Did the driver for John F. Kennedy, Secret Service Agent William Greer, turn around and shoot the former president when JFK was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963? No, that's not true: A video posted on social media that makes this claim provides no supporting evidence beyond its grainy images. There also is no proof elsewhere that Greer played a role in the 1963 slaying of Kennedy.
The claim appeared in a post and video on Instagram on January 11, 2023, under the title "THIS REAL ????" The graphics surrounding the video in the post said:
Stay woke 👀
Watch here
Real or fake ?
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Jan 30 17:00:14 2023 UTC)
The video
The 90-second clip comes from a longer 1991 interview (archived here) by then-KUTV news anchor Bob Evans with conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper, who died in 2001. In this segment of the interview, they talk about Cooper's claim that Greer shot and killed Kennedy as he was driving Kennedy in a motorcade on November 22, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated. Cooper, a former naval intelligence officer, said he had access to top-secret documents in that role. This is what he told Evans at the 1:43 mark:
Cooper: The documentation clearly said that the assassin was the driver in the car in which he [Kennedy] was riding in Dallas on that day and it was plainly visible in a film with help from the public.
Evans: Now you brought that film with you. Let's take a look at that, if we can. Here's the film. Go ahead and narrate that for us. Will you?
Cooper: Well, it took me 16 years to find this film, because it has really been withheld. And what you're seeing here is the motorcade on Elm Street, passing in front of the book depository building. Kennedy has been shot in the throat and Jacqueline is pulling him toward her, trying to comfort him, and she's in shock. At this time, you see the driver turn around with a pistol in his left hand, firing over his right shoulder, and shoots the president directly in the head. ...
Watch the driver, his name is William Greer, he was, in fact, a Secret Service agent.
Zapruder film
The film described in the video and the portion shown in the Instagram post is known as the Zapruder film, which was shot by Abraham Zapruder as the motorcade drove by the Texas School Book Depository. The Dallas clothing manufacturer set out to record the visit by Kennedy but instead chronicled his assassination.
Congressional investigation
While Cooper claims the film shows Greer killing Kennedy, the experts disagree. A 1977 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which looked into Kennedy's death and the 1968 murder of Martin Luther King Jr., came to several conclusions about the U.S. president's killing, including that:
THE SECRET SERVICE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, AND CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WERE NOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY.
A nearly identical statement can be found on page 97 of the report.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which is housed on the same level of the old book depository in Dallas that Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have fired the shots that killed JFK from, also addresses the issue. The page on the museum's website, "ZAPRUDER FAQ," says:
DID KENNEDY'S LIMOUSINE DRIVER TURN AND FIRE THE FATAL SHOT?
No. The 'driver did it' theory started with a poor-quality copy of the Zapruder film in which the image was very unclear. What was thought to be a pistol was actually the top of a passenger's head.
Lead Stories asked the Secret Service and the CIA to respond to the video's claim. If either provides a response, it will be added to the story.
Lead Stories has previously debunked claims that Kennedy gave a speech about a slavery plot a week before his assassination, that he was killed for trying to end the Federal Reserve and that the CIA said it killed him.
