Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy (2003)

Finally, a compelling documentary that doesn't use invented facts to persuade it's audience. The assassination of John F Kennedy shocked the nation and the world. A young, charismatic and very popular U.S. president, murdered in the prime of his life. And the villain? A nobody. A loser. How can that be? Then, two days later ... he is assassinated while in police custody, on live television. Smells like a conspiracy to most rational people. That's where we begin. And through interviews with local and national journalists, we get the feeling that most truly believed that there was a much bigger story than the one the public were being told. Forty years later, and clearly a great many people (most of the U.S. population) believe we have not been told the true story. I grew up hearing about the conspiracies, not the evidence that convinced the authorities that Oswald was the killer, and he acted alone. I knew that the shots Oswald made that day were impossible, and NO ONE had duplicated that kind of accuracy in that limited amount of time. This same claim is repeated in Stone's film "JFK". We've heard about a "magic bullet", which changed directions and stopped in mid-air, before continuing into the body of Governor Connelly. This is what the public, at least those who paid attention, heard from our media. I was convinced it had to be a conspiracy. Well, what this documentary does, is shine a light on the myths first introduced by Authors pushing their version of events of that day, and those in the media who parroted them. The predominant piece of media impacting the public's view of that day, being Oliver Stone's popular film "JFK". We learn, by documented evidence, that these myths are either flat out lies, or distortions of the truth. We learn that the witnesses these authors have used to make their cases, have said things that conflict with the accounts from the authors. We learn that nearly every claim which supports the conspiracy, has been discredited by the facts ... the evidence. What do we have left? We have JFK's head moving "back and to the left" after the fatal head shot. Some people will never get past that visual. I understand that urge. But, if you want to learn the evidence of this case, in a thoughtful, rational presentation, this is the documentary to see. If you're not emotionally tied to one side or the other, and just want to know what happened? Watch this documentary.

If you are a believer in a conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy and you have a scientific mind, you will no longer believe the conspiracy theories after viewing this special. The special supports all of its conclusions with compelling facts and evidence, directly disproving many of the fundamental assumptions of the conspiracists.You will see many opinions by people who refuse to let go. But you will also notice that not a single one of them supports their objections to this documentary with any fact-based arguments. When they do try to argue fact, they are usually mistaken (example: reviewer Gregg Wager's assertion that this documentary does not mention the bullet that hit Gov. Connolly's wrist: untrue). Don't let them dissuade you from watching an excellently (and moreover, responsibly) crafted special.

I like the scientific evidence and computer generated timelines that were created from the Zapruder film for this news special. They served to provide a different take on the shots fired and more concrete support that it was just Oswald acting and not a conspiracy.The whole focus of this show was to make as much evidence known as possible to make it impossible that there WAS a conspiracy. However, all of the evidence itself surrounded their argument that the only bullets that struck and killed Kennedy himself were fired by Oswald. That alone does not prove that Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy, it only proves that he fired the only bullets that HIT Kennedy.It is a fallacy in itself to assume that Oswald acted alone just because he was lucky enough to hit all 3 shots. He could have been paid off by any number of socialist/Communist organizations that he worked for, or by Castro himself. Heck, there could have been another shooter out there that day, that either fired shots and was not noticed or detected because of the actions of Oswald, or never fired shots because he realized that Oswald succeeded, and the the support help was not necessary.There are just so many theories that were not discussed in this program. Granted, there is no way you can touch on everything in a 90 min program. Heck, you couldn't do it in a 10 hour miniseries. However, spending 1/3 of the show debunking the film JFK was not time well spent in my opinion.

I couldn't stop to seen this documentary till its end. I was stuck in my chair. Like once i couldn't stop to seen Oliver Stone's JFK (1991). Instead, there were moments that i have arrived to think that the original title of this one was Peter Jennings reporting: The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy of Oliver Stone. The last 30 minutes are entirely dedicated to dismount the Stone's movie theory. That's not bad, sure, but at least Mark Obenhaus does the same that tries to criticize. I miss more testimonies of people that believe in conspiracy theories I think it would done better this movie. In a state of democracy i think it's good to have both versions (Obenhaus-Stone) for make each one his own version. But we must remember that Obenhaus has done a documentary and Stone a fiction...with all the reserves that it means...for both of them.