The Men Who Killed Kennedy [VHS]
This artfully constructed five-part series offers chilling evidence that  American democracy has become a convenient lie; that a conspiratorial coup  d'état removed a sitting president and then hid that fact from the  American people. This sounds like the stuff of wild-eyed paranoia, but these  filmmakers did their homework well--interviews include levelheaded witnesses,  suspicious government agents, and Dallas cops present in Dealey Plaza on  November 22, 1963. Some of the "proof" (especially in Episode 2, "The  Forces of Darkness") seems a bit far-fetched, but the sheer number of  unexplained facts is riveting. An autopsy attendant describes a procedure  botched by meddling Secret Service agents. A deaf-mute eyewitness shares his  recollection of uniformed men hiding a rifle and leaving the site of the  assassination unchallenged. Eisenhower's security chief, present at the  shooting, discusses fatal safety lapses--as well as mysterious shots coming from  the opposite direction of the Texas School Book Depository. District Attorney  Jim Garrison points out that Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine assigned to Russian  reconnaissance, operated a "Communist" organization out of a government  intelligence office. Senator Ralph Yarbrough, present in the motorcade, tells of  Kennedy's order to recall the troops from Vietnam--an order rescinded by the  Pentagon three days after his death. But the most powerful elements of this  documentary are the most personal, as hardened cops confess to lasting  nightmares, as senatorial investigators tearfully recall the moment they  realized the official story did not match the facts, and as simple bystanders  share their lasting grief at having witnessed the gory death of America's  innocence.--Grant Balfour