The day the real JFK Jr. met a conspiracy theorist.
The late JFK Jr., now a darling of the QAnon crowd, once sat down to dinner with Oliver Stone. It didn't go well.
Right now, the pro-Trump fascist right-wing of America, exemplified by the batshit crazy QAnon conspiracy theory universe, is apparently somehow fixated on the person of John F. Kennedy, Jr. The son of assassinated President John F. Kennedy died in an airplane crash off Martha’s Vineyard island, Massachusetts, in July 1999. But somehow that hasn’t stopped tinfoil-hatted loons who believe Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton drink the blood of babies, and who also believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential election, from insisting that JFK Jr. is one of them, and will help their fascist would-be emperor return triumphantly to power. A few days ago, in Dallas, Texas—on the very spot that JFK Sr. was struck by Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets on November 22, 1963—a bunch of QAnon nuts held a rally, expecting JFK Jr. to appear with Trump and announce their return. Needless to say it didn’t happen. The Q nuts remain undaunted.
I have so many questions about the JFK Jr. theory, starting with, first, where has he been for 22 years, and second, when did he become a Republican? Important questions, but beside the point.
Although JFK Jr. has been dead since 1999, we do have some evidence of what he would have thought of the QAnon universe if he was alive today. We know because of a very telling 1995 encounter that he had with another conspiracy theorist—Oliver Stone, the Academy Award-winning film director who made the wildly inaccurate conspiracy film JFK in 1991, which spun elegant webs of nonsensical theories about the 1963 assassination of JFK Jr.’s father. There is almost nothing factual in the JFK movie. Stone is rather unhinged about the assassination. Despite the fact that all of the historical evidence—not some of it, but all of it—clearly indicates that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he fired three shots at President Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963, Stone bought into all of the classic and many of the kookiest fringe theories about the event. More than any other public figure, he’s strongly associated with conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination.
It’s noteworthy that the Kennedy family, including the President’s son, does not and never did buy into assassination lore. If there was a legitimate question about whether Oswald had acted as part of a conspiracy, one would expect Kennedy’s family to be tireless in trying to get to the truth. But all the prominent members of the family are on record as stating that they accept the Warren Commission’s conclusion, supported by exhaustive research, that Oswald acted alone. John F. Kennedy Jr. knew from his earliest days who killed his father in such a horrific public fashion: Lee Harvey Oswald did it. There was never any question of it.
In 1995, JFK Jr. launched George magazine, a political-slash-lifestyle publication whose tag line was “the political magazine for people who don’t understand politics.” Kennedy was competing with the New Republic and other well-established political magazines, but also leveraging his celebrity-but-quasi-political image to slide into the space, or at least adjacent to the space, where slick men’s magazines like GQ also sat in the culture. It didn’t end up going off too well, and even from its launch in September 1995 the magazine was scrambling to find subject matter and attractive stories.
One of the editorial staff of George pitched JFK Jr. on the idea of interviewing Oliver Stone. In the fall of 1995, Stone was hot because his new film Nixon—also wildly inaccurate, but less egregious than JFK—was about to come out. The premise of the potential story spoke for itself: what would the son of John F. Kennedy have to say to the man who made a film about elaborate conspiracy theories concerning that event? Kennedy (Jr.) had never even seen JFK and consciously avoided any material relating to conspiracy theories. After all, this was about the murder of his father, which occurred in public. Obviously it was triggering for him. For this reason, it was difficult to get JFK Jr. to agree to meet Stone.
However, George was desperate for salable copy. JFK Jr. agreed to at least a preliminary meeting with Stone to see how such a project might come off. The meeting occurred at a swank restaurant in Santa Monica called Rockenwagner. Two of Kennedy’s editorial staff accompanied him, and he was so uncomfortable that a procedure had been worked out that, if JFK Jr. got too triggered, he would excuse himself to go to the bathroom and the staff members would eventually make some excuse to Stone.
I myself have long experience in dealing with conspiracy theorists, and it’s my observation that, when given the chance to launch into their tinfoil hat obsessions, they’re generally incapable of controlling themselves. This was certainly true of Oliver Stone at that Rockenwagner’s meeting. Almost immediately Stone launched into theories about a second gunman in Dallas. He said something to the effect of, “You don’t really believe it was Oswald alone, do you? Shooting from that far away? There had to be a second gunman.” Kennedy’s response? He had to go to the bathroom. The Stone dinner was scuttled almost immediately. An observer said that Kennedy felt like “Captain Kirk being stalked by the world’s looniest Trekkie.”
Kennedy later told his editorial aides who accompanied him: “I just couldn’t sit across a table from that man for two hours. I just couldn’t.” George went instead with a story about Robert DeNiro and his new picture Casino. Kennedy never spoke to Oliver Stone again.
This is all documented in a biography of John F. Kennedy, Jr. called American Son, written by Richard Blow, who was on the editorial staff of George. The magazine did survive for a while after Kennedy’s 1999 death, but eventually folded in 2001.
Oliver Stone has never repudiated his foaming-at-the-mouth JFK conspiracy theorizing. While he hasn’t made any statement in open support of QAnon, he is today quite pro-Russian—denying, for instance, that Vladimir Putin tried to rig the 2016 election in favor of Trump—and clearly believes many other conspiracy theories. He is not a credible man when it comes to level-headed historical or political analysis.
So, there you have it. Not only would JFK Jr., if he was still alive, have absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump or QAnon, he couldn’t even sit across a dinner table from a conspiracy theorist spouting nonsense about the assassination of his father. I think we can safely assume that John F. Kennedy, Jr. would be a strong opponent of QAnon and Trump—far from being the “Trump 2024” running mate that Q nuts believe he will be.
This, of course, will not dissuade them. No input from the world of rationality ever will. At this writing, there are still QAnon cultists camped out in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, waiting for the return of a man who has been dead for over two decades and would have nothing to do with them if he was alive.
☕ If you appreciate what I do, buy me a virtual coffee from time-to-time to support my work. I know it seems small, but it truly helps.
📖 You could also buy my book, which I wrote in part to take my mind off climate anxiety.
🎓 Like learning? Find out what courses I’m currently offering at my website.
📽 More the visual type? Here is my YouTube channel with tons of free history videos.
💌 Feedback to share or want to say hello? Hit reply on this email or leave me a comment on Substack.