Who Killed JfK? with Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien

 

Director Rob Reiner and journalist Soledad O’Brien have dug into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 60 years after the assassination, people still wonder about the event and theories continue to emerge about who was behind JFK's death.

Rainer and O'Brien claim they have found evidence about who was really behind the killing. They host “Who Killed JFK?”, a 10-part podcast series that premiered in November and features interviews with authors, witnesses, CIA officials, and forensic experts as part of their investigation.

The podcast also includes an interview with a former Secret Service agent who earlier this year came forward with “groundbreaking new evidence,” according to iHeartMedia, which is distributing the series.

Their investigation tells them that Lee Harvey Oswald, who was charged with JFK’s assassination but claimed he was a “patsy,” did not act alone. 

Reiner claims there were U.S. government officials, including at the CIA, who were behind the plot to murder JFK and that President Lyndon B. Johnson participated in covering up the conspiracy, and that individuals who have attempted to expose the truth about the assassination were themselves killed.

Other events of the 1960s also play roles in the plot, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Reiner, after starring in All in the Family, has gone on to direct movies including This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, Misery,  A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride. His films also include LBJ and 2017’s Shock and Awe, which his bio says “exposed the lies that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.” 

O’Brien has anchored shows on CNN, MSNBC, NBC and CBS. She currently anchors and produces Matter of Fact With Soledad O’Brien, a Hearst political TV magazine program. Recent productions by her Soledad O’Brien Productions company include Peabody-Award-winning documentary, “The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and streams on Peacock, and multipart series “Black and Missing,” which won the Independent Spirit and NAACP awards and streams on HBO.

Podcast - Who Killed JFK?

Who Killed JFK? For 60 years, we are still asking that question. In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's tragic assassination, legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner teams up with award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien to tell the history of America’s greatest murder mystery. 

They interview CIA officials, medical experts, Pulitzer-prize winning journalists, eyewitnesses and a former Secret Service agent who, in 2023, came forward with groundbreaking new evidence. 

They dig deep into that question which has shaped America, and why it matters that we’re still asking it today.

Reiner has pored over the Zapruder film—the home movie, shot by a Dallas citizen on the route of the motorcade, that inadvertently captured the entire sequence of the assassination.

Episode 1 -. "Shots Have Been Fired"
Who wanted the president dead? And is the unexpected murder of the lead suspect the first clue in the answer to this mystery? 

Episode 2. The Investigations
Was there a coverup? The Warren Commission published a report in 1964 that claimed Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman. But over a decade later, the House Select Committee on Assassinations claimed that President Kennedy was killed as the result of a ‘conspiracy.’ Why the conflicting results? With revelations over the last 60 years, flaws in both investigations are exposed.

All episodes podcasts.iheart.com/WhoKilledJFK

Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien on Spotify

Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien on Spotify is conversations as diverse as America, original reporting from across the globe, award-winning stories, and context on how politics and power shape our world.

These audio podcast segments are 20 minutes and free.  https://open.spotify.com/show/1G51E...

Matter of Fact - The Podcast

Soledad O'Brien's syndicated Hearst news program, Matter of Fact, is also available online and as an audio podcast on several platforms including Apple podcasts, on Spotify and as a downloadable audio podcast via podbean. 

The program may be available on a local station and full video episodes are also online at matteroffact.tv

Your Mom’s Food with Soledad O’Brien

Baby Soledad with her Mom

On The Sporkful podcast mini-series "Your Mom’s Food" the third installment featured Soledad O’Brien (listen to "Soledad O'Brien Cooks Rice, Not Beans").

Soledad's Afro-Cuban mom and Irish-Australian dad got married when interracial marriage was still illegal in parts of the US. Their different cultures didn't really come together at the dinner table.

Her mom offered them her Cuban food heritage, but other than an occasional potato for her father there was nothing from the Irish-Australian. That's not surprising when mom rules the kitchen.

Like many kids, Soledad grew up thinking everyone always had rice and beans at meals. Bringing churros to school on special occasions didn't seem all that unusual.

"I don't think when I was growing up that I really understood how cut off my mom was," Soledad says. Her mother, Estela Lucrecia Marquetti y Mendieta, left Havana in 1947. Her father, Edward Ephram O’Brien, was raised in Toowoomba, Australia.

A young Soledad

Soledad was born in 1966 and there was no chance that her family could go visit relatives in Cuba due to travel bans.

"We were a black/Latino family in a 99 percent white community. There was no Cuban cuisine. All you have left of your childhood is a handful of recipes."

Soledad's mom made Cuban food a big part of their childhood on Long Island, NY as a way to stay connected to Cuba.

Soledad was not much interested in cooking as a kid and still finds little time or interest  in it today, but she regrets that she never learned to cook her mom's black beans. Today her mom has dementia. "My mom made it so well for so long," Soledad says, "It just never occurred to me that there'd be a day that she wasn't going to make them."

In the podcast, Soledad talks about how she keeps her own children in touch with her mom's Cuban culture, despite never learning to cook her mom's cuisine.