The Killing of President Kennedy

[Pat Speer]

I recently asked a question of Anthony Summers over in the History Books section that others may wish to answer.

"I found a 1983 video entitled "The Killing of President Kennedy" in a Salvation Army today and picked it up for a buck. When I couldn't even find it on IMDB I assumed it was gonna be lame. I watched it tonight. To my surprise it was one of the best programs ever made on the assassination, and was actually made in 1978. It credited Mary Ferrell as an investigator. And Anthony Summers as producer. I'm curious about the history of this program. Was it ever shown on American television? If so, what was the response?

In the program there are interviews with Schweiker, Sprague, Gaudet, Odio, Veciana, Curry, Alexander, Cooper, Griffin, etc... The program only uses soundbites from these interviews. Are transcripts of the complete interviews available? If not, they should be. Perhaps the Ed Forum or the Mary Ferrell site would be willing to put them up online."

[Jack White]

I recently asked a question of Anthony Summers over in the History Books section that others may wish to answer.

"I found a 1983 video entitled "The Killing of President Kennedy" in a Salvation Army today and picked it up for a buck. When I couldn't even find it on IMDB I assumed it was gonna be lame. I watched it tonight. To my surprise it was one of the best programs ever made on the assassination, and was actually made in 1978. It credited Mary Ferrell as an investigator. And Anthony Summers as producer. I'm curious about the history of this program. Was it ever shown on American television? If so, what was the response?

In the program there are interviews with Schweiker, Sprague, Gaudet, Odio, Veciana, Curry, Alexander, Cooper, Griffin, etc... The program only uses soundbites from these interviews. Are transcripts of the complete interviews available? If not, they should be. Perhaps the Ed Forum or the Mary Ferrell site would be willing to put them up online."

PIECE OF CAKE, to quote Tony's French sound technician. Tony was assigned

to do a documentary on the JFK assassination, and he thought it would be

fairly cut and dried. He came to Texas in the late 70s to do it, and Mary sent

him to all the researchers. He came to my office late one afternoon to see my

slide show, and filmed me and my slides until 4 a.m., and he was using expensive

film, not videotape, which was not in wide use then. As I recall, I did not make

the final editing, BUT HE MADE EXTENSIVE USE OF MY SLIDES. Most of the

still photos in the piece he filmed directly off a screen in my office. The project

he thought he could wrap up in a couple of months turned into a year-long

research project and trips to New Orleans, Washington, etc. He could not

use all of the research in his film, so he put it all together into one of the

superior JFK books, CONSPIRACY. I am glad I had the opportunity to

assist in furnishing significant research to Tony's film and book.

Jack

Edited August 31, 2006 by Jack White

[Pat Speer]

I recently asked a question of Anthony Summers over in the History Books section that others may wish to answer.

"I found a 1983 video entitled "The Killing of President Kennedy" in a Salvation Army today and picked it up for a buck. When I couldn't even find it on IMDB I assumed it was gonna be lame. I watched it tonight. To my surprise it was one of the best programs ever made on the assassination, and was actually made in 1978. It credited Mary Ferrell as an investigator. And Anthony Summers as producer. I'm curious about the history of this program. Was it ever shown on American television? If so, what was the response?

In the program there are interviews with Schweiker, Sprague, Gaudet, Odio, Veciana, Curry, Alexander, Cooper, Griffin, etc... The program only uses soundbites from these interviews. Are transcripts of the complete interviews available? If not, they should be. Perhaps the Ed Forum or the Mary Ferrell site would be willing to put them up online."

PIECE OF CAKE, to quote Tony's French sound technician. Tony was assigned

to do a documentary on the JFK assassination, and he thought it would be

fairly cut and dried. He came to Texas in the late 70s to do it, and Mary sent

him to all the researchers. He came to my office late one afternoon to see my

slide show, and filmed me and my slides until 4 a.m., and he was using expensive

film, not videotape, which was not in wide use then. As I recall, I did not make

the final editing, BUT HE MADE EXTENSIVE USE OF MY SLIDES. Most of the

still photos in the piece he filmed directly off a screen in my office. The project

he thought he could wrap up in a couple of months turned into a year-long

research project and trips to New Orleans, Washington, etc. He could not

use all of the research in his film, so he put it all together into one of the

superior JFK books, CONSPIRACY. I am glad I had the opportunity to

assist in furnishing significant research to Tony's film and book.

Jack

Thanks, Jack, for your contributions to one of the best specials ever done on the assassination. After watching it, I was kinda PO'd. Here was one of the best things ever done on the assassination, but where is it today? Why doesn't the History Channel or Discovery re-run this program over and over instead of the horrifically deceptive Beyond Conspiracy? Why hasn't someone put this out on DVD?

Do you have any idea what happened to the unused footage? Does Summers own the rights to it? Or the BBC? Was the program ever shown in the States? I was thinking to myself that, after watching this program, it would have been darned near impossible for the HSCA to say Oswald acted alone. I suspect the program played a role in convincing them to come to their conclusion a conspiracy was likely. What was the feeling of those who worked on the program? Did you feel you'd changed history?