Executive Action

Executive Action is a 1973 American conspiracy thriller film about the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, written by Dalton Trumbo, Mark Lane, and Donald Freed, and directed by David Miller. It stars Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan. Miller had previously worked with Trumbo on his film Lonely Are the Brave (1962). Plot A narrator states that, when asked about the Kennedy Assassination and the Warren Commission report, United States President Lyndon B. Johnson said he doubted the Commission's findings. The narration ends by mentioning that the segment did not run on television, and it was cut from a program about Johnson at his own request. At a gathering in June 1963, shadowy industrial, political and U.S. intelligence figures discuss their growing dissatisfaction with the Kennedy administration. In the plush home of lead conspirator Robert Foster, he and the others try to persuade Harold Ferguson, a powerful oil magnate dressed in white, to back their plans for Kennedy's assassination. Fellow conspirator James Farrington, a black-ops specialist, labels this as "executive action". He shows the group that magnicide is indeed a viable option. He refers to the Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley assassinations as examples as well as unsuccessful attempts, including against Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. He explains these attempts were carried out by alleged lone fanatics; later scenes show the grooming process unwittingly undergone by Lee Harvey Oswald to fulfill this role in the conspiracy. Ferguson remains unconvinced, saying such schemes are "only tolerable when necessary, and only permissible when they work". Obtaining his approval is crucial to the conspirators, although Farrington proceeds to organize two shooting teams in anticipation that Ferguson will change his mind. One of the teams is shown during practice in the Mojave Desert, shooting moving targets at medium-to-long range. One of the shooters says that he can only guarantee the operation's success if he fires at a target moving below 15 miles per hour.