njmollo Oswald's Ghost (2007) is a disturbing documentary mainly because of the important information it chooses to leave out.The idea that "Oswald acted alone" has been surprising popular in recent documentaries. It seems that this appalling event in American history still has important resonances today that require the message of "Oswald acting alone" to be frequently regurgitated. The wealth of misinformation concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy continues unabated with documentaries like Peter Jennings' Beyond Conspiracy (2003), Oswald's Ghost (2007) and The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After (2009) all of which promote the lone assassin theory as fact.The problem with these documentaries is that the wealth of information pointing to a conspiracy is strictly ignored or derided. Information is cherry picked, manipulated and fabricated to lead the viewer to the conclusion that Oswald acted alone. Why it is still so important to promote this version of events in the face of other more disturbing evidence?The Zapruder film is the "thorn in the side" for anyone promoting Oswald as the lone shooter. Some "documentary" films such as The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After, simply ignore the fact that Kennedy's head is seen to jerk backwards as a bullet strikes, as if there is a general consensus that the official version of events is undisputed. Peter Jennings' Beyond Conspiracy states that Kennedy's head jerking backward is no sign of where the bullet came from. Remember that before the Zapruder film was finally released to the public, the official story, confirmed by Dan Rather and others, was that Kennedy's head jerked violently forward so as to indicate a bullet hitting him from behind. This official description of the Zapruder film, tailored for public consumption, is the exact opposite of what is clearly seen in the Zapuder film.Peter Jennings' Beyond Conspiracy almost reaches the hysterical in its attempt to prove conclusively that conspiracy theorists like Oliver Stone are wrong. What is clear, is that Peter Jennings' Beyond Conspiracy is poorly disguised propaganda. It is as objective as NBC's infamous hit piece made to discredit Jim Garrison and his investigation into the Kennedy assassination.Documentaries that promote "Oswald as the lone assassin" seem to have greater budgets, audience exposure and production values when compared to the numerous "home-made" documentaries that support a conspiracy.One of the most compelling documentaries that supports a massive conspiracy to have Kennedy assassinated is JFK II or Dark Legacy. While some of the suppositions contained in the documentary are theoretical, the filmmaker has without doubt presented a version of events, supported by available material, that points to high-level Government/Military/Covert involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy. Another piece of remarkable footage, too rarely seen, is the removal of Kennedy's secret service bodyguard from his open top limousine. The secret service officer is seen to be surprised at being ordered to "stand-down" by a superior officer and raises his arms in an unmistakable gesture of incomprehension. This telling piece of footage is not shown in any documentary supporting Oswald as the lone assassin.It is public record that Oswald was an American Government asset. He had an FBI employment number S179. This information again is never sited in documentaries that promote Oswald as the lone shooter.It seems that much has been learnt by American covert agencies in regard to "cover-stories" put out in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. It certainly helps to have a compliant and malleable Corporate Media to preach your message. Even if truthful information is unintentionally made available it can be easily undermined with misinformation, lies and propaganda. As is the case with the attacks on 9/11, any relevant information can be withheld, subverted, altered or swamped in a sea of misinformation.

davea-16 This film has great production values and footage, but all it does is gloss up another lame attempt to paint conspiracy buffs as paranoid losers blind to the evil machinations of one Lee Harvey Oswald. We all know we'll never know the truth, but the flawed logic applied in these 'documentaries' always baffles me. A second shooter means a controversy, right? Isn't the second shooter Jack Ruby? He was stalking the Dallas Police station all weekend, but Stone wants us to believe his shooting of Oswald was spontaneous and proves it by showing how close he cut his appointment with destiny at the Western Union? Give me a break. Nuts who claim JFK was shot by his driver or that Tippett was the shooter on the Grassy Knoll don't help...but in the end people just need to rely on what can be seen, and that's that there is no way Oswald pulled this off alone on any level. End of story.Of course this is better than the reenactment of a few years back that 'proved' the magic bullet theory and then concluded that it eliminated discussion of a conspiracy. You know, without ever addressing the head shot(s). Ever.Wake me up when someone without an agenda produces something new.

groggo I was in the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper's library when I heard the news of Kennedy's assassination. Thus began a great mystery in the U.S. and around the world that continues to this day. Trillions of words and thousands of books have been written about the assassination, and that alone tells us that there is no one satisfactory theory about why or how Kennedy was murdered.Robert Stone's documentary is both odd and disjointed. As someone else on this board has already noted, director Stone starts off with a reasonably balanced view of the assassination, leads us through various conspiracy theories and talking heads, and then, boom, just like that, in the final 10 minutes, allows noted author Norman Mailer to wrap it up for us: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.Mailer offers his 'evidence' more from a novelist's point of view than from one of evidence. Mailer's 'proof': Oswald was living in desperate straits, he was frustrated but bright and articulate, he had delusions of grandeur, he wanted a permanent place in American history, he worked in a building on the parade route, and voila: it all came together. Director Stone ends his movie focused on Mailer's fanciful artistic interpretation of events (Oswald's ghost knows the answers, but a ghost will not tell us). It's quizzical to say the least.Mailer (and ultimately filmmaker Stone himself) leaves out a glaring contradiction that still stares at conspiracy theorists today. It's a glaring contradiction not wrapped in Maileresque language: the famous Zapruder film (now digitalized for even more vivid inspection), which clearly shows that Kennedy had the top of his head blown off by a shot from the FRONT, not from the Texas Schoolbook Depository in the rear, where Lee Harvey Oswald was purportedly firing three shots in six seconds.It is peculiar that Mailer, Stone, Elliott Jay Epstein (author of a book on the murder), former student radical-activist Todd Gatlin, and disgraced former Senator Gary Hart have all attached themselves to the 'single gunman' theory. Oswald may well have been involved up to his skinny little neck, but it still doesn't explain Zapruder's remarkable film, which has nothing to do with Oswald the Man, but merely frightening evidence that something else was happening on that fateful day in November 1963. That 'something else' has never been explained, and this film basically ignores it.This film ultimately leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. Exactly what we needed: even more questions about the Kennedy assassination.'Oswald's Ghost' left me with this uncomfortable feeling that too many people are desperate to put this whole messy business behind us. It is, after all, much easier, and much neater, to blame it all on a single shooter who also happened to be crazy.

laubklein2 Hi! We are going address the physical evidence in this case...right...well we are just not in this film. This film barely deals with the physical evidence at all. Except to say that he was shot from the front...except Norman Mailer says he wasn't so the case is now closed. Nope...sorry son it ain't. This film looked fantastic but did nothing to change my mind or anyone else who has one. One of the problems with this film is that it glosses over so many issues it really isn't funny. First of all the massive amount of information that has been released about this case was never covered in here. Secondly, (and I know this was mentioned before) was the fact that we get no history of anyone on the Warren Commission before or after the assassination. This would be irreverent if it were...say...the OJ jury but instead it's some people that Kennedy fired and others who didn't want to be there...you know LIKE EARL WARREN!!!! Who, by the way, did not believe his own report...but hey who cares? Thirdly, the choice of people interviewed for the film. Patricia McMillian is CIA. She applied in the fifties and her family housed the biggest defector in the known universe Stalin's daughter. So she is very well connected if you know what I mean. Then, we get to Jim Garrison. They present a theory I have never heard in the fifteen years I have studied Garrison, then say he hypnotized someone and drugged them, (which is standard police procedure), then make him crazy because he thinks the media ganged up on him. Wow imagine that the media ganging up against someone that has never happened ever in this country! Nope! (They then use his half hour commercial-free statement that he had to sue for because a biased report to get as proof of this) Have no fear there is not a shred of government documentation that states this is true. I mean except for the ones that have been released...that state this. And then there is the other evidence that something was trying to stop him...you know like his inability to get warrants served that he has issued. And the fact the Richard Helm's admitted under oath that Shaw was a CIA agent...but don't worry about that? Outside of all of this...the film looks fantastic. That is why I gave it a three. If you want facts though go elsewhere say to JFK or Beyond JFK or JFK a revisionist history or something like that...Now do me a favor and trash JFK for me...let's bring it on!!!