim Garrison That bother you, Bill? I always wonder why it is in court if a woman's a prostitute she has to have bad eyesight. Find Clay Bertrand. Start by checking around the Quarter.
The six of us, with almost no budget and in secret will solve a case the Warren Commission couldn't?
Jim Garrison I didn't pick you for your legal skills.
Thanks, boss.
Jim Garrison You're a fighter. I like a man who's not afraid of bad odds.
I'm lost. What are we saying?
Jim Garrison That when Oswald went to Russia, he was not a real defector. He was an intelligence agent for our government and remained one till he died.
So, because Oswald pulled the trigger the intelligence community murdered the President?
Jim Garrison I'll go you one better. Maybe Oswald didn't pull the trigger. Nitrate tests indicate he hadn't fired a rifle on November 22. And they didn't bother to see if the rifle'd been fired that day.
His palm print was on it.
Jim Garrison It went to the FBI. FBI didn't find a goddamn thing. It comes back a week later and a Dallas policeman suddenly finds a palm print? It could've been taken at the morgue. There's no chain of evidence.
Al Oser I can't figure out why he orders a traceable weapon to a P.O. box, when he can go into any store in Texas give a phony name and walk out with an untraceable rifle.
Susie Cox To frame him, obviously!
Jim Garrison A lot of smoke, but some fire.
We're talking about our government!
Jim Garrison We're talking about a crime. You must think on a different level, like the CIA does. We're through the looking glass. White is black. And black is white. Maybe Oswald is just what he said he was. A patsy.
Jim Garrison Will you testify, Beverly?
Beverly Oliver I don't think so.
I thought we had an agreement.
Beverly Oliver I don't want to be another statistic.
Jim Garrison We could call you in.
Beverly Oliver If they can kill the President of the United States, you think they'll think twice about a two-bit showgirl like me?
Jim Garrison I understand the pressure you're under. Don't think that I don't.
The Zapruder film establishes three shots in 5.6 seconds. I'm Oswald. Time me.
Go.
Jim Garrison [Ivon fakes three shots]
Time?
Between six and seven seconds.
Without really aiming. The second and third shots came almost right on top of each other. It takes a minimum of 2.3 seconds to recycle this thing. The other problem is, there was a tree blocking the first two shots when fired in the Zapruder film.
Jim Garrison Didn't Hoover say something about leaves falling in November?
It was Texas live oak, Chief. It sheds its leaves in early March. Take this Carcano, world's worst shoulder weapon and try to hit a moving target at 88 yards through heavy foliage. No way. FBI tried two sets of tests. Not one sharpshooter could match Oswald's performance. Not one. Oswald was at best a medium shot. The scope was defective on it too. This is the whole essence of the case to me. The guy couldn't do the shooting. Nobody could. And they sold this lemon to the American public.
Jim Garrison The Zapruder film was the proof they didn't count on. We got to get our hands on it.
It means we'll have to subpoena Time-Life.
Jim Garrison Let me ask you something. Why not just shoot Kennedy on Houston? Plenty of time. He's out in the open.
I keep asking myself the same thing.
Jim Garrison Frontal shot. Even if you miss him once, if he accelerates, you get a second shot.
The only reason to get him on Elm is you got him in a triangulated crossfire. You put a team there down at the fence. Frontal shot. Flat, low trajectory. Put a third team down in this building on a low floor. When Kennedy gets in the kill zone, it's a turkey shoot.
Jim Garrison How many men?
One shooter. One spotter on a radio. Maybe three teams. These are professional riflemen. Serious people. Hunters. Patient. It takes skill to kill with a rifle. That's why no chief executive's been executed with one in 200 years.
Jim Garrison Mr. Shaw, have you ever been a contract agent with the Central Intelligence Agency?
Clay Shaw And if I was, Mr. Garrison... do you think I would be here today... talking to somebody like you?
Jim Garrison People like you don't have to.
Clay Shaw May I go?
Jim Garrison People like you walk between the raindrops.
Clay Shaw May I go?
Jim Garrison Yes.
Clay Shaw Regardless of what you may think of me, I am a patriot first and foremost. I've spent half my life in the military defending my country.
Jim Garrison You're the first person I've met who considers it an act of patriotism to kill his own President.
Liz Garrison
Where you been?
Jim Garrison I'm sorry, the meeting took much longer than expected.
Liz Garrison
We waited for hours, Jim! You could've telephoned.
Jim Garrison I can only say I'm sorry. I just don't have rabbits on my mind.
Liz Garrison
You know what I think? You care more about John Kennedy than your own family. All day the kids asked, "Where's Daddy?" What should I tell them?
Jim Garrison I don't know! The truth! I'm doing my job to make sure they grow up in a country where justice won't be a vanished idea in history books like dinosaurs or Atlantis.
Liz Garrison
It doesn't replace a husband or a father on Easter Sunday.
I guarantee the boss will protect you. He likes you. He likes your mind.
I just don't know who to trust anymore. I suppose I could use a pot of hot coffee and a few packs of Luckys. So, you got anything new in the investigation?
Jim Garrison Who are you scared of?
Everybody. The Agency, mob, Cubans. Follow the Cubans. Check them out. Here. In Miami. Dallas. Check out Eladio del Valle. He used to be my paymaster when I flew missions into Cuba. Somewhere in Miami, you're on the right track. Don't write this down! I ain't cooperating with no one! What's going on here! There's a death warrant for me! Don't you get it? Damn! Wait a minute! You ain't bugged, are you? Son of a bitch, Lou! Are you?
Dave, I play it square. No bugs. I'd love you to go on the record, but I'm in no hurry.
I haven't slept since that shit article come out. Why'd you guys have to go and get me involved in this?
Did we involve you? Or did Clay Shaw?
Cocksucking ****. He got me by the balls.
What do you mean?
You know, photographs, compromising stuff. He'll use 'em, too. Agency plays for keeps. I knew Oswald, he was in my Civil Air Patrol unit. I taught him everything. He was a wannabe. Nobody really liked him 'cause they thought he was a snitch. But I treated him good. He talked about his kid he really wanted her to grow up with a chance but
...
My neck is killing me. I've had cancer for years. Been working with mice trying to find a cure.
Did you ever work for the CIA?
You make it sound like it's some remote **** experience in ancient history. Man, you don't leave the Agency. Once you're in, they got you for life.
Jim Garrison And Shaw?
Shaw's an untouchable. Highest clearance. Shaw, Oswald, the Cubans, all Agency.
Jim Garrison What about Ruby?
Jack was a pimp. A bagman for the Dallas mob. Ran guns to Castro when he was on our side. Castro was almost with us till we tried to whack him. Everybody keeps flipping sides. It's fun and games.
How does the mob figure in this?
They're Agency too. The CIA and the Mafia worked together for years trying to whack out the beard. There's more to this than you could dream! Check out something called "Operation Mongoose." Government, Pentagon stuff. They're in charge. But who the **** pulls whose chain? Who knows? "Oh, what a deadly web we weave when we practice to deceive."
Jim Garrison Who killed the President?
Why don't you **** stop it? Shit! This is too big for you, you know that? Who did the President? ****! It's a mystery. It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The shooters don't even know! Don't you get it? ****, man! I can't keep talking like this! They'll **** kill me! I'll **** die! Son of a bitch!
Jim Garrison It's all right.
I don't know what happened. ****! All I wanted in the world was to be a Catholic priest. Live in a monastery. Pray. Serve God. I had one terrible **** weakness. And they defrocked me! Then I started to lose everything.
Jim Garrison You'll be okay, Dave. You just talk to us on the record. We'll protect you, I guarantee it.
They'll get to you too. They'll destroy you. They're untouchable. I'm so **** exhausted, I can't see straight.
Garrison?
Jim Garrison Yes.
I'm glad you came. Sorry about the precautions.
Jim Garrison I just hope it was worth my while, Mr...?
I could give you a false name, but I won't. Just call me "X".
Jim Garrison I never realized Kennedy was so dangerous to the establishment. Is that why?
Well that's the real question, isn't it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, the Mafia. Keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents 'em from asking the most important question, why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?
Jim Garrison I don't, I can't... I can't believe they killed him because he wanted to change things. In our time. In our country.
Well they've been doing it all through history. Kings are killed, Mr. Garrison, politics is power, nothing more! Oh, don't take my word for it, don't believe me. Do your own work, your own thinking.
Jim Garrison I can't. The size of this is... beyond me. Testify?
Me?
Jim Garrison Testify.
Ha ha. No chance in hell. No, I'd be arrested and gagged, maybe sent to an institution, maybe worse, you too. No, I can give you the background, but you have to find the foreground, the little things. Keep digging. Remember, you're the only person to bring a trial in the murder of John Kennedy. That's important, it's historic.
Jim Garrison I haven't yet. I don't have much of a case.
You don't have a choice anymore. You've become a significant threat to the national security structure. They would have killed you already but you got a lot of light on you. Instead they're trying to destroy your credibility. They already have in many circles in this town. Be honest, your only chance is to come up with a case. Something, anything. Make arrests, stir the shit storm, hope to reach a point of critical mass that'll start a chain reaction of people coming forward, then the government will crack. Remember, fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth - and the truth is on your side, Bubba. I just hope you get a break.
[after hearing the FBI/Oswald story]
I don't buy it, Chief. Why would the FBI cover it up? A telex that disappears from every single FBI office in this country?
Jim Garrison There's a word, Bill. Orders.
Susie Cox Or a cover up. Jesus, Bill. Don't you have enough proof of the FBI's complicity yet?
I respect this country's institutions, like you do, Susie! How the hell can you keep a conspiracy going between the mob, the CIA, the FBI, the Army Intelligence, and who the hell knows what else when you can't keep a secret in this room between 12 people? I mean, we got leaks everywhere. We are going to trial, y'all! What the hell do we really got? Oswald, Ruby, Bannister and Ferrie are dead. Shaw? Maybe he's an agent, I don't know. But, as a covert operator in my book, he is wide open for blackmail because of his homosexuality.
Jim Garrison Shaw's our toehold, Bill. I don't know exactly what he is or where he fits, and I don't really care. But I do know he's lying through his teeth and I'm not gonna let go of him.
And that's why, for those reasons, you're going to trial against Clay Shaw, chief? Well, you're gonna lose! Let's investigate our Mafia leads here in New Orleans. Now, I can buy that a hell of a lot easier than I can the government. Ruby's all mob, knows Oswald, sets him up. Hoffa, Trafficante, Marcello, they hire some guns and they do Kennedy. And, uh, the government doesn't want to open up a whole can of worms because it used the mob to try to get to Castro. Castro assassinated by the mob, by us, sounds pretty wild to John Q. Citizen. So they close the book on JFK. Makes perfect sense to me.
Jim Garrison I don't doubt their involvement, Bill, but at a low level. Could the mob change the parade route? Or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the mob get the FBI, the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? I mean, could the mob get the Warren Commission appointed to cover it up? Could the mob wreck the autopsy? Could the mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the mob used anything but .38s for hits up close? The mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, schedules, times, orders. This was a military style ambush from star to finish. A coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.
OK. So now you're saying Lyndon Johnson was involved? The President of the United States?
Jim Garrison I know this, Bill. Lyndon Johnson got $1 billion dollars for his Texas friends, Brown and Root, to dredge Cam Ranh Bay for the military in Vietnam.
Boss...
Jim Garrison That's just for openers...
Jim Garrison If I'm so far from the truth, why is the FBI bugging our offices? Huh? Why are our witnesses being bought off and murdered? And why are the federal agencies blocking our extraditions and subpoenas like we were never before?
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there's some rogue element in the government or something, but you're not...
Jim Garrison With a full-blown conspiracy to cover it up? You ever read Shakespeare, Bill?
Yeah, I do.
Jim Garrison Julius Caesar? "Brutus and Cassius, they, too, are honorable men." Who killed Caesar? Ten or twelve senators. All it takes is one Judas, Bill. A few people on the inside. Pentagon, CIA, you name it.
This is Louisiana, chief. How the hell do you know who your daddy is? 'Cause your mama told ya so. You are taking a crap in the wind, boss. And I, for one, am not going along on this one.
[Bill grabs his briefcase and angrily throw some things, including a telephone, out of the way and slams the door behind him]
Boss, I've had my doubts all along about Bill. He's been fighting us all along.
Jim Garrison Well, we need him back.
Al Oser Boss, Broussard wasted a whole damn month trying to prove that mob boys like Jack Ruby and Brady are kind of hooked up with Hunt Oil.
I don't trust this guy.
Jim Garrison I will not hear this, gentlemen. Now, I value Bill as much as any person here. It's time we all made room for someone else's ideas, including me. Maybe Oswald is what everybody says he is and I'm just plain dumb about it.
Al Oser [trying to discuss this situation]
I've seen him copying files, leaving here late at night.
I just don't trust him.
Jim Garrison Didn't you two hear what I said?! I said I will not tolerate infighting among the staff!
Then I'm afraid I cannot work with Bill Broussard anymore.
Jim Garrison Is this an ultimatum you're giving me, Lou?
What?!
Jim Garrison Are you giving me an ultimatum?
Well, if that's what you want to call it. I never thought it would come to this. [sighs] I guess I am.
Jim Garrison Well, then I won't have any more ultimatums put to me, Lou. I'll accept your resignation.
Well, you sure got it. You are one stubborn son of a bitch. And you... are making a very big mistake.
Susie Cox [Lou walks away, Jim and his staff are stunned.]
Boss, aren't you being a little hard?
Jim Garrison No, I don't think I am, Susie. Anyone else?
