JFK

                                   JIM
              You know, something always bothered me about
              that from day one, and I can't put my finger on
              it.

                                   LONG
              If I were investigatin', I'd round up the 100
              best riflemen in the world and find out which
              ones were in Dallas that day.  You been duck
              hunting?  I think Oswald was a good old-
              fashioned decoy.  What'd he say?  "I'm just a
              patsy."  Out of the mouth of babes y'ask me.

                                   JIM
              You think there were other men involved,
              Russell?

Russell looks at Jim quizzically and laughs.

                                   LONG
              Hell, you're the District Attorney.  You read
              the Warren Report - and then you tell me you're
              satisfied Lee Oswald shot the President all by
              his lonesome.

                                   JIM
              Russell, honestly you sound like one of those
              kooky critics spreading paranoia like prairie
              fire.  I just can't believe the Chief Justice of
              the United States would put his name on
              something that wasn't true.

                                   LONG
                     (to the stewardess)
              Honey, another one of these.  This one's as weak
              as cricket pee-pee.  Yessir, you mark my words,
              Jim, Vietnam's gonna cost Johnson '68 and it's
              gonna put that other varmint Nixon in - then
              watch your hide, 'cause there ain't no offramps
              on a freeway to Hell!

GARRISON'S STUDY - NIGHT(1966)

The study is lined with bookshelves up to the ceiling; we see photos of
family, a chess set.  Jim, smoking his pipe, reads in a red leather
chair from on eof the 26 thick Warren Commission volumes piled all over
the place.  Liz enters.  Jasper, now 7, draws on a piece of paper on the
floor at Jim's feet.

                                   LIZ
              Jim, dinner's just about ready ... I've got a
              surprise for you ... tried something new ...
              Jim?  Jim, dinner.

                                   JIM
                     (lost in thought)
              Mmmmm ... sure smells good ... but Egghead, do
              you realize Oswald was interrogated for twelve
              hours after the assassination, with no lawyer
              present, and nobody recorded a word of it?  I
              can't believe it.  A police captain with 30
              years experience and a crowd of Federal agents
              just had to know that with no record anything
              that Oswald said would be inadmissible in court.

                                   LIZ
              Come on now, we'll talk about it at the table,
              dinner's getting cold.
                     (to Jasper)
              What are you doing in here?

                                   JASPER
              Daddy said it was all right if I was real quiet.

                                   JIM
                     (rising to dinner)
              Sure it is.  Freckle Face, if I ever handled a
              minor felon like that, it'd be all over the
              papers.  I'd catch hell.  And this is the
              alleged murderer of the President?

GARRISON DINING ROOM - (1966)

Two-year-old Elizabeth watches "Crusader Rabbit" on TV as the new one-
year-old sits in diapers with Liz at one end of the dinner table.  Jim
sits at the other end.  There are five kids now, ages 7, 5, 4, 2 and 1
... and Mattie, the housekeeper.  Dinner's finished, they pass plates,
the children horse around ... the boxer dog, Touchdown, begs for a piece
of the action.  Jim, not a big eater, feeds him ice cream.

                                   JIM (CONT'D)
              Again and again they ignore credible testimony,
              leads are never followed up, its conclusions are
              selective, there's no index, it's one of the
              sloppiest, most disorganized investigations I've
              ever seen.  Dozens and dozens of witnesses in
              Dealey Plaza that day are saying they heard
              shots coming from the Grassy Knoll area in front
              of Kennedy and not the Book Depository behind
              him, but it's all broken down and spread around
              and you read it and the point gets lost.

                                   MATTIE
              I never did believe it either!

                                   LIZ
                     (politely listening)
              Uh huh ... Mattie, I'll do the dishes, you take
              Be up now.  And Elizabeth, too, your bedtime,
              honey.

                                   ELIZABETH JR.
              Nahhhh!  I don't wanna go to bed!

                                   LIZ
              Honey, that was three years ago - we all tried
              so hard to put that out of our minds, why are
              you digging it up again?  You're the D.A. of New
              Orleans.  Isn't the Kennedy assassination a bit
              outside your domain?  I mean all those important
              people already studied it.

                                   JIM
              I can't believe a man as intelligent as Earl
              Warren ever read what's in those volumes.

                                   LIZ
              Well maybe you're right, Jim.  I'll give you one
              hour to solve the case ... until the kids are in
              bed.
                     (rising, she puts her arms around
him from behind and kisses his
ear)
              Then you're mine and Mr. Kennedy can wait 'til
              morning.  Come on, everybody say goodnight to
              Daddy.

                                   JASPER
                     (showing his drawing)
              Dad, look what I drew.

                                   JIM
                     (rising)
              That's something, Jasper.  What is it?

                                   JASPER
              A rhinoceros.  Can I stay up another hour?

Virginia and Snapper each get one of Jim's shoes as he dances with them,
holding one with each hand.

                                   JIM
                     (dancing)
              Pickle and Snapper, my two favorite dancing
              partners.

As the children dance, they fall off Jim's feet, laughing and giggling. 
He throws each in the air and kisses them.

                                   JIM (CONT'D)
              Goodnight, my doodle bugs.

                                   KIDS
              Goodnight, Daddy.

Liz comes over, smiling.  Jim takes her in his arms.

                                   LIZ
              One hour, y'hear?  Some Saturday night date you
              are.
                     (sighs)
              Mama warned me this would happen if I married
              such a serious man.

                                   JIM
              Oh, she did, huh?  When I come up I'll show you
              how Saturday night got invented.

GARRISON STUDY - LATER THAT NIGHT(1966)

The clock on mantelpiece reads 3 A.M.  Jim is alone, smoking his pipe. 
In the stillness, his mind crawls all over the place.  The camera closes
on the thickly-worded pages of the Warren Report.

FLASHBACK TO the Warren Commission hearing room in Dallas, 1964.  We
hear thin, echoey sound as the attorneys question some of the witnesses. 
The overall effect is vague and confusing, as is much of the Warren
Report.  A Mr. Ball is questioning Lee Bowers, the switchman in the
railroad yard.  Bowers, in his early 40's, has a trustworthy, working-
man face and a crew cut.

                                   BOWERS
              I sealed off the area, and I held off the trains
              until they could be examined, and there was some
              transients taken on at least one train.

                                   ATTORNEY
              Mr. Bowers ... is there anything else you told
              me I haven't asked you about that you can think
              of?

                                   BOWERS
              Nothing that I can recall.

                                   ATTORNEY
              Witness is excused.

Jim, upset, reads on ... Another witness, Sgt. D.V. Harkness of the
Dallas Police responds to a second attorney.

                                   SGT. HARKNESS
              Well we got a long freight that was in there,
              and we pulled some people off of there and took
              them to the station.

We see another FLASHBACK - to the Dallas rail yards on the day of the
assassination.  Three hoboes are being pulled off the freight by the
Dallas policemen.

                                   ATTORNEY (V.O.)
              You mean some transients?

                                   SGT. HARKNESS (V.O.)
              Tramps and hoboes.

                                   ATTORNEY (V.O.)
              Were all those questioned?

FLASHBACK TO Dealey Plaza an hour or less after the assassination.  The
three hoboes are marched by shotgun-toting policemen to the Sheriff's
office at Dealey Plaza.  We note that they do not look much like hoboes.

                                   SGT. HARKNESS (V.O.)
              Yes, sir, they were taken to the station and
              questioned.

                                   JIM
                     (astounded)
              And?
                     (writes "incomplete")

                                   ATTORNEY (V.O.)
                     (switching subjects)
              I want to go back to this Amos Euins.
                     (voices dribble off)

                                   BOWERS (V.O.)
              Yes sir, traffic had been cut off into the area
              since about 10, but there were three cars came
              in during this time from around noon till the
              time of the shooting ... the cars circled the
              parking lot, and left like they were checking
              the area, one of the drivers seemed to have
              something he was holding to his mouth ... the
              last car came in about 7 to 10 minutes before
              the shooting, a white Chevrolet, 4-door Impala,
              muddy up to the windows.

The camera's point of view is now from the railroad tower near Dealey
Plaza.  We are fourteen feet off the ground, overlooking the parking lot
behind the Grassy Knoll.  The shot includes this last car circling in
the lot.

                                   BOWERS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
              Towards the underpass, I saw two men standing
              behind a picket fence ... they were looking up
              towards Main and Houston and following the
              caravan as it came down.  One of them was
              middle-aged, heavyset.  The other man was
              younger, wearing a plaid shirt and jacket.

Inside the railroad tower, Bowers glances out, busy with the main board,
flashing lights, a train coming in.

                                   BOWERS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
              There were two other men on the eastern end of
              the parking lot.  Each of 'me had uniforms.

We see the parking lot from Bower's point of view - at a distance, but
we have a sense of the cars and see the men at a distance, tow uniformed
men.  The parking lot is bumper-to-bumper with a sea of cars.  Rain that
morning has muddied the lot.  These brief images are elaborated on
later.

                                   BOWERS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
              At the time of the shooting there seemed to be
              some commotion ... I just am unable to describe
              - a flash of light or smoke or something which
              caused me to feel that something out of the
              ordinary had occurred there on the embankment
              ...

We feel the growing intensity: music, drums - but all blurred.  We see a
puff of smoke but no sound because of the window Bowers is glancing
through.  A motorcycle cop shoots up the Grassy Knoll incline.  People
run, blurring into a larger mosaic of confusion.  Bowers is confused,
seeing this.

INTERCUT with Jim's heart pounding as he reads.

Back in Dealey Plaza, S.M. Holland, an elderly signal supervisor, stands
on the parapet of the railway.

                                   HOLLAND (V.O.)
              Four shots ... a puff of smoke came from the
              trees ... behind that picket fence ... close to
              the little plaza - There's no doubt whatever in
              my mind.

We see the scene from Holland's point of view - the puff of smoke
lingering under the trees along the picket fence after the shooting.

GARRISON BEDROOM - ANOTHER NIGHT(1966)

Jim is asleep, having a tortured dream.

DREAMSCAPE FLASHBACK: We see the Zapruder film, in slow-motion and
J.F.K.'s face just before he goes behind Stemmons Freeway sign.  Jim
sits up suddenly.

                                   JIM
              NO!

Liz stirs, shaken.

                                   LIZ
              Honey, you all right?
                     (looks at watch)

                                   JIM
              It's incredible, honey - the whole thing.  A
              Lieutenant Colonel testifies that Lee Oswald was
              given a Russian language exam as part of his
              Marine training only a few months before he
              defects to the Soviet Union.  A Russian exam!

                                   LIZ
                     (sitting up, angered)
              I cannot believe this.  It's four-thirty, Jim
              Garrison.  I have five children are gonna be
              awake in another hour and ...

                                   JIM
              Honey, in all my years in the service I never
              knew a single man who was given a Russian test. 
              Oswald was a radar operator.  He'd have about as
              much use for Russian as a cat has for pajamas.

                                   LIZ
              These books are getting to your mind, Mr.
              Garrison.  I wish you'd stop readin' them.

                                   JIM
              And then this Colonel tries to make it sound
              like nothing.  Oswald did badly on the test, he
              says.  "He only had two more Russian words right
              than wrong."  Ha!  That's like me saying
              Touchdown here ...
                     (points to the dog)
              ... is not very intelligent because I beat him
              three games out of five the last time we played
              chess.

                                   LIZ
                     (gives up)
              Jim, what is going on, for heaven's sake!  You
              going to stay up all night every night?  For
              what?  So you'll be the only man in America who
              read the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Report?

                                   JIM
              Liz, do I have to spell it out for you?  Lee
              Oswald was no ordinary soldier.  That was no
              accident he was in Russia.  He was probably in
              military intelligence.  That's why he was
              trained in Russian.

                                   LIZ
                     (with a quizzical look)
              Honey, go back to sleep, please!

                                   JIM
              Goddammit!  I been sleeping for three years!

She takes him now, gently, and pulls him down on top of her and kisses
him.

                                   LIZ
              Will you stop rattling on about Kennedy for a
              few minutes, honey ... come on.

LAFAYETTE SQUARE - NEW ORLEANS - MORNING(1966)

A Sunday, early.  We see a statue of Ben Franklin in an empty square
frequented by drunks who doze on benches in a little leafy park in the
center of the Square.  The camera moves to Jim by himself and then moves
to a sedan, pulling up, which disgorges Lou Ivon and Bill Broussard.

                                   JIM
              Morning, boys.  Ready for a walking tour?

                                   BILL
              At 7:30 Sunday morning?  It's not exactly fresh
              blood we're sniffing here, boss.

                                   JIM
                     (points)
              Old stains, Bill, but just as telling.

TIME CUT TO Jim indicating 531 Lafayette Street, a seedy, faded, three-
story building across the street from the square.

                                   JIM (CONT'D)
              Remember whose office this was back in '63?  531
              Lafayette Street.

                                   LOU
              Yeah, Guy Banister.  Ex-FBI man.  He died couple
              years ago.

FLASHBACK TO the exterior of the Banister Office on a day in 1963.  The
door is now clearly labelled "W. GUY BANISTER, INC. INVESTIGATORS."  It
opens and Banister comes out in slow motion, neatly dressed, rose in his
lapel - the same office and same man we saw three years before when he
pistol-whipped Jack Martin.  Banister seems to be smiling right at us,
greeting us.

                                   JIM (V.O.)
              Headed the Chicago office.  When he retired he
              became a private eye here.  I used to have lunch
              with him.  John Birch Society, Minutemen,
              slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.  Used
              to recruit college students to infiltrate
              radical organizations on campus.  All out of
              this office.  Now come around here, take a look
              at this ...

Back to the Lafayette Square of 1966.  Jim walks Ivon and Bill to the
corner, to another entrance to the same building - this one with a sign
that says "544 Camp Street."

                                   JIM (CONT'D)
              544 Camp Street.  Same building as 531
              Lafayette, right ... but different address and
              different entrances both going to the same place
              - the offices on the second and third floors.

Bill studies the present sign: "Crescent City Dental Laboratory", and
gives Jim a puzzled look.

                                   JIM (CONT'D)
              Guess who used this address?

Lou gets it and glances up.  We FLASHBACK TO the exterior of 544 Camp
Street in 1963.  Lee Oswald comes out the door into a full close-up, now
clearly seen by us, and heads out into the street as Guy Banister
intercepts him on the sidewalk, holding a leaflet and point to "544 Camp
Street stamped on it.  Guy seems miffed at Oswald, tells him something
quickly, and then moves on.

                                   BANISTER
                     (under)
              See this?  What the hell is this doing on this
              piece of paper?
                     (he moves away)
              Asshole.

                                   LOU (V.O.)
              My God!  Lee Harvey Oswald.

                                   JIM (V.O.)
              Bull's-eye.  How do we know he was here?  Cause
              this office address was stamped on the pro-
              Castro leaflets he was handing out in the summer
              of '63 down on Canal street.  They were the same
              leaflets that were found in his garage in
              Dallas.

FLASHBACK to Canal Street in New Orleans on a summer day in 1963. 
Oswald, in a thin tie and white short-sleeved shirt, and wearing a
homemade placard reading "Hands Off Cuba"; "Viva Fidel!", is hawking
leaflets to pedestrians with two young helpers.

A large white-haired businessman in a white suit, very distinguished,
walks with a friend on Canal Street.  Oswald glances at him and meets
his eyes.  The businessman enters an office building.  This man is Clay
Bertrand, later known as Clay Shaw.

Some Cubans, led by Carols Bringuier, now appear.  One of them, "the
Bull", is heavy-set with dark glasses.  More of him will also be seen.

                                   JIM (V.O.) (CONT'D)
              He was arrested that day for fighting with some
              anti-Castro Cubans ... but actually he had
              contacted them a few days earlier as an ex-
              Marine trying to join the anti-Castro crusade. 
              When they heard he was now pro-Castro, they paid
              him a visit.