Episode 37: JFK - The Men Who Killed Kennedy - "The Coup D'Etat"

I will cover each episode - including The History Channel's rebuttal of the infamous "Guilty Men" episode - of the docuseries The Men Who Killed Kennedy.

Episode 1: "The Coup D'Etat"

"They also come to ponder one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time."

Links:

All eps can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0XNiu-yutk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKturnerN.htm

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/oliver.htm

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I want to talk about the first episode of the Docu series, the men who killed Kennedy, which is called the coup d'etat, and it was released in the UK in 1988 subsequently in the US in 1991 originally, this was a two part series for British television, and the first two episodes were just part one and part two. But as the story progressed, episodes continued to be added on, as some of them came with quite a lot of controversy. I will get into that in later episodes. Some people have said this Docu series has been discredited. It's not any good. It's full of crazies. You will have to decide that for yourself. If you have not watched this Docu series, I would highly recommend that you do so on your own ahead of me, bookmark these episodes, save them, come back to them later. But I would really strongly encourage you to watch this material for yourself and make up your own mind. Ahead of me. With that being said, let's dive into the first episode of this series and saddle up and take this wild wild ride. Episode One kicks off at Arlington National Cemetery, at the grave site of JFK and the eternal flame. I have actually been there before, but it was years ago. It was way before I had any interest in Kennedy as a person, his presidential legacy, his politics, the pop, pop, etc. We really went because it's something historical and because it's something different. The Eternal Flame is not something that everybody has. So they open us up at this grave site, and they talk about how many millions of people go to it every single year, and they label Kennedy as one of America's greatest heroes. So we know from the beginning that we're not in the territory of like a Noam Chomsky or a Seymour Hersh. This is probably not going to be a hit piece or a smear campaign about Kennedy. Maybe there's some kind of affection or some kind of sympathy there on the part of the filmmakers, because otherwise, why would they have referred to him as one of America's greatest heroes? They could have omitted that part. The other thing is, they talk about how people are interested in what they call one of the world's greatest murder mysteries, which indeed, even now it still is, when we think about this being released to the public in 1988 Well, hold your beer. It's 2024 and it's still a murder mystery today. Straight away, in this like montage of experts, they play little sound bites, little snippets to whet your appetite, to let you know what's coming next. One of the commentators says, if they can do this, they're probably involved in other areas of the government, they can really do anything. And if they can cover something like this up, if they can remain in the shadows about it, then we're really being led by people we didn't elect right then and there. The first time that I'm watching this series, I was like, somebody gets it. Somebody's on board. That is a point that I have tried to make on my daytime podcast, as well as my blogs. Many times, if they can do something like this, they can really do anything, and we're not really being led by people that are elected. It's like they're elected. Wank. But then who's behind the scenes? And then who's behind those scenes as well.

For most people, they're just, they're not, they're not ever going to go there. They can't wrap their mind around that, or they don't want to wrap their mind around that. It's easier for them to just shut down. There's an interview with John Connolly, who was the governor of Texas at that time. He was also part of the motorcade. You may remember that Jack and Jackie were sitting in the back of the limousine, and then in front of Jack was Governor Connally, and then in front of Jackie was governor Connolly's wife. So Governor Connolly, in this interview for the docuseries, is talking about how it had really started out as a nice, happy occasion. It had rained that morning, they had been to like a chamber of commerce breakfast, and people were happy, and by the time the motorcade gets going, there are people lining the streets, and they're waving and they're smiling, and school children had come out, and it just seems to be like this festive, happy. The occasion, they also interview Senator Ralph Yarborough. He was part of the motorcade two but he was further back. He was in a convertible with LBJ and lbjs, wife, Lady Bird, and he describes a similar scene. People are happy, people are smiling, people are waving. This seems to be a very nice festive occasion, and the people that have turned out in Dallas appear to be quite supportive of Kennedy. The interesting thing here, though, is he says that on the sidewalks, the people lining the streets, they're happy, their smiles, they're waving, but then he says he looks up and there's no smiles. The people that are watching from upper story windows in the buildings are not smiling. In fact, according to him, it looks like some of them are actually watching the motorcade with a sense of active dislike. Conley tells the story of hearing rifle reports, and then when he's shot, he describes it as like someone is is punching him in the back, and he looks down and he sees that he's bleeding, and he makes the comment to the effect of, oh my god, they're going to kill us all, according to Connolly, the fatal shot hits Kennedy blood and brain tissue go all over the back of the limousine, and then Jackie says something like, Oh, my God, I have his brains in my hand. So at this point, Connolly is aware that this, this is not a good situation. He's not going to pull through with tears in his eyes. Yarborough recounts seeing at Parkland when the limousine arrives there, Jackie still has Kennedy's head in her hands, and she says, they've murdered my husband. A group of secret servicemen have swarmed around LBJ, and they're now referring him, referring to him as Mr. President. So at that point, Yarborough said he knew that Kennedy was dead. This wouldn't be happening if there was even a sliver of hope. They show the video of Malcolm Kilduff coming out to announce to the press the death of JFK, and he points to this area near his temple as being the place where JFK was shot. This is certainly stirred up controversy, because people say, Well, if it really was, if it if it really was Oswald acting alone, and he popped Kennedy from behind, then why would Kilduff have pointed so clearly to the temple? This is a point to ponder. From there we get the story of allegedly a secret service man threatening about the autopsy, that even though, by Texas law, the autopsy is supposed to be done in Texas, no, forget about it. We supersede you. Are you going to cause us a problem? We want to take the body. This is the President of the United States. You don't really have jurisdiction over us, get out of the way, or you're going to be moved out of the way. And this ambulance driver, Aubrey Reich, tells the story of like, here's the priest and there's Jackie, and obviously everybody is distraught over the death, and people are fighting over the body and who's going to do the autopsy, and using a lot of foul language in front of a man of the cloth, as well as this widow, this newly made widow, and he feels like people are being very childish, and they're using a lot of foul language, and it has just turned into something of a nightmare. They show the swarm of people who go to the grassy knoll because they believe that at least one of the shots, if not all of the shots, have come from that location. However, the police focus in on the School Book Depository, and they are swarming this building. They're in there quickly, I think they said, within 90 seconds on the sixth floor, the police officers find three spent shells, as well as an older, not very impressive manliker Carcano, which is bolt action if you know anything about it. The documentary also alleges that they were not able to find any of Oswald's prints on the weapon until after he was already dead. As the documentary also points out, from the time that Oswald is arrested, he's portrayed to the world as a lone nut, a kook, a creep like we've got him. We're convinced that we have the guy. This is him, which reminds me of the the apprehension of David Berkowitz and the Son of Sam murders, or potentially sons of Sam murders. There's no need to probe. Everybody can go back outside life. Can continue on. We've got him. We've got the guy. Of course, Oswald himself gets pop popped by Jack Ruby. They interview a couple of police officers who allege that there was a cause. Car that was supposed to because, you know, Oswald was being transferred. There was a car that was supposed to be in a particular location, but it wasn't quite where it was supposed to be. So as they're looking for the car that should have been in one place, but wasn't they noticed that Ruby is in the crowd of police and reporters, and, of course, he proceeds to murder Oswald. Oswald goes off by ambulance to the hospital, but of course, he passes away. The Warren Commission concludes that Oswald acted alone. He was just the lone nut Popper, and then a couple of years later, Jack Ruby mysteriously contracts cancer, and he passes away. So now we're getting into the meat and potatoes of the documentary. They've they've spent the first little bit laying the groundwork, giving you a refresher, and now we're going to get more into interviews that haven't been seen before, maybe witnesses that have never been on television, etc. They interview Marilyn sitzman, who was a secretary for Abraham Zapruder. Of course, that name is probably going to be highly familiar to you because of the Zapruder film. She tells the story about how he had this camera and he wanted, I think actually, he didn't want to do the filming that day. You think she kind of goaded him into doing it, like, Hey, this is a historical moment. You should use that new camera of yours. So he gets up on this pillar to have a better vantage point. But he suffers from vertigo, so he asks that she hang on to him so that he can sort of be stabilized to make this film. And as they're getting close to this area of like, the triple Overpass, the Stemmons freeway sign, etc.

He starts filming, and she says that she hears two noises that are similar to firecracker pops. And there's some confusion. People are not completely sure what's going on, but you can tell that there's activity in the vehicle. Of course, when the fatal shot is fired, it's quite clear what has happened and is a traumatizing event. Robert Groden is interviewed, and he contends that he saw the Zapruder film and it became clear to him that there had to have been a shot from the front, so there's no way that the Warren Commission narrative of only Oswald and only from behind at the School Book Depository. Those things just couldn't be true when you look at the momentum of the way that Kennedy is thrown. There's no way that it came from Oswald behind the vehicle in the School Book Depository. But Grodin asserts that he starts to feel threatened and scared, because if anybody else knew what he knew, anybody else figured out what was going on based on what he saw, he might be in real danger. They interview a trio called the Willis family who witnessed what happened, and they are all certain that the shot had to have come from somewhere, either to the front or maybe front slash side of Kennedy, based on what they saw. And they tell this horrifying story of a red Halo, which you can see to some degree in the Zapruder film, this red halo of blood and brain matter that just goes out from Kennedy's head. And there's just no way they can see that that shot came from behind the motorcade. Two of the doctors from Parkland are also interviewed, Robert McClellan and Paul Peters, and they both tell this similar story of in the back, occipital part of the head, there's a large wound, quite a bit of brain tissue that's missing, and they're just not seeing a wound that's compatible with somebody who's been shot in the back of the head. Surely it has come from the front of the head. I know it sounds like the documentary is belaboring the point, but you have to understand that has been official canon for all of these years, even now, You're a kook, you're a quack, you're a weirdo. If you think that there was some kind of conspiracy, ooh, somebody was on the grassy knoll, you're one of those people like, Well, I suppose so. I mean, there had to have been somebody other than lho. Let's be real about that. The story really begins to pick up some momentum of like, wait a minute, what at about this point? Because you have Aubrey Reich saying that at Parkland, Kennedy is placed into a very expensive like, top of the line casket, but then you have Paul O'Connor, who's one of the technicians at Bethesda, saying that, no, whenever they were given Kennedy's body, he was in a cheap shipping casket. So it's like, how did he get from the one to the other? If that's true. So if we assume that this is accurate, is somebody just misremembering, or how? How does it get from a fancy, ornamental casket, which you would think a president would be in, by the way, to a cheap shipping casket? That's also pretty weird. Paul O'Connor also recounts that Kennedy was in a body bag, and that he was nude except for a sheet, a bloodied sheet, at that point that had been wrapped around his head and neck area. The official autopsy photographs do not show the type of head wound that the Parkland doctors say that they saw so it's like, Wait a minute. Wait a minute here. And I'm trying, I'm trying to go back to when I very first watched this Docu series. It's like, Wait a minute. So the body was put in one casket in Dallas, but it was in a different casket when it got to Bethesda, allegedly. And then now these autopsy photos. I mean, his hair, his scalp, everything is in place. You really can't even see any damage to the back of the head. How is this possible? You have Parkland doctors talking about, and I know this is a macabre topic, okay, I get it. We have Parkland doctors talking about things like blood and brain matter and spinal fluid leaking out of this open wound, but then the official autopsy photo doesn't even show an open wound. What kind of trickery is this? Robert McClellan is quoted as saying that he would guesstimate 20 to 25% of the brain was gone when Kennedy was there at Parkland. Now, Paul O'Connor tells a very intriguing story about taking the body out of the body bag, removing that bloody sheet and a gasp in the room because there was no brain. Now, imagine that. So this further deepens the plot, throws the sand in the question like, Okay, well, how, how did the body get from one casket to another? If it did, and then if 20 to 25% of the brain is gone at Parkland, but then the whole entire brain is gone at Bethesda. What? What is happening here? You have to imagine that in any other type of criminal case, if this was just john doe down the road that was murdered, if it was handled in this way, people would be fired. There would be such a hue and cry about impropriety, and yet, this was the President of the United States. What happened?

We learned that after Oswald's death, it's like, okay, stop, no more investigating. If you have any physical evidence, it needs to be turned over immediately to the Foxtrot Bravo India. We'll take it from here. He's dead. He's not going to go to a trial is done and it's over with. This also is strange. Why would you not want to have as much evidence as possible? They interview James, take who he's sort of a witness to what has happened, but one of the main reasons why his testimony is significant is because he has this bloody streak on his cheek, and one of the deputies comes up to him and informs him that he has blood on his face, and it turns out that He was hit by a chunk of concrete there was a bullet. Sorry, I don't know. I don't have a euphemism, so hopefully I won't get dinged somewhere. But there was a bullet that hit the curb and a piece of concrete that came up from the curb that hits James tag in the cheek and cuts him. Well, how is this possible? If it's Oswald by himself from a position that's behind the motorcade, and he only fires three times, and those three firings connect with targets, then where the hell does this one come from? Now we start to see the magic bullet theory taking shape. Okay, if one of the firings misses and it hits the curb and then it causes this chunk of concrete to hit James tag in the face, then that means only two of the shots would have connected with their targets, which is why we see this magical bullet that's like a bumblebee that just zigzags around the car, going through Kennedy and then also going through Connolly multiple times, which, you know any sane person would find that that beggars belief. You don't have to be a ballistics expert. You don't have to be some sort of pop pop nut to understand that just a. Objectively, doesn't make sense. Seems like the laws of physics would preclude that from even almost being possible. We learned that in the months leading up to the murder of JFK Jack Ruby is suddenly very, very active in the dark underworld of Mafia dealings, allegedly, and that these dealings were never really probed. He even goes to New Orleans, which, as you know, pardon the dryer, as you know, is significant to Jim Garrison's investigation and his subsequent book on the trail. We're told that, supposedly, Ruby goes to New Orleans to recruit new strippers for his burlesque clubs. But it's like, why would you go all the way from Dallas to New Orleans for that? I mean, couldn't you just go to the next city over? Why would you have to make a road trip like that to recruit strippers? Just seems a little bit sketch. The docuseries interviews Beverly Oliver, who, in some ways, is a controversial figure in all of this herself, I will drop a link to a website that questions her story. Which we should I think that Jim Mars hits the nail on the head in the PROLOG for his book Crossfire, where he says, don't trust this book. Don't trust any one source, any one witness, any one book, any one documentary, none of it. You're going to have to look at the preponderance of evidence, everything laid out together and decide for yourself, which I think is the right way to handle it. So the author of this website that I'm going to drop a link to like he hasn't laid out claim versus evaluation, meaning like is Beverly Oliver, who she really says that she is, because apparently, she has come forward to say that she was the Babushka Lady, which this person was on the sidelines, so to speak, at the pop pop, and had a scarf around her head, but when you look at the pictures of the Babushka Lady versus Beverly Oliver, it's like they don't really look alike. I'm not saying it isn't her, because I legitimately do not know. I'm just saying, looking at the pictures, it's kind of like I'm not entirely convinced that it is her. Can't say that it isn't I don't know, but she's interviewed for this Docu series, and she alleges that Jack Ruby and Oswald, 100% knew each other. They were in cahoots. Oswald had been to Ruby's clubs before. There's just no possible way that the two of them were unconnected, which is what we're supposed to think. The official narrative is that Ruby had such a love for the Kennedy family. He was grief stricken. He was distraught over the death of John F Kennedy. And then also he really loved Jackie, which a lot of people did. He was very pretty, elegant lady, always well dressed, always seemed to be very friendly and very perky. He was so distraught, he did not want her to have to come back to Dallas and deal with Oswald's trial and relive this horrible, horrible thing. So that's why he popped Oswald. He was trying to do the world a favor, and he thought that it would be really well received. That's what we're supposed to think is the case. Oliver is telling us otherwise. She further claims that this dancer named Jada had also seen Oswald at the club and then subsequently told newspaper reporters about it. Now this professional skeptic, again, I'll drop the link to his website so you can check it out. I'm calling him a professional skeptic, because that's what he seems to be. I could be wrong. That's just my opinion. But her claim, of course, okay, is that Jada witnessed this introduction, saw Oswald and Ruby together and then told newspaper reporters about it. This person's evaluation is that there are no newspapers that show that Jada actually did that, but instead, there's evidence to show that she denied that she had ever seen Oswald in the carousel club whenever she was asked about it on the radio. For my money, that doesn't necessarily mean that Jada didn't say these things, or that she didn't see these things. Just because there's not a newspaper available that shows that interview doesn't mean that information hasn't been scrubbed. I feel like those types of things happen all the time. So look, we have this we have this conflicting narrative, and it's the type of thing where you will have to make up your own mind. Is Beverly telling the truth about all of this, is she not? Did Jada actually witness this? And then she died mysteriously because she witnessed it and because she talked about it or not. They interview a man named Billy grammer who was in police communications, and he alleges that he received a fund. Call like the night before Oswald was popped, he received a phone call. The voice sounded familiar, but he wasn't entirely sure who it was, and this person alleged you need to change your plans. You need to change the route that you're going to use to move him. Otherwise we will kill him. He doesn't really

do like he doesn't. He's not able to cause the plans to be changed. He goes home after his shift, and he goes to bed. He wakes up the next morning and sees the news replay of what has happened whenever Oswald was popped by Ruby, and claims that at that point he realized that it was Ruby's voice on the telephone. Ruby is, of course, detained after the murder of Oswald, and he's taken up to a cell, and this police officer, Don Archer, talks about his demeanor, that he was sweating profusely and that his heart was pounding to the point where you could see like you could see his pulse coming through his neck and his chest and high anxiety, which I suppose, if you had done something like that, it would make sense for you to be highly anxious and keyed up about what had just happened. A Secret Service agent allegedly comes and tells Don Archer that Oswald has died. So he goes back in turn and tells Jack Ruby, it looks like you're going to get the electric chair. It's a it's a murder. Now Oswald has died, and instead of being even more distraught, he said that Ruby has the opposite reaction. He calms down, he stops sweating, and it seems like this, tremendous burden has been lifted off of him as soon as he gets the news that Oswald officially is dead, of course, Billy grammars assertion is this had to be a planned act. If somebody calls the night before it happens and says, You need to change plans around, because we are going to kill him, and then the person gets killed at the place and time that it was predicted that shows premeditation. So the idea that Ruby was just he was just distraught. He was so upset over the death of JFK, and he felt so sad for Jackie that she would have to come back for this trial and just boom in a moment of passion, a moment of grief, he did this without thinking about it doesn't make any sense. The episode ends with Mary Mormon, who had taken a photograph, and it leaves you on a cliffhanger, because they're going to in the next episode, start talking about badge man. Now I don't want to get into that in this episode, because that's a whole nother can of worms, and I have my own opinions about it, but the episode ends with this cliffhanger that Mary Mormon was taking photographs, and maybe, after all, with some forensic analysis and some more modern technology, although it's laughable, because think about how far technology has come between 1988 and 2024 but using more modern technology than what was available in the 60s. Does this photograph reveal that there was actually somebody there? I feel like this is a good first episode to get you into the series. And I think it's interesting that they choose a mixture of people that you would consider to be mainstream sources. I mean, I don't think anybody's going to say that interviewing Connolly and Yarborough doesn't make any sense if you're making a documentary about the JFK, paw pop. They were both there. I don't think anybody has ever disputed that. They were both there and they saw what they saw. But they sort of mix in these mainstream interviewees, mainstream people, with others that might be more on the fringe. It's worth watching. As I have said before, I feel like the entire series, if we're just looking at it in terms of its entertainment value on a five star scale, I would give it five out of five. When I was watching it each morning, when I would have breakfast. I couldn't wait to get more information. It was like, What am I going to hear that's going to blow my mind next? Because this is crazy in terms of its accuracy, though, how accurate is it? And then what about the veracity of some of the people that they're talking to? That's a decision that only you can make for yourself. I agree with Jim Mars that you have to spread everything out and look at the preponderance of evidence, and don't trust any one book or any one source, look at everything put together and come to your own conclusions, because there is an absolute wealth of information out there, and a lot of it's bad. Some of it is so cooped out, weird and crazy, I think you would have to be on another planet to even come close to believing it. Now I don't put this first episode into that category, that one would have to be crazy to believe it. It's interesting television, and it brings up some food for thought. I mean, why? Why would Kennedy's body have been. In two different caskets, who moved it and why? And then why were the doctors at Parkland saying that the brain was 20 to 25% gone? But then you have a witness at Bethesda saying that it was completely gone. These are questions that I think are worth exploring. So even if we get away from, well, it was Beverly Oliver really the Babushka Lady, or is she making it up? Did did this stripper named Jada really tell the press this and this and that? Did Jack Ruby really call ahead of time? I mean, I think just if we isolated these questions of what was going on with the body, why did the autopsy photographs, the official autopsy photographs look so different from what the doctors saw? Why? Why were these officials like hellbound and determined that they were going to get Kennedy's body out of Texas and the autopsy was going to be in a controlled environment at Bethesda, if nothing else, I feel like the program gives us an entryway into some very important questions that even now all these years later, deserve to be asked and answered. Stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode. 

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