The call came from Dick Gregory, an activist entertainer better known for his music and comedy than his investigative prowess. It was March 1975, almost exactly 50 years ago, and the impact of his call lingers still. It made me a historic footnote.
At the time, I was 31 years old and hosting my first network show, “Goodnight America.” It was a late-night mishmash of news and entertainment that ran for three years on ABC every Thursday night at 11:30 p.m.
I described myself at the time as the “Rock ‘n Roll News Man.” To hammer home how cool we thought we were, my colorful announcer, Don Imus, introduced each episode in his booming voice as “Good Night America! A Second-Generation TV News Magazine,” a gentle swipe at more traditional offerings like “60 Minutes.”
Dick Gregory was a show business icon I had interviewed several times before. Since the end of the Vietnam War, he had refocused from civil rights and anti-war protest songs and political comedy to something darker: conspiracy theories.
On the call and in many subsequent meetings, Dick described his fervent belief that the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy was not the vile act of a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. Rather, according to Dick, it was the consummation of a wicked, wide-ranging government conspiracy, and he could prove it.
“Prove it how?”
“We have the film,” said Dick.
At that time, pre-reality television in 1975, the death of JFK was considered by most of the political and media ruling class to be a closed case.
An extensive House Select Committee probe had followed the distinguished Warren Commission in credibly examining this crime of the century, and those who remained unconvinced that Oswald did it were kooks.
For the pre-Baby Boomer generation, though, this was the wound that would never heal. The most important statesman of our lives, John F. Kennedy, the young and gracious 35th president of the United States, was murdered by a lowlife creep Jackie Kennedy described as a “silly Communist.” It couldn’t be.
Dick Gregory described how he and his friend Robert Groden, a skilled investigator, had gotten their hands on the Zapruder home movie of the murder of JFK in Dealy Plaza in front of thousands there on Nov. 22, 1963.
When we screened the graphic footage in my ABC office, I was aghast. To my untrained eye, it appears as if one of the two shots that hit the president, blowing part of his head off, came from the front, perhaps from the now infamous “grassy knoll.”
Since we know Oswald was behind Kennedy in the book depository building when he fired, the shot from the front meant there were at least two gunmen, a conspiracy.
The reason no one had aired the Zapruder film before me was an ironclad prohibition from the Zapruder family and the company that bought the copyright to the gory home movie, Time Life.
At first, my network, ABC, also absolutely refused to air the episode for fear of a massive lawsuit by the copyright holders. They only agreed to the broadcast after I personally agreed to indemnify ABC if we were sued. My neck was stuck way out. Thankfully, no one chopped it off.
It aired to GNA’s highest-ever ratings and gave birth to the conspiracy theory industry.
The original episode lives on geraldo.com. I never re-aired the film. Nor, as far as I know, has anyone else except hard-to-trace internet pirates. Most importantly, as to what the film reveals, the apparent shot from the front-unanimous forensic pathologists over the decades since have convinced me that the violent backward jerk was the body’s normal reflex reaction.
When the entire 80,000-page trove of the various JFK papers, probes and autopsy photos was released last week, I knew that another generation would soon be hooked on what appears from the film an obvious conspiracy.
It is not. Oswald killed Kennedy. Jack Ruby killed Oswald to avenge Kennedy. The Cubans, KGB and Chicago mob were not involved. Acting alone, Oswald still did it.
