As seen in Oliver Stone’s new documentary, President John F. Kennedy rides in the motorcade through Dallas shortly before his assassination. [Source: bostonherald.com]

Oliver Stone film shows that JFK was trying to reorient U.S. foreign policy in more peaceful direction prior to his murder and that the Warren Commission was a fraud.

JFK: Destiny Betrayed presents convincing evidence confirming that U.S. intelligence orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

[Source: amazon.com]

Directed by Oliver Stone and written by Jim DiEugenio, the documentary series builds on Stone’s Oscar-winning 1991 film JFK.

It illuminates JFK’s opposition to the imperialist machinations of American oligarchs, who enlisted U.S. intelligence and the Mafia to orchestrate his assassination and then cover it up for decades.

The Shocking Presidential Assassination and Cover-up in a Nutshell

Debuting in May, JFK: Destiny Betrayed is now available on Amazon Prime and Vudu. Stone edited down the four-hour film to just under two hours for film festivals, titling the shorter version, JFK: Through the Looking Glass (previously reviewed in CAM by this writer).[1]

Destiny Betrayed gives more history regarding John F. Kennedy’s political career leading to his election as president in November 1960. The film also presents a bit more on Robert F. Kennedy in relation to his brother in the White House.

The four-part series begins with shocking and tragic footage of the multiple shots hitting JFK in the throat and head as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.[2]

Stone then shows Robert Kennedy, Jr., speaking about his father’s reaction: “My father’s first call [after the assassination] was to the CIA desk officer, asking ‘Did your people conduct this horror?!’”

Robert Kennedy and Joseph Kennedy, Sr., listen to John’s presidential victory speech in November 1960. [Source: pinterest.ca]

Two aides to the president who had served in World War II drove in the car behind JFK’s car and said there was a crossfire of gunshots at the president.[3]

Slate founding publisher David Talbot wrote the book Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. He reported talking to Robert F. Kennedy’s aides who all thought the Warren Commission organized by Lyndon Johnson, JFK’s successor, produced a “fairy tale” report.

refer to caption
The Warren Commission. Pictured are members Gerald Ford, Hale Boggs, Richard Russell, Jr., Earl Warren, John Sherman Cooper, John J. McCloy, Allen Welsh Dulles and General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. [Source: archives.gov]

Two days after President Kennedy’s assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest, Jack Ruby approached Oswald as he was being escorted in front of police and journalists in the police station garage, and fatally shot him.

James R. Leavelle, Detective at Lee Harvey Oswald's Side, Dies at 99 - The  New York Times
Gangster Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on November 24, 1963. [Source: nytimes.com]

JFK Evolved into a Civil Rights-Supporting Anti-Imperialist Leaving Vietnam’s Opium

All four chapters of JFK: Destiny Betrayed present little-known aspects of JFK’s evolution toward positive work for the rights of the oppressed at home and abroad.

The first chapters discuss JFK’s opposition to CIA machinations.

JFK and RFK were arguably the most powerful people, outside of the Civil Rights movement itself, to lead the passage of the most comprehensive Civil Rights legislation since the Emancipation Proclamation, with their 1963-crafted Civil Rights Act.[4]

Chapter 3 presents Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stating his belief in the sincerity of the President and Attorney General as friends and advocates for Civil Rights.[5]

Regarding JFK’s political evolution, the series started with John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert’s visit to Vietnam in 1951 when he was a U.S. congressman and Robert was his campaign manager. JFK and RFK ended up finding that France’s war to continue colonizing Vietnam was futile and Vietnam deserved independence.

After becoming a senator in 1953, JFK opposed the advice of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to help the French in Vietnam by using nuclear weapons.

JFK, when a congressman, during tour of Vietnam in 1951. [Source: kennedysandking.com]

JFK also ended up giving a famous speech in the Senate in 1957 entitled “Imperialism: The Enemy of Freedom,” in which he called for supporting anti-colonialism in Africa and Asia.[6] This brought the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans on him.

A person sitting at a desk

Description automatically generated with low confidence
Sen. John Kennedy, 1957. [Source: legallegacy.wordpress.com]

Once in the White House, while President Kennedy and his brother waged war on the Cuban Revolution, they ultimately did not back a full-fledged military invasion of Cuba and forced CIA Director Allen Dulles’s resignation over the Bay of Pigs.

Allen and John Foster Dulles were lawyers representing various oligarchs’ interests. JFK further planned to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”

JFK and Allen Dulles. [Source: thedailybeast.com]

While this documentary failed to mention it, President Kennedy also closed down Dulles’s CIA Project MK-Ultra twice, as people under Dulles kept it running behind JFK’s back.

As President Kennedy evolved toward wanting peace with the Soviet Union, Cuba and other leftist countries, he started back-channel correspondences with those countries’ leaders. Top JFK researchers such as James Douglas and Slate’s publisher, Talbot, published on the secret correspondence JFK and Khrushchev had behind their war-hawk generals’ backs.

JFK reportedly said to Norman Cousins that he was 100% committed to disabling all nuclear arms and he was ready to talk to the Soviet Khrushchev about that.

A couple of men sitting in chairs

Description automatically generated with low confidence
JFK and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

President Kennedy’s final blow against the war-mongering oligarchs came when he decided against sending American ground troops into Vietnam, and ordered an eventual complete pull-out of American involvement there.

RFK and Senate’s Church Committee Unveil CIA and Mafia Work in JFK’s Assassination

The Warren Commission Report concluded that only Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Author David Talbot referenced RFK’s aides saying Bobby Kennedy was determined to start an official inquiry into his brother’s assassination as soon as he entered the White House in 1969. RFK’s California 1968 presidential primary nearly assured that until gunmen assassinated RFK that primary night.[7]

Robert Kennedy Assassinated
[Source: bl.uk]

Regarding the Warren Commission, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., summed up the fact that “commissions in this country anoint orthodoxies.”

Church Committee Senator Richard Schweiker (R-PA) stated that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had confirmed to him in a letter that Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby worked as an FBI informant.[8]

A picture containing person, person

Description automatically generated
Senator Richard Schweiker [Source: politico.com]

In April 1964, CIA-contracted Dr. Louis Jolyon West, who had regular correspondence with CIA Project MK-Ultra Director Sidney Gottlieb, interviewed Jack Ruby for 48 hours. Ruby reportedly had a sudden “acute psychotic break” during those interview hours. This barred any testimony from Ruby.[9]

Chapter 2 of JFK: Destiny Betrayed also linked Jack Ruby to the Mafia working with the CIA on removing President Fidel Castro in Cuba. The Church Committee exposed Johnny Roselli’s function as a liaison between the CIA and Mafia, which RFK Jr. claimed his father had been unaware of.[10]

dek
Johnny Roselli—the mob’s CIA liaison. [Source: content.time.com]

The end of Chapter 1 presented several witnesses who confirmed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not on the 6th floor of the building from where the Warren Report said he fired fatal shots.

More government documents around JFK’s assassination could have aided this conclusion but the FBI and CIA successfully appealed to President Trump to not release the remaining documents.[11]

The Autopsy Supports Gunmen Shooting in Front of JFK

Chapter 2 of JFK: Destiny Betrayed focuses more on JFK’s autopsy. Numerous doctors’ reports contradict the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots at JFK from behind him, out of the book depository’s 6th floor window.

For example, at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Dr. Malcolm O. Perry and Dr. Kent Clark examined JFK and stated there was a bullet exit wound in the right rear of the head, as well as an entrance would in the front of the throat.

Nurse Audrey Bell said powerful people forced Dr. Malcolm Perry to change his description the following day. Dr. Donald Miller, a colleague of Dr. Perry, also said Perry told him there was a bullet wound that was undeniably an entrance wound in the front of the throat.[12]

Malcolm O Perry | The BMJ
Dr. Malcolm O. Perry [Source: bmj.com]

Assistant White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff’s statement on the day of the assassination included showing a bullet coming right through the right front of the head.

Dr. Charles Crenshaw also saw JFK at Parkland Hospital and saw that JFK was shot in the front of the head.

Dr. Cyril Wecht, who had offered to aid the autopsy at the time, but only could offer advice later upon reviewing the autopsy report, weighed in on the findings. He said the Warren Report would have us believe the absurdity that Oswald’s second gunshot (the so-called “magic bullet”) caused seven wounds in two different people—JFK in the backseat of the car and Texas Governor John Connally in the front seat.[13]

Diagram

Description automatically generated
[Source: eyemagazine.com]

JFK: Destiny Betrayed also presents oncologist David Mantik, M.D. Ph.D., who reported that the x-rays of JFK’s head showed a fragment trail from the front to the back of his skull, which offered incontrovertible evidence that he was shot from the front.[14]

Other key physical evidence around the assassination included attorney Mark Lane reporting that the Dallas District Attorney’s office had a paraffin test done on purported assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. That test showed that Oswald had not fired a rifle.[15]

Mark Lane, Early Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theorist, Dies at 89 -  The New York Times
Mark Lane in 1966 with a map of Dallas. [Source: nytimes.com]

More of Intelligence’s Fingerprints on JFK’s Assassination

British magazine editor Frances Stonor Saunders, in her book The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, detailed how the wealthiest families started the CIA with their own family members or attorneys at the top of its leadership.[16]

The CIA’s highest-ranking whistleblower, Assistant Director Victor Marchetti, wrote The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, also documenting how the wealthiest white Anglo-Saxon Protestant families had members at the top of the CIA hierarchy. He was the sole Catholic close to the top tier of the CIA.

The CIA proceeded to do the oligarchical families’ bidding. Many of these families were involved in the opium trade. President Kennedy’s decision to pull out 1,000 troops out of Vietnam by the end of 1963 went against their interests regarding that trade next to the Golden Triangle for poppy fields in Laos, Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand (this JFK series only mentions the war industry’s lost profits).[17]

Regarding JFK’s assassination, Church Committee member Schweiker said: “Everywhere you looked… there were fingerprints of intelligence.”[18]

Otto Otepka, U.S. Deputy Director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Security, tried to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald on his own when Oswald was listed as a Soviet defector. CIA Associate Deputy Director James Angleton refused to respond to Otepka and tried to get him fired.

Otto F. Otepka | News, Sports, Jobs - Cape Coral Breeze
Otto Otepka [Source: capecoralbreeze.com]

Oswald had worked for the government on the U-2 plane project, according to a CIA file on Oswald numbered #351164. Before that, Oswald was in the Marine Corps.[19]

Lee Harvey Oswald - Wikipedia
Lee Harvey Oswald [Source: wikipedia.org]

Oswald had further worked with David Ferrie in the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, while also working with Nazi Party member Guy Bannister there.[20] Ferrie, in turn, worked with Cuban exiles who consistently plotted with the CIA to overthrow Fidel Castro.

The first Black Secret Service agent, Abraham Bolden, was handpicked by President Kennedy and present at the assassination.[21] He was visited by his superior, Elmer Moore, just after the assassination and Moore put a gun down in front of him intimidating him into silence.

Chicagoan who was 1st Black U.S. Secret Service agent pardoned
Abraham Bolden [Source: chicagotribune.com]

Bolden tried to talk to the Warren Commission but was railroaded into a phony crime and jailed. Senate Church Committee witness James Gochenaur said he tried to ask Secret Service supervisor Elmer Moore about Agent Bolden. Moore responded, “Who are you working for? That goddamned lying nigger! We finally got him.”[22]

Assassination Aftermath and Legacy

After President Kennedy’s assassination, Vice President Lyndon Johnson took over and reversed most of JFK’s foreign policies. JFK had stated that he wanted to recognize Indonesian leftist leader Sukarno, signing an $11 million aid bill. Johnson supported his opponent, Suharto, who killed between 500,000 and 1 million Indonesians “identified as communists” after a CIA backed coup in 1965.

Kennedy, Sukarno and Johnson. [Source: jfklibrary.org]

LBJ also started increasing the U.S. intervention in Vietnam on November 29, 1963, well before the fake “Gulf of Tonkin incident” led to the Johnson administration fully engaging in what would be a losing war with North Vietnam.[23] American involvement in Vietnam would lead to at least 60,000 American deaths and countless more injuries, as well as a reported two million Vietnamese deaths.[24]

Photo - December 1967: President Johnson's Second and Final Visit to Cam  Ranh Bay in South Vietnam - LBJ Library
LBJ pins medal on U.S. soldier at Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, in 1967. [Source: lbjlibrary.org]

The Vietnam War provided further cover for the CIA to import opium from the Golden Triangle that wound up addicting U.S. troops and countless other Americans. Within five to ten years of ending the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s, the CIA transferred this kind of operation to Afghanistan, the site of the Golden Crescent for opium-producing poppy fields.[25]

The CIA’s Project MK-Ultra, continued as MK-Search at least until the Church Committee investigated it in the mid-1970s, used drugs on activists, deleteriously drugging many.[26]

After JFK’s death, Robert F. Kennedy sent a message to Nikita Khrushchev, stating they knew the Soviets were not involved in his brother’s assassination, and that it was right-wingers.

Cuba’s Fidel Castro said: “This is bad news. Now everything is going to change.” Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser reportedly went into a great state of depression after JFK’s death. Nigeria declared a state of mourning.


  1. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/12/17/oliver-stones-new-jfk-revisited-disproves-official-story-reveals-u-s-intelligence-involvement-in-assassination/

  2. “Goodnight America” hosted by Geraldo Rivera, with Robert Groden and Dick Gregory, March 6, 1975, the first public showing of the Zapruder footage of President Kennedy’s assassination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNrgzkjCNCE montycombs 1/30/2010

  3. https://www.usnews.com/debate-club/was-jfks-assassination-a-conspiracy/multiple-shots-prove-jfk-assassination-was-a-conspiracy Michael Vollbach and Ronald Burda, “Multiple Shots from Many Directions Killed JFK,” U.S. News and World Report, November 18, 2013.

  4. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/civil-rights-movement

  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_4hEfeBIAU MLK reported meeting with JFK five times in 1963, stating JFK was a friend of Civil Rights.

  6. Bruce Reidel, “JFK’s Argument Against Imperialism,” Lawfare, June 14, 2022. https://www.lawfareblog.com/jfks-argument-against-imperialism?fbclid=IwAR1vHbiaNRhb4FNrZAe12JLf_mWOezEfDRHQ1LVQ_9Tp79Cq-sZ-JjGmRn8#

  7. Here, RFK Jr. discussed how multiple gunmen killed his father and his interviewer describes the incredible multi-ethnic coalition behind RFK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR6BiqrSYq8

  8. “Senator Richard Schweiker—co-chairman of the Sub-committee on the John F. Kennedy Assassination.” HelmerReenberg October 17, 2013.

  9. Tom O’Neill, CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2019), pp. 376-81. YouTube interview from Joe Rogan Experience, Interview with Tom O’Neill, “Jack Ruby’s Court Assigned Shrink was an MKUltra Doc,” April 16, 2020.

  10. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32423624.pdf

  11. Associated Press, “Trump keeps some JFK files secret over CIA, FBI concerns,” Canadian Broadcasting Company, October 26, 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jfk-assassination-documents-1.4372822

  12. Rick Anderson, “The JFK assassination files lead back to Seattle,” Crosscut, November 19, 2017. https://crosscut.com/2017/11/john-f-kennedy-assassination-files-seattle-trump-release-shooters

  13. “Dr. Cyril Wecht on JFK’s Assassination & the Magic Bullet Theory,” CrimeCon 2022, May 1, 2022.

  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUri6DWOAVk

  15. http://22november1963.org.uk/oswald-rifle-and-paraffin-tests

  16. Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 2001). Frances Stonor Saunders speech at the National Archives, covered by Book TV on C-SPAN 2, posted on YouTube by Adam Fitzgerald, June 26, 2021.

  17. https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/12/485662-opium-poppy-cultivation-golden-triangle-hits-new-high-2014-un-report

  18. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/16/archives/schweiker-predicts-collapse-of-warren-report-on-kennedy.html

  19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2210646 Phillip H. Melanson, Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990).

  20. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/07/13/garrison

  21. https://whowhatwhy.org/justice/black-secret-service-agent-jailed-for-jfk-plot-warning-cleared-the-full-story/

  22. Bolden was convicted in 1964 for soliciting a bribe, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, ultimately serving 39 months. At age 87, he received a Presidential pardon from Biden on April 26, 2022.

  23. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1961/Month%2004/Day%2024/JFKWHP-1961-04-24-C

  24. https://www.britannica.com/question/How-many-people-died-in-the-Vietnam-War

  25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MamdDXe5fs Trailer for the film Drugs as Weapons Against Us (Progressive Left Productions, 2019) written, directed and produced by this author, John Potash. Includes Judy Woodruff quoting CIA documents on PBS admitting their heroin trafficking from Vietnam to the U.S.

  26. See, for example, the article and quote by former Students for a Democratic Society President Carl Oglesby: “If U.S. Intelligence bodies collaborated in an effort to drug an entire generation of Americans, then the reason they did so was to disorient it, sedate it, and de-politicize it.” This was from his article “The Acid Test and How It Failed,” The National Reporter, Fall 1988. Quoted in Kerry Bolton, Revolution from Above (Menlo Park, CA: Arktose Media, 2021) p. 130. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Revolution_from_Above/FWc3eMiO-4QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Carl+Oglesby+the+Great+acid+on+acid+and+his+generation&pg=PA130&printsec=frontcover


CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptionsorders and donations from readers like you.

Blow the Whistle on U.S. Imperialism

Click the whistle and donate

When you donate to CovertAction Magazine, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.

CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.

Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and enter the amount and your credit or debit card information.

CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax-deductible for federal income purposes. CAI’s tax-exempt ID number is 87-2461683.

We sincerely thank you for your support.


Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CovertAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.

Differing viewpoints: CAM publishes articles with differing viewpoints in an effort to nurture vibrant debate and thoughtful critical analysis. Feel free to comment on the articles in the comment section and/or send your letters to the Editors, which we will publish in the Letters column.

Copyrighted Material: This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of New York, we are making such material available in an effort to advance the understanding of humanity’s problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. You can read more about ‘fair use’ and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CovertAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.

By using this site, you agree to these terms above.


About the Author

6 COMMENTS

  1. […] "The Last Words Of Lee Harvey Oswald", Compiled by Mae Brussell. Hunt's Deathbed Confession Reveals JFK Killers. LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S SOLE GUILT. The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald : The JFK Assassination. New Four-Part Documentary "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Leaves No Doubt That JFK Was Assassinate…. […]

  2. November 23, 2019 JFK, MLK, RFK, 50 Years of Suppressed History: New Evidence on Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy Failures to Confront the Unspeakable, and The Way Ahead. Part I

    Today November 22, 2019, we commemorate the passing of JFK. November 22, 1963, the assassination of JFK in Dallas, Texas. Fifty-six years ago. January 21, 2019. Martin Luther King Day

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/50-years-of-suppressed-history-new-evidence-on-the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy-martin-luther-king-and-robert-f-kennedy/5329847

  3. Lyndon did not just “take over and reverse JFK’s policies on Vietnam” but was the mastermind behind the assassination itself, having forced himself on the ticket in LA in 1960.

    While I agree with much of what is reported here, for a more complete, accurate and responsible account of the assassination of JFK, readers may also want to consider:

    The Real Deal JFK Special (18 November 2021) dedicated to Oliver Stone
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/UYVevPKtX1Kj/

    I have brought together experts to sort out what really happened in Assassination Science (1998), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003), as well as my more recent, JFK: Who, How, and Why (2017), all of which are available at amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/James-H.-Fetzer/e/B001HQ8LD4%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

    Jim

    James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
    McKnight Professor Emeritus
    University of Minnesota Duluth
    http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
    assassinationscience.com
    assassinationresearch.com

Leave a Reply