Kennedy Conspiracy Movies: ‘Executive Action’ and ‘JFK’

Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories have become so prevalent that they’ve become a minor industry. Two motion pictures, one famous, the other somewhat obscure, presented fictionalized accounts of the alleged conspiracy.

“Executive Action,” starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Will Geer depicted a plot that involved greedy businessmen, rogue spies, and right wing politicians who were put out by Kennedy’s views on civil rights, Vietnam and, oddly, the oil depletion allowance. The movie shows step by step, including the setting up of Lee Harvey Oswald as a “patsy”, how such a conspiracy could have taken place. The movie was released in 1973 and has since become overshadowed by a more famous Kennedy conspiracy movie.

That more famous movie was “JFK”, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison, then a New Orleans district attorney who conducted his own investigation of the Kennedy assassination and concluded that there was a conspiracy. Garrison was depicted as a lone hero attempting to uncover the truth in the movie, which was released in 1991. He finds that the conspiracy that is alleged to have killed Kennedy is vast and far reaching. He is stymied at every turn by shadowy government operatives and eventually fails in his quest to uncover what he thinks is the truth, even though he puts an alleged conspirator named Clay Shaw on trial.

John McAdams, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University and an expert on the Kennedy assassination, has quite another view about Garrison. He suggests that Garrison, far from being the lone crusader for the truth as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie, was a crackpot who abused his power and had a tendency to indict people, like Shaw, on the flimsiest of evidence.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Stone’s movie is still well regarded by film buffs. “JFK” has done over $200 million in box office on a $40 million budget.