Josiah Thompson

This is great, Jack. When it is established that all attempts to show discrepancies between any films and photos taken in Dealey Plaza have failed, is this your backup position? If they all agree, this is because the conspiritors... "the "animators"... made sure they conformed." This is wonderful. You are then absolutely protected from any empirical evidence to the contrary. You have set up a completely unfalsifiable position. You are finally safe from all those folks raising nasty questions about what the evidence really shows. Even if you have no shred of proof you can continue to believe what you want to believe. Wow, Jack. Like Shakespeard says somewhere, "That way madness lies!!" Josiah Thompson

You wrote: "Exotic weaponry tested in Oklahoma City was then used to bring down the twin towers." Having served as Tim McVeigh's defense investigator in the Oklahoma City bombing, I know a little bit about that bombing. This is not just silly. It is preposterous. The federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by a bomb constructed of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil... the sort of materials you could buy at your local feed store and fuel depot. This is not controversial. It is simply the unvarnished, established truth of the Oklahoma City bombing. Josiah Thompson

This is a really interesting post, Will Emaus. But how would you "take an inventory of all cameras in the plaza?" A rolling inventory wouldn't do you much good. You'd have to know right away what you were dealing with to judge whether to make the changes you have in mind. But the only way you could get an idea of what cameras were cranking away in Dealey Plaza would be to look at the films and photos you have of Dealey Plaza. And that would be always incomplete. Take the Nix film for example. Nix kept the film in his camera through the following weekend where he photographed on the same film a high school football game. If you were screwing around with the Zapruder film, the Nix film showing up a week or ten days later could sure cause you a world of woe. I guess my basic point is that you couldn't put together "an inventory of all cameras in the plaza" or an "overview of how many cameras were in which area" until long after the event. Until long after the films or photos you want to alter have passed through multiple copies after being returned to their owners or, in the case of the Zapruder film, having been published in millions of copies in a national magazine. I'd be interested in what you think of these considerations, Will Emaus. Josiah Thompson

Nope, Jack, that's not the way it goes. For example, take a look at the thread currently up concerning Chaney's claim he sped ahead of the limousine to deliver a message to Chief Curry. The Zapruder film shows nothing like this. Rather it shows Chaney being left in the dust as the limousine accelerates out of there. You claimed the discrepancy between what Chaney said happened and what the Zapruder film showed was evidence that the Zapruder film was faked up. We showed that the Bell, Nix and Muchmore films all matched the Zapruder film. You did what you always do when bothered by the pesky problem of film corroboration for the Zapruder film. You said they all had been faked up! Then Craig Lamson posted the McIntire photo that confirms what the other films showed... Chaney trailing by several hundred feet as the limousine comes even with Chief Curry's car. You were asked if you believed that the McIntire photo had been faked up. You declined to answer. Was that because you knew the McIntire photo had never been in government hands? That's the way it goes, Jack. Josiah Thompson

You make a devastatingly simple point, Mark. If the alterationist position is correct... that is, if all the photos and films from Dealey Plaza are deemed to be fakes... what do we have left? Physical evidence like bullet fragments, holes in clothing, lead smears on the inside of the windshield? But all of this physical evidence was collected by government agents and in government custody. If the film evidence from Dealey Plaza (including films the FBI never heard of until after they had been shown on TV) is deemed suspect, then the physical evidence is even more suspect. What does that leave you with? Eyewitness testimony. But empirical studies by Elizabeth Loftus have pointed out again and again that almost every factor that degrades the reliability of eyewitness testimony was present in Dealey Plaza. That is why the eyewitness testimony we have is contradictory and malleable over time. The truth is that if the alterationists have their wish they will have destroyed the ability to offer any founded opinions about the Kennedy assassination. If it is true that government agents were involved in the assassination, then the alterationists will have achieved the final government cover-up. Oddly enough, then, the alterationist position is then disclosed for what it is... the "final solution" of obstructionism. The reality, of course, is quite different. For four decades, we have relied on the amazing good fortune that Abe Zapruder climbed up on that pedestal and that Mary Moorman shot her Polaroid, to anchor what we were saying about Dealey Plaza. The photo evidence properly has beer the armature we used to build an understanding of what happened there. The alterationists have tried for almost twenty years now to make their claim through a series of arguments about anomalies... that is, discrepancies between the Zapruder film and eyewitness testimony or other films. After nearly two decades of trying, not a single argument stands up. "Anomaly" after "anomaly" have been offered and then explained innocently. It is simply not true that the FBI was even very interested in film evidence of the assassination. Another thread has shown how they came tardy to the Muchmore film after it had been acquired by a news service and shown on TV. The Moorman photo was put out on a wire service within an hour or so of the shooting, long before it even came to the FBI's attention. The FBI sent an agent to one photo lab in the Dallas area and that was for about a week. The other two labs (including the Kodak lab) contented themselves with sending out a notice with processed film asking the person to contact the FBI if their film was of the assassination. Given such a loose hold on the film and photo evidence, it would have been madness to try to fake something up. Why? Because the other films... those undiscovered, those viewed and then returned to their owners, those processed in other cities, those put away and only processed much later... would make the fake film stand out. After all the angry words, the evidentiary situation remains unchanged. Josiah Thompson

My answers are in boldface.

Like me, I imagine all of you are looking at the TV footage from Haiti. Pretty awful. I’m sitting here in my home only about 220 yards from the San Andreas Fault thinking about what would happen with a similar quake here. Last time... the Loma Prieta quake... I was on the Golden Gate Bridge when it hit. I thought I’d gotten a flat tire. I pulled up at the toll station, opened my door and looked back at my left rear tire. It was fine. Then I paid my toll and noticed that all the traffic lights were off on Lombard Street. When I got to Union Street, all my friends were out on the street. That’s when I learned there had been an earthquake. Back to the point at issue... I found an 8" by 10" print of a close-up from Z 317. This would have been an enlargement from a negative of the whole print like the one I posted before. It comes from a negative taken with Plus X film of LIFE’s 4" by 5" transparencies. They were made from in camera original. Hence, my negative is a copy of a copy. Here it is: Jack White posted a color enlargement of Z 317. He has not stated where he got it. Here it is: Finally, Doug Horne published a black and white copy taken from the 6000 mp digital copy of a fourth or fifth generation copy of the original. It is published on page 187 of Volume I or his book. Here it is: My problem is that I cannot scan transparencies with the equipment I have. To scan my transparency, a close-up taken with Ektachrome of LIFE’s 4" by 5" transparency of Z 317, I would have to take it to a professional photolab in San Francisco. I’ve done this before with negative of the Moorman photo that I obtained by copying her Polaroid in 1966. However, it is kind of a pain and it will cost a couple of hundred bucks. I’m wondering whether that is really necessary. Why? Because Jack’s enlargement shows just about what I see in my transparency. The color balance is a bit different because I was shooting Ektachrome and Jack’s copy is Kodachrome but they are almost identical in terms of detail. This can be seen by comparing my black and white close-up above with Jack White’s closeup. Now look at the black and white photo Horne published. It is different from both Jack’s color close-up and my black and white close-up. In Horne’s photo, there does seem to be some sort of dark blob at the back of JFK’s head. Yet nothing like this appears in either Jack’s color close-up or my black and white close-up. What do you folks think? I did one additional thing. I cranked up my old Carousel slid projector and had a look in sequence at the frames starting with Z 310 and ending with Z 323. It is clear that the back of JFK’s head is in shadow in all the frames. However, the darkness of that shadow does not vary from frame to frame. Hence, it is just not the case that frame 317 is different from the rest in any discernible fashion with respect to the appearance of the back of JFK’s head. Some frames are clearer than others but what Horne says is there, sorry, is just not there! This makes me wonder whether the black blob described by Horne as: "The lower half of the back of JFK’s head – hair that was very brown, or perhaps a cross between auburn and light gray in the HD scan – was covered up by a jet black patch with very straight artificial edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK’s head...” may be some change introduced by the fact he’s working from a digital scan of a fourth or fifth generation copy. I’m told that the algorithms used in producing JPEGs etc. have a life of their own. People more knowledgeable than I can talk about that. All I can say is that Jack’s color copy very nearly matches my color copy as it matches the black and white copy I’ve scanned. The proof in the pudding will come when we can see scans of the MPI 4" by 5" copies made from the original film. Josiah Thompson

Sure. What you say is eminently reasonable but not necessary. Greer could have turned around and kept his foot on the accelerator when he turned around. Why not measure the car's acceleratin or deceleration independent of what Greer is doing or not doing? I don't get the point you are getting to. So enlighten me. Josiah Thompson

Thanks for posting this enlargement from Zapruder frame 317. Doug Horne looks at a copy of Z 317 and says he sees “a jet black patch with very straight artificial edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK’s head...” When you look at this copy of Z 317 is that what you see? Josiah Thompson

What I first thought of when I noticed this head snap, was that a frame was missing from the time he started turning his head till the time when he is looking at the President, the frame in between these to frames. Would taking said frame out skip a portion of the movement and make the head turn seem super fast? What's the simplified/short version of Gordon's debunking of the Greer head snap? The long version can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/gordon-greer-turn.html It doesn't take long to read it and understand it. It's been there for several years and has never been refuted. If you don't choose the right frames from when Greer begins his head turn and when he finishes it, you will believe his head turn is unnaturally fast. Josiah Thompson

A lot. I'll to count them. The Greer "bionic Man" head snap was debunked years ago by James Gordon. Josiah Thompson

This print was made in 1966 and used for measurements in 1967. I don't know what you mean by "blown out." At LIFE in the fall of 1966, I was told by Edward Kern and Dick Billings that the 4" by 5" transparencies we were working with were made from the camera original film. You ask, "Miller help you with this image?" That has a kind of nasty, snide tone to it that is completely unnecessary. Was Bill Miller even born in 1966? Josiah Thompson

I don't know. Josiah Thompson

I was amazed to find on page 1357 of Volume IV of Horne’s book that he had involved me and copies I had of the Zapruder film in a complicated circumstantial argument that the film had been altered. It all concerns Z frame 317. Horne writes: “But frame 317 provides the most damning evidence of apparent film alreration... As the old adage goes, “seeing is believing,” and in June of 2009, when Sydney Wilkinson forwarded to a JPEG image of the HD scan of frame 317, I had my own epiphany (See Figures 87 and 88)... What I saw was stunning... The lower half of the back of JFK’s head – hair that was very brown, or perhaps a cross between auburn and light gray in the HD scan – was covered up by a jet black patch with very straight artificial edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK’s head...” [emphasis in original] We’ll come back to this description in a moment. But first the reference to me and a favor I extended to David Mantik some years ago. On the same page in a footnote about frame 317, Horne writes: “David Mantik showed me a scrapbook in August 2009 full of small black-and-white prints of the unauthorized photographs Josiah Thompson took of LIFE magazine’s 4x5 inch color positive transparencies of Zapruder frames in 1966. In Mantik’s scrapbook, there are two missing Z frames, which were not photographed by Thompson (presumably because they were missing from the LIFE collection): 317 and 329. Just how many coincidences are we supposed to believe in when studying the Kennedy assassination?” “Wait a minute, “ I said to myself. “This is ridiculous” Some years ago I helped David Mantik by giving him black and white photos (negatives or positives I don’t know) of Zapruder frames he wanted to study. This was back in the days before Mantik came up with one of his Zapruder fakery claims that was quickly refuted by Clint Bradford; it had something to do with “ghost images.” So Horne and Mantik are saying there was some funny business concerning frames 317 and 329... that Thompson didn’t give them to Mantik and that means Thompson didn’t copy them from LIFE’s transparencies and that means that they were missing from LIFE’s collection in November 1966 and that means the Zapruder film was faked! “But that’s ridiculous,” I said to myself, “because I used those very frames to make measurements and published those measurements in Six Seconds. What did Horne and Mantik believe... that I just pulled the measurement for those frames out of thin air? So I went up in the attic and pulled out the box with the 8" by 10" prints used to measure the movement of JFK’s head. They were all there, frames 300 through 333, all with the original measuring marks on them. Here’s a scan of frame 317: You would think, before using in Horne’s book the fact that Mantik was missing a couple of frames years after I did him a favor, they would have done me the favor of calling me up and asking me if I had the frames they were missing. Of course not. That might show that their purported “fact” was a non-fact. While I had the box down from the attic, I started looking through the transparencies I had made that night in November 1966. I had been using a Nikon camera with perhaps (I’m not sure.) a 100 mm. lens and a copying stand. LIFE’s 4" by 5" transparencies were supposed to have been made from the original film. I set up the copying stand with the camera. Then I then focused on a transparency and figured out what should be the correct exposure. I don’t recall whether I varied exposures during the copying process. I was using Plus X for the black and white exposures and Extachrome for the color transparencies. I found two close-up Ektachrome exposures of Z 317. By comparing the coverage of the frame I can tell they were separate exposures that night. They are close-ups because the condition of JFK’s head and its position were the critical elements. I haven’t a clue what Doug Horne saw in Hollywood (a scan of a 4th or 5th generation copy of Z 317) but I know what I was able to examine with a jewelers loup. They weren’t the same at all. First of all, there’s no great change in the appearance of the back of JFK’s head between 314 and 319. It’s in shadow and the intensity of the shadow may change a bit as his head changes position vis a vis the sun. But there’s no significant change in appearance in 317. If some black, painted-on blog appeared in 317 it would be quite different from the frames around it. It isn't. Horne says “the hair was very brown, or perhaps a cross between auburn and light gray.” I don’t see any gray at all but brown with an auburn tone might be about right. What clearly is irretrievably not there is what Horne described as “a jet black patch with very straight artificial edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK’s head...” The back of the head in is in shadow so it is darker than the side or top. But there is no “jet black patch with very straight artificial edges.” I may be pressing my own eyes but sometimes it seems to me I can see the texture of hair in the shadow. There is nothing artificial-looking about the back of JFK’s head and it’s even possible to pick up a highlight here and there in what Horne calls his “jet black patch.” Let’s be clear. I’m not saying that Horne is lying when he tells us what he observed in Hollywood. All I’m saying is that my close-up transparencies of Z 317 taken in November 1966 from LIFE’s 4" by 5" transparencies show a discernibly different picture than the one Horne describes. I know the provenance of my transparencies because I took them. I know transparencies don’t get better over time they get worse. Still, my transparencies don’t show anything like what Doug Horne has described. I just looked at them again on a little light table I constructed. Folks this is really ridiculous. It isn’t even close. The sooner someone can publish good scans of the MPI transparencies the sooner we can put this little claim to bed. Josiah Thompson

So, do you think that is what happened, Pamela? Are you willing to sign on... because that is precisely what Doug Horne tells us he believes. Instead of confronting this obvious point you start claiming "bias" on my part. Once again you seem to be transfixed in talking about who says something rather than about what is said. Maybe that's easier for you. My bet is the car was going between 8 and 12 mph. Josiah Thompson Unfortunately, everyone knows your bias, Tink. You really don't have to spend any more energy in your bashing of Doug Horne's book. We get it. And, as far as the limo stopping, have you counted how many frames Greer is facing the rear of the limo? Just how far and fast do you think the car was going during those frames?

Doug Weldon I've been sitting on the sidelines and listening intently. You should know, Doug, that when I said I wanted to "investigate" Glanges I meant nothing serious or sinister. I had not a clue who she was. I think Pamela said she was a nursing student. Probably, I should have said "I want to find out who Glanges is. I've never heard of her before." That would have expressed my meaning more accurately. Here's a really simple view of how I see it: Altgens 5 shows an undamaged windshield at Z 255. Altgens 6 shows the windshield damaged subsequent to the head shot. The placement and form of the damage seen in Altgens 6 is replicated in the Frazier photo of damage taken a few hours later. Since Dudman claimed in the New Republic he had seen a hole in the windshield, it was only natural and proper for Rowley's report that came out later to stress the reports of agents who had passed their hands over the damage and found there was no through-and-through hole. Dudman and Taylor are the most persuasive witnesses for a through-and-through hole. Both have made it clear that they did not observe a through-and-through hole. This seems to form a kind of comprehensive package. On the other side are the witnesses you mentioned. I don't believe that just because someone is a police officer they are a trained observer. I guess I'm just wondering why on balance you weigh this evidence so differently. I too have enjoyed listening in on your conversation with Barb and Jerry. Not only civil conversation and discussion, but discussion between smart people who are without guile. Josiah Thompson

As a fellow disinformation agent I will assist James Gordon in discrediting Doug Horne's work by quoting verbatim one of the examples given by Gordon. Two disinformation agents working together are always more effective. Here's the full quote of one of the examples given by James Gordon along with a commentary: "A prominent researcher I know (and I know several, do not assume that his identity is a “given”) videotaped an interview he conducted with one of the Air Force One stewards — a black man — shortly before the steward died. The steward related (on videotape) that on the flight back to Washington, D.C. from Love Field, agent Clint Hill was changing his shirt (which was covered with the President’s blood) and in a moment of complete honesty, while being assisted by the steward with his change of wardrobe, confided to the steward that when he jumped onto the back of the limousine “the driver had his gun out and it was pointed at my face.” As the interview was related to me, Clint Hill was quite shaken by what he saw, for the implications were obvious. Hill’s descriptions of the sound of the head shot(s), in both his written statement and in his Warren Commission testimony, were consistently that it resembled the sound a revolver makes when it is fired into a hard object, as I discussed extensively in Chapter 13. Now you know the rest of the story. I personally believe this hearsay account, which is why I have taken the reports of a left temporal entry wound from Parkland so seriously in this book Bertha Lozano, smelled “smoke” (i.e gunpowder) when Kennedy and Connally were rushed past her on gurneys to the trauma stations for treatment. The videotaped interview of the steward also provides independent corroboration Hugh Betzner’s account in his Sheriff Department affidavit of November 22, 1963 that he saw a nickel [plated] revolver in someone’s hand inside the limousine during the assassination, and is consistent with Jean Hill’s account in her November 22, 1963 affidavit that some men in plain clothes were ‘shooting back’ [at the assassins]. Furthermore, since the Zapruder film does not depict Greer holding a handgun and pointing it at President Kennedy, I am even more persuaded that the film has been altered — to remove not only the brief car stop, but what happened during the car stop." [emphasis in original; Horne, Volume V, pp.1415-1416.] This is the passage that James Gordon referred to. So let’s read it carefully. Commentary: Apparently Horne has a friend whom he names “a prominent researcher.” This friend told Horne that he videotaped an Air Force One steward who claimed that Clint Hill told him that “the driver had his gun out and it was pointed at my face.” First off, Horne has never seen this interview. It “was related to me, says Horne, by his friend. Hence, the quote and everything else was what Horne’s friend told him. And who was the steward? What was his name and was he really a steward on Air Force One? Is his name listed as one of the stewards? Has anyone asked or tried to check this? Secondly, all these purported accounts of Greer turning around and icing the President have Greer using a chrome or “nickel plated revolver.” Really lousy copies of the Zapruder film a long time ago started a rumor like this. A question whose answer I don’t know: Was William Greer carrying a weapon that day? If so, what was it? It seems unlikely he would be armed with a shiny revolver. More likely he would be carrying a Browning 9 mm with a ten shot magazine or perhaps the old Colt .45 1911 model for its stopping power. No one, certainly not Horne, has even asked this question. Then we’ve got Bertha Lozano who smells “smoke” as gurneys are wheeled past her in Parkland Hospital. No comment. Finally, Horne says that he believes the Zapruder film was altered not just to conceal the car stop but what happened during the car stop! But wait a minute. There wasn’t any car stop. Some witnesses saw the car slow down but not stop. Other witnesses said they saw car slow down and stop. Other witnesses said they saw the car take off. Other witnesses said nothing about what the car did. The Zapruder and other films show that the car slowed from about 12 mph to about 8 mph just before speeding up and leaving. All of the alleged facts that Zapruder film alteration are purported to conceal, turn out to be ephemeral... they may be a fact and may be not a fact. Combining Horne’s earlier demonstrated belief that Mary Moorman took her photo from the street here’s what Horne apparently believes: About the time William Greer brings the car to a halt and turns around and to blast the President in the head with a nickel plated revolver, Mary Moorman jumps into the street. Officers Martin and Hargis veer their cycles sharply to the right to avoid hitting her. This, of course, is preposterous. I read this and I’m more than just a wee bit sad for Doug Horne. He’s put many hours into this and I was hoping to have a more reliable guide for the medical evidence. As yet, these are only probes into a huge manuscript. But sadly, when I read a passage like that above I have to say to myself, "Same old.... same old." This is the same old conspiracy theorizing that we've had more than enough of over the last decade. It gets us nowhere because the problems with the evidence it cites are so obvious. Let's hope he's much better with the medical evidence. Josiah Thompson

Ouch!!! What you say is extremely troubling. My take on Doug Horne up to now has been basically positive. After all, he was a line officer in the Navy like me standing watches on surface ships. He surely was there when all this medical evidence came in. It seems almost automatic that the medical evidence is where all sort of things were buried. The only part I've looked at is the chapter on the Zapruder film and that is whoppingly troubling. I keep asking myself, "Where's the beef!" Up to now, I've thought of Horne sort of like David Mantik. Many years ago I cautioned Mantik about getting ensnarled in the claims about the Zapruder film. I told him that he could easily get his tail caught in the door there because he didn't know his ass from his elbow about movie cameras and movie film. I said that his misadventures there might very well shadow his credibility with respect to the x-rays where he's done significant work. So what happens. Mantik confirms my prediction as we've seen. Up to now, I've been thinking that Doug Horne is pretty much the same, that he can be trusted on the medical evidence but will make wild and unproven claims in the Zapruder arena. It would be a shame if that happened and really good work on the medical evidence was undermined by sloppy work on the Zapruder question. Mr. Carroll mentioned this possibility at the very beginning of our discussions. I wonder if he's right. I've got all five volumes. I guess I'd better start reading. Thanks for your heads up. Josiah Thompson

These are good, serious practical questions. On the basis of such questions, one could lay out a program of investigation. I'm going to try and answer your questions, Bill, as well as I can. My answers are in boldface: quote name='William Kelly' date='Jan 12 2010, 10:45 AM' post='178647'] 10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content. 1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it? I'm not sure that any of this is correct. I believe Zapruder either bought or was given his Bell and Howell camera. He or the family may have had the projector for some time. 2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report? Dick Stolley took possession of the original on Saturday morning. Stolley said it was "couriered" to Chicago. I don't know if Stolley drove to Love Field and put it on an airplane. He might have asked Patsy Swank, his stringer in Dallas who found Zapruder for him, to do that. Or he might have done it through a courier service. I just don't know. Max Phillips took possession of two secret service copies Friday night and executed a receipt. I believe Phillips has even testified about this. Others might know. Stolley has spoken often about this and executed an oral history for the Sixth Floor Museum. What has never been looked into is what happened to the original after it reached Roy Rowan and the LIFE team at Donnelly Printing. We know LIFE used a Chicago photo lab to make black and white dupes for their use as they were assembling the next issue. Those dupes still exist and are in the Sixth Floor Museum. 3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there? Yes. No one has ever looked into the path the film took in Chicago. It would be very interesting to interview the people who actually worked with it in Chicago. What they did with it? When it was copied into dupe black and white? Etc. There is a whole field of investigation here that has never been touched. Somebody ought to do it. 4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing? Good question! I don't know the answer. 5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it? LIFE purchased only print rights on Saturday morning. See above where I explain that the original was flown to the Donnelly Printing Company in Chicago. Roy Rowan was there on a crash basis putting together the next week's issue. 6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or why did that happen, twice? My understanding is that this happened in Chicago when they were rushing to put out the next week's issue. The film broke and some idiot lost a couple frames and then spliced it. 7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies? Yes, the socalled "missing frames" are in the copies. When a controversy developed in 1966 concerning the missing frames, LIFE used their copy to produce frames 208-211 and released those frames to news organizations and to me. I published them. 8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence? No. They're missing. 9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place? Not that I know of. The Secret Service used their copies to crank out additional copies for other agencies and themselves. Herb Orth took the original to Washington in early 1964 at the request of the Warren Commission but he would have left LIFE's other copy in New York. Hence, I don't think the original and the three copies ever were in the same place and the same time after two copies left Zapruder's possession and were give to Max Phillips on the night of the 22nd. 10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not? Not that I know of. I'll let folks who know more about photography speak to this question.

Interesting point. I thought Dick Stolley just phoned Zapruder on Sunday night but did not meet with him. I'll try to check on it. Stolley has an "oral history" on file at the Sixth Floor Museum. If Stolley got both the original and a copy on Saturday morning (in contradiction to what the Saturday morning receipt says), it seems unlikely that Stolley would simply hold onto the copy through Sunday night. LIFE people in both Chicago and New York would be clamoring to see what Stolley had reeled in. My understanding is that Stolley was with Zapruder on Monday when Dan Rather was given the opportunity to see the film in the office of Zapruder's lawyer. I don't think CBS ever "had the film." Josiah Thompson In this clip of CBS' Four Days in November below, Dan Rather describes at 5:25, CBS having had the film briefly at the time, but could not broadcast it for legal reasons. Assuming that would have been on Monday the 25th and the "legal reasons" would have been Zapruder's contract with Life... I know that Rather viewing on Monday is taken as proof that Zapruder kept the 4th copy until Monday afternoon, but another question given that Horne sites Stolley having met with Zapruder again on Sunday night the 24th is whether Stolley could have brought an original or the 4th copy with him to let Zapruder show and view before taking the film(s) for good on Monday.

In explaining the very sound reasons why I no longer think JFK was hit in the head from the rear and the front between Z 312 and Z 314 I am very much at a disadvantage. David Wimp offered a very complete, detailed, mathematically correct account as to why the "motion" I measured between Z 312 and Z 313 was in part due to the movement of Zapruder's camera. For five or six years all this material appeared on a web site. In addition, on the same web site were gifs of Zapruder frames showing that all the occupants of the limousine started slipping forward when Greer decelerated the limousine from 12 mph to about 8 mph starting at Z 308. I was disappointed when I went to the web site and found it had disappeared. Hence, I have no way of presenting to you the argument that changed my mind. Perhaps someone on this site downloaded Wimp's material. I also noted that I made arrangements for Wimp to appear at the AARC conference in Washington. He gave a talk there that included this material. The DVD of the conference is available. Lacking this material, I have no way of giving you the information you want. My silence should not be taken as any sign of disrespect. Sadly, I have nothing to show you. Josiah Thompson Don Dont feel too bad, after Thompson replied to my "Double Head Shot" thread he has ignored every post and any questions I have made since then I guess I have to write a book for him to find me worthy enough of a simple reply Dean