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

composite character, homosexual prostitute Willie O’Keefe. Russo – under “prodding
from hypnosis” – claimed Ferrie, Oswald, and Shaw had discussed the assassination plot
at a party. Lardner wrote that this was the “flimsy pretext” under which Shaw was
arrested and eventually prosecuted. 711
Critical assaults on JFK continued after its release, with historians, former
Kennedy and Johnson administration officials, and Warren Commission participants
targeting Stone’s film. Historian Arthur Schlesinger called Stone’s conspiracy theory
“reckless, paranoid, really despicable fantasy” in laying the blame on “the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the CIA, the FBI, the military-industrial complex, anti-Castro Cubans, the mob and
Lyndon B. Johnson.” 712 In an ironic testament to the power of the film, debate raged
over its argument that Kennedy would have pulled U.S. forces out of Vietnam. Former
Kennedy administration official Leslie Gelb questioned the thesis that Kennedy sought to
pull out U.S. forces from Vietnam based on the National Security Action Memorandum
263, which he had issued shortly before his death. According to Stone, Johnson
countermanded the memorandum shortly after the assassination. Gelb pointed out that
the memorandum came during “one of the few periods of genuine optimism about the
war,” so the president “had some basis for believing the war might be won and that U.S.
forces could be withdrawn.” 713 Also, Gelb claimed that most officials saw the
withdrawal memo as a way to pressure South Vietnam’s President Diem to make political
711 JFK: The Book of the Film, 191-192.
712 JFK: The Book of the Film, 394.
713 JFK: The Book of the Film, 391.
313