Oliver Stone Questioned About Israeli Spy Executive Producing His ‘JFK’ Film

Earlier this month, a newly-formed House Oversight Committee task force held a hearing about the JFK assassination. One of the expert witnesses was famed American filmmaker Oliver Stone, who wrote and directed the 1991 film JFK.

Afterward, Stone and two other witnesses—James DiEugenio and Jefferson Morley, both authors and longtime researchers on this subject—took a few questions out in the hallway.

Journalist Sam Husseini was on hand, and used this opportunity to ask Stone about Israeli billionaire Arnon Milchan, JFK’s executive producer.

In addition to his career in Hollywood, Milchan, who recently turned 80, spent years working on another passion project: espionage on behalf of the Israeli government.

In fact, not only did Milchan spy for Israel, but he also specifically worked for (to quote The Guardian) “an Israeli agency that negotiated arms deals and supported Israel’s secret nuclear weapons project”—the very project Kennedy was working to stop prior to his assassination.

Sam has written about this previously, including in his 2023 article, “Israel and the Kennedy Assassinations.”

Here’s his Q&A with Stone about Milchan:

Transcript:

HUSSEINI: You, Mr. Stone, have talked in recent years about how Kennedy tried to prevent Israel from getting nuclear weapons. Now the executive producer of “JFK” the movie has said that he was a spy for Israel, and that he helped it procure nuclear weapons. When did you know that the executive producer on “JFK” was an Israeli spy?

STONE: After. Afterward.

HUSSEINI: When?

STONE: After I made the film.

HUSSEINI: When?

STONE: And he did not interfere in any way on the film. In fact, he was not the primary force. He came in as a partner with Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers was the one who was making the film with me. And, uh, I– they gave me f– they let me go to say what I had to say. So, Arnon Milchan came in, frankly, on the back side of the case. Didn’t express any opinions. And frankly, I knew he was an Israeli, uh– let’s say a big shot in Israel, and he probably had some intelligence ties, but I didn’t know specifically what he had done.

A short while later, an audience member from the hearing, Karl Golovin, arrived at the press availability, and—having not heard Sam’s exchange with Stone—asked him a similar question (and received a similar answer).

Here’s a video:

Transcript:

GOLOVIN: The film “JFK” was produced by Arnon Milchan, who later confessed to being a spy for Israel, on their nuclear weapons trafficking. Mr. Stone in particularly, do you have any comments on that?

STONE: No, at the time we made the film I didn’t know this. This came out afterward for me. Um–

GOLOVIN: Do you think there’s any way he influenced the focus of the film…?

STONE: No because he came in on the back side of the film. Basically we were going– Warner Brothers was the main [proponent] for the film. They were the most important. I did what I want, and– with all of the research I had. Arnon played a financial role, and that was it. And it was very successful for him. And he went on to tremendous success.

Spying and Propagandizing

Milchan was born in 1944, and began working for LAKAM (aka Lekem), the Israeli intelligence agency responsible for nuclear espionage, in the 1960s, when he was still in his 20s.

By the mid-1970s, he had reportedly already “completed a number of important joint U.S.-Israeli projects in Iran” and was “handling a sizable portion of Israel’s defense procurements.” (He was “Israel’s foremost weapons procurer” for years, according to Los Angeles magazine.)

Milchan was then personally recruited by Israeli defense minister Shimon Peres—the future president and prime minister of Israel, who NBC News has described as “the architect of Israel’s nuclear program”—for a new covert mission: representing Israel in a secret alliance with the government of apartheid South Africa.

Many of the apparent details are laid out in the book, Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, written by Israeli-born journalist Meir Doron and his American-born brother-in-law Joseph Gelman, a former AIPAC consultant.

Both served in the Israeli military as young men, and they seem intent on framing Milchan as a crafty, heroic Israeli patriot, as opposed to a villain. Thus, despite the book’s explosive content—information that most people would likely find shocking and/or incriminating—it’s not exactly written as a “critical” exposé. It is, however, based on direct interviews with Milchan, Peres, and others, in addition to dozens of books, articles, and other public sources cited in its footnotes.

With that said, they describe part of the arrangement as follows:

Secretly, primarily through the services of companies established by Milchan, [Israel] would act as South Africa’s primary defense systems supplier, funneling millions of dollars for purchases from third parties and through direct sales of its own military industries. . . . Every imaginable weapons system needed by South Africa that could not be purchased directly from Israel was purchased on the international market, and instead of ending up in Israel as indicated on the final destination documentation, was diverted to South Africa. As with Israeli procurements, Milchan’s company quickly became the largest defense procurer for the South African government.

Besides “mortars, electronic surveillance equipment, anti-guerrilla alarm systems, night-vision equipment, radars, patrol boats, Bell helicopters, armored vehicles… howitzer artillery pieces… blueprints for its Kfir fighter jet,” and more, Israel—with Milchan as a key point man—provided something else to apartheid South Africa: critical nuclear components.

This reportedly included some 30 grams of tritium, which is used to increase the power of nuclear weapons—enough for as many as a dozen atomic bombs.

Another major part of Milchan’s job during that period: working with South Africa’s secretary of information Eschel Rhoodie and others on a “covert global propaganda campaign” to “attempt to influence world opinion in favor of the South African apartheid regime.” From Confidential (pp. 112, 117):

Their mission was to identify important opinion shapers in Western media and entertainment, such as journalists, cultural icons, and politicians, and target them for subtle recruitment to the South African cause through gentle persuasion, through bribery, or even by buying controlling interests in entire media outlets if necessary. . . . If there was one key financial facilitator in South Africa’s covert global propaganda campaign to improve the image of South Africa, it was Milchan. “I acted at the request of my own country,” Milchan told us.

On the other side of the equation, Israel’s “primary obsession in its relations with South Africa” was, per Gelman and Doron, uranium. “In exchange for military technology and covert public relations assistance from Israel, South Africa would open up an entire world of possibilities in defense contracts” to Israel, “plus access to its vast natural resources, especially uranium.”

Deals facilitated by Milchan and his fellow LAKAM operatives ultimately secured some 550 tons of uranium for Israel…. and South Africa’s help with an apparent undeclared nuclear test in 1979.

Meanwhile, “[Milchan’s] commissions on his South African deals… quickly became the largest source of his wealth—which would ultimately be parlayed into Hollywood blockbusters.”

And thus, for years, he led a double life: one as an increasingly influential figure in the movie industry, working with stars like Robert De Niro, and another as an Israeli spy working with his American collaborator Richard Kelly Smyth—who had set up a front company, Milco International, Inc., in nearby Orange County with Milchan’s help—to covertly “ship long lists of sensitive products to Israel… almost everything a country might need to turn itself into a high-tech, nuclear armed powerhouse.”

This included krytrons, devices that can be used as “sophisticated triggers for the detonation of nuclear bombs,” over 800 of which Smyth illegally shipped to one of Milchan’s companies in Tel Aviv between the years of 1979 and 1982.

“Israel basically built all their centrifuges to enrich uranium based on information that Milchan collected for them,” Doron added in an interview with CBS’s Carter Evans in 2013.

Evans: “So this information that the Israeli government used to build these nuclear centrifuges was obtained from his spying?”

Doron: “Yes, absolutely. Directly.”

“[Shimon] Peres… knew that [Milchan] was one of the most productive and creative operatives that Israeli intelligence had ever fielded. Over the years LAKAM chief Benjamin Blumberg, and later Rafi Eitan, presented him with long lists of highly sensitive items needed for Israel’s secret defense programs and other unobtainable defense-related materials, and through a sophisticated web of front companies around the world he delivered like no one else. Milchan’s mission was to secure these items by any means necessary – everything was fair game. In exchange, he would be treated as a prince among his people. . . . Rules that applied to others did not apply to Milchan; perhaps it was not a ‘license to kill,’ but very close to it.”

–Confidential, pp. 17-18

Executive Producing ‘JFK’

The question of how Milchan came to be the executive producer of JFK was addressed in some detail in the 1995 book, Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker.

“In this first full biography, author James Riordan has interviewed Stone, the actors who’ve starred in his films, and his family and friends, to assemble a complete portrait of Stone’s professional achievements and personal demons,” reads a note on the front flap of the book.

According to Riordan, Stone had met Milchan “years before” writing and directing JFK, and he was the “ace” that Stone had up his sleeve—and ultimately played— when he realized he’d need a lot more money for the film than the $20 million that Warner Brothers had initially committed to.

After explaining the origins of the project, the research that went into Stone’s writing of the screenplay, Stone’s deal with Warner Brothers, and his early attempts to court actor Kevin Costner to play Jim Garrison, Riordan writes on p. 364:

Costner held out, refusing to commit to the role. Meanwhile, there were budgetary concerns. The new budget came in at over $40 million and Stone felt that Warner Brothers was getting a little nervous. And there was increasing concern about the script. Stone knew that a studio talking about doing a controversial movie and actually reading the script were two different things. So far, everything was fine, but he knew the real heat was yet to come. Like any astute tactician, Stone was always careful to protect his backside. He’d been holding an ace for some time and now he decided to play it.

Arnon Milchan is one of the true power players in Hollywood. He’s so friendly and unassuming it’s hard to believe he’s amassed a huge fortune and an even huger power base from foreign arms deals. The owner of Milchan Bros., an Israeli company with interests in half a dozen industries, Milchan has been in the international headlines for making deals to benefit Israel’s nuclear arms program, but he claims defense of his homeland, not profit, has been his motive. His Regency International Pictures is a major force in world entertainment, partnering with German conglomerate Scriba & Deyhle and French pay-TV company Le Studio Canal.

Remember, Stone told Sam Husseini that he “knew [Milchan] was an Israeli, uh– let’s say a big shot in Israel, and he probably had some intelligence ties,” but “didn’t know specifically what he had done.” Here’s Riordan (pp. 364-365):

Milchan’s past and slickness didn’t bother him. Stone likes power players from the fringe because they have an independence and a gutsiness that establishment Hollywood lacks . . . When asked about his relationship with Milchan, Stone made references to The Mask of Dimitrios, a classic film noir starring Peter Lorre as a mystery writer who becomes ensnared by a web of intrigue while tracking an international businessman with shady methods across Europe.

Milchan, however, apparently told Riordan that he was the one who “pushed himself right down” the “throat” of a “hesitant” and “highly suspicious” Stone (pp. 365-366, bold added):

For his part, Arnon Milchan had been eager to work with Stone for some time. “I had met Oliver years before and was impressed with his work because he is a fighter,” Milchan says. “An artist and a fighter. Then I saw him a couple of times at Terry Semel’s house. And this was when JFK started to cook. Now, a few other things were cooking at the same time. I was getting more muscles in the business and Warner Brothers was getting more and more nervous about JFK. I liked Oliver and we met for dinner one night, had a couple of beers, at Spago’s. We were both drunk at the end, but I remember my last words before I collapsed were, ‘Whether you like it or not, I’m going to be your partner.’ And he had this manipulative little grin. I call it manipulative because it does magic on you. He could give you a smile and even if you were just about to kill him, you’d change your mind. Oliver can get away with anything.”

Stone had let it drop that Warner Brothers might be open to a partner on the film, and that was all Milchan needed. “I’m good at feeling when people are hesitant,” Milchan says. “I realized there was discomfort around the project. First of all, Kevin Costner was not committed yet. Warners was a little hesitant. Actually, I practically ignored Oliver and made the deal with Warner Brothers. I said, I’ll put up all the money, let’s go. My agenda was—I wanted the project. I wanted to start the new company, Regency Films, off with a big bang, whatever happened. And I wanted to nail down the beginning of a relationship with Oliver.” . . .

Stone, though he had sown the seeds for the arrangement, reacted customarily. “He was highly suspicious,” Milchan recalls. “Nobody like Oliver Stone wants a partner without being asked. I pushed myself right down his throat, y’know? And I sensed that all he wanted really was a relationship with my French partners, Canal. He thought my being so emotional was some kind of Hollywood game. But Oliver is a great whore, in a good sense. He will do what it takes to make the kinds of movies he wants to make.

“[Milchan] learned how to be a man in the shadows from [LAKAM chief] Benjamin Blumberg. . . . He learned how to create front companies using third-party identities, secret bank accounts, fake end-user documents, diplomatic bounces, and mid-sea rendezvous for shipments. He learned how to recruit and motivate foreign nationals to do his bidding through lust, greed, or any other weakness he could exploit. In short, he learned the art of the secret agent…”

–Confidential, pp. 53-54

“Arnon is a special man. It was I who recruited him. . . . His strength is making connections at the highest levels in countries around the world . . . His activities gave us a huge advantage, strategically, diplomatically, and technologically…”

–Former Israeli Prime Minsiter Shimon Peres, Confidential, p. xi

‘Everything I did, I did in coordination with Mr. Milchan’

Milchan’s role in the creation of the aforementioned front company Milco International, Inc., and his relationship with its founder and president Richard Kelly Smyth, was detailed by Gelman and Doron (also mentioned earlier).

Per an article adapted from their book, Milchan and Smyth first met in 1968, when the latter was working as an engineer for US based-defense contractor Rockwell Inc., a company Milchan was sent to make deals with “on behalf of Israel.”

The two grew closer over the next few years, and “Smyth’s desire to do bigger and better was evident,” so Milchan, “a man of considerable charm… exploit[ed] it”:

…in late 1972, over dinner at Tel Aviv’s Kasbah restaurant, [Milchan] suggested this was the moment for Smyth to make “real money” in his own procurement business by striking out on his own . . . when Milchan emphasized that he could supply him with all of the orders he could possibly handle, Smyth agreed. . . . [Milco’s] dealings with Milchan Brothers—Arnon’s Israel-based company—were simple: Milchan’s office manager, Dvora Ben Yitzhak, working directly with [Benjamin Blumberg, the head of LAKAM], would send a coded telex to Smyth listing sensitive items that they wished to order on behalf of Israel. Milchan himself would make contact only when necessary. “Everything I did, I did in coordination with Mr. Milchan and was in contact with him almost on a daily basis,” Dvora told us in October 2009.

For years, things went great for Smyth…. and for Israel:

Over the following decade, Smyth’s business moved briskly. He was able to ship long lists of sensitive products to Israel: training simulators for air defense missiles, voice scramblers and lasers, computerized flight control systems, thermal batteries, gyroscopes for missile guidance systems, neutron generators, high-speed oscilloscopes, high voltage condensers, and many other dual-use components—almost everything a country might need to turn itself into a high-tech, nuclear armed powerhouse. Smyth’s relationship with Milchan was all-important; over 80 percent of his business with Israel was done through Milchan Bros. and satellite companies such as Heli Trading. Thanks to Milchan, Smyth grew wealthy, maintaining two waterfront properties in Huntington Beach and an apartment on Catalina Island, Calif.

Then, in May of 1985, Smyth was indicted by a federal grand jury for shipping the krytrons to Milchan’s company in Israel. Facing 105 years in prison, he fled the country with his wife:

Taking Milco’s $15,000 emergency cash reserve, Smyth dyed his gray hair black. The couple packed lightly, in a state of deep fear and paranoia, then drove randomly for about 20 minutes, making U-turns and detours, hyper-alert to the danger of being followed. Once satisfied they were safe, they headed for Los Angeles International Airport, where they abandoned their car with the keys in it, and paid cash for one-way paid tickets out of the country.

The pair adopted the aliases of Dr. and Mrs. Jon Schiller, hid out in Spain for sixteen years, received financial support from Israeli intelligence by way of “incremental deposits to their bank account,” and maintained “regular communication” with Milchan’s assistant “via telephone and fax.”

“Dr. Jon Schiller” (Richard Smyth) was ultimately arrested in 2001, extradited back to the United States, and, at age 72, sentenced to 40 months in prison.

As for Milchan: He quickly flew to Tel Aviv after getting word of Smyth’s indictment, but the story had circulated widely enough that he still had to evade a gaggle of Israeli reporters who showed up at his building. According to Confidential (p. 17), this is what happened next:

Milchan calmly got in his car and drove directly to Jerusalem for a private meeting with his close friend and mentor, the Israeli prime minister at the time, Shimon Peres. “Shimon, they are accusing me of doing it for personal gain. You know that I didn’t do it for me; I did it for the country. Now I’m asking for your help.”

Later in the book (p. 167), they pick up on this episode:

A rapid series of phone calls and meetings took place between LAKAM, the Mossad, Minister of Defense, Yizhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Milchan. Then Milchan asked Peres to call Reagan for help. In short order, Israel’s response was formulated, and the telephone rang at the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Within hours of the worldwide publication of the Milco-krytron episode of May 13, 1985, three well-briefed representatives from Israel’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs arranged for a high-level meeting with their American counterparts in Tel Aviv.

Negotiations between the two countries “lasted for days,” they write, and may or may not have involved a call from Peres to the White House, but what apparently did take place around that time was the following (pp. 167-168):

• Israel returning most of the krytrons, claiming that the rest were used for “remote range finders, radar laser detectors, and fire control systems,” and issuing a “formal declaration” that they “didn’t use them for any nuclear purposes.”
• A secret meeting between Peres and Michael Ledeen, the latter of whom was “on a mission from” President Reagan’s national security advisor (Robert McFarlane), and was interested in Israel’s help regarding “ways to influence Iran with regard to US hostages being held in Lebanon” (leading to “the beginning of Israel’s involvement in the notorious Iran-Contra affair.”)
• A phone call from Peres to Sam Lewis, the US Ambassador in Israel

Here’s how Gelman and Doron summarize what happened shortly thereafter (p. 168):

…the deputy State Department spokesman and special assistant to Reagan, Edward Djerejian, made a point of publicly stating that he could “only note that the indictment does not mention any Israeli citizen” in regards to Milco. . . . It’s almost unheard of for an assistant to the president of the United States to go out of his way to to make special public note of who was “not mentioned” in an ongoing indictment procedure. Whatever quid pro quo did or did not take place, Milchan was suddenly in the clear.

Bibi’s ‘Brother’

In more recent years, Milchan, who has said that he and Benjamin Netanyahu are “like brothers,” has turned up as a key figure in one of the embattled Israeli prime ministers corruption cases:

Among other things, Mr. Netanyahu has been accused of intervening twice with U.S. officials to secure Mr. Milchan’s visa as part of a gifts-for-favors affair known in Israel as Case 1000.

According to prosecutors, Mr. Milchan lavished Mr. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, with gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Most of those gifts were expensive cigars and pink Champagne delivered to the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem and his private household in the seaside town of Caesarea — often on demand, according to testimony in court from Mr. Milchan’s personal assistant and his driver [Hadas Klein]. On occasion, Ms. Netanyahu received jewelry too. (…)

The trial has turned into a showcase of the mutually beneficial nexus of money, power and influence in Israel that acquaintances of Mr. Milchan say he thrived in.

“Arnon is a person who is always anxious to be at the center of attention,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister who has known Mr. Milchan for decades. “He needs to be the mover and fixer. He approaches people who are in a position of influence — he made an effort to come close to you if you were a person of consequence.” (…)

Mr. Milchan loved having an open door and an open line to the Netanyahus, Ms. Klein said in court, adding, “He loved saying he was friends with the prime minister.”

“According to the indictment, the personal relationship between Mr. Milchan and Mr. Netanyahu dated to 1999,” writes The New York Times.

According to Richard Kelly Smyth, however, the two go back much further.

In April of 2002, Smyth was interviewed by the FBI, whose report says that someone whose name is redacted—presumably Smyth—“met BENJAMIN NETANYAHU while NETANYAHU worked at HELI TRADING,” one of Milchan’s companies that was involved in the smuggling operation in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Less than a year earlier, after Smyth’s 2001 arrest, and before he was extradited to the United States, Smyth had written a letter to Milchan asking for his help. He said in part (bold added):

At present time, I am in prison in Málaga, Spain, awaiting extradition to the USA for exporting krytrons from the US to your company, Heli Trading, Ltd, using a Commerce License rather than a Munitions License. . . . I have two propositions to make to you which should avoid bringing the case to trial which would be “messy” and you would certainly be called as a witness with all the adverse publicity.

After laying out his proposal, Smyth wrote in the same letter (bold added):

Arnon, for old time’s sake, I would greatly appreciate your granting these two propositions. I was delighted to hear your former employee, Netanyahu, had become Prime Minister of Israel.

Embed from Getty Images

‘I didn’t know’

When asked by Sam Husseini, Oliver Stone first repeatedly said that he didn’t find out that Milchan was an Israeli spy until “after” he “made the film” JFK.

Moments later, he said: “I knew he was an Israeli, uh– let’s say a big shot in Israel, and he probably had some intelligence ties, but I didn’t know specifically what he had done.”

It’s difficult to conclusively prove what Stone did and didn’t know as of 1991, but what we do know from Gelman and Doron’s book and other publicly available sources is this:

As early as 1982, Milchan already apparently had a reputation as a “slippery” “arms dealer making movies” (Confidential, pp. 174-175, bold added):

“[Hollywood director Terry Gilliam] met Milchan on a cold evening in March of 1982 at the Elysée Matignon restaurant in Paris, which served as Milchan’s informal office. The meeting was arranged by Robert De Niro’s agent, Harry Ufland. . . . Milchan was already gaining a reputation as a maverick producer . . . There were also rumors, and perhaps even a certain allure, about the source of his funding, which only enhanced his emerging status as a Hollywood rebel with deep pockets. “Everybody I talked to said, ‘Stay away from this guy. He’s an arms dealer making movies. He’s too slippery. He can’t be pinned down.’ . . . I figured if everybody in Hollywood is badmouthing him, if everyone’s against him, he must be OK.”

Then, when Smyth was indicted in 1985, Milchan’s name was, to quote Gelman and Doron (p. 174), “splashed all over the international press in association with the only nuclear-triggers smuggling scandal ever recorded” (example). They write in Chapter 1:

Publicity is something that any secret agent tries to avoid, and Milchan was particularly averse to it. In the [days after Smyth’s indictment], newspapers around the world reported that krytrons were used as sophisticated triggers for the detonation of nuclear bombs. . . The entire Milco operation was in jeopardy. Milchan feared that a politically ambitious and publicity-hungry US prosecutor would come hunting for him. After a short conversation with [a Newsweek reporter], which consisted mostly of pleading ignorance, Milchan booked the first available flight to Tel Aviv, where, within hours, television crews and photographers were camped out in front of the building where he maintained a penthouse, and the phone was ringing off the hook.

Among those calling: The New York Times, to whom Milchan similarly played dumb.

They had reported on May 17, 1985:

A Federal grand jury indicted a California businessman today on charges of illegally exporting to Israel over a period of three years 800 devices that can be used to trigger nuclear weapons. The businessmen, Richard Kelly Smyth, 55 years old, owns and operates a small trading consulting company in Huntington Beach, Milco International, Inc. . . According to both Mr. Smyth’s lawyer and the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Smyth sent the krytrons to the Heli Trading Company, an Israeli company that is either completely or partially owned by Arnon Milchen.

They then got ahold off Milchan, and wrote in a separate article on May 18, 1985:

Mr. Milchan, 40 years old, said that for the last 12 years he had had no involvement in running Milchan Brothers. . . . “The first time I heard the word ‘krytrons’ was last Thursday,” Mr. Milchan said, referring to May 9. “I was in Paris and about to go to Israel because my aunt had died. A man from Newsweek called me and asked what I could tell him about krytrons? I told him, ‘I have never heard this name before.’… “The Government certainly was not involved in this,” Mr. Milchan said. “Believe me, it was absolutely innocent.”

The New York Times was far from the only publication to cover this, however.

“By late August 1985, the Los Angeles Times and many other publications ran front-page stories on Richard Kelly Smyth’s failure to appear for his trial on nuclear-trigger smuggling charges, and Milchan’s name appeared in almost all of those articles.” (Confidential, p. 183).

The stories about Milchan’s procurement activities for Israel’s nuclear program didn’t stop in 1985, either.

As an example, the Washington Post published a rather lengthy story in October of 1986 headlined “Computer Expert Used Firm To Feed Israel Technology,” which laid out many of the details reported by Gelman and Doron years later. Some quotes:

When they joined the board of directors of Milco International in 1980, [Arthur] Biehl and [Ivan] Getting… thought the company’s primary business was developing aerospace software for U.S. military and space programs. . . . But they soon realized that Smyth, a California-based computer expert, spent most of his time trying to buy equipment with military applications, including a uranium byproduct known as “green salt” that can be processed into weapons-grade uranium, for the government of Israel. Often, they said, the sales were made through an Israeli middleman, Arnon Milchan, a flamboyant businessman who sold arms before becoming a producer of such popular movies as the recent “Brazil.”

(…)

In late 1982, Biehl and Getting resigned from Milco’s board of directors, in part because of their misgivings about Smyth’s dealings with Milchan and Israel.

How Smyth became involved with the Israeli military and Arnon Milchan is a story that suggests as much about Israel as it does about Smyth. It is the story about a country that appears intent — sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly — on acquiring equipment and technology it believes is needed to protect itself. Most of the time, those purchases are made within the law. That was not the way, however, that Richard K. Smyth did business, U.S. prosecutors allege.

(…)

Internal company documents — including business plans and records from board meetings — show that Milco did a majority of its business, perhaps as much as 80 percent, with Israel. . . . without Smyth as its head and Israel as its main customer, there was no way for Milco to survive.

(…)

In January 1973, Smyth founded Milco while still working at Rockwell. His associate recalled Smyth once saying that Milchan provided money to start Milco; this associate said he believes that the name Milco was derived from Milchan.

(…)

On Oct. 30 of [1975], Smyth applied for a munitions license to ship 400 krytrons to Heli Trading Inc., Milchan’s company in Israel. . . . Smyth filed the application after being told by an official from an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency that a license was required, according to court records. Smyth met with the official and told him that “Arnon Milchan [had] requested that a certain number of krytrons be shipped to Israel,” according to a letter filed by William Fahey, the prosecutor in the current case. . . . Smyth’s application was challenged by Marvin Peterson, a U.S. nuclear regulatory official. . . . [who] questioned the large shipment. . . . Smyth revised his application, lowering his request to 20 krytrons. . . . A month later, Smyth withdrew the application, citing the various delays.”

(…)

In 1980, Smyth joined the Air Force scientific advisory panel as a temporary member and then became a full member in 1981. The company’s revenues improved in that period, jumping about $200,000 a year to $1 million in 1980, according to audited records. But Milco reported only $20,000 in profits because it was selling the items to Milchan’s company at cost plus a small commission.

Again, this was 1986, years before Oliver Stone made JFK.

Weeks after the film’s December 1991 premiere, the Los Angeles Times published yet another article about Milchan, “COLUMN ONE: A Mogul’s Bankroll–and Past: Arnon Milchan has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers. His background is unusual: agribusiness and munitions,” which began with the following:

In the controversial film “JFK,” an Academy Award nominee for best picture, director Oliver Stone explores the shadowy machinations of a burgeoning military-industrial complex. It is a world with which the picture’s executive producer, a jet-setting Israeli businessman named Arnon Milchan, has more than a passing acquaintance.

For decades, Milchan has successfully straddled two worlds– methodically carving out a position as one of Hollywood’s most influential movie producers while continuing to manage an international web of companies in industries ranging from arms consulting to agribusiness.

Those dealings have nourished Milchan’s movie career, providing him with the capital to get films off the ground, but they also have landed him in controversy. The 47-year-old producer–described in a 1989 Israeli newspaper story as “probably the country’s largest armaments dealer”–has been linked to two international scandals.

The first, referred to as the South African Watergate, was a pro-apartheid propaganda campaign that shook that nation’s government. The other concerned the shipment of devices, which could trigger nuclear explosions, to one of his Israeli companies.

From there, it goes on to rehash Milchan’s involvement in the Milco-krytrons affair, which, as we’ve seen, had been reported in some of the biggest newspapers in America and beyond since the mid-80s.

If we are to believe Stone’s denials to Sam Husseini, he presumably read this LA Times piece in February of 1992 and learned this stuff for the very first time (possibly saying to himself, “Oh my word.”)

Color us skeptical.

Either way, he continued to work with Milchan, directing the Israeli intelligence operative’s 1993 production Heaven & Hell, then following that up a year later with Natural Born Killers, which Milchan executive produced.

According to Confidential (p. 208), he also flew to Paris in 1994 with dozens of other Hollywood stars including Robert De Niro and Roman Polanski for an “extravagant surprise party” for Milchan’s 50th birthday, and—despite somewhat of a falling out over Stone’s 1995 film Nixon, which led to Stone calling Milchan “as cheap as they come,” “sick about money,” and “obsessed with losing it”—“Milchan continues to invite Stone to various functions hosted at his home. And occasionally, Stone actually attends.” (Again, this was published in 2011.)

“People come to Hollywood to be born again. The promised land of indulgence and amnesia, Hollywood cares little about people’s pasts. Indeed, Milchan’s weapons dealing has, if anything, augmented the aura and mystique of his outsider, bad-boy profile. Moreover, anything done for the benefit of Israel is given a wide berth. ‘I remember a front-page story in London about Arnon and nuclear triggers,’ recalls one of Hollywood’s most prominent producers. ‘Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about it. They think it’s glamorous. It’s like [David] Begelman. Anything goes, as long as your pictures make money.’ “

—Ann Louise Bardach, Los Angeles magazine, April 2000

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Did Milchan Influence JFK?

Stone told Sam Husseini that Milchan “did not interfere in any way on the film” and “didn’t express any opinions.”

He told Karl Golovin moments later that Milchan “came in on the back side of the film… played a financial role, and that was it.”

Whether or not this is true is difficult to ascertain, but here are some relevant facts.

1. Milchan himself says that he was an anomaly when he arrived on the scene in Hollywood specifically because he “wants input on the artistic side” of the films he produces. He’s quoted as follows in Confidential (pp. 201-202, bold added):

I was very quickly perceived as a different creature. I didn’t easily fit in, and I operated outside the standard practices of the time. Most Israelis the people in Hollywood have met were folks like Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus, in the good case. Or more likely, taxi drivers, street venders, and wheeler dealers. Suddenly, they met a person who not only understands the financial aspects of the business, but wants input on the artistic side. It was difficult for others to digest. In Hollywood, there are two parallel tracks – the business side, and the artistic side, and never shall the two meet. People were skeptical.; their attitude amounted to, “What do you understand about art? Stick to the money thing . . . This whole mixing of art and finance was looked down upon. That led to suspicion of my motives…

2. Milchan has bragged about traveling with Stone “to Dallas, to Houston, to wherever he was,” and “being on the set” with him. He said during an acceptance speech at the 2016 IFP Gotham Awards, with Stone in attendance:

“I think between Danny [DeVito] and Oliver [Stone], they shaped my career. . . . Oliver and I were married. . . . Oliver and I, after JFK– and you have no idea. I took this business seriously. I used to travel with Oliver to Dallas, to Houston, to wherever he was, and like thinking, being on the set, he’s making a movie.

3. Milchan said in 2008 that when people like himself contribute big money for a film, “they also give conditions” and “they change your movie.” In response to a question about what advice he’d give aspiring independent film producers, he said (bold added):

…the word “independent” doesn’t exist. The more you call yourself independent, the more you are dependent. Independents are the people who can write a check. The studios, or guys like myself, who actually have the ability to write a billion dollars a year and spend a few hundred million dollars in advertising. The guy who is a so-called independent has to go and raise money. Therefore, he depends on somebody from Korea and Switzerland and France, or the studio has to give him money and then to pay for the advertising. When people give somebody money, they also give conditions. They want less violence, or more sex. All of a sudden they change your movie

4. Stone has said they had to cut out as much as 1/3rd of the original script. Asked in 1991 by entertainment reporter and film critic Bobbie Wygant whether JFK was “the most difficult film” he had done, he replied:

Yeah, definitely. This is– this script was hard. We went through a 200 page script; we had so many details, so much research to do. We were always condensing it and trying to make it tighter. And it was a 4 1/2 hour movie when I finished, and we cut it to 3 hours. We lost a lot of good stuff, juicy stuff, you know. To make something with this amount of research and information exciting, so that you could sit there and be involved, that was the most difficult. I’m very pleased with the result.

With that said, having to pair down a screenplay, particularly one of that length, is (as we understand it) not particularly uncommon in Hollywood, and may well have happened even if Milchan never came on board.

The questions are: When did it occur, what hit the cutting room floor, and what was Milchan’s influence, if any?

In his 1995 book Stone, biographer James Riordan discussed how Stone bought the rights to Jim Garrison’s book On The Trail of the Assassins shortly after reading it in 1988. He then met with Garrison, bought the rights to Jim Marr’s 1989 book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, and hired his own research team:

Once Stone decided to take on the project, he began collecting everything he could find on the assassination. The Jim Marrs book covered an entire spectrum of Kennedy assassination theories, but still there were more, and Stone knew that he would never be satisfied unless he conducted his own inquiry. He hired Jane Rusconi, a recent Yale graduate, to head up a team of researchers and told her to assemble as much material as she could find on the assassination. He also had her look into a host of intriguing characters that previous investigations had turned up as possible participants in the crime of the century. This was as he was finishing Born on the Fourth of July, a full two years before JFK would begin…

“By December 1989 it was time to go public and enlist the help of a Studio,” Riordan writes, going on to outline how Stone ended up making a deal whereby “Warner Brothers would get all the rights to the film and put up $20 million.” (pp. 356-357)

Riordan then quotes Stone explaining the challenge of writing the script and smoothly weaving together several subplots (p. 359):

The film was already going to run over three hours because I was not just dealing with Jim Garrison. It was like four movies. I was doing the Lee Harvey Oswald history, I was doing Dealy Plaza. . . . and I was doing this Mr. ‘X’ story in Washington. Those four elements were very tricky and they took time.

By the time he finished writing the script, his draft had ballooned to the aforementioned 4 1/2 hours—and he needed more money (pp. 360-361):

After battling his way to completion of a solid draft of the script, Stone was pleased. Not only had he found a way to weave the key elements of the conspiracy into the story, but he had a clearer vision of how the film would be shot. He now knew that it would be an exceptional venture, not only in content but in form—the most technically ambitious project he had ever attempted. There was only one problem. “I had told Warner Brothers that it was going to be a twenty-million-dollar movie,” Stone says, “but after I wrote that script it turned into a three-hour, actually a four-and-a-half hour movie at that point, and it went up to forty million bucks.” . . . I hadn’t written the screenplay when I made the deal.”

It’s at that point that he decided to “move on to casting,” since “the increased budget would look a lot better to Warner if he could line up the right stars”—and started sending out the script to a bunch of Hollywood A-listers (p. 361).

Then, he brought in Milchan, because (as quoted earlier, p. 364): “Stone felt that Warner Brothers was getting a little nervous. And there was increasing concern about the script. Stone knew that a studio talking about doing a controversial movie and actually reading the script were two different things. So far, everything was fine, but he knew the real heat was yet to come.”

This was apparently early on in the casting process, which is discussed in detail over the next several pages. It was also apparently well before any shooting took place. Riodan writes (pp. 370-371):

Once Milchan came in with his German and French money, preproduction moved forward rapidly. Alex Ho and Clayton Townsend began marshalling their forces to secure the almost inconveivable demands that Stone claimed he had to have to make JFK all that it could be. This included filming in Dealy Plaza where Kennedy was shot, where no one had ever filmed before. And, of course, Stone wanted to shoot from the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald supposedly fired his rifle. And he had to have the exact window Oswald was supposed to have used. . . . according to Townsend, the hardest part was obtaining permission to restore the outside of the building to its original look. . . . “It took us about five months to get the final okay,” Townsend says.

So, a lot of the “good” and “juicy” material that didn’t make the cut seems to have been removed some time between when Milchan was brought on board and the day the cameras started rolling (p. 374):

The first draft of JFK ran to 190 pages. . . . by the start of shooting he was only down to 156 pages, and cheating on the margins to squeeze in a little extra at that.

Does that mean Milchan had a hand in shaping what did and did not make it into the film?

Stone says no.

We are simply reviewing some of the relevant public record here, to help you assess his statements for yourself.

For what it’s worth, and for those who don’t know: Israel, its nuclear program, and Kennedy’s attempts to stop it are not mentioned in the film at all.

Israel and the JFK assassination

Going back to the “mini-presser” at the Capitol this month: In addition to asking about Milchan, Sam Husseini—along with a couple others who were present, including Karl Golovin—were able to ask Stone, James DiEugenio, and Jefferson Morley several other questions.

Among the topics discussed:

• Kennedy’s attempt to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons program
• CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton’s use of Israeli agents
• LBJ reversing course on Kennedy’s Middle East policy
• JFK and RFK’s attempts to order the Israeli lobby to register as a foreign agent
• “Cui Bono”—the Cuban exiles or Israel?
• Why they think Kennedy was killed

For more background, see Sam’s 2023 article: “Israel and the Kennedy Assassinations.”

Here’s a compilation of clips, starting with what Stone said right after answering Sam’s question about Milchan (seen in the video at the beginning of this article):

Transcript:

STONE: Kennedy did– we have proof that Kennedy was very much against Israel getting the nuclear bomb. And he tried to stop it. Whether that ties in in some way with his death, I could not speculate. I know that Jim has done a lot of research on it. Why don’t you–

DIEUGENIO: We, no, that’s– we put– it’s in “JFK Revisited.” Kennedy was the last guy to essentially say, “We’re gonna go in and inspect this, or you’re not getting anymore funding.” And try and name another president who did anything like that. And the same time– at the same time– and again very few people know this, Kennedy was actually trying to forge a relationship with Nasser. Ok?

HUSSEINI: From Egypt

DIEUGENIO: Who was the leading Arab leader by far at that time. Alright? So, when people say the Kennedy assassination doesn’t matter (Laughs) — I hate to tell you, but it did matter. Cause I don’t think the ’67 war would have occurred if Kennedy had lived.

HUSSEINI: But isn’t it–

MORLEY: And I should say, can say, one of the most benign Angleton documents that came out last March, and March 18th, Angleton’s secret arrangements with his Israeli intelligence officials were laid bare. And we learned a whole lot more detail about how he relied on Israeli sources in building his own intelligence empire. That’s not to say that Israel was involved in the assassination or anything like that. I see no evidence of that.

HUSSEINI: You see– you see no–

DIEUGENIO: There’s a big difference, and I’m glad he brought that up; beause some people have come to the conclusion that somehow the Mossad was involved in the [assassination]. Th– there’s– after studying almost– he’s done it about 30 years. I’ve done it about 32 years. I’ve never seen evidence, you know, of that. But there’s no doubt today that Kennedy’s Middle East policy was as much distorted after his death as his Vietnam policy was.

HUSSEINI: But wasn’t Angleton in charge of the Israel desk?

MORLEY: Angleton was in charge of the Israel account from 1954 to 1974.

HUSSEINI: Okay.

(…)

GOLOVIN: For all three of you — Have we paid adequate attention to the notion that Kennedy’s assassination was a Zionist coup, which brought LBJ, an ardent Zionist, into power, who changed all of the Middle East positions?

MORLEY: I see no evidence of that.

HUSSEINI: Um–

STONE: Well what we don’t like though is the fact that LBJ did the opposite of what Kennedy wanted to do with nuclear weapons with Israel. He com– he okayed it. In fact, when it came out — in ’67, right? — he told the Defense– Pentagon, “Do not reveal this history.”

GOLOVIN: And also concerning the registering of the Israeli lobby as a foreign agent, LBJ reversed that as well.

STONE: I guess so. I didn’t know that. Okay.

(…)

HUSSEINI: Going back to this notion that, you know, the Cuban exiles were pivotal in this: But they didn’t get their invasion of Cuba. But Israel–

DIEUGENIO: No, no, no, that’s– that’s one of the real…

HUSSEINI: But Israel got its nuclear–

DIEUGENIO: …problems of the assassination, is that they didn’t get the invasion of the island…

HUSSEINI: Right.

DIEUGENIO: …like I believe they thought they were going to get.

HUSSEINI: Right.

DIEUGENIO: And so what DID happen, though–

HUSSEINI: But I’m just saying: Israel got its nuclear weapons. I was just, I was just–

DIEUGENIO: Well, that’s not what I was gonna say. What I was gonna say is…

HUSSEINI: I know that’s not what you were gonna say. But I’m just saying, if–

DIEUGENIO: …that the guys who wanted the war in southeast Asia, they REALLY got wh– and see, that’s what his film shows, the 1991 version. That’s what his film shows. It was so far ahead of its time, ya know, that, uh– that K– that Johnston actually h– that’s a real conversation by the way! You know what I’m talking about? Where he says, “Just get me elected, and I’ll give you your blasted war.” He really said that! That’s actually a true statement, that of course– once he put it in his movie everybody tried to run away from it. “Oh no, he really didn’t mean that.” (Laughs)

UNKNOWN WOMAN: Last question guys. Last question.

UNKNOWN MAN: In your opinion, why was Kennedy killed?

STONE: Changing things. He was changing too many things, too fast. He was a major problem for ’68. He was gonna win the second election. And he had a brother. And he had a younger brother. So there was a fear of a dynasty. Of another Roosevelt thing. They were terrified of that possibilty

DIEUGENIO: I know a CIA guy who actually said that when somebody asked him, ya know, “Why did you guys…?” — “He was trying to change things too fast! Who did he think he was!?” And Allen Dulles actually wrote something like that when he was doing– no, he said it to the co-writer of an article that– on the Bay of Pigs. He said, “That Kennedy, he thought he was a god.” Well, I just think he thought he was president and you didn’t like it. You know? (Laughs)

A week before his exchange with Stone, Morley, and DiEugenio, Sam questioned the Trump-Rubio State Department about the JFK assassination and Israeli nukes.

“Every president since has adopted Israel’s policy of refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal,” he noted to State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. “My question to you is: Will this administration finally do so?”

In response, Bruce delivered what appeared to be prepared remarks about the “JFK files” recently released by the Trump administration, and said she wasn’t going to comment on “speculation and conspiracy theories about what was happening regarding that assassination and in the decades that followed”—all while completely dodging the actual question about Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Watch:

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