Jeremy Bojczuk

Keven Hofeling writes: No. Although the first-day copy which Stolley took possession of on the 23rd was certainly unslit, at least one and probably both of the other two first-day copies was slit, along with the original. According to Wrone, pp.26-27: Wrone cites interviews with Erwin Schwartz and Phil Chamberlain (e.g. "Chamberlain video interview. He is adamant on this."). The fact that Brugioni dealt with a slit 8mm film does not imply that he was dealing with the original. It looks as though both of the copies which Zapruder gave to the Secret Service were slit on the evening of the 22nd, and Brugioni was dealing with one of them. Thirty-plus years later, he assumed wrongly that it was the original, and a far-fetched conspiracy theory was born.

To paraphrase Roger Odisio's comment: there's no documentary evidence for any of this, but I'm going to keep believing it anyway. Of Roger's many unsupported assumptions, one in particular interests me. It's that whoever was behind the assassination: did the job properly by using more than one gunman firing from more than one location; and wanted the public to believe that the assassination was committed by a lone assassin; and had control of the Zapruder film; and decided to conceal evidence of more than one gunman by altering the Zapruder film. I wouldn't argue with the first claim, and I've already pointed out the problem with the fourth claim. But I'm not sure anyone has managed (or even attempted) to justify the other two claims. Claim no.2 in particular is puzzling. It's clear that bureaucrats in Washington, for straightforward institutional reasons, wanted the public to believe that only one gunman was involved. But why assume that the conspirators would want this? After all, if the conspirators wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which seems plausible to many people, given the history of the chosen patsy, wouldn't evidence of multiple gunmen be exactly what they wanted the public to see? This thread isn't the right place to discuss this point, by the way. I'm just curious about how the alteration of some or all of the Dealey Plaza photographic evidence fits into a coherent account of the assassination.

Pat Speer writes: Correct. This took place on the evening of the 22nd. Yes. The FBI took possession of one copy on the afternoon of the 23rd. This copy was sent to FBI HQ that afternoon (see Robert Morrow's comment). Zapruder handed over the original film and the third copy to Life on the morning of the 23rd. Technically, what he sold on the 23rd were "exclusive world wide print media rights" to his film, rather than the physical film and the physical copies. His contract with Stolley on the 23rd mentioned that Life would return the film to him at some unspecified point. This deal was superseded by the one agreed on the 25th, in which Zapruder sold the physical film and all three copies, two of which he still owned up to that point even though he had allowed the Secret Service to borrow them for non-commercial use. We know from at least two sources that Zapruder's first-day copy was handed to Stolley on the 23rd: Stolley's account in Esquire (https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/ : "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building." Zapruder's contract with Life, dated Monday 25th: "You [C. D. Jackson] acknowledge receipt through your agent [Stolley, on the 23rd] of the original and one (1) copy thereof," That sentence continues: "and it is understood that there are two (2) other copies, one (1) of which is with the Secret Service in Dallas, Texas, and one (1) copy of which is with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C." Zapruder and Jackson were unaware that the Secret Service in Dallas had handed their remaining copy the previous day to the FBI, who had sent it to FBI HQ in Washington. It is this copy which must be the one examined at NPIC on the Sunday (if anything was in fact examined there that day). As far as I'm aware, one of the two first-day copies which were handed to the Secret Service on the 22nd is now in the national archives. I don't know what happened to the other one. Life's first-day copy was given to the Zapruder family in 1975, and was later handed over to the Sixth-Floor Museum, where I presume it still resides. As for Alexandra Zapruder's book, it is on my shopping list, but it might be a while before I get around to buying it. The history of the various first-day copies after the weekend of the assassination is confusing but not of much relevance to the claims of alteration, which can only plausibly have been carried out that weekend. Any later, and second- and third-generation copies start accumulating, all of which would have had to be rounded up, reproduced using a hypothetical altered 'original', and replaced without anyone noticing, a close to impossible task.

Chris Davidson writes: One possibility is that the FBI's expert had forgotten about the splice by the time the memo was written, more than three years after the event (the memo mentions Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment, which was published in August 1966). Another possibility is that the expert gave the matter no importance at the time. He would surely have been interested in what the film contained, and the quality of the detail, rather than on the lookout for damage to the film. And, according to the memo, the expert only examined the film "briefly". It's reasonable to assume that the expert at the showing on 25 February 1963 was Lyndal Shaneyfelt, who testified about the occasion to the Commission in June 1964 (Hearings and Exhibits, vol.5 pp.138-165 : https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=40#relPageId=148). Shaneyfelt appears to be unconcerned by details such as which generation of the film he is seeing. He mentions on p.177 of his testimony that the film he is in the process of showing the Commission is "The original Zapruder film", then changes his mind and describes it as "the first copy ... This film we just viewed is a copy made directly from the original Zapruder film of the actual assassination". But it appears that it wasn't even a first-generation copy. The film in question was designated Commission Exhibit 904, but upon later examination CE 904 turned out to be further removed than Shaneyfelt claimed (see Wrone, p.54, who cites an interview with Harold Weisberg as well as Weisberg's Whitewash II, p.213). A more remote possibility is that the film which Herbert Orth, who was the number two guy in Life magazine's photo lab, showed to the commission on 25 February wasn't the original but Life's first-day copy, which didn't have a splice. Or it could have been a later copy made from the original. Life does appear to have represented this film as the original, but I'm not sure we can completely rule out a bit of subterfuge: at the end of the memo Chris provided, we see that "Life was reluctant to release it [the original film] to the Commission." And it's unlikely that anyone at the meeting would have spotted the difference, especially after only examining the film "briefly".

Greg Doudna writes: Sorry, I was in a hurry when I scribbled my earlier reply to Greg; I just wanted to convey the huge range of things that would need to be done to create a faked 'original' from either the actual film or one of the first-day copies. The copy which Zapruder retained on the evening of the 22nd, and which he sold to Stolley, ended up in Life's offices in New York. Wrone writes (p.35) that "sometime on Sunday in New York City, Life's publisher C. D. Jackson viewed with horror the images on the newly arrived film." Wrone cites video interviews with Stolley (which I haven't seen) for this information. Anyway, this "newly arrived film" can only be the first-day copy which Zapruder retained and then sold to Stolley on the Saturday morning. It was presumably sent to Chicago along with the original on the Saturday, and was sent from there to New York, arriving on the Sunday. To answer Greg's question, the first-day copy which Zapruder retained appears to have been in New York at the same time as a different film was being examined at NPIC after perhaps having been processed at Hawkeye Works. So Zapruder's copy cannot have been used to make an altered version of the film. One thing I got wrong in my earlier reply was about the revised version of Life magazine going to press on Monday 25th. In fact, the edition of the magazine which contained frames from the film had gone to press earlier than that. It first appeared in news-stands on the morning of Monday 25th (see Wrone, p.35, citing p.376 of the Wainwright book I mentioned earlier). So any alteration and substitution of the Zapruder film, whether of the original or a copy, must have been completed on the Sunday. In short, there's no chance that a Kodachrome film could have been altered at Hawkeye Works on the Sunday, and then examined at NPIC on the Sunday, and then flown to Chicago on the Sunday, and frames printed from it on the Sunday, and the magazine laid out on the Sunday, and the magazine going to press on the Sunday. And no-one at Life noticed that this sequence of events was contradicted by the story that the original film arrived on the Saturday afternoon and was damaged that evening. Anyone who claims the film was altered needs to come up with a scenario which takes account of the facts for which we have documentary evidence, and support their scenario with properly documented evidence rather than speculation based on 30-year-old recollections, which is all we've seen so far.

Pat Speer writes: Yes. There doesn't appear to be any sort of credible scenario in which a copy was altered to make a fake 'original', then three copies were made from that fake, and finally the fake 'original' was carefully 'damaged'. I'd be interested to see if anyone can in fact come up with such a scenario, and whether there is any documentary evidence to support it. We're still waiting for documentary evidence to support Roger's scenario. One thing McMahon was clear about was that he was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict with some form of dementia. See McMahon's ARRB interview with Horne, reproduced at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=181453:

Greg Doudna writes: To do that, something like this sequence of events must have occurred: seize the original from Life in Chicago; fly it to Rochester NY; examine it closely to decide which parts needed to be altered and how to do it; actually perform those alterations (and how many hours would that have taken, if it was even physically possible?); produce a Kodachrome version of the altered film, to stand in as the original Zapruder film; create three copies of the intact altered film, with all the correct markings and the appropriate physical structure, to stand in as the three first-day copies; recreate the damage which had been caused by the technician in Chicago on the Saturday evening; send the altered and correctly damaged 'original' film to Chicago so that Life could make copies of the frames which were included in the next edition of the magazine, which appears to have gone to press on the Monday; destroy Life's first-day copy which by this time was in Life's office in New York, and replace it with one of the fake 'first-day' copies; track down the other two first-day copies, destroy them, and replace them with the remaining fake 'first-day' copies; track down any other copies that had been made in the mean time from the real first-day copies, and destroy them; track down all the people who had been handling and working on both the original film and the three first-day copies, and ensure their silence; and probably some other close-to-impossible tasks I can't think of at the moment. Succeeding in doing all of this, without being discovered or leaving an obvious trail of evidence, sounds somewhat unlikely, to put it mildly. I suppose it's possible in theory, in the same way that it's possible in theory for the same person to win the lottery every week for a year and then get struck by lightning every week for the next year. Tom and Jean: another book that might contain useful information is Richard Trask's National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005. I haven't read it, but it's on my (long) list of JFK books to buy once I can find time to read them. Trask's Pictures of the Pain is a very good account of the photographic evidence in general, though it doesn't go into much detail about the Zapruder film's chain of custody.

This is worth reading too: Chris Scally, 'Zapruder Film Chronology', Dealey Plaza Echo, vol.15, no.2, pp.3-11 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146539#relPageId=6)

Documentary evidence does, however, exist which contradicts Roger's claims about what happened to the original film and the three copies. Let's look at each claim: Correct, though not in the way Roger thinks. The plane in question was heading to Life magazine's photo lab in Chicago, not the CIA's photo lab in Washington. We can be sure that the plane was heading to Chicago because the film was examined in Life's photo lab in Chicago that afternoon, and because the damage to the original film was done in Chicago that evening (see, for example, Loudon Wainwright, Life: Great American Magazine, Knopf, 1986, pp.357-376). False. It wasn't the CIA who "left Dallas with the original film they had just bought", but Richard Stolley of Life magazine. Whether Stolley himself couriered the film to Chicago is unclear, but it was Stolley who bought the film (and one copy) and was responsible for sending them to his employers in Chicago. In his article for Esquire magazine ('What Happened Next', Esquire, 1 Nov 1973: https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/), Stolley wrote: "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building." False. When he sold the film to Life on the Saturday morning, Zapruder no longer possessed three copies. He and his business partner Erwin Schwartz had handed over two copies to the Secret Service in Dallas the previous evening. We have documentary evidence for this: a hand-written memo by the Secret Service agent they dealt with, Max Phillips, dated 9.55pm. The version of the memo in Commission Document 87, page 66 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=49) is almost illegible, but there is a partial transcript of the original in David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp.27-28: "Enclosed is an 8mm movie film taken by Mr A Zapruder ... Mr Zapruder is in custody of the 'master' film ... [Zapruder gave] two prints to SAIC Sorrels, this date." Phillips attached his memo to one of those copies, which he sent on a flight to Washington. That copy must have arrived in Washington very early on the Saturday morning, several hours before Zapruder sold the original and the remaining copy to Stolley. So ... we have good evidence that one Zapruder film, which can only have been the original, arrived in Chicago on the Saturday afternoon, and that another Zapruder film, which can only have been the first Secret Service copy, arrived in Washington on the Saturday morning. We also have good evidence that one Zapruder film was worked on at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington on the Saturday. Until documentary evidence is presented to support Roger's claims, the only realistic conclusion is that the film at NPIC on the Saturday was the Secret Service copy which Max Phillips sent to Washington late on the Friday evening. Why is that copy the prime candidate for the film that was worked on at NPIC? Three reasons come to mind. Firstly, the Secret Service big-wigs must have wanted to examine the film which they had asked their colleagues in Dallas to send to them urgently. Secondly, if we assume that the Secret Service did not possess its own specialist photographic interpretation facility, it is reasonable to assume also that they would ask to borrow the services of a fellow agency. Thirdly, it was Secret Service agents who brought the film into the NPIC; Secret Service agents who examined the prints that were made; and Secret Service agents who took the film away afterwards. One question remains. What was the film that was worked on at NPIC on the Sunday, after perhaps having been processed at the Kodak plant in Rochester, NY? This film can't have been the original, which had already been processed in Dallas and damaged in Chicago. It must have been one of the two remaining copies, or a copy of one of those two copies. The most plausible candidate is the second of the two Secret Service copies, the one which remained in Dallas overnight on the Friday. Two FBI memos on the Saturday allow us to work out what happened to that second Secret Service copy. A memo from DeLoach to Mohr (NARA RIF 124-10012-10183) asks for a copy of the Zapruder film to be sent to FBI HQ. A memo from Shanklin to FBI HQ (NARA RIF 124-10017-10033) asks the FBI lab to make three copies of the film, "one for Bureau use and two to be returned to the Dallas office by the most expeditious means possible." On the Saturday afternoon, the FBI borrowed the Secret Service's other copy, which had remained in Dallas, and flew it to Washington with instructions for the FBI's lab to make copies of the copy. The FBI's lab lacked the equipment to do so, but copies were made, either at the Kodak plant in Rochester on the Sunday or by an outside contractor on the Monday, or perhaps both (for a full account of the FBI's use of the remaining Secret Service first-day copy, with documentary sources cited, see Wrone, op. cit., pp.29-31). If a version of the Zapruder film was in fact processed at the Kodak plant that weekend, the only candidate for which documentary evidence exists is a copy of this Secret Service copy. The film that was examined at NPIC on the Sunday must have been either this first-day copy, or a copy of this copy. As things stand, the existing documentary evidence suggests very strongly that the film which was at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original but the Secret Service copy which had been flown to Washington, arriving very early that morning. The existing documentary evidence also suggests that if a version of the Zapruder film was processed at Hawkeye Works, it would have been a copy of the other Secret Service copy, which was borrowed by the FBI and flown to Washington later on the Saturday. If, as the existing documentary evidence indicates, the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

Several pages ago, Roger Odisio made some claims about the chain of possession of the original Zapruder film and the three copies which were made shortly after 6pm on the day of the assassination. Roger writes: and: I would be very interested to see whatever documentary evidence exists to support Roger's claims. I suspect that there isn't any, but I'd be happy to be corrected. Could Roger (or anyone else) please cite these documents, along with links to any of them that are available online?

The definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film is David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003). If you're after a detailed account of the is-it-a-fake-or-isn't-it debate, this article might be worth reading (I couldn't have put it better myself): http://22november1963.org.uk/zapruder-film-genuine-or-fake

Keven Hofeling quotes Douglas Horne: So they have discovered an apparent anomaly in a fifth-generation copy, using methods that have not been fully described and which may have subjected this fifth-generation copy to an undisclosed form of digital manipulation which might itself be the cause of the apparent anomaly. The process appears not to have been replicated by anyone who possesses the appropriate technical skills and knowledge. This isn't much, although it is at least a step up from the usual amateurish anomaly-spotting game that has been getting us nowhere for decades. But, as Tom points out, the whole enterprise needs to be subjected to peer review if it is to be taken seriously. Get all the evidence together, write it up, submit it to a genuine scientific journal, and await the verdict of people who know what they are talking about. If it passes that test,* Wilkinson's study may actually suggest (but not prove) that the anomaly in this fifth-generation copy cannot have an innocent explanation. The next stage would be to get some independent experts on board and demand access to the original Zapruder film that's in the archives. If the film in the archives isn't the original but a copy, that fact should become evident upon close examination (Zavada, of course, already examined it closely and didn't find any evidence that it was a copy). If, on the other hand, the film in the archives isn't a copy but the original which has had black patches added to specific frames, that fact too should become evident. There's a long way to go before we will be justified in believing that the film has been altered. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the Wilkinson project falls at the first hurdle, by failing to demonstrate that the apparent anomaly wasn't caused by whatever digital manipulation was used. -- * If it doesn't pass that test, blame the CIA / Bilderberg / masons / lizard people and keep on spotting anomalies for the next few decades.

Sandy Larsen writes: I accept that Sandy doesn't intentionally punish people simply for disagreeing with him, but his reply illustrates the point I made. The people whom Sandy has punished have been, more often than not, people who disagree with positions Sandy actively advocates. When this happens, the impression inevitably arises that the former might be a consequence of the latter, even if no conscious intention exists. This is especially the case when a member is punished for no obvious reason, as in the case of Greg Doudna and Jean Paul Ceulemans. I've read their posts in the ridiculous, all-caps, PAT SPEER IS A HERETIC AND MUST BE BURNED AT THE STAKE! thread. Unless the offensive comments were removed before I got there, neither Greg nor Jean Paul appears to have done anything worthy of suspension. The only remaining reason for punishing them would seem to be the fact that they disagreed with Sandy, who was thus tempted to zoom in on some form of words which, under microscopic examination, could be taken to contravene one of the forum's rules. Any moderator who actively promotes positions which are controversial and divisive will generate suspicions of unfairness when they act against those who disagree with them. That's why Sandy, and anyone else who actively promotes divisive positions, ought not to have the power to punish other members. At the very least, a mechanism should be in place to prevent a moderator sitting in judgement on others while that moderator is actively involved in the thread in question.

I discussed the root of the current problem in the following post. This was back in January, when Sandy had barely begun dishing out punishments to members who disagreed with him: Caesar's wife comes to mind. A moderator must not only act fairly; he or she must be seen to act fairly. A moderator who actively promotes far-fetched beliefs will inevitably generate suspicion whenever he uses his moderator's powers against those who disagree with him. If people suspect, rightly or wrongly, that they won't get a fair deal on this forum, they are unlikely to hang around or even join in the first place. Hence the paucity here of lone-nutters and non-paranoid conspiracy theorists. I'm aware of several ex-members who questioned one or more far-fetched theories and were either banned or left of their own accord as a result. It's good that Sandy devotes time to the administration of this forum. The Watercoolers feature, which I assume Sandy had a hand in creating, was an effective way of defusing partisan political disagreements that had nothing to do with the JFK assassination. But the power to suspend or ban members should not be in the hands of people who actively promote far-fetched or otherwise divisive beliefs, because at some point those people will act against members who disagree with them, and suspicion will be generated. Personally, I think the panel of moderators should be entirely (or, at worst, largely) comprised of people who do not actively promote such beliefs. Whether enough suitable members can be found is another matter. (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30072-theorist-shamers-should-be-ashamed-of-themselves/?do=findComment&comment=526851)

Douglas Caddy writes: This sounds very much like a scam. Now that most people have got out of the habit of answering phone calls from unfamiliar numbers, scammers are using Windows Defender pop-ups instead: https://informationsecurity.wustl.edu/scam-of-the-month-windows-defender-pop-ups/ There's a similar story here: https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/computer-scam-locks-users-computer-instructs-you-to-call-microsoft-technical-support Another similar case is mentioned on this Microsoft forum: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ms-windows-defender-and-asks-me-to-call-a-specific/29da9b77-6aca-4920-8d01-1f000d54b7b9 Here's some official advice about how to identify computer scams and what to do if you think you've been scammed: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-and-report-tech-support-scams That page on the FTC website points out that "Security pop-up warnings from real tech companies will never ask you to call a phone number or click on a link." More evidence that if you're being asked to phone Microsoft, you're about to be scammed: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/what-is-telephone-number-for-security-support/382298f3-3caf-477f-883d-147a1e24033a That forum suggests that you download and use the free version of Malwarebytes security scanner and Microsoft's safety scanner, to identify and remove any nasty software the scammers might have installed on your computer: https://www.malwarebytes.com/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/defender-endpoint/safety-scanner-download?view=o365-worldwide Advice from Microsoft on what to do to protect yourself: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-yourself-from-tech-support-scams-2ebf91bd-f94c-2a8a-e541-f5c800d18435 More advice on what to do: https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-microsoft-security-alert/ If you handed over details of your bank account and credit cards, please get in touch with your bank and your credit card supplier as soon as possible and let them know what happened. There almost certainly was no purchase; it's just a story made up by scammers. When you get in touch with your credit card company, ask them to look into any unusual purchases. The Watergate book sounds interesting. I'm sure the CIA had nothing to do with this episode.