Netflix’s American Conspiracy Dangles a JFK Theory Even Oliver Stone Missed

Is The Theory in Oliver Stone’s JFK?

While Oliver Stone doesn’t spend a single frame of his historical drama, JFK, on the possibilities of a hitman driver, one scene contains a possible veiled reference to the myth. Eyewitness to the shooting at Dealey Plaza, Jean Hill (Ellen McElduff), tosses a nugget after she says “The driver had stopped.” Stone highlights her next line with sinister implications: “I don’t know what was wrong with that driver.”

The fact Greer slowed the car during the assault is obvious upon viewing Zapruder’s film, and there was controversy over orders shouted by Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman, but no agents were disciplined for their performance during the shooting. William Manchester’s Death of a President reports Greer openly wept to Mrs. Kennedy, who personally requested he drive the naval ambulance carrying the casket to the naval hospital, according to Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, by Kenneth P. O’Donnell. But My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy (1969), by Jacqueline Kennedy’s secretary Mary Gallagher, finds the First Lady critical of “one Secret Service man who had not acted during the crucial moment.”

Stewartstown, Northern Ireland-born William Greer served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He joined the U.S. Secret Service in 1945, and was personal bodyguard to Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Greer testified to The Warren Commission on March 9, 1964. He was similarly investigated in many books on the events. His involvement in the assassination has never been officially considered, but almost every account makes it seem like something is missing.

What Does the Levitating Tree Mean?

Seymour is very insistent that the levitating tree visible on the “media release” version of the Zapruder film is only in the version shown to her by Nichols. It is not viewable in the copies released to news programs. This is true. The tree remains intact. However, the clip shown on Geraldo Rivera’s 1975 late-night ABC-TV talk show Good Night America, and some other prints available prior to the 2012 mass release, may contain the source of the image. What looks like a splice or fold of the negative as the limo passes the Stemmons Freeway sign is a glitch called pincushion distortion, prevalent in the Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 Abraham Zapruder filmed it on.

Seymour is not the first to allude to alternative footage. According to Douglas P. Horne’s 2009 book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, CIA National Photographic Interpretation Center analyst Dino Brugioni insisted the official version of Zapruder’s film vastly differs from the one he worked with on Nov. 23 and 24, 1963. Officially, six frames from two different parts of the original film were accidentally damaged by Life magazine staff. Brugioni maintains frame 313 isn’t the only frame missing in the most relevant moments.

Throughout the film’s many runs, credible witnesses contend they viewed differing versions. The Zapruder film first aired on Feb. 14, 1969 during a Los Angeles TV newscast on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s grand jury hearing of Clay Shaw. Low quality copies got into the hands of researchers and journalists. This could account for both the images of the mysterious tree, and the illusion of a gunman at the wheel.