JFK quotes

View Quote Jim Garrison: We are standing in the heart of the US government's intelligence community in New Orleans. That's the FBI. That's the CIA. That's the Secret Service. That's the ONI. Isn't this a strange place for a Communist to spend his spare time?
Lou Ivon: What are you driving at?
Jim Garrison: We're going back into the case. The murder of the President.
Bill Broussard: Lord, wake me. I must be dreaming.
Jim Garrison: You're awake. I'm deadly serious.

View Quote Jim Garrison: Will you testify, Beverly?
Beverly Oliver: I don't think so.
Bill Broussard: I thought we had an agreement.
Beverly Oliver: I don't want to be another statistic.
Jim Garrison: We could call you in.
Beverly Oliver: If they can kill the President of the United States, you think they'll think twice about a two-bit showgirl like me?
Jim Garrison: I understand the pressure you're under. Don't think that I don't.

View Quote Liz Garrison: Where you been?
Jim Garrison: I'm sorry, the meeting took much longer than expected.
Liz Garrison: We waited for hours, Jim! You could've telephoned.
Jim Garrison: I can only say I'm sorry. I just don't have rabbits on my mind.
Liz Garrison: You know what I think? You care more about John Kennedy than your own family. All day the kids asked, "Where's Daddy?" What should I tell them?
Jim Garrison: I don't know! The truth! I'm doing my job to make sure they grow up in a country where justice won't be a vanished idea in history books like dinosaurs or Atlantis.
Liz Garrison: It doesn't replace a husband or a father on Easter Sunday.

View Quote Liz Garrison: You're the DA of New Orleans. Isn't the Kennedy assassination a bit out of your domain? All those important people studied it.
Jim Garrison: I can't believe a man as intelligent as Earl Warren read those volumes.
Liz Garrison: Maybe you're right. You got an hour to solve the case while I get the kids in bed. Then you're mine. Mr. Kennedy will have to wait until morning.

View Quote Lou Ivon: I guarantee the boss will protect you. He likes you. He likes your mind.
David Ferrie: I just don't know who to trust anymore. I suppose I could use a pot of hot coffee and a few packs of Luckys. So, you got anything new in the investigation?
Jim Garrison: Who are you scared of?
David Ferrie: Everybody. The Agency, mob, Cubans. Follow the Cubans. Check them out. Here. In Miami. Dallas. Check out Eladio del Valle. He used to be my paymaster when I flew missions into Cuba. Somewhere in Miami, you're on the right track. Don't write this down! I ain't cooperating with no one! What's going on here! There's a death warrant for me! Don't you get it? Damn! Wait a minute! You ain't bugged, are you? Son of a bitch, Lou! Are you?
Lou Ivon: Dave, I play it square. No bugs. I'd love you to go on the record, but I'm in no hurry.
David Ferrie: I haven't slept since that shit article come out. Why'd you guys have to go and get me involved in this?
Lou Ivon: Did we involve you? Or did Clay Shaw?
David Ferrie: ****sucking ****. He got me by the balls.
Lou Ivon: What do you mean?
David Ferrie: You know, photographs, compromising stuff. He'll use 'em, too. Agency plays for keeps. I knew Oswald, he was in my Civil Air Patrol unit. I taught him everything. He was a wannabe. Nobody really liked him 'cause they thought he was a snitch. But I treated him good. He talked about his kid he really wanted her to grow up with a chance but
...
David Ferrie: My neck is killing me. I've had cancer for years. Been working with mice trying to find a cure.
Lou Ivon: Did you ever work for the CIA?
David Ferrie: You make it sound like it's some remote ****ing experience in ancient history. Man, you don't leave the Agency. Once you're in, they got you for life.
Jim Garrison: And Shaw?
David Ferrie: Shaw's an untouchable. Highest clearance. Shaw, Oswald, the Cubans, all Agency.
Jim Garrison: What about Ruby?
David Ferrie: Jack was a pimp. A bagman for the Dallas mob. Ran guns to Castro when he was on our side. Castro was almost with us till we tried to whack him. Everybody keeps flipping sides. It's fun and games.
Lou Ivon: How does the mob figure in this?
David Ferrie: They're Agency too. The CIA and the Mafia worked together for years trying to whack out the beard. There's more to this than you could dream! Check out something called "Operation Mongoose." Government, Pentagon stuff. They're in charge. But who the **** pulls whose chain? Who knows? "Oh, what a deadly web we weave when we practice to deceive."
Jim Garrison: Who killed the President?
David Ferrie: Why don't you ****ing stop it? Shit! This is too big for you, you know that? Who did the President? ****! It's a mystery. It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The shooters don't even know! Don't you get it? ****, man! I can't keep talking like this! They'll ****ing kill me! I'll ****ing die! Son of a bitch!
Jim Garrison: It's all right.
David Ferrie: I don't know what happened. ****! All I wanted in the world was to be a Catholic priest. Live in a monastery. Pray. Serve God. I had one terrible ****ing weakness. And they defrocked me! Then I started to lose everything.
Jim Garrison: You'll be okay, Dave. You just talk to us on the record. We'll protect you, I guarantee it.
David Ferrie: They'll get to you too. They'll destroy you. They're untouchable. I'm so ****ing exhausted, I can't see straight.

View Quote Lou Ivon: The Zapruder film establishes three shots in 5.6 seconds. I'm Oswald. Time me.
Bill Broussard: Go.
[Ivon fakes three shots]
Jim Garrison: Time?
Bill Broussard: Between six and seven seconds.
Lou Ivon: Without really aiming. The second and third shots came almost right on top of each other. It takes a minimum of 2.3 seconds to recycle this thing. The other problem is, there was a tree blocking the first two shots when fired in the Zapruder film.
Jim Garrison: Didn't Hoover say something about leaves falling in November?
Lou Ivon: It was Texas live oak, Chief. It sheds its leaves in early March. Take this Carcano, world's worst shoulder weapon and try to hit a moving target at 88 yards through heavy foliage. No way. FBI tried two sets of tests. Not one sharpshooter could match Oswald's performance. Not one. Oswald was at best a medium shot. The scope was defective on it too. This is the whole essence of the case to me. The guy couldn't do the shooting. Nobody could. And they sold this lemon to the American public.
Jim Garrison: The Zapruder film was the proof they didn't count on. We got to get our hands on it.
Bill Broussard: It means we'll have to subpoena Time-Life.
Jim Garrison: Let me ask you something. Why not just shoot Kennedy on Houston? Plenty of time. He's out in the open.
Lou Ivon: I keep asking myself the same thing.
Jim Garrison: Frontal shot. Even if you miss him once, if he accelerates, you get a second shot.
Lou Ivon: The only reason to get him on Elm is you got him in a triangulated crossfire. You put a team there down at the fence. Frontal shot. Flat, low trajectory. Put a third team down in this building on a low floor. When Kennedy gets in the kill zone, it's a turkey shoot.
Jim Garrison: How many men?
Lou Ivon: One shooter. One spotter on a radio. Maybe three teams. These are professional riflemen. Serious people. Hunters. Patient. It takes skill to kill with a rifle. That's why no chief executive's been executed with one in 200 years.

View Quote Man at Firing Range: I didn't pay two bits for a target just to have someone else shoot at it!
Lee Harvey Oswald: Hey, I'm sorry buddy- I thought I was, uh, shooting at that son-of-a-bitch Kennedy.

View Quote Senator Long: ****ing out of control. All of these hippies running around on drugs. You can't tell a boy from a girl anymore. I saw a girl the other day. Pregnant. You could see her whole belly. You know what she had painted on it? "Love Child." It's a mess down there, Jim. We've bitten off more Vietnam than we can chew. It figures with that polecat Lyndon in the White House.
Jim Garrison: I sometimes think things have gone downhill since Kennedy died.
Senator Long: Don't get me started on that. Those Warren Commission fellows were picking gnat shit out of pepper. Nobody's going to tell me that kid shot like he did from that bookstore.
Jim Garrison: But the FBI test-fired the rifle to see if it could be done.
Senator Long: Three experts and not one of them could do it. They say that Oswald got off three shots with world-class precision from a manual bolt-action rifle in less than six seconds. According to his Marine buddies, he got Maggie's drawers. That means he wasn't any good. Average man would be lucky to shoot twice. And the first would be the best. Here the third shot's perfect. And they got that bullet zigzagging all over the place hitting Kennedy and Connally seven times. One pristine bullet? That dog don't hunt.
Jim Garrison: Something's always bothered me about that from day one. Think other men were involved?
Senator Long: If I was investigating the case, I'd round up 100 of the world's best riflemen and find out which ones were in Dallas that day. You been duck hunting. Oswald's an old-fashioned decoy. What did he say? "I'm just a patsy!" Believe it.

View Quote X: Garrison?
Jim Garrison: Yes.
X: I'm glad you came. Sorry about the precautions.
Jim Garrison: I just hope it was worth my while, Mr...?
X: I could give you a false name, but I won't. Just call me "X".

View Quote [after watching a damning NBC special report] At least my reputation is still fine with people watching "Laugh In".

View Quote [to his son, Jasper] Telling the truth can be a scary thing sometimes. It scared President Kennedy, and he was a brave man. But if you let yourself be too scared then you let the bad guys take over the country. Then everybody gets scared.

View Quote An American naturalist wrote: "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government." I'd hate to be in your shoes today. You have a lot to think about. You've seen evidence the public hasn't seen. Going back to when we were children I think most of us in this courtroom thought justice came automatically. That virtue was its own reward. That good triumphs over evil. But as we get older we know this isn't true. Individual human beings have to create justice, and this is not easy because the truth often poses a threat to power and one often has to fight power at great risk to themselves.

View Quote Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill, or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob appoint the Warren Commission to cover it up? could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the Mob used anything but .38's for hits, up close. The Mob wouldn't have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, orders, times, schedules. This was a military-style ambush from start to finish... a coup d'etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.

View Quote Don't underestimate the budget cuts that Kennedy called for in March of 1963. Nearly 52 military installations in 25 states. Twenty-one overseas bases. Big money. You know how many helicopters have been lost in Vietnam? Nearly 3,000 so far. Who makes them? Bell Helicopter. Who owns Bell? Bell was nearly bankrupt when First National Bank of Boston asked the CIA to use the helicopter in Indochina. How about the F-111 fighter? General Dynamics of Fort Worth, Texas. Who owns that? Find out the defense budget since the war began. $75 going on $100 billion. Nearly $200 billion will be spent before it's over. In 1949, it was $10 billion. No war...no money.

View Quote Ferrie was the only one to express any kind of remorse about the whole thing. I think it got him killed.