Writer:	Glen Morgan
Director:	James Wong
Star:	David Duchovny (Special Agent Fox Mulder),  Gillian Anderson (Special Agent Dana Scully)
Recurring Role:	Chris Owens (Young Cigarette Smoking Man),  Tom Braidwood (Frohike),  Bruce Harwood (Byers),  William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man),  Jerry Hardin (Deep Throat)
Guest Star:	Gonzalo Canton (Cuban Man (uncredited)),  Steve Oatway (Supervisor (uncredited)),  Colin Lawrence (Troop Leader (uncredited)),  Anthony Ashbee (Corporal (uncredited)),  Pete Mele (Mob Man (uncredited)),  Morgan Weisser (Lee Harvey Oswald),  Donnelly Rhodes (General Francis),  Jude Zachary (Jones (uncredited)),  Marc Baur (Matlock (uncredited)),  Michael St. John Smith (Major General (uncredited)),  Paul Jarrett (James Earl Ray),  Dan Zukovic (Agent),  Peter Hanlon (Aide),  Dean Aylesworth (Young Bill Mulder),  David Fredericks (Director),  Laurie Murdoch (Lydon)

Mulder's first word was JFK. (edit) According to a documentary concerning The Lone Gunmen TV Series, CSM was originally written to shoot Frohike dead. However, the writers liked the characters of TLG so much they hated the idea of killing one off. So they re-wrote the episode to having CSM have Frohike in his sights, but deciding not to kill him. (edit) On one of the covers in the newsstand where the Cigarette-Smoking Man picks up a copy of 'Roman à Clef' bears the cover line "Where the hell is Darin Morgan?". This is a reference to the departure of Darin Morgan from the writing staff of The X-Files. (edit) Walden Roth, the editor who finally buys the Cigarette-Smoking Man's story, is named after Dana Walden, 20th Century Fox's head of drama, and Peter Roth, president of the Entertainment Group for Fox Broadcasting Company. (edit) Cancerman's aliases when meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray are based on supposedly real people. According to some conspiracy theorists, Oswald kept a correspondence with a "Mr. Hunt" before the assassination, and numerous people have named a co-conspirator in the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr. as "Raoul", which Ray calls Cancerman in this episode. (edit)

William Mulder: My one year old just said his first word.
Smoking Man: What was the word?
William Mulder: JFK.
Smoking Man: Catch you later, Mulder. (edit) Lyndon: I'm working on next month's Oscar nominations. Any preference?
CSM: I couldn't care less. What I don't want to see is the Bills winning the Super Bowl. As long as I'm alive, that doesn't happen.
Jones: That'll be tough, sir. Buffalo wants it bad.
CSM: So did the Soviets in '80. (edit) Deep Throat: The craft matches the dimensions of the vehicle spotted over Hanoi when I was in Vietnam with the company that the Marines couldn't shoot down
CSM: Occupant?
Deep Throat: Critical.
CSM: Timing couldn't be worse. The Roswell story we concocted had them all looking in the wrong direction (edit) Man in the Dark: Who will you order to do it?
Young CSM: I'll do it myself, I've got to much respect for the man. (edit) Young CSM: Is there a cover story?
Man With Dark Glasses: Tell them it was done by men from Outer Space. (edit)

The scene where the young CSM is first recruited to assassinate JFK is reminiscent of the scene in which Martin Sheen is given his mission to assassinate Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in the film Apocalypse Now (1979). The scene may also reference The Day of the Jackal, since CSM and the Jackal both count Rafael Trujillo and Patrice Lumumba among their successful past missions. (edit) Factual Error: CSM pulls out stationery for Endeavor International Press that lists an address as 389 La Cienega Blvd., Pasadena. La Cienega Blvd. runs through a large portion of Los Angeles, but it goes nowhere near Pasadena. (edit) Perhaps a moot point, but in the sequence involving the JFK assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald denies having killed Kennedy as the police drag him out of the theater. While he may have done this, it should be noted that Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of Officer J.D. Tippet; he was only accused of Kennedy's murder later on. (edit) This episode contradicts the season 3 episode 'Apocrypha' where young CSM was seen in the 1950's with Bill Mulder as already a shadowy agent and smoking. This episode has CSM still a young man and not part of the Syndicate in 1963, and does not smoke yet.
Also this episode fails to mention anything about the conspiracy with an alien species which is one of the key features about the CSM. (edit) In other episodes the name of The Lone Gunmen's newsletter is "The Lone Gunman", but in the shots of their office door it has a sign saying 'The Lone Gunmen. Publishers of "The Magic Bullet" newsletter'. (edit)

Magazine Title: Roman à Clef
The title of the magazine to which the Cigarette Smoking Man submits his stories is Roman à Clef. The literal translation of this French phrase is "novel with a key." It is a novel in which real events are written up as fiction. The key referred to is not in the text, but in the reader's knowledge of the actual events being described under the guise of fiction. Two well-known romans à clef are Primary Colors, a book supposedly based on William Clinton's presidential campaign, and the film Citizen Kane, a fictionalized account of the life of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. (edit) References: Space: Above and Beyond
There are several references to Morgan and Wong's former series "Space: Above and Beyond" in this episode:

1. The Cigarette-Smoking Man's first novel is called 'Take a Chance'. This is the catch phrase from the series.

2. Certain cases are 'classified compartmentalized. This is a level of secrecy invented by Morgan and Wong for their show.

3. The main character in the Cigarette-Smoking Man's novels is named Jack Colquitt. This was also the name of a soldier in the "Space: Above and Beyond" episode 'Who Monitors the Birds?'. (edit) CSM: Life is like a box of chocolates...
The first line of the Cigarette Smoking Man's rant is taken from the 1993 Robert Zemekis film Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks. (edit)