JFK

Deliberate mistake: The eyewitness testimony that placed Oswald in the lunchroom at the book despository didn't come to light until the House Select Committee on Assassination in 1978, many years after the Shaw trial.

David Mercier

Factual error: Throughout the movie, it's been said that President John F. Kennedy's motorcade route had been changed at the last minute. This is not true. The route was set in stone for days. In fact, assassin Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly found out that Kennedy was going to ride right past Oswald's work building from a newspaper days before. He rode the same route the newspaper published.

Jim Garrison: White is black, and black is white.

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Trivia: In the scene where an FBI agent is harassing one of Garrison's investigators, Bill Brousard, the FBI agent bears a striking resemblance to the real police officer who was also "assassinated" on the same day in Dallas as JFK, Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippet. It turns out that the actor is Tippet's brother in real life.

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Question: Was the head movement argument to the jury verbatim from the transcript of the actual trial of Clay Shaw?

Answer: No. The argument which mentions was the first closing argument by an assistant to Garrison and in it he mentions "back and to the left" once but not the multiple statements shown in the movie. The actual transcripts are available on line.

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