Ex-CIA John Stockwell on the JFK Assassination

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• published: 26 May 2015
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People should check out the John Stockwell interviews regarding JFK on Alternative Views TV (available on YouTube). The difference between his take on Kennedy and Garrison there and here is, to my mind, rather remarkable. ---- John Stockwell, former CIA Officer who quit the CIA and became active in the peace movement during the 1980s, speaks about the JFK Assassination. In this clip he discusses his role in Oliver Stone's movie, JFK, and their eventual parting of ways over differences in belief about the mechanics of the assassination plot. Though both agree that Kennedy was killed by a group of conspirators, Stockwell argues that it was "renegades" where as Stone, using the Garrison investigation and Fletcher L. Prouty as starting points, argues that the conspiracy goes to the highest levels of the US government. Stockwell faults Stone and Garrison for completely leaving out the mafia connection to the assassination plot, despite that there is much evidence for in the Miami nexus of Cuban-exiles, former Havana-based mafia soldiers, and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is worth comparing this talk with some of Stockwell's other interviews on the assassination, particularly this 1989 interview on Alternative Views TV. The tone is entirely different. Stockwell's characterizations of things vary wildly, in my opinion, between the two interviews, especially the Garrison case against Clay Shaw. Also, in the 1989 interview Stockwell gives far more credit to the argument that Kennedy was ready to, at the very least, slow down the war in Vietnam. Stockwell was a considerable force in the peace movement during the 1980s, especially on matters of the CIA's covert war in Nicaragua. He gave countless important lectures and wrote revealing books on CIA covert operations. He appeared on Alternative Views TV over 50 times (with some of those episodes focusing specifically on the Kennedy Assassination). Like the disagreement with Stone, Stockwell also engaged in other public disagreements which put him at odds with other members of the progressive community, generally over matters of "who has their facts straight". Stockwell had a similar public disagreement with the Christic Institute over the facts Christic presented in their case against the Iran-Contra conspirators. Stockwell eventually pulled away as a public figure in the mid-1990s. He is still alive today.