Two national trials that happened in the same century had a huge influence on the culture.  The trial to produce a conspiracy, led by District Attorney Jim Garrison in New Orleans is the first example.  Garrison sought to prove the assassination of JFK was orchestrated by government officials.  Kevin Costner plays Garrison in the classic movie, JFK, produced by Oliver Stone.  I just finished reading Nightmare in Dallas.  This popular book is the life story of Beverly Oliver.  Beverly was one of the chief consultants on Oliver's film.  She makes the startling claim that she was actually the famous babushka lady.  The notorious eye witness to the assassination in some of the pictures at the scene of the slaying.  Shortly after she saw the death of Kennedy, she saw smoke coming from the grassy knoll and tried to run over to see who the shooter was.  She claims she used a movie camera to film the entire event but an FBI agent forced her to give up the tape and she never got to see what was on it.  She was a stripper who worked for Jack Ruby.  Jack was connected to the Mob according to this woman.  She still tells people Jack introduced her to Lee Harvey Oswald, who was working for the CIA.  Shortly after this she marries a mobster who tells her to remain silent because he knows about this hit and was connected to it. Several of Beverly's friends are mysteriously murdered in the next few years.  
     Just one of Beverly's claims above, not to mention the entire list, would plummet her into the national archives of history.  To think she was a participant in the other stories included seems to be highly improbable according to critics.  I have met Beverly and know her husband.  She is a genuinely sincere and splendid lady.  Stone and Costner bought her story and she was a chief consultant on the film.  She actually trained one of the actors on how women preformed strip tease in the sixties in Dallas.  The book also claims Sirhan Sirhan was probably hypnotized to kill Robert Kennedy.  It also notes that the New York Times and Times Magazine were unfairly critical of the movie claiming the drama was more myth and rumor than historical fact.  The academic community has not been kind to Beverly and notes that most of her stories do not fit the facts.    She has changed her stories a few times over the years, they write.
     The major theme of the manuscript was that JFK was in the process of becoming a leader in world peace.  He was going to pull out of Viet Nam and make the world a better place to live in. His great vision for the country was taken from the nation by organizations of wicked men.  The work claims we have the right to know who these evil people were.  The work over glamorizes Kennedy and does not mention any of his flaws.  Some historians claims he was all but done for because of his sexual appetites that had placed the national security in jeopardy because of some of his affairs.  Some believe the assassination saved his reputation.  The recent book about the death of Marilyn Monroe is yet another story in the legacy of the Kennedy family.  
     Point here is not to define John Kennedy, but to share how this event shaped our nation.  As the late author Nora Ephron noted, the most significant death of that century happened that month.  It was not Kennedy, but Oswald's death that had the huge impact on society.  She called Garrison a "kook" and noted in her book, Scribble Scribble, several humorous stories about the conspiracy.  One woman called the Dallas Time Herald stating Jack Ruby's brain was controlled by a TV station.
       Stone and his followers have played into the hand of the John Birch Society.  The famous conspiracy organization that provided the footing for the Religious Right.  Former activists from Houston that monitor the Religious Right label it the  "Sons of Birchers."   Beverly Oliver's husband teaches Revelation in churches.  If you check out hard core End of Times groups on the Web you will often run into material on the assassination and how it was part of some secret organization.  One that eventually will control the world.  Perhaps in the same way Ruby's brain was hijacked!  This helps explain the love/hate relationship the Religious Right has with government.  They are super patriots, yet hold views about diabolical organizations that secretly behind the scene move the nation to do self-destructive things.  Many times at their gatherings I have heard them state that only a small percentage of the nation are behind positions they despise.  I have been told more than once you cannot put any trust in the polls.
     The other trial of significance was billed as the trial of the century.  It was the murder trial of J. Frank Norris, the famed pastor of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth.  Author David Stokes notes there were divided views about Norris.  One view held that he carried one gun.  The other view was that he carried two guns.
    Stokes wrote the book, The Shooting Salvationist.  It is the story of this trial taking place in the twenties.  One item of interest is Norris' link to John Birch.  The missionary the John Birch Society is named after.  Birch was in Norris' church and corresponded with J. Frank.  It was noteworthy that Birch worked secretly with the Federal Government as a spy while serving on the mission field.  A proposition that most mission boards would never tolerate.  Birch was an avid anti-Communist and he allegedly had inside information on the secret movements of Communists around the globe.  The John Birch Society is filled with conspiracy theories about secret Communists.  Recall they went around the South telling people that integration was a Communist plot.
     Norris was probably in the Klan and allegedly had several of its members in his church.  He once warned a church gathering that if anyone in San Antonio dared lay a hand on a minister then priests would be hanging by ropes all over the city after the Klan finished with them.  
     Norris would do just about anything to draw a crowd.  He would publicly name names and the sins committed by public officials.  This led to his shooting of one of the mayor's friends.  Which led to the murder trial from which the pastor was acquitted.  Norris once put a wash barrel filled with rattlesnakes on stage to draw a crowd.  
     The pastor did worry about the trial and the publicity surrounding it and how it would impact his church.  He found out it actually promoted his pulpit.  Attendance grew after the episode.  He even set a goal of receiving 1, 000 members into the congregation during this turmoil.  It was a reminder of what I heard Jerry Falwell say;  "There is no such thing as bad publicity if they spell your name right."
     Norris would go on to become one of the most powerful men in the nation.  Although his style did not appeal to most congregations, he set an example for some future ministers.  His identification with the most Right Wing segments of the population did not harm his church attendance.  Of course there were many detractors, but Norris could always replace those who left his ministry with plenty of new faces.
     Recently two Baptist pastors of the largest churches in Texas publicly took legal action to ask for state money to run Christian Academies.  A position Baptist ministers in most circles would never dare take.  It caused them no harm and appears to be appealing to those who attend their congregations.  One of them hosted a meeting a few years ago where speakers noted the secret conspiracy to control the minds of public school students to submit to the One World Dictator.  At the John Birch Society meeting I attended, one of his members was there.  He boasted to me he wrote the literature used by the church for its social activism.