Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy Had to Die
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy Had to Die |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | Spanish , German , English |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Wilfried Huismann |
| script | Wilfried Huismann, Gus Russo |
| production | Heribert Blondiau ( WDR - editor ), Wilfried Huisman, Gus Russo |
| music | Claudius Bruese |
| camera | Reinhard Gossmann, Tobias Baader, Mathias Schick, Ulli Köhler |
| cut | Olaf Strecker Nicole Kortlüke |
Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy Had to Die is a documentary by German filmmaker Wilfried Huismann , which was first broadcast on January 6, 2006 by Das Erste . The film blames Fidel Castro and the Cuban secret service for Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy .
action
In his documentary, Wilfried Huismann searches for the people behind Lee Harvey Oswald who commissioned the Kennedy murder on November 22, 1963. He comes to the conclusion that Oswald was recruited by the Cuban secret service G-2 and during his stay in Mexico City in September 1963 he was ordered to shoot Kennedy.
In his argument to Huisman is based on former FBI - Supervisor Laurence Keenan , who traveled in November 1963 after Mexico, to track the trail of Oswald. Keenan had to break off his research at the time because it was too explosive for the new President Lyndon B. Johnson . 40 years later, he and Huismann are back on track.
His thesis underpins the film with eyewitnesses - interviews , including: Alexander Haig and Joseph A. Califano (close associates President Johnson), Sam Halpern ( Robert F. Kennedy's man in the CIA ), who was responsible for the plans to assassinate Castro himself, and General Fabián Escalante (former head of the Cuban secret service G-2 ). In addition, it is supported by new files found at the KGB and the former Mexican secret service DFS and by tapes from the Cuban embassy in Mexico.
Reviews
The film's thesis and its arguments were hotly debated:
“It shows impressively that Oswald would have been the ideal henchman for Castro, but by no means conclusively proves that the Cuban head of state is actually behind what is perhaps the most famous murder of the 20th century. So this remains one of the great puzzles to which Huismann certainly contributed another piece of the puzzle. "
“Huismann now claims to be able to contribute the missing documents. [...] But on closer inspection, the links in the chain of evidence turn out to be not very reliable. None of Huismann's witnesses was personally involved in the alleged operation. […] For Huismann's integrity, the fact that he also sends those parts of the interviews in which he is contradicted, for example by Rolando Cubela, a surgeon and vehement opponent of Castro. "
“The overall picture is not yet clearly recognizable, but the film formulates a series of specific questions that a Cuban Gauck authority could one day answer. The investigation has moved again. The fact that ARD is involved in this is something you can forgive many a barn. "
“... if you look closely this evening, you will discover that many links in the chain of arguments are missing. […] What remains? A new piece of the puzzle in the Kennedy murder. And a certainty. The fact that Oswald, with all his connections to the Cubans, would have been an ideal scapegoat. For possibly completely different conspirators. "
“Huismann's research is tight, it is plausible and remains logical in itself. A documentary film cannot do much more. The film will definitely not be the last word on the Kennedy murder. But refuting his thesis should not be easy. "
“The documentary condenses research on the murder of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 into an exciting" true crime story "that presents new results. The trail leads to Mexico City, where the later murderer Harvey Lee Oswald is said to have been briefed by Cuban agents. The order came from the highest Cuban government and is believed to have been Castro's late response to the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. With the results presented by the film, speculations about the attack seem to be a thing of the past. The explosiveness lies above all in the abundance of testimony, evidence and evidence, from which an extremely exciting film was assembled, which at times has the features of a James Bond thriller. "
“What is decisive, however, is that Huismann's evidence turns out to be highly questionable on closer examination, some of which appear to be simply a bluff. A number of claims of the "historical sensation" were also circulating decades ago. "
The filmmakers responded to this Focus article in a statement on the WDR website :
“However, none of the allegations made in the article are new, they are downright“ old hats ”, and none can shake Huismann's thesis. Worse still: the authors of the Focus article did not shy away from ignoring a core journalistic virtue. Uli Martin, one of the authors and Focus editor, expressly refused to have a conversation with Huismann and to look at his research documents - they didn't want to know that exactly. The accusation of insufficient research falls back completely on the Focus editors! "
The American historian David E. Kaiser evaluated the tapped phone calls between the Cuban embassy and the Soviets and found no evidence of a murder assignment. According to the available transcripts, it was only about Oswald and his family wanting to return to the Soviet Union via Cuba.
Awards
Reinhard Gossmann was nominated for the German Camera Prize in 2006. The film had previously received the 2003 Bremen Documentary Award .
background
The title Rendezvous with Death goes back to Kennedy's favorite poem Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger , which ends with the following verses:
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true
I shall not fail that rendezvous
Publication as DVD and book
- The film was released on DVD on September 28, 2006 . This includes a further 30 minutes of interview material.
- Wilfried Huismann: Rendezvous with death. Why John F. Kennedy Had to Die. Pendo-Verlag, Munich / Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-86612-095-8
Web links
- Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy had to die in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Rendezvous with death: Why John F. Kennedy had to die at crew united
- "The main question has now been answered" , Interview by Bernd Pickert with Huismann in the taz , January 6, 2006
- Telepolis: Rendezvous with the quota
Footnotes
- ↑ Many inconsistencies , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 13, 2006, No. 290 / page 7, found on April 20, 2008
- ^ Spiegel Online : Steep thesis, weak evidence . January 5, 2006
- ^ Nils Minkmar: Documentary: Did Castro Order the Murder of JFK? In: Spiegel Online . SPIEGELnet GmbH, December 31, 2005, accessed on November 23, 2013 .
- ↑ Die Zeit : Did Castro have Kennedy murdered? . January 5, 2006
- ^ The daily newspaper : The Cuba Connection . January 6, 2006
- ↑ Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy Had to Die. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Focus : Rendezvous with the bluff . August 14, 2006
- ^ WDR: Statement on the Focus article ( Memento from September 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), 2006
- ^ David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, SS 266 (here the reference to Huismann's film) –276.
- ↑ Filmbüro Bremen , found on April 20, 2008
- ↑ http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Fast-Facts/I-Have-a-Rendezvous-with-Death.aspx
- ↑ Have a rendezvous with death / At night, in a city that is burning, / Spring moves north this year / I keep my word, do my duty: / I won't miss this rendezvous.