The Christchurch Star connection had existed since 1963 but intensified with the release in 1992 movie JFK directed by Oliver Stone, which put forward a conspiracy view of the assassination. It used, as part of its evidence, the front page of The Christchurch Star of 23 November 1963. There were claims that The Christchurch Star coverage of the assassination contained information which was already planned by conspirators before the assassination took place, and distributed in the United States and then sent out to New Zealand very soon after the event. They say Oswald’s background was reported far too quickly and it must have been a CIA-planted cover story. An episode in the film JFK directed by Oliver Stone features ‘Mr X’, identified by Oliver Stone later as Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty (1917 - 2001). Prouty served in the Pentagon and was shown being sent out of the way to Antarctica by those who had planned the assassination. Mr X is seen supposedly buying a copy of The Christchurch Star on the morning of 23 November 1963 at Christchurch Airport. Bob Cotton says that The Star was never published in the morning during his time on the newspaper (from 1958). Bob Cotton also explains that every newspaper has a large store of biographical material, and says that Lee Harvey Oswald was not a stranger to the media. Information on him would have been readily available in American newspapers and media offices and would have been sent out quickly. In 1959 there had been much coverage in newspapers about young men defecting to the Soviet Union and Oswald’s defection had been covered in detail in The Washington Post, The Washington Evening Star and The New York Times. Again it was widely reported when Oswald, now with a Russian wife and child, returned to the United States in 1962. The portrait of him in The Christchurch Star had appeared in The Fort Worth Press on 16 November 1963 |
The Christchurch Star and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 1963.
Mr "X" (Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty) Mr "X" (1917 - 2001). From the 1991 film 'JFK' Holding a copy of The Christchurch Star.
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