[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

and enter the second floor lunchroom in time to be accosted by an officer searching for
the assassin. The viewer is left to conclude that the Warren Commission version is false.
Garrison, in his closing soliloquy, also presents the well known criticisms of the so-called
“magic bullet theory” that one of Oswald’s shots hit both Kennedy and Connally, and
then was recovered on a stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital in so-called “pristine”
condition. Garrison calls this “One of the grossest lies ever forced on the American
people.” 70578 Later in his soliloquy, Garrison says of the arrest of Oswald “The cops have
their man. It has already been decided -- in Washington.” 706
In his eloquent closing statement to the jury, Garrison says “Lee Oswald…was
only the first in a long line of patsies. In later years Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther
King…[would be] killed by [other] such ‘lonely-crazed men’…. We have all become
Hamlets in our country – children of a slain father-leader whose killers still possess the
throne. The ghost of John F. Kennedy confronts us with the secret murder at the heart of
the American dream.” 707 He tells the jury “It’s up to you” to convict Shaw and proclaim
the truth of the conspiracy but Costner as Garrison looks directly at the camera,
apparently telling the viewers it is up to them to see that justice is done. 708
Stone dedicated the film to the young, whom he wanted to take up the cause of
the Kennedy assassination. The film concludes on this note after the jury finds Shaw
“Not guilty.” A juror is heard saying the panel believed there was conspiracy but
705 Sklar and Stone, 152.
706 Sklar and Stone, 174.
707 Sklar and Stone, 176.
708 Sklar and Stone, 179.
310