Josiah Thompson

No disrespect to you. I just don't find the question you ask to be interesting to me. Have I got things wrong? I thought folks could answer the questions that interested them and ignore those that didn't interest them. I just have other interests than pursuing questions about the throat wound now.

Josiah Thompson

While I disagree with much of the personal stuff Jim Fetzer has directed at Josiah Thompson on this forum, I don't believe he's posted anything quite as nasty as this. What purpose is there in rehashing a poster's entire work history? How, by the way, do you have all this personal information on him? Talk about completely irrelevant....

Josiah, I have never been anything but courteous with you on this forum. I have asked you a few hard questions, but in a perfectly appropriate manner. You have ignored me. Why? Are you incapable of commenting on anything that doesn't relate to Jim Fetzer?

I asked you simply to explain why, on another thread, you stated that the evidence for a frontal throat wound was lacking, but that you "didn't know" about the evidence for the throat wound being one of exit. To me, that seems highly inconsistent. While we can debate the case for a frontal wound to the throat, it seems to me that the only "evidence" for the throat wound being one of exit is to accept the single bullet theory. Do you now "not know" about the single bullet theory? I understand you postulated that the wound was caused by a fragment from the head, and I'm not arguing with that. I simply want to know how you can assess the state of the evidence for the throat wound being either of entrance or exit so differently.

If you're truly agnostic on this subject, your answer should be "don't know" either way. I would really appreciate a response from you.

Now might be a good time to look around at where we are after about a week of discussing Doug Horne’s evidence.

(1) In a book published in 2003, David Lifton advanced the claim that the Zapruder film displayed something called “full frame left image penetration” [fflip]. By this he meant that in the Zapruder film the intersprocket image goes full flush left, and, in some cases a trifle even further left. Rollie Zavada made various tests with cameras of the same make and model. It was Lifton’s claim in this 2003 book that Zavada was never able with these other cameras to achieve fflip. The obvious point was that this feature of the Zapruder film branded it as a fake. He used Doug Horne as a source for information about Rollie Zavada’s tests. Lifton wrote: “What Doug Horne noticed was that in not one instance — not a single one — could Rollie Zavada get the image to go full flush left. It couldn’t be done because the camera just isn’t designed that way.”

Lifton published in the 2003 book a photo drawn from Rollie Zavada’s tests and stated that “in none of the tests (shown here) could he replicate the continuous ‘full flush left’ phenomenon seen on the previous two pages.” Zavada pointed out that this was just plain wrong. He had in fact actually published in his studies instances where a camera like Zapruder’s camera produced fflip. In fact, one of these instances was the very one used by Lifton to prove the opposite. When a copy of this photo was posted (it shows a red pickup truck driving in Dealey Plaza) the editor of the book said he published whatever Lifton gave him. Lifton said he had never before seen the photo in color and in good resolution although the photo was copied from Zavada’s Study #3.

Lifton and Horne’s present position has shifted from where it was before. Now their claim is that only the Zapruder film shows continuous fflip. This claim itself is made problematic by the fact that three or four years ago Rick Janowitz, a research associate of David Healey’s, sent to Horne a DVD of an 8 mm film shot in Dealey Plaza with a camera of the same make and model as Zapruder’s. It showed continuous fflip.

Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor Museum provided information to Duncan MacRae that NARA has custody of additional 8 mm films shot through Zapruder’s camera. Duncan posted the information on this site. One film was shot through Zapruder's camera in Dealey Plaza during the reconstruction of the crime in the spring of 1964. Another was shot even earlier by the FBI of a clock to establish the speed of the Zapruder camera. Yet another film shot by Bell and Howell through Zapruder’s camera may well be at NARA. Examination of these films my finally resolve satisfactorily this claim.

(2) During early discussions much was made of the fact that NARA copies of the Zapruder film were being examined in Hollywood by a group of film preservationists. Then I found the following paragraph in Horne’s study:

“On August 26th, one day after my Hollywood epiphany, David Mantik emailed Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum and asked him if he knew the whereabouts of the large format 4 x 5 inch Ektachrome transparencies of the extant Zapruder film commissioned by MPI in 1997 for its video Image of an Assassination. Gary Mack replied by email on August 28th that the Ektachrome transparencies were in the possession of the Sixth Floor Museum and were available for viewing if a request was made through proper channels on the museum’s website.. This was very important news... Whereas Syd Wilkinson’s dupe 35 mm negative was a fifth generation copy, the Ektachrome transparencies were only one generation removed from the extant film, and presumably would show any anomalies, or apparent alterations, in much greater detail than even the 35 mm dupe negative made from the Forensic Copy. If the extant film under cold storage at NARA were ever declared unavailable for direct examination for any reason, then the Ektachrome transparencies at the Sixth Floor Museum could become the best tool for studying apparent alterations in the film. Not only would these images be four generations closer to the extant film than the dupe negative (and therefore theoretically depict details in better resolution), but they could serve as a “control” to prove that Sydney and her research team have not digitally altered their scans of the Zapruder frames in any way.” (page 1362)

Why, if the best copies of the Zapruder film are the 4" by 5" transparencies at the Sixth Floor Mueum, are Horne’s Hollywood preservationists working there rather than in Dallas? Their 6,000 mp scans are being made from fourth or fifth generation copies while the MPI transparencies were made from the original film. First, Horne states that the experts will come up with a report in the future. Then he says they’ve already determined the Zapruder film has been altered. Finally, a claim is made that David Mantik has viewed the 4" by 5" transparencies and also concludes that the Zapruder film has been altered. The only trouble is that the hearsay report of reasons offered by Mantik are not the same reasons as the hearsay report of what is offered by the Hollywood preservationists. Given this presentation of what ought to be quite simple, some scepticism is in order.

(3) Doug Horne interviewed Ben Hunter on 6/17/97 and wrote up the interview the next day. Hunter was a technician who actually worked on the film brought to NPIC. One paragraph stands out. Horne wrote:

“His [Hunter’s] impression is that the film was probably in 16 mm format but was not an unslit double 8 mm film. It was his strong impression that they were working with the original but when asked whether there were images present between the sprocket holes, he said it was his reasonably strong impression today that there were no such images present between the sprocket holes in the film he examined at NPIC. At one point he described the film as ‘not high resolution.’”

The importance of these remarks from Hunter is that they are consistent with him working on the first day copy of the Zapruder film flown to Washington by the Secret Service on Friday night. I would have thought Horne would want to comment on this important report of Hunter but I can find no mention of it in Horne’s 194 page chapter.

(4) Horne makes the claim in a two page section that “Undeniable Differences Exist Between the Zapruder Film and other Dealey Plaza Films.” He gives the following instances of discrepancies:

(i) “Both the Muchmore film and the Bronson slide show Moorman and Hill standing not in the grass but below the level of the grass, in the street.... Jack White has conslusively demonstrated that the shoes they [Hill and Moorman] were wearing the day of the assassination are not shown in the Zapruder film.” [emphasis in original on page 1318-1319]

(ii) “Jack White provided another separate proof that Mary Moorman was really standing in the street and not in the grass, when she took her famous Polaroid photograph (Figure 76 in this book) immediately after the headshot(s), by conducting line of sight experiments using a surveyor’s transit, with the assistance of Jim Fetzer and David Mantik... These scientific proofs — based on line of sight studies — that Mary Moorman must have been standing in the street when she took her Polaroid picture, constitute additional dispositive evidence that the Zapruder film, which shows Mary Moorman in the grass, has been altered.” (page 1319)

(iii) [i’ll just summarize] Jack White’s argument about what the “Babushka lady” is wearing in the Zapruder film and then in the Bronson slide and Bond slide number 4. (page 1319-1320)

The fact that Doug Horne adopts these arguments tells us a lot about both the reliability of the rest of his chapter on the Zapruder film. I hope to finish it soon and will be interested in your comments concerning the evidence produced thus far.

Josiah Thompson

I guess I’m old enough to play Joseph Welch in a remake of the McCarthy Hearings with Professor Fetzer playing the lead role as Senator McCarthy. I mean I have really had it. Fetzer has attacked me. That’s fine. But now he’s introduced a weird kind of tribal logic to try the same thing against people whose only crime has been to offer a reasoned defense based on the evidence. I won’t participate any longer. From now on, Fetzer can rage and snivel all he wants. I won’t reply to him. I will simply ignore him.

I’m doing this because I think there is something just weird about what Fetzer is doing. It may be a return to the 2nd Grade playground or it may be something from the shelf of psychopathology .... let’s say “a Messiah complex” or something like that. My sniffer tells me there is a bit of weirdness to this and I don’t want to waste any more time on it or him.

This all came to me as a kind of breakthrough a couple of nights ago when Len Brasil posted some remarks by Fetzer from another board. Len provided the full context where Fetzer offered an amazing self-portrait. For example, Fetzer wrote that his little conference on Zapruder film fakery for about nineteen true believers some years ago in Duluth was “the most important small conference on any subject in history.” Huh??? What is hilarious is that he then lists this little conference on his CV as one he chaired. He not only “chaired” it. He arranged the whole thing. The only thing he forgot to do was to have the "conference" give him some silly-ass award so he could cite that in his CV.

Then Colby quoted him describing his book MIDP as “perhaps the best book ever published on the death of JFK.” Finally, Colby quoted Fetzer’s description of himself as an academic. After vomiting his CV for the umpteenth time, Fetzer describes himself modestly: “I know of no faculty member anywhere whose combination of achievements exceeds my own!”

The spin he lays on his own CV is revealing. In the late 1970s, he got his ass booted from the University of Kentucky. For the next ten years, he wandered the academic desert picking up single year-jobs at such intellectual powerhouses as the University of Cincinnati or the University of South Florida. Of course, he also did single or double-year stints at the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina. The usefulness of these visiting assistant or associate or full professor gigs is that they give the institution a chance to look at a prospective hire before hiring them on tenure track. None of these institutions bit, so Fetzer was left to wander from one to another for a decade before washing up on the shores of the University of Minnesota (Duluth), another intellectual powerhouse. Fetzer spins this chronicle of failure by saying "he taught at a wide variety of institutions of higher learning." If he's such "a distinguished scholar".... such a high-powered dude.... how come no first rate university would have anything to do with him? Yeah, he's written a ton of articles and books... all intrinsically forgettable, the hallmark of what might be called "the academic businessman"... a guy who's a bit lacking in ideas but churns out junk to impress deans at second-rate institutions.

One could spend many useless hours deconstructing these self-appraisals. What is interesting here is the fact that he makes them at all. Fetzer sees himself in a completely fantastic way. It’s like he’s living in a dream where he will end up leading the parade in its magisterial progress towards a new understanding of what happened in Dallas. Finally, it will be understood by everyone that the Zapruder film and other films were altered and it was James Fetzer who courageously figured this out and led the way.

His attacks on me over the last week never made any sense to me. I’m no threat to him. I’m an old man who will be seventy-five in a week or so. I don’t have any web site. I don’t have any publisher ready to snap up a book on the Kennedy assassination. So why does Fetzer think he has to assassinate my character with this noxious claim about me being an agent? There’s nothing unusual about flinging the charge of “agent” at someone. The research community has been alive with people calling other people “agents” for about forty-five years. So why does Fetzer start in again with this now? Why now when he was publicly rebuked about it by Wecht, Mantik, Aguilar, Turner, DeSalles, etc. ten years ago? I think he truly believes that if he can dirty me up enough no one will pay attention to me and he can achieve his end. If only he can get me out of the way, the path will be clear.

The reality, of course, is quite different. It’s not me standing in his way. It’s the evidence that has piled up over the years. Fetzer has been at this for almost fifteen years now. He and Jack White and John Costella and David Lifton have been searching for proof of Zapruder film fakery for longer than that. They haven’t found it. After successive claims for “the seven-foot woman,” “Moorman-in-the-Street,” and thirty or forty other Jack White failed examples, they have not been able to show a single discrepancy between the Zapruder film and other films and photos from Dealey Plaza. That’s not me. That’s a failure in putting their theory up against the data coming back from the world.

David Lifton for some time has been trying to indict the Zavada study of the camera and film to show that Zavada was wrong when he found the camera-original to be authentic. We all saw how far, even with Fetzer’s help, the “full flush left image penetration” argument has gotten after six years of trying. This again is not me holding up the parade. It is the raw complex of facts concerning the manufacture of Zapruder’s camera and its capabilities that won’t conform to what they want that complex to be. It's not just me that is recalcitrant to Fetzer's view. It's the world. It's the world of fact contradicting his theory. And so he rages against me, when I could croak tomorrow and he wouldn’t be any better off.

He wrongly thinks that if he can just dirty me up enough in people’s minds, he can become the hero he knows he is. That’s why his attacks have become so reckless and odious. It is almost as if he cannot help himself.

When today he started using a kind of tribal logic to indict people who have defended me, it all became quite clear. It’s a complete waste of time to keep trying to type out responses to Fetzer. The channels of communication have become blocked by his words, charges, irrelevant points, hyperbolic interpretations, self-serving analyses. No one can possibly keep up. The question then arises: Why even try? Hence, I’m going ignore Fetzer and simply deal with evidentiary items as they come up. Perhaps, over time, others who have watched this slightly insane display will drift back and take up the discussion. I sure hope so.

Josiah Thompson

Fascinating Pat. Can one follow the opening in JFK's skull over several frames and, as it were, plot the process of skull opening? Looking a bit later, say subsequent to Z 330, do you find the appearance of the skull wound significantly different than it appears at say Z 321 or Z323? I ask this because it is possible that JFK was hit in the skull from behind in the interval. What do you think?

Josiah Thompson

There are other inconsistencies that are internal to the frames of the film that show the "blob" is an artifact and that the back of the head has been painted over in black. I have already pointed out that frame 374, for example, shows the blow-out to the back of the head and the skull flap that Tom Robinson described. And, when frames 456 and 466 are viewed in the 6k version, a wound behind the right ear is visible, but no large blow-out of the right-front. That is a perfect example of how experiments like this one can reveal details that are not obvious without gaining greater access to its contents, as the 6k has done. And, as Doug has explained, the absence of the large frontal wound in these frames -- even apart from Jackie's testimony, the medical evidence, and more than 40 witnesses reports -- is an additional proof that the large frontal wound seen in frames 314 through 327 is a fabrication. It can't be present in those frames but missing from later ones. The beauty of these proofs is that they are simple and direct -- and have been confirmed by eight experts on film and David Mantik, too!

Wait. I thought the eight experts said they thought the back of the head had been painted in. Now you have them agreeing with your opinion there's a blow-out on the back of the head in 374 that isn't seen earlier, etc. Is there a list of all their findings? Can you post a quality version of 374 showing this blow-out?

And, I hesitate to ask, can you post an image of the "blob"? I assumed your references to the "blob" were to the orange blob in the degraded versions of Z-313. Now Jack says it's a white blob. Is it seen in the frame below?

Because I don't see a "blob"; I see the underside of a piece of skull broken and flipped forward and still hanging by a thread of scalp on the side of Kennedy's head. The shape of this skull fragment, moreover, matches precisely the shape of the fragment shown in the right lateral autopsy photo.

From patspeer.com chapter 18:

Another aspect of the medical evidence which has convinced many of fakery or deception is the “wing” of bone visible in the autopsy photos. It seemed to move from photo to photo and change shape. After much thought, however, I developed an explanation for these changes.

When one looks at the Zapruder film, one can’t help but notice the large opening on Kennedy’s skull apparent in the frames after 313. This opening appears to begin just in front of his ear. When one looks at the right lateral autopsy photo one sees exposed bone behind his ear, however, and in a location where there was reportedly no missing bone or scalp. This is a clear indication that this bone was dislodged from someplace else. And yet it’s still attached to scalp. After some consideration I realized that when the scalp exploded downwards in frame 313 the skull bones that were attached to the scalp were suddenly upside down, and began to peel away from the scalp from the bottom (which was formally the top) down. The large fragment found on the floor of the limo by Sam Kinney peeled all the way and fell to the floor. It can be seen flying downwards in the frames after 313. A section of bone lower down on Kennedy’s skull, possibly including his sphenoid bone, didn’t finish peeling away from the scalp, however. It was left dangling by a thread. The shape of this bone can be seen in shadow in frame 323. When Jackie Kennedy tried to close her husband’s head wound, she failed to flip this “wing” of bone back around to match up with the scalp, and left this “wing” dangling back behind Kennedy’s ear. This is apparent in the right almost-lateral autopsy photo. Not surprisingly, the shape of this wing matches the shape of the shadow in frame 323.

When one looks at the back of the head photo, obviously taken a few minutes later, as Kennedy is now lying on his side, one can see that the “wing” of bone has suddenly changed. It is now far forward of the ear and of different proportions. I believe this is because it’s no longer a “wing” of bone, but a “wing” of scalp, the stubborn scalp that held the wing in place for so long. The dimensions of this scalp flap can be seen in frame 337. Possibly the wing fell off when the doctors moved Kennedy onto his side or possibly they removed it deliberately to better observe the large defect.

Pat, I'm having a bit of a problem following Fetzer's argument here. No surprise. For days we've been talking about the "blacked out back of the head." Now we learn that David Mantik went to the Sixth Floor Musuem in November and looked at the MPI transparencies. Doug Horne points out that he and his Hollywood crew see these MPI transparencies as superior to fourth or fifth genereation copies they are working on in Hollywood. So why are they doing what they are doing in Hollywood and not in Dallas? Secondly, we hear not a word about Mantik's observations concerning the socalled "blacked out back of the head." All we hear about is an obscure "discovery" Mantik has made 130 frames later. Clearly, Mantik must have studied intensely the whole back of the head issue. What did he find? I emailed David to find out and will let everyone know what I found out. What do you think, Pat? Is this maybe some sort of "bait and switch?"

Tink

From my perspective as a layman not entirely familiar with the photographic issues, this thread seems to have run aground. Despite Jack's protests, Tink and Jerry's observation that the film studied by the Hollywood group is a fifth generation image undoubtedly undermines the group's observation that the back of the head appears painted in. When one watches Groden's assasination films DVD, one can see several different copies of the Z-film, copies of copies, or even copies of copies of copies. On several of these the explosion of blood and brain in frame 313 looks like an orange blob. On his best copy, however, this blob is less orange and less blobbish. The MPI DVD, moreover, shows this "blob" not to be orange, and not to be a blob, but a spray of blood and brain in most every direction.

This thread is also confusing in that Dr. Fetzer keeps bringing up activities he believes the Z-film should show, should it be authentic, that it doesn't show. This is a completely unrelated argument, as I understand it. While he is correct if he is trying to make the point that the clarity of the film is beside the point if what it shows never happened, he is incorrect if he thinks this supports that what the Hollywood group thought was an altered image was indeed an altered image, and not just an artifact created through what is in essence photographing a photograph.

I mean, no one is suggesting that the film fails to show Chaney's drive for glory because it's just too blurry, are they?

Fascinating David! Is there any chance that Bob Richter might still have the internegative you mentioned that was made from the camera original? Aside from spitting out copies from your 2004 scan of the 1990 interpositive you obtained from Richter, do you have any other way of turning out copies?

I sure would like to work with you in finding, once and for all, the very best copy in existence of the Zapruder film. It's clear now that copies from the Archives are fourth or fifth generation. I, of course, have my 35 mm slides made in 1966 from LIFE's 4" by 5" transparencies. I don't have a clue where LIFE's 4" by 5" transparencies are? Do you?

Tink

Let me weigh in here with my own opinion about the best source of imagery to view the Zapruder frames: the answer is the 35 mm copies of the Zapruder film made by Moses Weitzman, circa 1968.

Two factors are critical:

1. Weitzman did the work in 1967-68 (I do not know the exact year)--but this means that any degradation of the Zapruder original that has occured, over time, is not on his 35 mm copies.

2. Weitzman used an Oxberry Optical printer with a wetgate, so scratches, etc. were eliminated. (As I understand it, the NARA original has become scratched and dirty).

I assume that the Sixth Floor Museum has at least one of the Weitzman 35 mm copies--if not more than one.

Robert Groden has some half dozen of the others. In fact, he has all of the ones that Weitzman had retained--what he called "technician copies."

In 1990, CBS producer Robert Richter was loaned one of the 35 mm copies--and that is the copy that I worked with at a New York City film lab. This is described in "Pig on a Leash" under the sub-head "At the New York Optical Lab." In brief, I spent several days working with the 35 mm item that was provided by Richter.

Please note: it was a 35 mm internegative, made DIRECTLY FROM Zapruder's (supposed) original 8mm film.

So what was in my hands, and what I was working with, represented just "one pass" through a lense.

What I produced:

1. a number of 35 mm copies, made directly from Weitzman's 35 mm Internegative

2. Using the lense, I enlarged the view, and focused in on the occupants of the car, and specifically the head wounds, creating passes that are cropped frame by frame enlargements.

The film in "my" camera was positive film.

In addition: I had the Weitzman 35 mm internegative sent out to another lap for a 35 mm timed contact interpositive.

(From that interpositive, I could then make a negative, and from the negative, I could make prints).

The key results of my work were transferred to 1" video.

All these materials were (and still are) of the highest quality.

Because they were made from the Weitzman Internegative, they had been masked on the far left, and so do not have any image between the sprocket holes.

One of those timed contact interpsotives is what I donated to the National Archives when I testified on 9/17/96. It is part of my Deed of Gift, and-I believe--is still under seal. But its there, at NARA, and represents the work I did in New York City in July, 1990.

Personal Observation: In my opinion, the materials I produced in 1990 are of higher quality than anything produced, in 1997, from the refrigerated Zapruder original, because the original had deteriorated with time; whereas I was working off a very fine 35 mm internegative produced by Moses Weitzman himself back in 1967 or 1968.

Personal Observation and Opinion: Based on what I saw, and I studied this for days, it seemed pretty obvious that the back of the head had been "blacked out", continuously, after the fatal shot. That is visible in all the frames after 313, but is most obvious in frames 321, and 323, because those happen to be particularly clear frames. Similarly, the best frames for viewing the "painted on" large head wound are frames 335 and 337.

Another note: Back in 1998, in connection with my appearance at JFK Lancer, I prepared--for demonstration purposes--a "color reversal" copy of the head sequence, step printed, and made specifically to show the blacked out area. I did this in "color reversal" so that, when projected, the blacked out area would be a "whited out" area--and I then had this transferred to video, and presented it in a talk I gave at Lancer.

In summary, the very obviously blacked out "back of the head" appears in numerous frames after the fatal shot. The best source to view it, in my opinion, is on the 35 mm Weitzman materials (made decades ago); I had that privilege--first, in 1970, at the Time Life office in Beverly Hills (see Pig on a Leash) and then again in June, 1990, in New York.

Of course, one can go (and should go) to the Sixth Floor Museum and examine transparencies made in 1997, but --given the passage of time--I would think the sharpest images come from materials created by Weitzman back in 1967/68.

One other fact: I had one of my 1990 IP's scanned--I don't know whether it was at 4k or 6k--back around 2004, and I can retrieve that from storage and take a look.

The fact is: we should all be grateful to Moses Weitzman for the work he did back in 1967/68, when he utilized Zapruder's 8mm film in an Oxberry Optical Printer and went from 8mm to 35mm in one fell swoop. Although the blacked out back of the head is particularly clear in the Weitzman 35 mm films, I believe that the "blacked out" back of the head is probably visible on all versions. I am most familiar with how it appears on the Weitzman materials. And let me assure everyone: it wasn't put there by Weitzman--it was there on the so-called "original Zapruder film" which he so nicely enlarged.

DSL

1/10/2010 7:45 PM

Los Angeles, CA

Nice going by publishing the photo. Now Fetzer can try to explain how all this happened... how the limousine and the follow-up car come side-by-side at the underpass and Officer Chaney can be seen trailing by several hundred feet. Trailing by several hundred feet is exactly where all other films would place him.

Maybe Fetzer can explain all this to you without spewing all the quotations we are already familiar with.

Nice going.

Josiah Thompson

quote name='John Dugan' date='Jan 10 2010, 09:28 AM' post='178328']

How could any of the motorcylces get ahead of the presidential limo to tell Chief Curry the President has been shot, in the few seconds that the shots were fired, and still be in the Z-film? Did the cops say they rode up ahead of the limo while IN Dealy Plaza or did they just state that they DID at some point on the way to the hospital?

Professor,

Just to keep the record really clear. Here is my post that you declined earlier to deal with. Only this time every word that comes from Doug Horne's book, Volume IV, page 1362 is underlined!

Where can you see the best copies of the Zapruder frames?

I will let Fetzer fulminate and bloviate to his heart’s content. Meanwhile, I’d like to return to a discussion of evidence.

Doug Horne has told us that a group of Hollywood film restoration experts have obtained copies of the Zapruder film from NARA and have scanned individual frames at high resolution. According to Horne, this will permit them to look at the back of JFK’s head in the frames subsequent to Z 313 to determine if there has been any alteration of the frame. They will produce a report soon.

It seems to me important to ask whether these film restoration experts in Hollywood will be looking at the best copies available of Zapruder frames. Last August, David Mantik emailed Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum and asked him if he knew the whereabouts of the large format 4 x 5 inch Ektachrome transparencies of the extant Zapruder film commissioned by MPI in 1997 for its video Image of an Assassination. Gary Mack replied by email that the Ektachrome transparencies were in the possession of the Sixth Floor Museum and were available for viewing if a request was made through proper channels on the museum’s website. This was very important news. Whereas the dupe 35 mm negative was a fifth generation copy, the Ektachrome transparencies were only one generation removed from the extant film, and presumably would show any anomalies, or apparent alterations, in much greater detail than even the 35 mm dupe negative made from the Forensic Copy. If the extant film under cold storage at NARA were ever declared unavailable for direct examination for any reason, then the Ektachrome transparencies at the Sixth Floor Museum could become the best tool for studying apparent alterations in the film. Not only would these images be four generations closer to the extant film than the dupe negative (and therefore theoretically depict details in better resolution), but they could serve as a “control” to prove whether or not the Hollywood team had digitally altered their scans of the Zapruder frames in any way.

Hence, the best copies to view to determine whether there has been any alteration of frames are the 4" by 5" Ektachrome transparencies in the custody of the 6th Floor Museum.

Josiah Thompson

Hence, it would appear that the best copies for determining alteration are at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. According to Horne, they are available for study. Would you care to hazard a guess, Professor, why Horne has not done the obvious thing... gone to Dallas to have a look at the best copies? Why this detour to Hollywood? It doesn't make much sense to me but maybe you can explain it.

Josiah Thompson

Good post, Bill. For some reason, Tink & Jerry seem to have overlooked that Jack had already corrected me last night, so I assume they know that I have already been set right. I regard the advice I have received from experts like Jack, David Mantik, David Healy, John Costella, David Lifton, Noel Twyman, and others unnamed as one of the great strengths of the research group that I organized back in late 1992, which of course included Bob Livingston, who was wonderful!

Now that they have gotten their jollies, when will this new brain trust acknowledge the massive evidence that proves the film is a fake? They know about Mary and Jean in the street, the blow-out to the right front in the film as opposed to the blow-out to the left-rear observed by witnesses and substantiated by the medical evidence, Officer Chaney motoring forward, and of course the new evidence from studying a 6k version of the forensic copy from the National Archives.

So when are Tink & Jerry going to concede that the observations of this copy by prominent members of the Hollywood film community, which verified that the massive blow-out to the back had been painted over in black and that the "blob" and the blood spray had been painted in--just as Roderick Ryan had point out to Noel Twyman over a decade ago--is the final nail in the coffin of the film's authenticity? Or will they dismiss this, too, on the basis of generations of nonsense? When?

The jig is up, guys. While Moorman-in-the-street may be difficult for some to follow, Chaney motoring forward is not; and while the inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film requires understanding the medical evidence, the observations by the Hollywood experts does not. Everyone can even confirm the deception for themselves by viewing the blow-out at the back of his head in frame 374! So when are these two going to stop playing games and finally come clean?

Jerry,

The Key Word here is "Forensic copy."

Forensic has two meanings.

One meaning is the term used to debate, like school forensic teams.

The other definition of forensic is the ability to use in a court of law.

Not everything can be introduced into court as evidence.

Since the autopsy was not a forensic autopsy - that is to produce evidence that can be introduced into a court of law, none of the autopsy material is valid.

The autopsy done on JFK was done to determine the cause of death - gunshot wound to the head, murder.

The autopsy that still must be performed is a proper forensic autopsy, that will produce evidence that can be used in a court of law, a grand jury and then trial of someone indicted for a crime related to the assassination.

A forensic photo or film - would be one that could be introduced into a court of law, if necessary, and this can still happen, especially in regards to the Zapruder film.

Joe Backes wants Justice for JFK, well that can only happen if the case goes to a grand jury and then a trial.

The Z-film could go to court if someone, as Gary Mack puts says, "Steals it" and uses it without the permssion of the copyright owner - the Sixth Floor, and they sue.

Maybe someone should, as in the film "National Treasure," try to steal it and provoke a court case that will resolve many issues, especially those regarding the provenance and chain of custody issues.

BK

This was all discussed and Fetzer's claims disposed of some time ago on this very Forum. The Zapruder, Nix and Bell films all agree in showing the motorcyclists did not speed ahead of the President's car to reach Chief Curry. A photographer on the other (west) side of the railroad overpass took a photo of the Presidential limousine just reaching the Chief Curry's car in the underpass. In this photo, Officer Chaney's motorcycle can be seen far in the rear just entering the underpass. In short, the photo record from Dealey Plaza refutes this claim. Fetzer, White, etc. then claimed that the Zapruder, Bell and Nix films all were altered. When the photo of Chaney trailing the limousine and pilot car by a large distance, they were asked if they believed that photo too was faked. They declined to answer.

In this instance, like the claim of Moorman-in-the-Street, a lot of work is done and the claim is refuted. However, Fetzer and company resuscitate it months later as it it had never been touched.

Your question was right on target, Mr. Dugan.

Josiah Thompson

Do the motorcycle patrolman say WHEN they went ahead of the President's car to inform Chief Curry?

Does SSA Winston Lawson ever say where the lead car was when the motorcycle cops rode up beside him?

or are there any pics that show them in Dealey, where they SHOULD be on the Z-film?

You write: "that LIFE/CIA with or without Tink's conscious involvement, seem to have created an elite researcher..."

Dick Billings and Ed Kern would have laughed their ass off to hear that.... "created an elite researcher.." To them I was that pointy-headed intellectual from Philadelphia who somehow knew where the bodies were buried in the JFK killing... that is, knew which witnesses to talk to and what to ask them.

Josiah Thompson

Jerry Logan has written an elegant and logical reply--one that addresses the corrupt logic and paranoid style that lays behind this sort of "agent" accusation.

I strongly disagree with Thompson (very strongly disagree, in fact) on a number issues, and even have been exasperated by some of the positions he takes, failing to understand why he doesn't believe A, but rather believes B. That happens a lot. But no, I do NOT believe that he is an agent.

Further, I agree with Logan: it diverts attention from the issues, to the person. Stick to the issues; take apart your opponent on the facts; but be very careful when getting into a conspiracy theory to explain your opponent's behavior.

For example, Pamela: you claim to have seen the Zapruder film at the Bleeker Street Cinema in the Fall of 1964, and I have (elsewhere, on another thread) set forth my numerous (and valid) reasons for believing why that cannot possibly be true. Why I believe you're spreading an urban legend; why what you're saying belongs on Snopes dot com. Now, I could carry this further and speculate as to why you would disseminate such a clearly impossible claim. That would lead to conjectures about your psychological state (and would be really besides the point, would it not)? But let's say I were to travel down that path. Then, that line of "reasoning" could be carried a step further, to the political arena--perhaps by alleging that by putting someone up to spreading such a false claim on the Internet, circa 2010, you are acting as the agent of some conspirators whose goal is to influence future generations who should forget how the film was totally quarantined, and off limits, but instead remember the claim of that lady who says it was screened in a New York City cinema in the fall of 1964. All very Orwellian (right?). Well, wrong. That's absurd, of course. But my point is: I could view matters through that most peculiar lens, and come up with a conspiracy theory re your motivation.

Now here's another example. I happen to believe--strongly believe--that there was a hole in the windshield (I have no doubt about that at all, as a matter of fact) and furthermore, I believe that Doug Weldon's work is very important AND valid. You take issue with it. Well, not only might I disagree with your interpretation of the data, and your criticisms of his his interpretation; but in addition, I come up with a conspiracy theory to explain WHY you take the position(s) you do--i.e., that you are an "agent" sent out to destroy Weldon.

Now. . let's see. . what might my evidence be? . . hmmm. . . well now, isn't it the case that you were visited by Ken Rahn, the notorious lone nutter who runs a website with all sorts of defenses of the lone nutter theory? Why, isn't it the case that there are even pictures of you and him (and I believe your significant other) cavorting socially? . etc etc. . . Oh my gosh. . look at this web of associations!

But all this is quite beside the point, is it not? You're not a "government agent" any more than Josiah Thompson is an agent. You just happen to hold a set of beliefs (with regard to the windshield) that I believe to be completely incorrect. Does that make you an agent. As for your allegedly viewing the Zapruder film at a New York City theater in 1964? A claim that is so far out that I have to resort to words like "absurd," "ridiculous" and "totally unbelievable" to describe my reaction? In fact, I get personally irritated every time I think of Stewart Galanor or Thom Stamm taking a train to Washington, D.C. to view the Zapruder film at the Archives, while you are glibly claiming you saw it in a New York City theater in the fall of 1964, within weeks of the release of the Warren Report. I may even ask "what were you smoking?" (that night), but no--I do not think you were an agent, sent out by malevolent forces to change the history of 1964.

You are free of course to go down that path. . .Swift boating your opponent. . .(as Logan has put it). . .in effect erecting a "conspiracy theory of motivation" for an intellectual opponent.

All I can tell you is: that way madness lies.

DSL

1/7/10; 7:15 PM, PST

Los Angeles, CA

PS: What WERE you smoking that night??

I don't smoke.

I fail to see how asking questions based on info in SSID has anything to do with *swiftboating*, unless you are saying that nobody else in this entire community has found it necessary to ask them?

You consider yourself an expert at hypotheses, don't you? Well try this one -- that LIFE/CIA with or without Tink's conscious involvement, seem to have created an elite researcher, with access to all that the rest of us did not have, to come down from on high and proclaim to everyone else that the Z-film is perfect in every way, and that the rest of us are just whining and complaining and need to get on with our lives, and, by the way, accept the conclusions of the WCR and stop being troublemakers.

Hmmm?

Thank you, Len. In reading this post, I had a real breakthrough. For the first time, I think I understood what Fetzer has been up to.

His attacks on me over the last week never made any sense to me. I’m no threat to him. I’m an old man who will be seventy-five in a week or so. I don’t have any web site. I don’t have any publisher ready to snap up a book on the Kennedy assassination. So why does Fetzer think he has to assassinate my character with this noxious claim about me being an agent? There’s nothing unusual about flinging the charge of “agent” at someone. The research community has been alive with people calling other people “agents” for about forty-five years. So why does Fetzer start in again with this now? Why now when he was publicly rebuked about it by Wecht, Mantik, Aguilar, Turner, DeSalles, etc. ten years ago?

Your post made it clear to me. He truly has some weird delusions of grandeur about himself and his work as a flack in this case. You give the very citation where Fetzer describes the conference of about nineteen true believers on Zapruder film fakery as “the most important small conference on any subject in history.” That, folks, is downright downright silly. And then you quote him describing his book MIDP as “perhaps the best book ever published on the death of JFK.” Finally, you have him describing himself. After vomiting his CV for the umpteenth time, he says of himself modestly: “I know of no faculty member anywhere whose combination of achievements exceeds my own!”

There is no profit in showing how unreal these appraisals are. What is interesting here is the fact that he makes them at all. Then it came to me. Fetzer sees himself in a completely unreal way. It’s like he’s living in a dream where he will end up leading the parade in its magisterial progress towards a new understanding of what happened in Dallas. Finally, it will be understood by everyone that the Zapruder film and other films were altered and it was James Fetzer who courageously figured this out and led the way. I think he truly believes that if he can dirty me up enough that no one will pay attention to me that he can achieve his end. If only he can get me out of the way, the path will be clear.

The reality, of course, is quite different. It’s not me standing in his way. It’s the evidence that has piled up over the years. Fetzer has been at this for almost fifteen years now. He and Jack White and John Costella and David Lifton have been searching for proof of Zapruder film fakery for longer than that. They haven’t found it. After successive claims for “the seven-foot woman,” “Moorman-in-the-Street,” and thirty or forty other Jack White examples, they have not been able to show a single discrepancy between the Zapruder film and other films and photos from Dealey Plaza. That’s not me. That’s a failure in putting your theory up against the data coming back from the world. David Lifton for some time has been trying to indict the Zavada study of the camera and film to show that Zavada was wrong when he found the camera-original to authentic. We all saw how far, even with Fetzer’s help, the “full flush left image penetration” argument has gotten after six years of trying. This again is not me holding up the parade. It is the raw complex of facts concerning the manufacture of Zapruder’s camera and its capabilities that won’t conform to what they want that complex to be. The world of fact contradicts Fetzer theory. I could croak tomorrow and he wouldn’t be any better off.

So Fetzer focuses on me. He wrongly thinks that if he can just dirty me up enough in people’s minds, he can become the hero he knows he is. That’s why his attacks have become so reckless and odious. It is almost as if he cannot help himself. What do you think?

Josiah Thompson

Does Len have any basis for these attributions to me? I have observed that the Duluth conference may turn out to have been the most important in the history of the JFK assassination. Even Vincent Bugliosi has observed that these are the only exclusively scientific books published about the assassination -- though I would add BEST EVIDENCE (1980) to that list, where I have always regarded ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003) as successors to David Lifton's work. While my 29th book will appear early this year -- THE PLACE OF PROBABILITY IN SCIENCE (2010) -- no one I know, including me, would make the exaggerated claims that you attribute to me.

Come on Jim after 4 1/2 years you should know I don't make claims I can't back up, unless I say they are based on personal experience. I did make a small mistake thought, you didn't say a "conference [you] organized was the most important ever held" but rather "it may have been the most important small conference on any subject in history," See below your reply to Tink on the JFK Research Yahoo Group w/ his message below it. I highlighted the appropriate parts. [Underling and bolding mine ALL CAPS Fetzer's]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jfk-research/message/3858

What in God's name has possessed this man? He cannot abide the fact

that I have attained degrees of distinction that will forever elude

him? That he is a relic of bygone ages and reflects the distant past

of JFK research, while I and those with whom I collaborate represent

its future? Does anyone who knows how to read a vita have any real

doubt that a guy who has earned honors and distinctions throughout

his career--including the first Distinguished Teaching Award at the

University of Kentucy, which was presented by the Student Government

to 1 out of 135 assistant professors; the MacArthur Visiting Profes-

sorhip for a Distinguished Visiting Professor at New College of the

University of South Florida; and a Distinguised McKnight University

Professorship at the University of Minnesota, a system-wide award--

and has published 27 books is a distinguished scholar? Any doubt?

How else is anyone supposed to refute the claims he makes--most of

which he pulls out of thin air!--that my academic career has been

"pedestrian"? HOW ELSE? Then he whines and moans when I lay out

the evidence that PROVES HE IS WRONG! What kind of madness is go-

ing on in his mind? He says all kinds of things that are simply

wrong. Often visiting positions are merely visiting positions,

where you are not being reviewed for a permanent position. It's

obvious to me that he does not know that Cincinnati, for example,

was a strong Department of Philosophy when it invited me for a

visit--and that I remained a second year on an NSF Fellowship,

writing my first book, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE. He's never accomp-

lished anything remotely as significant as that. So why carp?

Moreover, New College of the University of South Florida is in

fact the honors college for USF and runs a fascinating program,

where every student has 600 SATs, every student does a thesis,

and no grades but only narrative evaluations are provided by the

faculty. There are about 400 students and 40 faculty, and it is

something close to the Platonic Ideal of an intellectual academy.

But of course he doesn't know any of these things. He makes it

up as he goes along and hopes some of the muck will stick. This

is a sign of advanced mental deterioration. I would feel sorry

for him if he were not so grossly abusinve of the facts in this

case, which make him completely untrustworthy when it comes to

even more serious matters, like the death of JFK. I am still

here, after all, and he can't even get it straight in my case!

Consider, for example, my first position at Kentucky. Tenure

is not a right and I was denied tenure. Everyone knows that.

The fact is that the head of the department at the time, one

Dallas High, was a Ph.D. in religion, not even in philosophy,

and wanted "a different kind of philosopher of science", one

more like Hans Jonas, who is actually a theologian. Because

of his intellectual orientation, he wanted someone he could

relate to more easily. Moreover, he wanted Kentucky to have

a Ph.D. program. I thought we had a nice M.A. program that

benefitted students who wanted to strengthen their credentials

before applying to Ph.D. programs. He didn't like that and

moved to deny me tenure. Kentucky did eventually get its own

Ph.D. program and now, when these programs are ranked nation-

ally, out of 99 programs, Kentucky ranks dead last! So Dallas

got his wish! It must be quite an accolade for the University.

Virginia promoted me to (visiting) associate after Kentucky

denied me, a rather facsinating result, considering that UVA

was then and remains among the most prestigious of all public

universities. They even brought me back years later as full

professor, rather remarkable if they did not hold me in high

esteem. It was great to live in Chapel Hill for a year, of

course, but I knew coming in that I was a replacement for a

faculty member on a temporary basis and there was no prospect

for having a permanent appointment. So either he just doesn't

know what goes on in higher education or he is simply lying out

his ass! Of course, don't overlook the possibility it is both!

Consider the University of Minnesota, Duluth. A nice medium-

sized public university with about 10,000 students, it is a

beautiful place to live, with the city distributed across a

range of bluffs overlooking Lake Superior. Since I arrived

in 1987-88, I published 24 books and more than 100 articles

and reviews. I founded an international journal, and inter-

national society, and an international professional library.

Where does he come off denigrating accomplishments like this?

I know of no faculty member anywhere whose combination of

achievements exceeds my own!

So it is clearly not knowledge

that motivates him but pure and utter spite! He cannot abide

the fact that I have accomplished more in less time--even in

relation to the assassination--than he will in his whole life!

Consider, too, the McKnight Professorship Program. That is

a system-wide distinction, not awared by UMD but by the Uni-

vesity of Minnesota. Just as the Student Government of UK

had 135 assistant professors to choose between, the Univer-

sity of Minnesota had simply hundreds of full professors to

choose between. It describes the program as follows: "The

goal of the Distinguished McKnight University Professorship

program is to honor and reward the highest-achieving faculty

at the University of Minnesota who have recently attained

full professor status--especially those whose careers have

advanced at Minnesota, whose work and reputation are identi-

fied with Minnesota, and bring renown and prestigue to the

University, and who can be expected to make addtional sig-

nificant contributions to their discipline." Along with

the title, which is permanent, comes a $100,000 research

grant. What has this guy ever attained that is comparable?

And he must take some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure in

attacking me for not having attended JFK conferences over

the past few years, when he knows that he has played an

active role in denying me a place on the podium. The one

in Pittsburgh, for example was one to which I had been

invited by Cyril Wecht. But this guy subverted the in-

vitation, using his personal influence to have me "dis-

invited"! It was then I realize that there was no way I

would be given a fair shake by the in-crowd in the JFK

community. I have since devoted myself to making what

we have discovered known to the American people via TV,

documentaries, and hundreds upon hundreds of talk radio

programs. What has he done that is remotely comparable?

The man is so completely and totally dishonest and not a

little demented that he even takes the initiative, drive,

and detmination I have shown in creating conferences and

books and treats it AS THOUGH IT WERE NEGATIVE!

The con-

ference I organized in Minneapolis in 1999 contributed to

the contents and publication of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA,

perhaps the best book ever published on the death of JFK

.

And the conference I organized in Duluth in 2003 led to

the publication of THE GREAT ZARPUDER FILM HOAX.

It may

have been the most important small conference on any sub-

ject in history

, where this guy did his level best to sub-

vert it, minimizing the very idea and actively discourag-

ing persons who were planning to come from attending. I

would not bother with all this drivel were it not the case

that you are being conned by a xxxx, a thief, a con man,

and a fraud. He is the most despicable person whom I have

known in my entire life. You might be taken in by him were

I not to detail the depths of his depravity and deception.

Quoting gumshoe882000 <josiah@...>:

> In dealing with Fetzer you get used to the idea that sooner or later

> he's going to be vomiting his CV all over you. Characteristically,

> he advertizes himself here as "a distinguished scholar."

>

> He's not and the spin he lays on his own CV is revealing.

>

> In the late 1970s, he got his ass booted from the University of

> Kentucky. For the next ten years, he wander the academic desert

> picking up single year-jobs at such intellectual powerhouses as the

> University of Cincinnati or the University of South Florida. Of

> course, he also did single or double-year stints at the University of

> Virginia and the University of North Carolina. The usefulness of

> these visiting assistant or associate or full professor gigs is that

> they give the institution a chance to look at a prospective hire

> before hiring them on tenure track. None of these institutions bit,

> so Fetzer was left to wander from one to another for a decade before

> washing up on the shores of the University of Minnesota (Duluth),

> another intellectual powerhouse. Fetzer spins this chronicle of

> failure by saying "he taught at a wide variety of institutions of

> higher learning." If he's such "a distinguished scholar".... such a

> high-powered dude.... how come no first rate university would have

> anything to do with him?

>

> Yeah, he's written a ton of articles and books... all intrinsically

> forgettable, the hallmark of what might be called "the academic

> businessman"... a guy who's a bit lacking in ideas but churns out

> junk to impress deans at second-rate institutions.

>

> He tries the same manoeuver with respect to his work on the Kennedy

> assassination. Much junk, little value. What's hilarious is his

> citing of his 2003 "conference" at the University of Minnesota

> (Duluth) as a conference he chaired. Not only did he chair

> this "conference" where upwards of nineteen or so people attended

> (most of whom were giving silly ass talks on how fake was the

> Zapruder film), he arranged the whole thing. The only thing he

> forgot to do was to have the "conference" give him some equally silly-

> ass award so he could cite that in his CV.

I'll tell you what I'll do, Bill. I'll just ignore this whole thread. All it is anyway is just the same old... same old.

Josiah Thompson

How many threads are there going to be on the Zapruder film, Fetzer and Thompson?

Can't you stick to just three or four?

Why start a new one every day?

Jack White already started one on this very topic.

They now take up the entire board.

(I agree the post should not have been closed)

Bill Kelly

Only a really short reply is required:

(1) I not only gave you the citation to Don Thomas' argument that is at issue her, I copied it out and presented the summary diagram. You simply ignore it. Since his argument is what is in question, why do you continue to just ignore it?

(2) Why is it that you also ignore the other point I raised... specifically that there is no present report from the socalled "Hollywood experts" and it is clear in advance that they are not even studying the best copies available of Zapruder frames. These are available for viewing at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas (see my thread "Where can you see the best copies of Zapruder frames?").

Josiah Thompson

The explanation you have offered for rejecting the double-hit is not even physically possible. I don't quite understand why you don't appreciate that it is acoustically and neurologically impossible for the "startle response" and the hit to have occurred at the same time. If you misdescribed your position and they did not happen at the same time, then there may be more to it. But on its face, it is no explanation at all.

Perhaps the fault lies in reliance upon a fabricated film, but it is not possible that they should have occurred together at the same instant of time. As for other issues, I am dumbfounded that you are unwilling to accept Doug Horne's report in Vol. IV about the observations made by a group of Hollywood film experts. As many as seven -- eight, actually, if we count Roderick Ryan -- have concluded the film is an amateurish fake.

Would you concede that if Doug's report is accurate -- and they found that the blow-out to the back of head has been painted over in black and that the "blob" and blood spray have been painted in -- then you have been wrong and the film is a fabrication, after all? There is no reason to think Doug -- whose background is in history -- has not told us exactly what they found. But would you make this concession at least conditionally?

Would you agree that, if what Doug has reported to have been their professional opinions -- the expert judgments -- of the shabby and amateurish alteration of the film by painting over the massive defect to the back of the head and painting in the "blob" and the blood spray, then -- in spite of all of your protestations to the contrary in the past -- would you then finally concede that the case has been proven by simple and direct evidence?

Professor,

In post after post, you evidence the fact that you have not even read the section from Don Thomas. You say that I "exploit" the work of Luis Alvarez when just opposite is true. Thomas explains the great importance of the impact and smear occuring in the same frame. He gives the numbers and the calculations. You continue to pay no attention to this important argument. Thomas also explains why Luis Alvarez's attempt to explain the simultuneity of the two is silly. Your response is to say that I "exploit" Luis Alvarez. This is even sillier.

Also silly is your emphasis on the unknown results soon to be forthcoming from Hollywood. You write:

"Today you continue with this ridiculous charade, not even confronting the reports that seven Hollywood film experts have viewed the 6k version and concluded that the film is a fake: the blow-out to the rear of the head was painted over in black and the "blob" and the blood spray were painted in, precisely as Roderick Ryan had explained to Noel Twyman, BLOODY REASON (1998), which you continued to obscure and obfuscate."

First off, we don't know what these experts are going to say. Second, we do know that they are not even looking at the best copy of the Zapruder film available for such a study (see my thread, "Where can you see the best copies of Zapruder frames?")

You continue to prattle on claiming that I don't answer your questions when it's clear you don't either read or understand an answer when it's given.

Josiah Thompso

Professor,

In post after post, you evidence the fact that you have not even read the section from Don Thomas. You say that I "exploit" the work of Luis Alvarez when just opposite is true. Thomas explains the great importance of the impact and smear occuring in the same frame. He gives the numbers and the calculations. You continue to pay no attention to this important argument. Thomas also explains why Luis Alvarez's attempt to explain the simultuneity of the two is silly. Your response is to say that I "exploit" Luis Alvarez. This is even sillier.

Also silly is your emphasis on the unknown results soon to be forthcoming from Hollywood. You write:

"Today you continue with this ridiculous charade, not even confronting the reports that seven Hollywood film experts have viewed the 6k version and concluded that the film is a fake: the blow-out to the rear of the head was painted over in black and the "blob" and the blood spray were painted in, precisely as Roderick Ryan had explained to Noel Twyman, BLOODY REASON (1998), which you continued to obscure and obfuscate."

First off, we don't know what these experts are going to say. Second, we do know that they are not even looking at the best copy of the Zapruder film available for such a study (see my thread, "Where can you see the best copies of Zapruder frames?")

You continue to prattle on claiming that I don't answer your questions when it's clear you don't either read or understand an answer when it's given.

Josiah Thompso

Well, Josiah, if you are not misleading us, then why aren't you answering my questions about your book? Why didn't you confront the blatant contradiction between the medical and witness evidence, which support a blow-out to the left-rear, and the Zapruder film, which shows a massive bulging out to the right-front? You do not even include sketches of the "blob", which is very revealing. You have a sketch of 313 that obfuscates rather than clarifies the contents of the frame. You do not show any details of frames 314, 315, and 316, much less the sequence of frames that display the blob so vividly from 313 to 340! That is quite a remarkable sequence to overlook -- and it provides powerful circumstantial proof that you were obfuscating the conflict between them to sustain the illusion of the authenticity of the film, which has served as the backbone of the cover-up from the beginning.

By removing events, adding others, and contracting the time line, it mislead generations of students into the false belief that the film was the touchstone of truth about the assassination -- an illusion you have sought to sustain, at all costs! Today you continue with this ridiculous charade, not even confronting the reports that seven Hollywood film experts have viewed the 6k version and concluded that the film is a fake: the blow-out to the rear of the head was painted over in black and the "blob" and the blood spray were painted in, precisely as Roderick Ryan had explained to Noel Twyman, BLOODY REASON (1998), which you continued to obscure and obfuscate. The time is long past for you to stand up and be counted, Josiah. You have abused your position in having had access to the best qualify versions of the film to distort and conceal their blatant conflict with the medical evidence. The time has come. The jig is up!

This is not the first time I have raised questions about it, but the fact that you continue to bob and weave, duck and hide, is very telling. You are now trying to subvert every indication of conspiracy that you contributed in your book, even while you denied that your book offered proof of conspiracy! That, of course, was what infuriated Vincent Salandria. And this is not the first time I have made a point of these issues. See, for example, "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid", which I published on OpEdNews (28 March 2009), yet you have evaded the question and not confronted it. How much evidence do we need that you are not the "stand up" guy you pose as being? You now appear to be undertaking the systemic undermining of the "doubt hit" theory, using an impossible explanation, denying the throat wound is a wound of entry or that it passed through the windshield, where we have ample proof of both, in an evident effort to prepare for your repudiation of conspiracy in time for the 50th observance! You appear to be disinfo to the bitter end!

You have been able to take in large numbers of students in the past, who do not know you as well as I do. Here, for example, is an earlier study of mine:

Six Seconds in Dallas

[Editor's note: The announcement on Rich DellaRosa's

JFKresearch Forum that Josiah Thompson's book, SIX

SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), was going to be reprinted

in collaboration with The 6th Floor Museum caused me

concern, for reasons explained in this post. While

more than 125 persons read it, no one took issue with

what I had to say here, including Josiah Thompson.]

The author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), Josiah Thompson, Ph.D.,

recently announced that his book is being reprinted by some (heretofore

unidentified) university press. "The book will be reprinted in its original

form by a university press", he explained. "All income from this reprinting

will go to a special fund set up by The 6th Floor Museum for the acquisition

and preservation of original materials."

Now university presses are not rare book dealers, so unless this

"reprinting" were to include new material, it is difficult to imagine why it

is being published. Who will buy it? If he were to address current issues of

film authenticity, of course, that might make a considerable difference. Yet

he assures us that "The claims of Zapruder film alteration will not be

discussed since they are spurious." Precisely how he knows that the claims

of Zapruder film alteration are spurious is beyond me, since, to the best of

my knowledge, he has never addressed the vast majority, and those he has

addressed in his DISINFORMATION SERIES have displayed his ignorance of recent

work.

But there are even more general aspects of this situation that I find

puzzling. He has made much of the claim that three spent shell casings were

found in the alleged "assassin's lair", which evidence photographs published

by Gary Shaw, by Noel Twyman, and by Jesse Curry tend to undermine. Yet his

own book claims that just two shots were actually fired from the assassin's

lair, where the third--crimped--cartridge was a plant. So when Todd Vaughan

attacked me for having this all wrong--citing, for example, that Curry had

added the notation, "Three were found in all", where the third was kept by

the DPD until the FBI demanded it-Thompson's own account of the matter

(pp. 143-146) supports the conclusion that it was a fake. So even though his

own position was essentially in agreement with mine--that this third cartridge

casing was "of dubious origin"--he remained silent and said nothing. That is

interesting all on its own, but not as much as that, if three shots had been

fired from there, his own account of the killing would be false.

In particular, it is the thesis of SIX SECOND IN DALLAS that four shots

were fired by three shooters, only two of which were fired from "the assassin's

lair". A third, he claims, was fired from the Dallas County Records Building,

and a fourth from the grassy knoll. One hit JKF in the back, another hit Connally,

and the third and fourth hit the President in the head in very close

temporal proximity. (See Chapter VIII, which includes a diagram of this

scenario.) Since all four shots hit, he accounts for the injury to James

Tague as having been caused by a fragment from the bullet that hit JFK in

the back of the head (pp. 230-233).

Precisely where this fragment exited his cranuim on its trajectory he does

not explain, but that is his take. As I previously observed, the evidence has

long since carried us beyond his position of 1967. In fact, by 1970, the studies

of Richard Sprague, COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION (May 1970), had already superceded

those of Josiah Thompson. As I observed in response to an inquiry from Todd

Vaughan, Sprague's analysis was not only better founded--based as it was on more

than 500 photographic records, where the Z-film, for example, counted as only

one--but it employed a vastly more sophisticated technology through the use

of computerized photoanalysis and arrived at very different conclusions about

the shot sequence itself.

Sprague has two shots from the knoll (different locations), two from the

Book Depository (but none from the "assassin's lair"), and two from the Dal-Tex

Building. So if Sprague is right, then Thompson is wrong. Since Thompson has

assured us, "There will be no changes in the original text and photos though

some minor corrections or clarifications may be added", apparently he will not

discuss the work of Richard Sprague. But it may also explain his aversion to

ASSASSINATION SCIENCE and MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA. We had discovered by 1998 that

JFK had been hit by at least four shots--one to the back from behind, one to the

throat from in front, and two to the head, one from behind and one from in

front--with at least one(and probably more) hit to Connally and a complete miss

that injured Tague. So if ASSASSINATION SCIENCE is right, then SIX SECONDS must

be wrong.

And similarly for MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, where evidence for perhaps as

many as ten or more shots may be found. So perhaps there is a simple explanation

for Thompson's otherwise seemingly irrational aversion to both of these books.

If ASSASSINATION SCIENCE or MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA are right, then SIX SECONDS

must be wrong. So perhaps this is all about an author protectingg his "investment"

in the for of his own book. He is not going to discuss Sprague's studies or more

recent work, no matter how well supported they may be, because it severely undermines

the position he adopted in 1967! That is remarkable in itself, but I am still puzzled

why a serious university press would even consider publishing a book in 2001 whose

principal conclusions had already been superceded by 1970! I speculate that this

may be an elaborate public relations gimmick intended to dupe the unwary into

mistakenly supposing that this is the latest research reflecting current work

on the subject.

If anyone has a more plausible hypothesis, I would like to hear it. We have

been reassured by Thompson, however, that he is not making "a dime" off this project,

whose proceeds are going to support The Sixth Floor Museum: "All income from this

reprinting will go to a special fund set up by The 6th Floor Museum for the

acquisition and preservation of original materials." Preservation may be the

operative word, at least in the case of his own work. Yet, for reasons I cannot

quite identify, there still seems to be something peculiar about all this: an old

book not updated, a university press, and now The 6th Floor Museum.

Apparently he knows who he is dealing with there, since he tells us, "I

have known and respected Gary Mack for nearly twenty years. We are friends."

Perhaps what bothers me is that The 6th Floor Museum has been criticized

for years for its bias against research and evidence that point in directions

other than that the crime was committed by a lone, demented gunman. Not only

are ASSASSINATION SCIENCE and MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA not carried there, but virtually

none of the books discussed in them are carried there either. Len Osanic, who

maintains a web site on behalf of Fletcher Prouty, who served as a liaison between

the Pentago, the CIA, and The White House during the Kennedy administration, even

maintains a file of complaints about the operation there.

Anyone who would like to review these reactions for themselves is welcome

to visit the file at http://www.prouty.org/boycott.html. The web site itself

holds many attractions, not least of all because Prouty was the basis for the

character "Colonel X" in Oliver's Stone's film "JFK". I find it odd that an

author ostensibly committed to the existence of conspiracy in the death of JFK

would be on such cordial terms with The 6th Floor. Osanic has observed, "That

the book MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA is not carried by The 6th Floor only

underscores the fact that this is not a museum but a 'front'". If that is true,

then I guess that would explain it. Consider the evidence and judge for

yourself.

I wrote:

“Frame 313 is unique among the various Zapruder frames since it demonstrably shows the impact of a bullet at the same time the camera is being moved by the startle reaction of Zapruder. In all other instances, where we believe we can see the effects of a bullet strike, the horizontal smear introduced by Zapruder’s startle reaction follows two or three frames later. The fact that 313 shows large horizontal smearing is critical. The effect can be seen by noting the horizontal smearing of the light reflections from the chrome strut over the passenger compartment. Measurements of the position of JFK’s head were made against the background of the light-colored south curb of Elm Street. The effect of the smear was to elongate this horizontal light-colored area.”

You replied:

“But there appears to be no basis for the purported "smear". In particular, you appeal to the occurrence of a "startle response" by Abraham Zapruder that caused the alleged "smear", when even Luis Alvarez did not find any instance in which a "startle response" and a bullet hit took place at the same time. Your suggestion that the shooter was closer to Zapruder is unpersuasive. The bullet was traveling much faster than sound, even if that had been the case. The neurological response itself would have taken time. The hit and the response cannot have happened at the same time. Your argument is clearly based upon a false premise.”

Don Thomas’ chart shows why and how you are wrong:

There is a large horizontal smear in Z 313 that has all the indicia of being the result of a startle reaction on Zapruder’s part. It looks exactly like other smears due to startle reaction. The only difference is that this smear occurs in the same frame that we see impact. Don Thomas has explained how this can only be due to the shot having been fired from less than one hundred feet from Zapruder. Luis Alvarez, a clear exponent of the single gunman view, tried to explain this oddity as due to a shock wave from a bullet fired from the TSBD moving Zapruder’s camera. As Thomas has demonstrated, this is silly. What Thomas has discovered is a fascinating argument that the presence of startle reaction smear and impact in the same frame means that the shot could not have come from the TSBD. I find this a persuasive argument and would be interested in other folks’ views of it. I am totally disinterested in more bombast from you, Professor.

But there is another “smear” in your post, Professor, and it is coming from you. As I pointed out earlier, you have put great energy into getting other folks to see me as “suspect.” This has been your standard response to many other people whom you disagree with. You affirm in your post that you “fingered” me as a “disinformation agent” a decade ago. As I recollect, one of the reasons you used for claiming I was such a “disinformation agent” was that Six Seconds published drawings of frames not photos. I think we all know how silly that is. What you didn’t tell your readers was what happened to you after making that charge. First, David Mantik , Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar publicly rebuked you. Then a “Public Statement” was circulated and then signed by Peter Dale Scott, Doug DeSalles, William Turner, Paul Hoch and others. That “Public Statement” reads as follows:

“To David Mantik, Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar’s public rebuke of our colleague Jim Fetzer’s behavior, we must regretfully add our own. We agree with David Mantik, when he points out “that public attacks on motives of others.. are biased, prejudicial, counterproductive, and, finally, useless.” We agree with Cyril Wecht when he asks Jim Fetzer to apologize to Tink Thompson and points out that “you do not help our cause.. by publicly attacking one of the most experienced, knowledgeable and respected critics of the Warren Commission Report.” We agree with Gary Aguilar when he states that Jim Fetzer’s “slanderous piece about Tink Thompson has no place on the web site of any credible Warren skeptic” and points out that “Jim has seriously undermined his own credibility with collateral damage that will.. harm me, David Mantik and others who have worked with him.”

“By choosing to insinuate what he dare not say, Jim Fetzer chooses a low road. In so choosing, he hurts not only himself but all of us.”

In the years that have followed the issuance of these public statements in 2000, Fetzer has kept up his toxic refrain that I am some sort of “disinformation agent.” His posts on this site are witness to a repeated effort to make me suspect. However, he has reached a new low in claiming that “Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me!”

The best... and as far as I know the only place... to look for an account of this sad little episode in the history of the critics is John Kelin’s excellent book, Praise from a Future Generation. Kelin wrote the book because Vince Salandria offered to let him go through all Salandria’s correspondence for this period. Given this fact one would expect Kelin to back Salandria’s side of things if there was any conflict. But Kelin didn’t. As in the rest of his book, he took a genuinely scholarly approach and printed all the correspondence about the conflict. Kelin’s account can be found in the Chapters 28 and 20 (“Fatal Ruptures” and “Single-Spaced Letters”) dealing with the internecine battles that developed among the critics in 1967 and 1968. It was in the midst of these battles that Salandria began making claims against me.

Salandria had written the key articles in Liberation Magazine and M.S. Arnoni’s Minority of One exposing the key failures in the Warren Commission’s treatment of the evidence. These early articles are as true today as they were on the day they were written. Salandria and I started working together in the spring of 1966 and made several trips to the Archives together in the summer of that year. We decided to put together an article for publication in a magazine such as Harper’s or The Atlantic Monthly. But Vince didn’t like to write and I did. Hence, by August of that year I had put together a draft that ran 80 to 100 pages. Then we started to disagree about the interpretation of evidence. There were several points of disagreement. The only one I remember is that I was simply not convinced that JFK was hit in the throat from the front. So we abandoned our joint effort and I went forward on my own. Shortly after Six Seconds was published, I began hearing rumors that Salandria was saying I was a government agent. From the correspondence of several people, John Kelin was able to put together a background story that I learned of when I read his book.

Salandria’s suspicions made their way to M.S. Arnoni, the man who had published Salandria in The Minority of One. According the Kelin, “When M.S. Arnoni heard the case against Thompson, he said it was nonsense.” Kelin then goes on to quote Arnoni:

“In my considered judgment, the whole structure of the ‘evidence’ involved is classically psychological, bespeaking Thompson’s pursuits in no way whatsoever, but rather reflecting the frame of mind of whomever begot the suspicion and proceeded to add ‘convincing’ details and deductions.”

In January 1968, Sylvia Meagher wrote, “I cannot take seriously the suggestion that Tink is a CIA plant.” Later that year, Salandria wrote Sylvia claiming that another individual (unnamed by Kelin) was a government agent. Sylvia wrote back: “Epstein, Thompson, Jacob Cohen, William Gurvitch... not unnaturally, then, the cry wolf may not raise any hackles even if a real one is finally in the chicken coop.”

This was a rough time for the critical community. The Garrison disaster was looming and Sylvia

and I stood together against the tide of general endorsement of the New Orleans District Attorney. We drew a lot of flack from other critics. Kelin closes these chapters with the following two paragraphs:

In March 1968, Salandria had written him [Thompson] a letter. ‘I feel that you should know that I consider the data on whether you are a United States government agent or not incomplete, but that I entertain a suspicion at this time that you are,’ he told him [Thompson]. ‘It will be a pleasure to admit to you later, should you do work to rectify the damage which you have done by failing to confront the truth in the assassination, that I have been egregiously wrong about you.’

Thompson wrote back an even shorter reply: he told Salandria he was out of his goddam mind. But that was all right, he [Thompson] said; at times he wondered about his own sanity. ‘But a government agent? Jesus!’”

What do I think of all this? I think Salandria was doing the same thing that Fetzer now is doing... using a profound disagreement as to how to approach the Kennedy assassination to claim someone is a government agent.

What you are trying to do, Professor Fetzer, is transparent. It is also dishonorable and vicious. It has no place in any community of scholarship. In rebutting these charges that are meant to destroy my credibility, I waste not only my time but the time of everyone who has to read this. I hope someone whose opinion you trust will explain to you just how ignoble what you are trying to do appears.

Josiah Thompson

This is very curious. Josiah Thompson is responding to my observation that it would have been physically impossible for the blur and the startle response to have occurred at the same time with a post that affirms that the blur and the startle response could not have occurred at the same time:

On the contrary, it is not possible for the sound to have reached Zapruder's position prior to frame 313 or 314 unless one posits some sort of cartridge anomaly. Moreover, because of the latency in reaction time, the sound has to arrive well before the exposure of frame 313 in order to account for the blur in that frame. In his published analysis, Alvarez acknowledged that it was not possible for the sound of the gunshot to arrive before the end of frame 313. Alvarez offered a different solution. Alvarez conjectured that the sound pressure from the shock wave of the passing bullet could have moved the camera body! Indeed, the sound pressure of the shock wave would have been significant; around 110 deciBels. But, as was the case with the HSCA panel, Alvarez failed to provide calculations in support of his supposition that the shock wave could have arrived in time to account for the jiggle.

We know a lot about Alvarez, by the way. In his chapter in HOAX (2003), David Mantik reports that Alvarez was highly selecting in producing his support for a three-shot scenario, selecting evidence that agreed with a predetermined conclusion and eliminating the rest. That is not sound science, Josiah!

You observe that, over a decade ago, I fingered you as an agent of disinformation. My statement about you can still be found on assassinationscience.com. That hardly qualifies as discerning on my part, since Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me! I was right then and I am right now.

Consider the following:

(1) in composing SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), you, Josiah Thompson, had unprecedented access to the highest quality versions of the Zapruder film;

(2) that film, as you must know for yourself, displays a massive bulging out of brains to the right-front, which has long since come to be known as "the blob";

(3) the "blob" is not an incidental feature of the representation of the blow-out, but extends from frames 313-316 for more than thirty frames through 338-339;

(4) this massive bulging-out to the right front is inconsistent with the medical evidence, typified by the McClelland drawing and by the testimony of Officer Bobby Hargis;

(5) Gary Aguilar, M.D., collated the testimony of the Parkland physicians, who were consistent about cerebellar and cerebral tissue extruding from the right-rear;

(6) it follows that, even from consideration of the most elementary evidence in this case, that there is a stunning and inescapable conflict between the medical evidence and the film;

(7) SIX SECONDS would have created a sensation and blown the cover-up out of the water had you used your knowledge to expose the inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film;

(8) however, in your book, you only provides an opaque sketch of frame 313 and none but the most abstract outline of any of the frames 314, 315, and 316, which meant they were inaccessible for study;

(9) since you published the McClelland diargram and even quote Officer Hargis, you have to have been aware of the conflict, yet you tacitly, implicity, and by omitting discussion minimize it;

(10) this meant that, no matter how blatant the contradiction, the existence of this conflict--in spite of its immense importance--was very difficult to discern based upon your book;

(11) you also introduced your "doubt hit" theory, where JFK was hit in the back of the head 1/9th of a second before he was hit in the right temple by a fangile (or exploding) bullet;

(12) you now maintain that you were wrong, claiming Zapruder experienced a "startle response" that caused a smear on the film at exactly the same moment that the bullet hit;

(13) that, however, is a neurological impossibility, because the bullet travels far faster than sound and it would have taken time for any such "startle response" to occur;

(14) you are now offering an excuse for having been mistaken about your "double hit" hypothesis--which was one of the most striking features of his book--by invoking a phony explanation;

(15) the phoniness of your explanation has now been confirmed by the very sources you cite in attempting to justify your false reasons for repudiating own your previous work;

(16) your pseudo-explanation of why your were wrong does not affect the independent discovery of the same "double hit" by Richard Feynman, a world-famous physicist at CalTech;

(17) there is overwhelming proof that the film is a fabrication, including HOAX (2003), "More Proof of JFK Film Fakery" (2008) and "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" (2009);

(18) film restoration experts have now viewed a 6k version of the film and expressed astonishment at the amateurish quality of the fakery, which includes painting over the massive defect at the back of the head in black and painting in the "blob" and the blood spray;

(19) today at least seven film experts have concurred in this opinion, thereby agreeing with Roderick Ryan, an expect on special effects, who received the academic award in 2000, who explained these things to Noel Twyam, BLOODY TREASON (1998); and,

(20) the chain of custody argument that you have long advanced to defend his claim that the film cannot have been faked--in spite of massive evidence to the contrary--has been shattered by Doug Horne's discover of another copy have been developed in Rochester.

No one likes being played for a sucker, yet you have been playing the world for saps since your book appeared in 1967. Your conduct is utterly disgusting and completely reprehensible. You are now extending your efforts by disavowing or minimizing indications of conspiracy that were included in SIX SECONDS, while you continue your attempts to perpetrate the fraud that the film is authentic.

Your new mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy you can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory you yourself had previously championed! Your technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them.

It will be fascinating to see how you will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which you take to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". My best guess is that you will admit that, "There was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!” And you will do this with fanfare shortly before the 50th observance of the assassination.

I think we have your number, Tink. It's about time that you came clean and cease your bizarre and malevolent practices.

Jim

I will let Fetzer fulminate and bloviate to his heart’s content. Meanwhile, back with the evidence.....

Doug Horne has told us that a group of Hollywood film restoration experts have obtained copies of the Zapruder film from NARA and have scanned individual frames at high resolution. According to Horne, this will permit them to look at the back of JFK’s head in the frames subsequent to Z 313 to determine if there has been any alteration of the frames. They will produce a report soon.

It seems to me important to ask whether these film restoration experts in Hollywood will be looking at the best copies available of Zapruder frames.

Last August, David Mantik emailed Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum and asked him if he knew the whereabouts of the large format 4 x 5 inch Ektachrome transparencies of the extant Zapruder film commissioned by MPI in 1997 for its video Image of an Assassination. Gary Mack replied by email that the Ektachrome transparencies were in the possession of the Sixth Floor Museum and were available for viewing if a request was made through proper channels on the museum’s website. This was very important news. Whereas the dupe 35 mm negative was a fifth generation copy, the Ektachrome transparencies were only one generation removed from the extant film, and presumably would show any anomalies, or apparent alterations, in much greater detail than even the 35 mm dupe negative made from the Forensic Copy. If the extant film under cold storage at NARA were ever declared unavailable for direct examination for any reason, then the Ektachrome transparencies at the Sixth Floor Museum could become the best tool for studying apparent alterations in the film. Not only would these images be four generations closer to the extant film than the dupe negative (and therefore theoretically depict details in better resolution), but they could serve as a “control” to prove whether or not the Hollywood team had digitally altered their scans of the Zapruder frames in any way.

Hence, the best copies to view to determine whether there has been any alteration of frames are the 4" by 5" Ektachrome transparencies in the custody of the Sixth Floor Museum.

Josiah Thompson

No. The Zapruder film copy that Vince Salandria and I viewed in the Archives in the sunner of 1966 we were told was an FBI copy of the Secret Service first day copy. It had no features not contained in the various copies of the Zapruder film that I saw at LIFE and anywhere else.

Josiah Thompson

I am going to make this short.

Josiah,In 1966 you saw a copy of a Secret Service copy of the Zapruder film.Did the film you see that day show the left turn onto Elm street or the limo stop?

Professor,

As you point out, Lifton’s Ramparts article is cited on page 175 of Six Seconds: “David Lifton, 'The Case for Three Assassins,' Ramparts, January 1967, p. 86." Actually, neither David Lifton nor I were the first to notice the forward movement of JFK’s head between Z 312-313. While we were viewing Zapruder slides at the Archives in the summer of 1966, Vince Salandria pointed this out to me. Apparently, he had heard something about this perhaps from Ray Marcus.

I see that once again you are trying to bring Vincent Salandria into your smear campaign and that you recently contacted him with respect to me. I continue to see Vincent Salandria as one of the original heroes of the critical community and will not say a contrary word about him.

Instead of disagreeing with any view I might put forward, you are trying to destroy my credibility with the members of this forum. Over what is now a decade’s time, you have been trying to get people to believe that I am a government agent. Obviously, this is simply a form of character assassination. Instead of replying to you once again, I will quote these words of rebuke from David Lifton and Jerry Logan. Their posts can be found on the thread entitled “Would An Agent Do That?”:

First from Jerry Logan:

Pamela,

I wouldn't even dare to suggest what you should think but it would be good if you simply thought before you joined in the swift-boating. Someone of your education should recognize the tried and true show trial, McCarthy, swift-boat tactics that are being used on Josiah. It has worked very well in the past and for those who only care about personal victory it's very effective indeed. The utter mindlessness of the approach is beside the point. The 2004 Presidential election was converted to a referendum on John Kerry's war record because people (apparently such as your self) couldn't see that it was an obvious effort to distract public attention from the real issues.

So now, of course, Josiah has to spend his time defending his reputation on nearly endless threads. We're not discussing the assassination, we're discussing speculation about the honor and integrity of a man and everyone knows that where there's smoke there's fire! Fetzer and his cohorts have managed to suppress any substantive discussion of Fetzer's claims and put the fear of God into anyone considering honest disagreement.

What you fail to realize is that it's possible to construct similar fairy-tails about anyone. You, Jack White, or particularly Fetzer himself. It's meaningless. The evidence shows what the evidence shows no matter who presents it or for what reason. But now the debate is about Josiah Thompson instead of what we really care about.

Thanks Pamela,

Mission Accomplished!

Next from David Lifton:

Jerry Logan has written an elegant and logical reply--one that addresses the corrupt logic and paranoid style that lays behind this sort of "agent" accusation.

I strongly disagree with Thompson (very strongly disagree, in fact) on a number issues, and even have been exasperated by some of the positions he takes, failing to understand why he doesn't believe A, but rather believes B. That happens a lot. But no, I do NOT believe that he is an agent.

Further, I agree with Logan: it diverts attention from the issues, to the person. Stick to the issues; take apart your opponent on the facts; but be very careful when getting into a conspiracy theory to explain your opponent's behavior.

For example, Pamela: you claim to have seen the Zapruder film at the Bleeker Street Cinema in the Fall of 1964, and I have (elsewhere, on another thread) set forth my numerous (and valid) reasons for believing why that cannot possibly be true. Why I believe you're spreading an urban legend; why what you're saying belongs on Snopes dot com. Now, I could carry this further and speculate as to why you would disseminate such a clearly impossible claim. That would lead to conjectures about your psychological state (and would be really besides the point, would it not)? But let's say I were to travel down that path. Then, that line of "reasoning" could be carried a step further, to the political arena--perhaps by alleging that by putting someone up to spreading such a false claim on the Internet, circa 2010, you are acting as the agent of some conspirators whose goal is to influence future generations who should forget how the film was totally quarantined, and off limits, but instead remember the claim of that lady who says it was screened in a New York City cinema in the fall of 1964. All very Orwellian (right?). Well, wrong. That's absurd, of course. But my point is: I could view matters through that most peculiar lens, and come up with a conspiracy theory re your motivation.

Now here's another example. I happen to believe--strongly believe--that there was a hole in the windshield (I have no doubt about that at all, as a matter of fact) and furthermore, I believe that Doug Weldon's work is very important AND valid. You take issue with it. Well, not only might I disagree with your interpretation of the data, and your criticisms of his his interpretation; but in addition, I come up with a conspiracy theory to explain WHY you take the position(s) you do--i.e., that you are an "agent" sent out to destroy Weldon.

Now. . let's see. . what might my evidence be? . . hmmm. . . well now, isn't it the case that you were visited by Ken Rahn, the notorious lone nutter who runs a website with all sorts of defenses of the lone nutter theory? Why, isn't it the case that there are even pictures of you and him (and I believe your significant other) cavorting socially? . etc etc. . . Oh my gosh. . look at this web of associations!

But all this is quite beside the point, is it not? You're not a "government agent" any more than Josiah Thompson is an agent. You just happen to hold a set of beliefs (with regard to the windshield) that I believe to be completely incorrect. Does that make you an agent. As for your allegedly viewing the Zapruder film at a New York City theater in 1964? A claim that is so far out that I have to resort to words like "absurd," "ridiculous" and "totally unbelievable" to describe my reaction? In fact, I get personally irritated every time I think of Stewart Galanor or Thom Stamm taking a train to Washington, D.C. to view the Zapruder film at the Archives, while you are glibly claiming you saw it in a New York City theater in the fall of 1964, within weeks of the release of the Warren Report. I may even ask "what were you smoking?" (that night), but no--I do not think you were an agent, sent out by malevolent forces to change the history of 1964.

You are free of course to go down that path. . .Swift boating your opponent. . .(as Logan has put it). . .in effect erecting a "conspiracy theory of motivation" for an intellectual opponent.

All I can tell you is: that way madness lies.

DSL

1/7/10; 7:15 PM, PST

Los Angeles, CA

So that is where you have arrived, Professor. An angry old man who cannot get by debating the issues themselves and instead ends up "swift-boating" anyone who disagrees with you... first and foremost, me!

Josiah Thompson

Josiah Thompson's greatest claim to fame was less the publication of SIX

SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967) than the publication of an article about it in

The Saturday Evening Post (2 December 1967). The cover described it as

"MAJOR NEW STUDY SHOWS THREE ASSASSINS KILLED KENNEDY". And the

article itself, "The Cross Fire that Killed President Kennedy", which was penned

by Josiah Thompson, was subtitled, "A new study based on new evidence and

new concepts argues that at least three assassins were firing that tragic

day in Dallas". Oddly, however, David Lifton had published "The Case for

Three Assassins" in Ramparts (January 1967). Since Thompson has a rather

obscure footnote to Lifton's article on page 175 of his book -- but does

not otherwise credit him -- I wonder how much Lifton may have inspired

him. Here are a couple of sources that provide a general overview on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lifton

In June 1966, Lifton lived and worked in San Francisco, where he was employed by Ramparts

Magazine, on their Kennedy project. The result was a 30,000 word article, "The Case For

Three Assassins" (published as a cover story in the January, 1967 issue), which laid out

the case that more than one assassin was firing at Kennedy, based on anomalies in the

medical evidence. "The Case for Three Assassins" was the first time a major piece of

writing had been done on the backward snap of JFK's head so clearly visible in the

Zapruder film. Physicists were interviewed, and one in particular - Dr. James Riddle, of

the UCLA Department of Physics - went on record with his opinion that the backward

headsnap was impossible if JFK had been struck from behind.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKthompsonJ.htm

Thompson took a keen interest in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and in 1967

Thompson published Six Seconds in Dallas - A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination. In

the book Thompson argues that four shots were fired by three gunman. Two shots were fired

from the Texas Book Depository, a third, from the Dallas County Records Building, and a

fourth from the grassy knoll. One hit Kennedy in the back, another hit John Connally, and

the third and fourth hit the president in the head. . . . In recent years Thompson has

been highly critical of those researchers such as James H. Fetzer, David Mantik, Jack

White and David Lifton who have argued that the Zapruder Film was tampered with soon

after the assassination.

One might have thought that Lifton's earlier work, which advances similar

themes, would have deserved recognition in his "Acknowledgments". While he

extols the virtues of Vincent Salandria as his primary source of encourage-

ment, there is an irony here, since Vince wrote to me in in February 2009,

"With respect to Josiah Thompson, I am surprised that you do

not know that immediately after the issuance of his book, 'Six

Seconds in Dallas,' I characterized him as a government agent.

I so designated him at my home after I called his attention to

the last paragraph of his book wherein he denied that the mat-

erial analyzed in the book demonstrated that the assassination

of JFK was a conspiracy. He explained the paragraph as 'an

error of exposition.' I said that it was proof enough for me

that he was an agent assigned to help make the JFK assassin-

ation a subject of eternal debate without signifying anything.

He has publicly told audiences that I consider him an agent."

Here is a post from an earlier exchange, where Bill Miller, among others,

was eager to rush to Josiah's defense, not unlike his recent performance

on this forum, where he has tried to minimize its significance and other-

wise obfuscate the issues. Notice, in particular, that Josiah has long

sought to discredit evidence of the shot to the throat, while attempting

to obscure the through-and-through hole in the windshield, which has been

part of his song-and-dance for some time now. The evidence that he has

been undermining research on the death of JFK abounds, where he has used

his "boyish charm" to mislead generations of students who would no doubt

have advanced forward with far greater efficiency but for his obstruction.

"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves" - Lenin

So this is all you can come up with after your odious charges are refuted?

"You do not show any details of frames 314, 315, and 316, much less the sequence of frames that display the blob so vividly from 313 to 340! That is quite a remarkable sequence to overlook -- and it provides powerful circumstantial proof that you were obfuscating the conflict between them to sustain the illusion of the authenticity of the film, which has served as the backbone of the cover-up from the beginning."

You ninny, they weren't overlooked. On the advice of counsel, we were advised to keep the use of Zapruder frames to a minimum. Hence, I used only the frames that were absolutely necessary to make the arguments I wanted to make. We ended up getting sued by LIFE anyway.

[Editor's note: The announcement on Rich DellaRosa's JFKresearch Forum that Josiah Thompson's book, SIX

SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), was going to be reprinted in collaboration with The 6th Floor Museum caused me

concern, for reasons explained in this post. While more than 125 persons read it, no one took issue with

what I had to say here, including Josiah Thompson.] The author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), Josiah Thompson, Ph.D., recently announced that his book is being reprinted by some (heretofore unidentified) university press. "The book will be reprinted in its original form by a university press", he explained. "All income from this reprinting will go to a special fund set up by The 6th Floor Museum for the acquisition and preservation of original materials."

You are years out-of-date. This was a deal I had with the Executive Director of the 6th Floor Museum. Years ago, he was fired and the new director did not want to continue the deal. No conspiracy. Just a change in personnel.

So a mouse emerges as your reply to your noxious charges. Pure Fetzer.

Josiah Thompson

Well, Josiah, if you are not misleading us, then why aren't you answering my questions about your book? Why didn't you confront the blatant contradiction between the medical and witness evidence, which support a blow-out to the left-rear, and the Zapruder film, which shows a massive bulging out to the right-front? You do not even include sketches of the "blob", which is very revealing. You have a sketch of 313 that obfuscates rather than clarifies the contents of the frame. You do not show any details of frames 314, 315, and 316, much less the sequence of frames that display the blob so vividly from 313 to 340! That is quite a remarkable sequence to overlook -- and it provides powerful circumstantial proof that you were obfuscating the conflict between them to sustain the illusion of the authenticity of the film, which has served as the backbone of the cover-up from the beginning.

By removing events, adding others, and contracting the time line, it mislead generations of students into the false belief that the film was the touchstone of truth about the assassination -- an illusion you have sought to sustain, at all costs! Today you continue with this ridiculous charade, not even confronting the reports that seven Hollywood film experts have viewed the 6k version and concluded that the film is a fake: the blow-out to the rear of the head was painted over in black and the "blob" and the blood spray were painted in, precisely as Roderick Ryan had explained to Noel Twyman, BLOODY REASON (1998), which you continued to obscure and obfuscate. The time is long past for you to stand up and be counted, Josiah. You have abused your position in having had access to the best qualify versions of the film to distort and conceal their blatant conflict with the medical evidence. The time has come. The jig is up!

This is not the first time I have raised questions about it, but the fact that you continue to bob and weave, duck and hide, is very telling. You are now trying to subvert every indication of conspiracy that you contributed in your book, even while you denied that your book offered proof of conspiracy! That, of course, was what infuriated Vincent Salandria. And this is not the first time I have made a point of these issues. See, for example, "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid", which I published on OpEdNews (28 March 2009), yet you have evaded the question and not confronted it. How much evidence do we need that you are not the "stand up" guy you pose as being? You now appear to be undertaking the systemic undermining of the "doubt hit" theory, using an impossible explanation, denying the throat wound is a wound of entry or that it passed through the windshield, where we have ample proof of both, in an evident effort to prepare for your repudiation of conspiracy in time for the 50th observance! You appear to be disinfo to the bitter end!

You have been able to take in large numbers of students in the past, who do not know you as well as I do. Here, for example, is an earlier study of mine:

Six Seconds in Dallas

[Editor's note: The announcement on Rich DellaRosa's

JFKresearch Forum that Josiah Thompson's book, SIX

SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), was going to be reprinted

in collaboration with The 6th Floor Museum caused me

concern, for reasons explained in this post. While

more than 125 persons read it, no one took issue with

what I had to say here, including Josiah Thompson.]

The author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), Josiah Thompson, Ph.D.,

recently announced that his book is being reprinted by some (heretofore

unidentified) university press. "The book will be reprinted in its original

form by a university press", he explained. "All income from this reprinting

will go to a special fund set up by The 6th Floor Museum for the acquisition

and preservation of original materials."

Now university presses are not rare book dealers, so unless this

"reprinting" were to include new material, it is difficult to imagine why it

is being published. Who will buy it? If he were to address current issues of

film authenticity, of course, that might make a considerable difference. Yet

he assures us that "The claims of Zapruder film alteration will not be

discussed since they are spurious." Precisely how he knows that the claims

of Zapruder film alteration are spurious is beyond me, since, to the best of

my knowledge, he has never addressed the vast majority, and those he has

addressed in his DISINFORMATION SERIES have displayed his ignorance of recent

work.

But there are even more general aspects of this situation that I find

puzzling. He has made much of the claim that three spent shell casings were

found in the alleged "assassin's lair", which evidence photographs published

by Gary Shaw, by Noel Twyman, and by Jesse Curry tend to undermine. Yet his

own book claims that just two shots were actually fired from the assassin's

lair, where the third--crimped--cartridge was a plant. So when Todd Vaughan

attacked me for having this all wrong--citing, for example, that Curry had

added the notation, "Three were found in all", where the third was kept by

the DPD until the FBI demanded it-Thompson's own account of the matter

(pp. 143-146) supports the conclusion that it was a fake. So even though his

own position was essentially in agreement with mine--that this third cartridge

casing was "of dubious origin"--he remained silent and said nothing. That is

interesting all on its own, but not as much as that, if three shots had been

fired from there, his own account of the killing would be false.

In particular, it is the thesis of SIX SECOND IN DALLAS that four shots

were fired by three shooters, only two of which were fired from "the assassin's

lair". A third, he claims, was fired from the Dallas County Records Building,

and a fourth from the grassy knoll. One hit JKF in the back, another hit Connally,

and the third and fourth hit the President in the head in very close

temporal proximity. (See Chapter VIII, which includes a diagram of this

scenario.) Since all four shots hit, he accounts for the injury to James

Tague as having been caused by a fragment from the bullet that hit JFK in

the back of the head (pp. 230-233).

Precisely where this fragment exited his cranuim on its trajectory he does

not explain, but that is his take. As I previously observed, the evidence has

long since carried us beyond his position of 1967. In fact, by 1970, the studies

of Richard Sprague, COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION (May 1970), had already superceded

those of Josiah Thompson. As I observed in response to an inquiry from Todd

Vaughan, Sprague's analysis was not only better founded--based as it was on more

than 500 photographic records, where the Z-film, for example, counted as only

one--but it employed a vastly more sophisticated technology through the use

of computerized photoanalysis and arrived at very different conclusions about

the shot sequence itself.

Sprague has two shots from the knoll (different locations), two from the

Book Depository (but none from the "assassin's lair"), and two from the Dal-Tex

Building. So if Sprague is right, then Thompson is wrong. Since Thompson has

assured us, "There will be no changes in the original text and photos though

some minor corrections or clarifications may be added", apparently he will not

discuss the work of Richard Sprague. But it may also explain his aversion to

ASSASSINATION SCIENCE and MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA. We had discovered by 1998 that

JFK had been hit by at least four shots--one to the back from behind, one to the

throat from in front, and two to the head, one from behind and one from in

front--with at least one(and probably more) hit to Connally and a complete miss

that injured Tague. So if ASSASSINATION SCIENCE is right, then SIX SECONDS must

be wrong.

And similarly for MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, where evidence for perhaps as

many as ten or more shots may be found. So perhaps there is a simple explanation

for Thompson's otherwise seemingly irrational aversion to both of these books.

If ASSASSINATION SCIENCE or MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA are right, then SIX SECONDS

must be wrong. So perhaps this is all about an author protectingg his "investment"

in the for of his own book. He is not going to discuss Sprague's studies or more

recent work, no matter how well supported they may be, because it severely undermines

the position he adopted in 1967! That is remarkable in itself, but I am still puzzled

why a serious university press would even consider publishing a book in 2001 whose

principal conclusions had already been superceded by 1970! I speculate that this

may be an elaborate public relations gimmick intended to dupe the unwary into

mistakenly supposing that this is the latest research reflecting current work

on the subject.

If anyone has a more plausible hypothesis, I would like to hear it. We have

been reassured by Thompson, however, that he is not making "a dime" off this project,

whose proceeds are going to support The Sixth Floor Museum: "All income from this

reprinting will go to a special fund set up by The 6th Floor Museum for the

acquisition and preservation of original materials." Preservation may be the

operative word, at least in the case of his own work. Yet, for reasons I cannot

quite identify, there still seems to be something peculiar about all this: an old

book not updated, a university press, and now The 6th Floor Museum.

Apparently he knows who he is dealing with there, since he tells us, "I

have known and respected Gary Mack for nearly twenty years. We are friends."

Perhaps what bothers me is that The 6th Floor Museum has been criticized

for years for its bias against research and evidence that point in directions

other than that the crime was committed by a lone, demented gunman. Not only

are ASSASSINATION SCIENCE and MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA not carried there, but virtually

none of the books discussed in them are carried there either. Len Osanic, who

maintains a web site on behalf of Fletcher Prouty, who served as a liaison between

the Pentago, the CIA, and The White House during the Kennedy administration, even

maintains a file of complaints about the operation there.

Anyone who would like to review these reactions for themselves is welcome

to visit the file at http://www.prouty.org/boycott.html. The web site itself

holds many attractions, not least of all because Prouty was the basis for the

character "Colonel X" in Oliver's Stone's film "JFK". I find it odd that an

author ostensibly committed to the existence of conspiracy in the death of JFK

would be on such cordial terms with The 6th Floor. Osanic has observed, "That

the book MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA is not carried by The 6th Floor only

underscores the fact that this is not a museum but a 'front'". If that is true,

then I guess that would explain it. Consider the evidence and judge for

yourself.

I wrote:

“Frame 313 is unique among the various Zapruder frames since it demonstrably shows the impact of a bullet at the same time the camera is being moved by the startle reaction of Zapruder. In all other instances, where we believe we can see the effects of a bullet strike, the horizontal smear introduced by Zapruder’s startle reaction follows two or three frames later. The fact that 313 shows large horizontal smearing is critical. The effect can be seen by noting the horizontal smearing of the light reflections from the chrome strut over the passenger compartment. Measurements of the position of JFK’s head were made against the background of the light-colored south curb of Elm Street. The effect of the smear was to elongate this horizontal light-colored area.”

You replied:

“But there appears to be no basis for the purported "smear". In particular, you appeal to the occurrence of a "startle response" by Abraham Zapruder that caused the alleged "smear", when even Luis Alvarez did not find any instance in which a "startle response" and a bullet hit took place at the same time. Your suggestion that the shooter was closer to Zapruder is unpersuasive. The bullet was traveling much faster than sound, even if that had been the case. The neurological response itself would have taken time. The hit and the response cannot have happened at the same time. Your argument is clearly based upon a false premise.”

Don Thomas’ chart shows why and how you are wrong:

There is a large horizontal smear in Z 313 that has all the indicia of being the result of a startle reaction on Zapruder’s part. It looks exactly like other smears due to startle reaction. The only difference is that this smear occurs in the same frame that we see impact. Don Thomas has explained how this can only be due to the shot having been fired from less than one hundred feet from Zapruder. Luis Alvarez, a clear exponent of the single gunman view, tried to explain this oddity as due to a shock wave from a bullet fired from the TSBD moving Zapruder’s camera. As Thomas has demonstrated, this is silly. What Thomas has discovered is a fascinating argument that the presence of startle reaction smear and impact in the same frame means that the shot could not have come from the TSBD. I find this a persuasive argument and would be interested in other folks’ views of it. I am totally disinterested in more bombast from you, Professor.

But there is another “smear” in your post, Professor, and it is coming from you. As I pointed out earlier, you have put great energy into getting other folks to see me as “suspect.” This has been your standard response to many other people whom you disagree with. You affirm in your post that you “fingered” me as a “disinformation agent” a decade ago. As I recollect, one of the reasons you used for claiming I was such a “disinformation agent” was that Six Seconds published drawings of frames not photos. I think we all know how silly that is. What you didn’t tell your readers was what happened to you after making that charge. First, David Mantik , Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar publicly rebuked you. Then a “Public Statement” was circulated and then signed by Peter Dale Scott, Doug DeSalles, William Turner, Paul Hoch and others. That “Public Statement” reads as follows:

“To David Mantik, Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar’s public rebuke of our colleague Jim Fetzer’s behavior, we must regretfully add our own. We agree with David Mantik, when he points out “that public attacks on motives of others.. are biased, prejudicial, counterproductive, and, finally, useless.” We agree with Cyril Wecht when he asks Jim Fetzer to apologize to Tink Thompson and points out that “you do not help our cause.. by publicly attacking one of the most experienced, knowledgeable and respected critics of the Warren Commission Report.” We agree with Gary Aguilar when he states that Jim Fetzer’s “slanderous piece about Tink Thompson has no place on the web site of any credible Warren skeptic” and points out that “Jim has seriously undermined his own credibility with collateral damage that will.. harm me, David Mantik and others who have worked with him.”

“By choosing to insinuate what he dare not say, Jim Fetzer chooses a low road. In so choosing, he hurts not only himself but all of us.”

In the years that have followed the issuance of these public statements in 2000, Fetzer has kept up his toxic refrain that I am some sort of “disinformation agent.” His posts on this site are witness to a repeated effort to make me suspect. However, he has reached a new low in claiming that “Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me!”

The best... and as far as I know the only place... to look for an account of this sad little episode in the history of the critics is John Kelin’s excellent book, Praise from a Future Generation. Kelin wrote the book because Vince Salandria offered to let him go through all Salandria’s correspondence for this period. Given this fact one would expect Kelin to back Salandria’s side of things if there was any conflict. But Kelin didn’t. As in the rest of his book, he took a genuinely scholarly approach and printed all the correspondence about the conflict. Kelin’s account can be found in the Chapters 28 and 20 (“Fatal Ruptures” and “Single-Spaced Letters”) dealing with the internecine battles that developed among the critics in 1967 and 1968. It was in the midst of these battles that Salandria began making claims against me.

Salandria had written the key articles in Liberation Magazine and M.S. Arnoni’s Minority of One exposing the key failures in the Warren Commission’s treatment of the evidence. These early articles are as true today as they were on the day they were written. Salandria and I started working together in the spring of 1966 and made several trips to the Archives together in the summer of that year. We decided to put together an article for publication in a magazine such asHarper’s or The Atlantic Monthly. But Vince didn’t like to write and I did. Hence, by August of that year I had put together a draft that ran 80 to 100 pages. Then we started to disagree about the interpretation of evidence. There were several points of disagreement. The only one I remember is that I was simply not convinced that JFK was hit in the throat from the front. So we abandoned our joint effort and I went forward on my own. Shortly after Six Seconds was published, I began hearing rumors that Salandria was saying I was a government agent. From the correspondence of several people, John Kelin was able to put together a background story that I learned of when I read his book.

Salandria’s suspicions made their way to M.S. Arnoni, the man who had published Salandria in The Minority of One. According the Kelin, “When M.S. Arnoni heard the case against Thompson, he said it was nonsense.” Kelin then goes on to quote Arnoni:

“In my considered judgment, the whole structure of the ‘evidence’ involved is classically psychological, bespeaking Thompson’s pursuits in no way whatsoever, but rather reflecting the frame of mind of whomever begot the suspicion and proceeded to add ‘convincing’ details and deductions.”

In January 1968, Sylvia Meagher wrote, “I cannot take seriously the suggestion that Tink is a CIA plant.” Later that year, Salandria wrote Sylvia claiming that another individual (unnamed by Kelin) was a government agent. Sylvia wrote back: “Epstein, Thompson, Jacob Cohen, William Gurvitch... not unnaturally, then, the cry wolf may not raise any hackles even if a real one is finally in the chicken coop.”

This was a rough time for the critical community. The Garrison disaster was looming and Sylvia

and I stood together against the tide of general endorsement of the New Orleans District Attorney. We drew a lot of flack from other critics. Kelin closes these chapters with the following two paragraphs:

In March 1968, Salandria had written him [Thompson] a letter. ‘I feel that you should know that I consider the data on whether you are a United States government agent or not incomplete, but that I entertain a suspicion at this time that you are,’ he told him [Thompson]. ‘It will be a pleasure to admit to you later, should you do work to rectify the damage which you have done by failing to confront the truth in the assassination, that I have been egregiously wrong about you.’

Thompson wrote back an even shorter reply: he told Salandria he was out of his goddam mind. But that was all right, he [Thompson] said; at times he wondered about his own sanity. ‘But a government agent? Jesus!’”

What do I think of all this? I think Salandria was doing the same thing that Fetzer now is doing... using a profound disagreement as to how to approach the Kennedy assassination to claim someone is a government agent.

What you are trying to do, Professor Fetzer, is transparent. It is also dishonorable and vicious. It has no place in any community of scholarship. In rebutting these charges that are meant to destroy my credibility, I waste not only my time but the time of everyone who has to read this. I hope someone whose opinion you trust will explain to you just how ignoble what you are trying to do appears.

Josiah Thompson

This is very curious. Josiah Thompson is responding to my observation that it would have been physically impossible for the blur and the startle response to have occurred at the same time with a post that affirms that the blur and the startle response could not have occurred at the same time:

On the contrary, it is not possible for the sound to have reached Zapruder's position prior to frame 313 or 314 unless one posits some sort of cartridge anomaly. Moreover, because of the latency in reaction time, the sound has to arrive well before the exposure of frame 313 in order to account for the blur in that frame. In his published analysis, Alvarez acknowledged that it was not possible for the sound of the gunshot to arrive before the end of frame 313. Alvarez offered a different solution. Alvarez conjectured that the sound pressure from the shock wave of the passing bullet could have moved the camera body! Indeed, the sound pressure of the shock wave would have been significant; around 110 deciBels. But, as was the case with the HSCA panel, Alvarez failed to provide calculations in support of his supposition that the shock wave could have arrived in time to account for the jiggle.

We know a lot about Alvarez, by the way. In his chapter in HOAX (2003), David Mantik reports that Alvarez was highly selecting in producing his support for a three-shot scenario, selecting evidence that agreed with a predetermined conclusion and eliminating the rest. That is not sound science, Josiah!

You observe that, over a decade ago, I fingered you as an agent of disinformation. My statement about you can still be found on assassinationscience.com. That hardly qualifies as discerning on my part, since Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me! I was right then and I am right now.

Consider the following:

(1) in composing SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), you, Josiah Thompson, had unprecedented access to the highest quality versions of the Zapruder film;

(2) that film, as you must know for yourself, displays a massive bulging out of brains to the right-front, which has long since come to be known as "the blob";

(3) the "blob" is not an incidental feature of the representation of the blow-out, but extends from frames 313-316 for more than thirty frames through 338-339;

(4) this massive bulging-out to the right front is inconsistent with the medical evidence, typified by the McClelland drawing and by the testimony of Officer Bobby Hargis;

(5) Gary Aguilar, M.D., collated the testimony of the Parkland physicians, who were consistent about cerebellar and cerebral tissue extruding from the right-rear;

(6) it follows that, even from consideration of the most elementary evidence in this case, that there is a stunning and inescapable conflict between the medical evidence and the film;

(7) SIX SECONDS would have created a sensation and blown the cover-up out of the water had you used your knowledge to expose the inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film;

(8) however, in your book, you only provides an opaque sketch of frame 313 and none but the most abstract outline of any of the frames 314, 315, and 316, which meant they were inaccessible for study;

(9) since you published the McClelland diargram and even quote Officer Hargis, you have to have been aware of the conflict, yet you tacitly, implicity, and by omitting discussion minimize it;

(10) this meant that, no matter how blatant the contradiction, the existence of this conflict--in spite of its immense importance--was very difficult to discern based upon your book;

(11) you also introduced your "doubt hit" theory, where JFK was hit in the back of the head 1/9th of a second before he was hit in the right temple by a fangile (or exploding) bullet;

(12) you now maintain that you were wrong, claiming Zapruder experienced a "startle response" that caused a smear on the film at exactly the same moment that the bullet hit;

(13) that, however, is a neurological impossibility, because the bullet travels far faster than sound and it would have taken time for any such "startle response" to occur;

(14) you are now offering an excuse for having been mistaken about your "double hit" hypothesis--which was one of the most striking features of his book--by invoking a phony explanation;

(15) the phoniness of your explanation has now been confirmed by the very sources you cite in attempting to justify your false reasons for repudiating own your previous work;

(16) your pseudo-explanation of why your were wrong does not affect the independent discovery of the same "double hit" by Richard Feynman, a world-famous physicist at CalTech;

(17) there is overwhelming proof that the film is a fabrication, including HOAX (2003), "More Proof of JFK Film Fakery" (2008) and "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" (2009);

(18) film restoration experts have now viewed a 6k version of the film and expressed astonishment at the amateurish quality of the fakery, which includes painting over the massive defect at the back of the head in black and painting in the "blob" and the blood spray;

(19) today at least seven film experts have concurred in this opinion, thereby agreeing with Roderick Ryan, an expect on special effects, who received the academic award in 2000, who explained these things to Noel Twyam, BLOODY TREASON (1998); and,

(20) the chain of custody argument that you have long advanced to defend his claim that the film cannot have been faked--in spite of massive evidence to the contrary--has been shattered by Doug Horne's discover of another copy have been developed in Rochester.

No one likes being played for a sucker, yet you have been playing the world for saps since your book appeared in 1967. Your conduct is utterly disgusting and completely reprehensible. You are now extending your efforts by disavowing or minimizing indications of conspiracy that were included in SIX SECONDS, while you continue your attempts to perpetrate the fraud that the film is authentic.

Your new mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy you can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory you yourself had previously championed! Your technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them.

It will be fascinating to see how you will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which you take to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". My best guess is that you will admit that, "There was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!” And you will do this with fanfare shortly before the 50th observance of the assassination.

I think we have your number, Tink. It's about time that you came clean and cease your bizarre and malevolent practices.

Jim

You sure got me there, Pamela. Well done! I got to admire the shot. The truth is clearly that I only had four or five hours with the 4" by 5" transparencies in New York. Of course, I had "unlimited access" to the slides I had copied and spent "hundreds of hours" with them. Is that what I meant back in 1967? I don't have a clue.

Tink

name='Pamela McElwain-Brown' date='Jan 7 2010, 08:31 PM' post='177929']

For those few on this forum for whom this is not common knowledge -- Tink's own words from SSID:

Re time spent (in NYC) with the Z-film:

"As LIFE's special consultant on the assassination, I have had unlimited access to the film and have spent literally HUNDREDS of hours examining it. (caps mine) p. 14

Re the version of the Z-film he saw at LIFE v the version he saw at NARA:

"I was certain the picture was infinitely brighter and clearer than the one I had seen only days before in the National Archives in Washington." p.8

Re the difference in quality between the LIFE 4X5 slides and the NARA 35mm slides:

"I looked at several of them [LIFE slides] and again they were unmistakably clearer than the smaller slides that the Commission had used and that I had seen at the Archives." p.9

Would an agent have done that?

One of Professor Fetzer’s most lovable traits is the unerring swiftness with which he starts screaming “Agent! Agent!” whenever he gets his butt kicked in debate. You may have noticed this with respect to other participants of this forum like Len Colby. But this tactic is not limited to this forum. Ten years ago when the book critic for the Milwaukee Sentinel was not properly appreciative of one of Fetzer’s books, Fetzer claimed the book review was a “hit piece” engineered by an intel agency. With me this goes way back to 1998 when I gave a talk at Lancer concerning the Zapruder film. Fetzer’s offense knew no bounds. Finally, Debra Conway had to shut off the power to his microphone as Fetzer wandered through a Richard Pryor joke. (Fetzer had to apologize to the conference for his conduct the next day.) Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Fetzer had me tagged as a “disinformation agent” on his web site.

After pointing out last week that once again Fetzer had used a photo to show the opposite of what it really showed, I was expecting his usual noxious move. As we’ve seen, it came in right on schedule. He is now claiming that my refusal in Six Seconds to proclaim the fakery of the Zapruder film is a clear sign that I was and am a government agent. As has been pointed out on this site, he fails to make the same charge against David Lifton who, in 1967, also made no noises about Zapruder film fakery. In fact, Lifton first discovered the issue about the time he noticed that the Zapruder film was not in accordance with his “body alteration theory.” At least Lifton has enough good sense and sufficient integrity not to buy Fetzer’s “agent” screed. Thank you, David.

It occurred to me to ask a simple question: “If you were a government agent, Tink, would you have done what you have done?” Admittedly it takes a bit of a stretch for me to imagine myself as a government agent but then I know myself better than some of you know me. In any case, this might bring things back to an evidentiary level where Fetzer’s hysterics would be heard only at a distance and the focus could be put on real facts. Immodest, as this seems to me, I’m going to plow through Six Seconds and subsequent work all the time asking the question: Would an agent have done that?

(1) Six Seconds included the first compilation of 190 witness reports with respect to shot origin. This compilation showed that a substantial proportion of witnesses thought a shot or shots were fired from the knoll. In addition, a substantial proportion of witnesses found shots to be bunched, something that could not happen if only the rifle found in the TSBD was being fired. Firing tests in the 70s showed that observers were able to pick location of shots with over 90% accuracy, a fact that made these compilations significant. Paul Rigby has been trying to nit-pic this compilation by finding what he believes to be errors in individual reports that show something having to do with the Zapruder film. It is the overall compilation that produces significant results. These results are in contradiction to the official story. Would an agent have done that?

(2) I prevailed upon the Archives to produce a photo of CE 399 together with the ballistic comparison rounds, all this to show that it is difficult to tell them apart. By visiting Parkland Hospital, I was able to mobilize contemporary records to show that CE 399 was most likely found on a stretcher completely unconnected to this case, on the stretcher of a young boy, Ronnie Fuller, brought into the hospital at about the same time. I showed that Specter’s interviewing of Darrell Tomlinson was dishonest. At Parkland I interviewed O,P. Wright, the Security Director, and a retired Deputy Police Chief. Wright had an educated eye for bullets and carried around for awhile the bullet found on the stretcher. I showed Wright photos of CE 399 and he told me the bullet he handled was not CE 399. He said the bullet he handled had a “pointed tip” and then gave me such a bullet from his drawer. That bullet was photographed and the photo published in Six Seconds. If Wright is correct, then CE 399 was substituted for the stretcher bullet at some time after it came into government possession. Would an agent have disclosed all that?

(3) Following up on CE 399, in the last few years Gary Aguilar and I did further research on the tangled history of CE 399. We queried the Archives for additional documents and located Bardwell D. Odum, the FBI agent who was alleged in a memo to have established an evidence train for CE 399. Odum told us he never had CE 399 in his possession and never carried out the interviews he was alleged to have carried out. Gary and I published this new indictment of government treatment of CE 399. I lectured on it at the 2003 Wecht Conference in Pittsburgh. Would an agent have done that?

(4) After four 4" by 5" Zapruder transparencies disappeared in Dallas in the custody of a LIFE editor, I made 35 mm copies of significant Zapruder frames. For many years these copies were the only high resolution copies of the film not in the hands of the government or LIFE magazine. Doing this subjected me to the risk of criminal prosecution (something LIFE later threatened) but also made possible (5) and (6) below. Would an agent have done that?

(5) These copies of the film permitted me to calculate very precise angles for the slope of Connally’s shoulder as he turns. The slope changes as he turns and then, between Z 237 and Z 238, shifts abruptly in the opposite direction. In addition, these copies permitted an artist to accurately represent the puffing of Connally’s cheeks and the mussing of his hair that occurs at the same time as the shoulder drop. All of this demonstrates the fallacy of the single-bullet theory since it shows the gap between Kennedy’s reaction to a bullet hit and Connally’s. Would an agent have done that?

(6) These copies permitted calculations to be made of the movement of JFK’s head under the impact of what I took to be two bullets. This was a scientific demonstration of the impact of a bullet from the right front and the first dramatic showing of the left backward snap of Kennedy’s head. Would an agent have done that?

(7) Reports from Parkland doctors (including McClelland’s report and the diagram) were used to back up the calculation of head movement as showing the impact of a shot from the right front. This had never before been shown to this degree. Would an agent have done that?

(8) High resolution copies of the Moorman photo were obtained in order to show the likely presence of a shooter at a location behind the stockade fence. This fact was highlighted along with reports from S.M. Holland that cigarette butts and footprints were found at this location behind the fence. All of this, of course, is foundational to the claim that a shot came from that location in opposition to the lone gunman theory of the government. Would an agent have done that?

(9) Investigation turned up numerous films and photos never seen before, some of which appeared to show the presence of two persons near the 6th floor sniper’s nest at the time of the shooting. One of these photo showed a white Rambler station wagon passing the TSBD ten minutes after the shooting. Documents found in the Archives and never published before indicated that a person not Oswald had left the TSBD and made his escape in such a vehicle. Cf. 302s of Richard Randolph Carr. Would an agent have done that?

(10) Photographs and documents from the Archives revealed for the first time that one of the cartridge cases found near the 6th floor window had been dry-fired multiple times in the rifle found on the 6th floor. It had a dent in its tip that would mean it did not contain a projectile on November 22nd. This discovery cast doubt on the government claim that three shots were fired from the TSBD window. Would an agent have done that?

*****************

I could go on ad infinitum. The point is simple. For a decade or more, Fetzer has continued to play the lowest and also the most suspect card in the deck. Don’t believe [whoever, fill in the blank] because he/she is an agent! But it doesn’t work. At least, I have shown above that it doesn’t work with respect to me, my history and my reputation.

I don’t need to attack Fetzer's history or reputation and I won’t. Who needs it? I will continue to puncture pomposity wherever I see it and bring down to earth his most wild and improbable flights of fancy.

To the extent that the rest of you drink the Cool-Aid of character assassination, the research community will wither and die as a living, vital community of inquiry. If Fetzer gets away with this conduct with respect to me, who will be next? As long as you agree with him, you can be assured he won’t find something in your background or history to mark you as an agent. But as soon as you say something critical about him, remember the fate of that poor book critic for the Milwaukee Sentinel. Too bad Sylvia Meagher did not survive to this day. She would have munched him for breakfast!

Josiah Thompson

I wrote:

“Frame 313 is unique among the various Zapruder frames since it demonstrably shows the impact of a bullet at the same time the camera is being moved by the startle reaction of Zapruder. In all other instances, where we believe we can see the effects of a bullet strike, the horizontal smear introduced by Zapruder’s startle reaction follows two or three frames later. The fact that 313 shows large horizontal smearing is critical. The effect can be seen by noting the horizontal smearing of the light reflections from the chrome strut over the passenger compartment. Measurements of the position of JFK’s head were made against the background of the light-colored south curb of Elm Street. The effect of the smear was to elongate this horizontal light-colored area.”

You replied:

“But there appears to be no basis for the purported "smear". In particular, you appeal to the occurrence of a "startle response" by Abraham Zapruder that caused the alleged "smear", when even Luis Alvarez did not find any instance in which a "startle response" and a bullet hit took place at the same time. Your suggestion that the shooter was closer to Zapruder is unpersuasive. The bullet was traveling much faster than sound, even if that had been the case. The neurological response itself would have taken time. The hit and the response cannot have happened at the same time. Your argument is clearly based upon a false premise.”

Don Thomas’ chart shows why and how you are wrong:

There is a large horizontal smear in Z 313 that has all the indicia of being the result of a startle reaction on Zapruder’s part. It looks exactly like other smears due to startle reaction. The only difference is that this smear occurs in the same frame that we see impact. Don Thomas has explained how this can only be due to the shot having been fired from less than one hundred feet from Zapruder. Luis Alvarez, a clear exponent of the single gunman view, tried to explain this oddity as due to a shock wave from a bullet fired from the TSBD moving Zapruder’s camera. As Thomas has demonstrated, this is silly. What Thomas has discovered is a fascinating argument that the presence of startle reaction smear and impact in the same frame means that the shot could not have come from the TSBD. I find this a persuasive argument and would be interested in other folks’ views of it. I am totally disinterested in more bombast from you, Professor.

But there is another “smear” in your post, Professor, and it is coming from you. As I pointed out earlier, you have put great energy into getting other folks to see me as “suspect.” This has been your standard response to many other people whom you disagree with. You affirm in your post that you “fingered” me as a “disinformation agent” a decade ago. As I recollect, one of the reasons you used for claiming I was such a “disinformation agent” was that Six Seconds published drawings of frames not photos. I think we all know how silly that is. What you didn’t tell your readers was what happened to you after making that charge. First, David Mantik , Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar publicly rebuked you. Then a “Public Statement” was circulated and then signed by Peter Dale Scott, Doug DeSalles, William Turner, Paul Hoch and others. That “Public Statement” reads as follows:

“To David Mantik, Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar’s public rebuke of our colleague Jim Fetzer’s behavior, we must regretfully add our own. We agree with David Mantik, when he points out “that public attacks on motives of others.. are biased, prejudicial, counterproductive, and, finally, useless.” We agree with Cyril Wecht when he asks Jim Fetzer to apologize to Tink Thompson and points out that “you do not help our cause.. by publicly attacking one of the most experienced, knowledgeable and respected critics of the Warren Commission Report.” We agree with Gary Aguilar when he states that Jim Fetzer’s “slanderous piece about Tink Thompson has no place on the web site of any credible Warren skeptic” and points out that “Jim has seriously undermined his own credibility with collateral damage that will.. harm me, David Mantik and others who have worked with him.”

“By choosing to insinuate what he dare not say, Jim Fetzer chooses a low road. In so choosing, he hurts not only himself but all of us.”

In the years that have followed the issuance of these public statements in 2000, Fetzer has kept up his toxic refrain that I am some sort of “disinformation agent.” His posts on this site are witness to a repeated effort to make me suspect. However, he has reached a new low in claiming that “Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me!”

The best... and as far as I know the only place... to look for an account of this sad little episode in the history of the critics is John Kelin’s excellent book, Praise from a Future Generation. Kelin wrote the book because Vince Salandria offered to let him go through all Salandria’s correspondence for this period. Given this fact one would expect Kelin to back Salandria’s side of things if there was any conflict. But Kelin didn’t. As in the rest of his book, he took a genuinely scholarly approach and printed all the correspondence about the conflict. Kelin’s account can be found in the Chapters 28 and 20 (“Fatal Ruptures” and “Single-Spaced Letters”) dealing with the internecine battles that developed among the critics in 1967 and 1968. It was in the midst of these battles that Salandria began making claims against me.

Salandria had written the key articles in Liberation Magazine and M.S. Arnoni’s Minority of One exposing the key failures in the Warren Commission’s treatment of the evidence. These early articles are as true today as they were on the day they were written. Salandria and I started working together in the spring of 1966 and made several trips to the Archives together in the summer of that year. We decided to put together an article for publication in a magazine such as

Harper’s or The Atlantic Monthly. But Vince didn’t like to write and I did. Hence, by August of that year I had put together a draft that ran 80 to 100 pages. Then we started to disagree about the interpretation of evidence. There were several points of disagreement. The only one I remember is that I was simply not convinced that JFK was hit in the throat from the front. So we abandoned our joint effort and I went forward on my own. Shortly after Six Seconds was published, I began hearing rumors that Salandria was saying I was a government agent. From the correspondence of several people, John Kelin was able to put together a background story that I learned of when I read his book.

Salandria’s suspicions made their way to M.S. Arnoni, the man who had published Salandria in The Minority of One. According the Kelin, “When M.S. Arnoni heard the case against Thompson, he said it was nonsense.” Kelin then goes on to quote Arnoni:

“In my considered judgment, the whole structure of the ‘evidence’ involved is classically psychological, bespeaking Thompson’s pursuits in no way whatsoever, but rather reflecting the frame of mind of whomever begot the suspicion and proceeded to add ‘convincing’ details and deductions.”

In January 1968, Sylvia Meagher wrote, “I cannot take seriously the suggestion that Tink is a CIA plant.” Later that year, Salandria wrote Sylvia claiming that another individual (unnamed by Kelin) was a government agent. Sylvia wrote back: “Epstein, Thompson, Jacob Cohen, William Gurvitch... not unnaturally, then, the cry wolf may not raise any hackles even if a real one is finally in the chicken coop.”

This was a rough time for the critical community. The Garrison disaster was looming and Sylvia

and I stood together against the tide of general endorsement of the New Orleans District Attorney. We drew a lot of flack from other critics. Kelin closes these chapters with the following two paragraphs:

In March 1968, Salandria had written him [Thompson] a letter. ‘I feel that you should know that I consider the data on whether you are a United States government agent or not incomplete, but that I entertain a suspicion at this time that you are,’ he told him [Thompson]. ‘It will be a pleasure to admit to you later, should you do work to rectify the damage which you have done by failing to confront the truth in the assassination, that I have been egregiously wrong about you.’

Thompson wrote back an even shorter reply: he told Salandria he was out of his goddam mind. But that was all right, he [Thompson] said; at times he wondered about his own sanity. ‘But a government agent? Jesus!’”

What do I think of all this? I think Salandria was doing the same thing that Fetzer now is doing... using a profound disagreement as to how to approach the Kennedy assassination to claim someone is a government agent.

What you are trying to do, Professor Fetzer, is transparent. It is also dishonorable and vicious. It has no place in any community of scholarship. In rebutting these charges that are meant to destroy my credibility, I waste not only my time but the time of everyone who has to read this. I hope someone whose opinion you trust will explain to you just how ignoble what you are trying to do appears.

Josiah Thompson

This is very curious. Josiah Thompson is responding to my observation that it would have been physically impossible for the blur and the startle response to have occurred at the same time with a post that affirms that the blur and the startle response could not have occurred at the same time:

On the contrary, it is not possible for the sound to have reached Zapruder's position prior to frame 313 or 314 unless one posits some sort of cartridge anomaly. Moreover, because of the latency in reaction time, the sound has to arrive well before the exposure of frame 313 in order to account for the blur in that frame. In his published analysis, Alvarez acknowledged that it was not possible for the sound of the gunshot to arrive before the end of frame 313. Alvarez offered a different solution. Alvarez conjectured that the sound pressure from the shock wave of the passing bullet could have moved the camera body! Indeed, the sound pressure of the shock wave would have been significant; around 110 deciBels. But, as was the case with the HSCA panel, Alvarez failed to provide calculations in support of his supposition that the shock wave could have arrived in time to account for the jiggle.

We know a lot about Alvarez, by the way. In his chapter in HOAX (2003), David Mantik reports that Alvarez was highly selecting in producing his support for a three-shot scenario, selecting evidence that agreed with a predetermined conclusion and eliminating the rest. That is not sound science, Josiah!

You observe that, over a decade ago, I fingered you as an agent of disinformation. My statement about you can still be found on assassinationscience.com. That hardly qualifies as discerning on my part, since Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me! I was right then and I am right now.

Consider the following:

(1) in composing SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), you, Josiah Thompson, had unprecedented access to the highest quality versions of the Zapruder film;

(2) that film, as you must know for yourself, displays a massive bulging out of brains to the right-front, which has long since come to be known as "the blob";

(3) the "blob" is not an incidental feature of the representation of the blow-out, but extends from frames 313-316 for more than thirty frames through 338-339;

(4) this massive bulging-out to the right front is inconsistent with the medical evidence, typified by the McClelland drawing and by the testimony of Officer Bobby Hargis;

(5) Gary Aguilar, M.D., collated the testimony of the Parkland physicians, who were consistent about cerebellar and cerebral tissue extruding from the right-rear;

(6) it follows that, even from consideration of the most elementary evidence in this case, that there is a stunning and inescapable conflict between the medical evidence and the film;

(7) SIX SECONDS would have created a sensation and blown the cover-up out of the water had you used your knowledge to expose the inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film;

(8) however, in your book, you only provides an opaque sketch of frame 313 and none but the most abstract outline of any of the frames 314, 315, and 316, which meant they were inaccessible for study;

(9) since you published the McClelland diargram and even quote Officer Hargis, you have to have been aware of the conflict, yet you tacitly, implicity, and by omitting discussion minimize it;

(10) this meant that, no matter how blatant the contradiction, the existence of this conflict--in spite of its immense importance--was very difficult to discern based upon your book;

(11) you also introduced your "doubt hit" theory, where JFK was hit in the back of the head 1/9th of a second before he was hit in the right temple by a fangile (or exploding) bullet;

(12) you now maintain that you were wrong, claiming Zapruder experienced a "startle response" that caused a smear on the film at exactly the same moment that the bullet hit;

(13) that, however, is a neurological impossibility, because the bullet travels far faster than sound and it would have taken time for any such "startle response" to occur;

(14) you are now offering an excuse for having been mistaken about your "double hit" hypothesis--which was one of the most striking features of his book--by invoking a phony explanation;

(15) the phoniness of your explanation has now been confirmed by the very sources you cite in attempting to justify your false reasons for repudiating own your previous work;

(16) your pseudo-explanation of why your were wrong does not affect the independent discovery of the same "double hit" by Richard Feynman, a world-famous physicist at CalTech;

(17) there is overwhelming proof that the film is a fabrication, including HOAX (2003), "More Proof of JFK Film Fakery" (2008) and "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" (2009);

(18) film restoration experts have now viewed a 6k version of the film and expressed astonishment at the amateurish quality of the fakery, which includes painting over the massive defect at the back of the head in black and painting in the "blob" and the blood spray;

(19) today at least seven film experts have concurred in this opinion, thereby agreeing with Roderick Ryan, an expect on special effects, who received the academic award in 2000, who explained these things to Noel Twyam, BLOODY TREASON (1998); and,

(20) the chain of custody argument that you have long advanced to defend his claim that the film cannot have been faked--in spite of massive evidence to the contrary--has been shattered by Doug Horne's discover of another copy have been developed in Rochester.

No one likes being played for a sucker, yet you have been playing the world for saps since your book appeared in 1967. Your conduct is utterly disgusting and completely reprehensible. You are now extending your efforts by disavowing or minimizing indications of conspiracy that were included in SIX SECONDS, while you continue your attempts to perpetrate the fraud that the film is authentic.

Your new mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy you can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory you yourself had previously championed! Your technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them.

It will be fascinating to see how you will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which you take to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". My best guess is that you will admit that, "There was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!” And you will do this with fanfare shortly before the 50th observance of the assassination.

I think we have your number, Tink. It's about time that you came clean and cease your bizarre and malevolent practices.

Jim

I wrote:

“Frame 313 is unique among the various Zapruder frames since it demonstrably shows the impact of a bullet at the same time the camera is being moved by the startle reaction of Zapruder. In all other instances, where we believe we can see the effects of a bullet strike, the horizontal smear introduced by Zapruder’s startle reaction follows two or three frames later. The fact that 313 shows large horizontal smearing is critical. The effect can be seen by noting the horizontal smearing of the light reflections from the chrome strut over the passenger compartment. Measurements of the position of JFK’s head were made against the background of the light-colored south curb of Elm Street. The effect of the smear was to elongate this horizontal light-colored area.”

You replied:

“But there appears to be no basis for the purported "smear". In particular, you appeal to the occurrence of a "startle response" by Abraham Zapruder that caused the alleged "smear", when even Luis Alvarez did not find any instance in which a "startle response" and a bullet hit took place at the same time. Your suggestion that the shooter was closer to Zapruder is unpersuasive. The bullet was traveling much faster than sound, even if that had been the case. The neurological response itself would have taken time. The hit and the response cannot have happened at the same time. Your argument is clearly based upon a false premise.”

Don Thomas’ chart shows why and how you are wrong:

There is a large horizontal smear in Z 313 that has all the indicia of being the result of a startle reaction on Zapruder’s part. It looks exactly like other smears due to startle reaction. The only difference is that this smear occurs in the same frame that we see impact. Don Thomas has explained how this can only be due to the shot having been fired from less than one hundred feet from Zapruder. Luis Alvarez, a clear exponent of the single gunman view, tried to explain this oddity as due to a shock wave from a bullet fired from the TSBD moving Zapruder’s camera. As Thomas has demonstrated, this is silly. What Thomas has discovered is a fascinating argument that the presence of startle reaction smear and impact in the same frame means that the shot could not have come from the TSBD. I find this a persuasive argument and would be interested in other folks’ views of it. I am totally disinterested in more bombast from you, Professor.

But there is another “smear” in your post, Professor, and it is coming from you. As I pointed out earlier, you have put great energy into getting other folks to see me as “suspect.” This has been your standard response to many other people whom you disagree with. You affirm in your post that you “fingered” me as a “disinformation agent” a decade ago. As I recollect, one of the reasons you used for claiming I was such a “disinformation agent” was that Six Seconds published drawings of frames not photos. I think we all know how silly that is. What you didn’t tell your readers was what happened to you after making that charge. First, David Mantik , Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar publicly rebuked you. Then a “Public Statement” was circulated and then signed by Peter Dale Scott, Doug DeSalles, William Turner, Paul Hoch and others. That “Public Statement” reads as follows:

“To David Mantik, Cyril Wecht and Gary Aguilar’s public rebuke of our colleague Jim Fetzer’s behavior, we must regretfully add our own. We agree with David Mantik, when he points out “that public attacks on motives of others.. are biased, prejudicial, counterproductive, and, finally, useless.” We agree with Cyril Wecht when he asks Jim Fetzer to apologize to Tink Thompson and points out that “you do not help our cause.. by publicly attacking one of the most experienced, knowledgeable and respected critics of the Warren Commission Report.” We agree with Gary Aguilar when he states that Jim Fetzer’s “slanderous piece about Tink Thompson has no place on the web site of any credible Warren skeptic” and points out that “Jim has seriously undermined his own credibility with collateral damage that will.. harm me, David Mantik and others who have worked with him.”

“By choosing to insinuate what he dare not say, Jim Fetzer chooses a low road. In so choosing, he hurts not only himself but all of us.”

In the years that have followed the issuance of these public statements in 2000, Fetzer has kept up his toxic refrain that I am some sort of “disinformation agent.” His posts on this site are witness to a repeated effort to make me suspect. However, he has reached a new low in claiming that “Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me!”

The best... and as far as I know the only place... to look for an account of this sad little episode in the history of the critics is John Kelin’s excellent book, Praise from a Future Generation. Kelin wrote the book because Vince Salandria offered to let him go through all Salandria’s correspondence for this period. Given this fact one would expect Kelin to back Salandria’s side of things if there was any conflict. But Kelin didn’t. As in the rest of his book, he took a genuinely scholarly approach and printed all the correspondence about the conflict. Kelin’s account can be found in the Chapters 28 and 20 (“Fatal Ruptures” and “Single-Spaced Letters”) dealing with the internecine battles that developed among the critics in 1967 and 1968. It was in the midst of these battles that Salandria began making claims against me.

Salandria had written the key articles in Liberation Magazine and M.S. Arnoni’s Minority of One exposing the key failures in the Warren Commission’s treatment of the evidence. These early articles are as true today as they were on the day they were written. Salandria and I started working together in the spring of 1966 and made several trips to the Archives together in the summer of that year. We decided to put together an article for publication in a magazine such as

Harper’s or The Atlantic Monthly. But Vince didn’t like to write and I did. Hence, by August of that year I had put together a draft that ran 80 to 100 pages. Then we started to disagree about the interpretation of evidence. There were several points of disagreement. The only one I remember is that I was simply not convinced that JFK was hit in the throat from the front. So we abandoned our joint effort and I went forward on my own. Shortly after Six Seconds was published, I began hearing rumors that Salandria was saying I was a government agent. From the correspondence of several people, John Kelin was able to put together a background story that I learned of when I read his book.

Salandria’s suspicions made their way to M.S. Arnoni, the man who had published Salandria in The Minority of One. According the Kelin, “When M.S. Arnoni heard the case against Thompson, he said it was nonsense.” Kelin then goes on to quote Arnoni:

“In my considered judgment, the whole structure of the ‘evidence’ involved is classically psychological, bespeaking Thompson’s pursuits in no way whatsoever, but rather reflecting the frame of mind of whomever begot the suspicion and proceeded to add ‘convincing’ details and deductions.”

In January 1968, Sylvia Meagher wrote, “I cannot take seriously the suggestion that Tink is a CIA plant.” Later that year, Salandria wrote Sylvia claiming that another individual (unnamed by Kelin) was a government agent. Sylvia wrote back: “Epstein, Thompson, Jacob Cohen, William Gurvitch... not unnaturally, then, the cry wolf may not raise any hackles even if a real one is finally in the chicken coop.”

This was a rough time for the critical community. The Garrison disaster was looming and Sylvia

and I stood together against the tide of general endorsement of the New Orleans District Attorney. We drew a lot of flack from other critics. Kelin closes these chapters with the following two paragraphs:

In March 1968, Salandria had written him [Thompson] a letter. ‘I feel that you should know that I consider the data on whether you are a United States government agent or not incomplete, but that I entertain a suspicion at this time that you are,’ he told him [Thompson]. ‘It will be a pleasure to admit to you later, should you do work to rectify the damage which you have done by failing to confront the truth in the assassination, that I have been egregiously wrong about you.’

Thompson wrote back an even shorter reply: he told Salandria he was out of his goddam mind. But that was all right, he [Thompson] said; at times he wondered about his own sanity. ‘But a government agent? Jesus!’”

What do I think of all this? I think Salandria was doing the same thing that Fetzer now is doing... using a profound disagreement as to how to approach the Kennedy assassination to claim someone is a government agent.

What you are trying to do, Professor Fetzer, is transparent. It is also dishonorable and vicious. It has no place in any community of scholarship. In rebutting these charges that are meant to destroy my credibility, I waste not only my time but the time of everyone who has to read this. I hope someone whose opinion you trust will explain to you just how ignoble what you are trying to do appears.

Josiah Thompson

This is very curious. Josiah Thompson is responding to my observation that it would have been physically impossible for the blur and the startle response to have occurred at the same time with a post that affirms that the blur and the startle response could not have occurred at the same time:

On the contrary, it is not possible for the sound to have reached Zapruder's position prior to frame 313 or 314 unless one posits some sort of cartridge anomaly. Moreover, because of the latency in reaction time, the sound has to arrive well before the exposure of frame 313 in order to account for the blur in that frame. In his published analysis, Alvarez acknowledged that it was not possible for the sound of the gunshot to arrive before the end of frame 313. Alvarez offered a different solution. Alvarez conjectured that the sound pressure from the shock wave of the passing bullet could have moved the camera body! Indeed, the sound pressure of the shock wave would have been significant; around 110 deciBels. But, as was the case with the HSCA panel, Alvarez failed to provide calculations in support of his supposition that the shock wave could have arrived in time to account for the jiggle.

We know a lot about Alvarez, by the way. In his chapter in HOAX (2003), David Mantik reports that Alvarez was highly selecting in producing his support for a three-shot scenario, selecting evidence that agreed with a predetermined conclusion and eliminating the rest. That is not sound science, Josiah!

You observe that, over a decade ago, I fingered you as an agent of disinformation. My statement about you can still be found on assassinationscience.com. That hardly qualifies as discerning on my part, since Vincent Salandria had already nailed you for that role some thirty years before me! I was right then and I am right now.

Consider the following:

(1) in composing SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), you, Josiah Thompson, had unprecedented access to the highest quality versions of the Zapruder film;

(2) that film, as you must know for yourself, displays a massive bulging out of brains to the right-front, which has long since come to be known as "the blob";

(3) the "blob" is not an incidental feature of the representation of the blow-out, but extends from frames 313-316 for more than thirty frames through 338-339;

(4) this massive bulging-out to the right front is inconsistent with the medical evidence, typified by the McClelland drawing and by the testimony of Officer Bobby Hargis;

(5) Gary Aguilar, M.D., collated the testimony of the Parkland physicians, who were consistent about cerebellar and cerebral tissue extruding from the right-rear;

(6) it follows that, even from consideration of the most elementary evidence in this case, that there is a stunning and inescapable conflict between the medical evidence and the film;

(7) SIX SECONDS would have created a sensation and blown the cover-up out of the water had you used your knowledge to expose the inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film;

(8) however, in your book, you only provides an opaque sketch of frame 313 and none but the most abstract outline of any of the frames 314, 315, and 316, which meant they were inaccessible for study;

(9) since you published the McClelland diargram and even quote Officer Hargis, you have to have been aware of the conflict, yet you tacitly, implicity, and by omitting discussion minimize it;

(10) this meant that, no matter how blatant the contradiction, the existence of this conflict--in spite of its immense importance--was very difficult to discern based upon your book;

(11) you also introduced your "doubt hit" theory, where JFK was hit in the back of the head 1/9th of a second before he was hit in the right temple by a fangile (or exploding) bullet;

(12) you now maintain that you were wrong, claiming Zapruder experienced a "startle response" that caused a smear on the film at exactly the same moment that the bullet hit;

(13) that, however, is a neurological impossibility, because the bullet travels far faster than sound and it would have taken time for any such "startle response" to occur;

(14) you are now offering an excuse for having been mistaken about your "double hit" hypothesis--which was one of the most striking features of his book--by invoking a phony explanation;

(15) the phoniness of your explanation has now been confirmed by the very sources you cite in attempting to justify your false reasons for repudiating own your previous work;

(16) your pseudo-explanation of why your were wrong does not affect the independent discovery of the same "double hit" by Richard Feynman, a world-famous physicist at CalTech;

(17) there is overwhelming proof that the film is a fabrication, including HOAX (2003), "More Proof of JFK Film Fakery" (2008) and "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" (2009);

(18) film restoration experts have now viewed a 6k version of the film and expressed astonishment at the amateurish quality of the fakery, which includes painting over the massive defect at the back of the head in black and painting in the "blob" and the blood spray;

(19) today at least seven film experts have concurred in this opinion, thereby agreeing with Roderick Ryan, an expect on special effects, who received the academic award in 2000, who explained these things to Noel Twyam, BLOODY TREASON (1998); and,

(20) the chain of custody argument that you have long advanced to defend his claim that the film cannot have been faked--in spite of massive evidence to the contrary--has been shattered by Doug Horne's discover of another copy have been developed in Rochester.

No one likes being played for a sucker, yet you have been playing the world for saps since your book appeared in 1967. Your conduct is utterly disgusting and completely reprehensible. You are now extending your efforts by disavowing or minimizing indications of conspiracy that were included in SIX SECONDS, while you continue your attempts to perpetrate the fraud that the film is authentic.

Your new mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy you can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory you yourself had previously championed! Your technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them.

It will be fascinating to see how you will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which you take to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". My best guess is that you will admit that, "There was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!” And you will do this with fanfare shortly before the 50th observance of the assassination.

I think we have your number, Tink. It's about time that you came clean and cease your bizarre and malevolent practices.

Jim

You keep making things up.

I didn't have "unlimited access" to "clear copies" of the Zapruder film. The 4" by 5" transparencies never left the offices of LIFE magazine. I was in Philadelphia. LIFE was in New York. I never spent "hundreds of hours pouring over clear copies of it." My total time studying these transparencies was probably something like four or five hours, all this in November and December 1966. I was told the transparencies were made from the camera original film and not a copy.

Are you making all this up to try to portray me as "suspect" in some way? Fetzer does that quite a bit. Why? Is this really just because we intruded into your turf on the windshield and put out information you were not aware of concerning two witnesses? I would have thought you would have been happy about what Barb Junkarrinen, Jerry Logan and I put together since it made your own position stronger.

Josiah Thompson

When we discuss alteration of the Zapruder, let's keep in mind that there are simple actions that may not appear sinister in any way that affect the quality of the film. For example, as Tink explains in SSID, he was allowed to view 4x5 slides of very good quality of the Z-film, probably from a first-gen copy of the original. However, the copy of the film and slides that ended up at NARA were much less clear and probably at least a generation or two-removed from the original.

So LIFE managed to create an elite researcher in Tink, who had unlimited access to the Z-film and spent hundreds of hours pouring over clear copies of it, as opposed to everyone else who had to scavenge with *evidence* of much lower clarity.

Professor,

You write:

“You are spot-on! My frustration has been exacerbated by Josiah Thompson's continued bobbing and weaving, ducking and running. Here's a guy who has basked in the glory of his past, but who appears to have been betraying the search for truth from the beginning--and he isn't willing to stand up and be counted! In this post, for example, I respond to his absurd explanation of why he is retracting his "doubt hit" theory, which was the most precise and detailed aspect of his book. He claims it is the only case where the hit and the "startle response" occurred at the same time. Since that would entail that the speed of sound and the speed of the bullet coincide AND that the neurophysiological response take no time at all, it is a preposterous claim! We can't find better proofs of dishonesty and deception than for Tink to be adopting physically impossible premises like these to defend his position!”

“Laws of nature, including the speed of sound, of bullets and of responses, cannot be violated and cannot be changed. So here you have a Yale Ph.D., a former professor of philosophy and a one-time Navy frogman offering a physically impossible explanation for now denying the--for most of us--important proof of conspiracy his book had to offer. Not only is his excuse for abandoning it preposterous, but Richard Feynman, the world famous physicist, had arrived at the same conclusion independently!"

"So Josiah Thompson's mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy he can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory he himself had previously championed! His technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them. It will be fascinating to see how he will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which he takes to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". Probably he will admit that there was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!”

“And this, I now perceive, is the rationale for his relentless attacks upon me and the books I have edited. Because if you study ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), you will see that students with appropriate background, training, and skills are able to differentiated between genuine and fabricated evidence, which means that WE ACTUALLY CAN FIND THE TRUTH about the death of JFK, where his mission is to obfuscate and obscure that that objective can be attained. So OF COURSE these books represent the greatest threat to preserving the status quo. As long as the truth cannot be know, the CIA, the Join Chiefs, and others who were complicit in the crime can rest assured that their tranquility will not be disturbed! And Tink is on the job!”

This is classic Fetzer posturing and it says a lot about you, not me. As in other posts, here you are desperately trying to make me appear suspect. It is classic because your strategy for the last decade has been to impugn the motives and character of those who oppose you. It’s been over a decade since you declared on your web site that I and others were “agents of disinformation” – that is, employees of intelligence agencies spreading false information. Remember when you claimed on your web site that “Josiah Thompson is not the person he appears to be.” This sort of thing earned you a robust denunciation from the "heavies" of the research community. And now, a decade later, you keep trying the same thing.

And so you fulminate. You stoke your anger and raise yourself to even higher levels of high dudgeon. But isn’t the dirty little secret, Professor, that you are really angry at me because I keep showing up your errors? Errors like publishing a photo from Rollie Zavada’s study and saying it proves the opposite of what it in fact proves. So right now, once again, very quietly and definitively I am going to prove that your bluster hides great vacuity, that you do not argue, you bloviate.

You wrote: “I respond to his absurd explanation of why he is retracting his "doubt hit" theory, which was the most precise and detailed aspect of his book. He claims it is the only case where the hit and the "startle response" occurred at the same time. Since that would entail that the speed of sound and the speed of the bullet coincide AND that the neurophysiological response take no time at all, it is a preposterous claim! We can't find better proofs of dishonesty and deception than for Tink to be adopting physically impossible premises like these to defend his position!”

As you will recall, I pointed out this was not my discovery but that of Don Thomas. He first offered this discovery at a Lancer conference in 2001. Apparently you missed it. I have had both the honor and the pleasure of reading the manuscript of Thomas’s new book Hear No Evil where this discovery is even more persuasively presented. Below is an excerpt from Don’s 2001 lecture at Lancer where this discovery is laid out. At that time, he simplified the discovery with a diagram that I am also including. All of this can be found on the Mary Ferrell site or at the URL offered below:

http://pages.prodigy.net/whiskey99/hearnoevil.htm

“One can apply the same analysis to the unequivocal evidence of impact at frame 313 to reach a startling conclusion. The blur which is coincident with this frame, the largest blur episode in the Zapruder film, occurs much too soon to be caused by a gunshot from the Book Depository. Because nothing extraordinary is visible in frame 312, all analysts have concluded that the impact must have occurred during the 27 msec interval between the exposures of frames 312 and 313 when the shutter occluded the lens. But, inasmuch as the effects of bullet impact are so vivid in the latter frame, it is possible to be more precise in establishing the instant of impact. The frame shows fragments of bone egressing the President's skull at ballistic velocities. The ITEK Corporation analysts calculated the velocity of the fragments at approximately 100 ft/sec. The largest fragment appears as a 1.3 m long white streak creating a string of pearls effect. The effect results from the flat bone flipping end over end as it spins away from the cranium during the 27 msec exposure time of the frame. Importantly, the white streak begins about one ft away from the head, indicating that the exposure of the frame began a few msec after the bone separated from the skull. Studies of bullet impacts with fluid filled vessels using high speed photography show that the pressure wave which ruptures the skull occurs about 5-10 msec after passage of the bullet [Lindenberg 1971, Di Miao 1993]. Thus, impact time might have been as early as 15 msec prior to the exposure of frame 313, near the midpoint of the shutter closure between frames.”

“The initiation of the exposure of frame 313 can be used as an anchor point time, to, with earliest bullet impact estimated at to-15 msec. President Kennedy was 265 ft from the sixth floor window at the time of the fatal shot [6 HSCA 27]. The Army's weapons experts measured the velocity of the bullet from the alleged murder weapon at 90 yd to be 1600 ft/sec [1 HSCA 413-414]. Thus, the average velocity would have been 1880 ft/sec and the bullet flight time to cover 265 ft = 141 msec. Therefore, trigger time, assuming an origin in the Book Depository, would calculate to to-156 msec. As before, the sound would have taken 240 msec to reach Zapruder, arriving at time to+84 msec. Given the minimum of 25 msec for latency in induction of the startle reaction, the earliest that the camera body could have jiggled would be at 109 msec after the initiation of frame 313, producing a blur at frame 315. The relevant times are shown in a schematic (Fig. 22). It is perplexing then, that the report of the HSCA Photographic Evidence Panel contains the unsupported and unqualified statement,”

"...it is possible to determine that the sound from that shot would have reached Zapruder at frame 313-314..."

“On the contrary, it is not possible for the sound to have reached Zapruder's position prior to frame 313 or 314 unless one posits some sort of cartridge anomaly. Moreover, because of the latency in reaction time, the sound has to arrive well before the exposure of frame 313 in order to account for the blur in that frame. In his published analysis, Alvarez acknowledged that it was not possible for the sound of the gunshot to arrive before the end of frame 313. Alvarez offered a different solution. Alvarez conjectured that the sound pressure from the shock wave of the passing bullet could have moved the camera body! Indeed, the sound pressure of the shock wave would have been significant; around 110 deciBels. But, as was the case with the HSCA panel, Alvarez failed to provide calculations in support of his supposition that the shock wave could have arrived in time to account for the jiggle.”

The shock wave emanates from the nose of the bullet as it rips through the air. The closest that the bullet ever came to Zapruder, if it did come from the Book Depository, was the instant before it struck the President. Zapruder was 73 ft from the President at the time of the fatal shot [6 HSCA 39]. The shock wave emanating from the bullet would have taken 65 msec to travel the distance from this point in its path to Zapruder. From earliest impact time at to-15 msec the shock wave would impinge on the camera body at 50 msec after the beginning of the exposure of frame 313, i.e., at about the beginning of the exposure of frame 314, much too late to account for the blur in frame 313."

What do you have to say for yourself, Professor?

Josiah Thompson

David, Not only is he playing games with you, he is doing this all over the forum. Here's a post everyone should read. I am glad you are here. Jim

Peter,

You are spot-on! My frustration has been exacerbated by Josiah Thompson's continued bobbing and weaving, ducking and running. Here's a guy who has basked in the glory of his past, but who appears to have been betraying the search for truth from the beginning--and he isn't willing to stand up and be counted! In this post, for example, I respond to his absurd explanation of why he is retracting his "doubt hit" theory, which was the most precise and detailed aspect of his book. He claims it is the only case where the hit and the "startle response" occurred at the same time. Since that would entail that the speed of sound and the speed of the bullet coincide AND that the neurophysiological response take no time at all, it is a preposterous claim! We can't find better proofs of dishonesty and deception than for Tink to be adopting physically impossible premises like these to defend his position!

Laws of nature, including the speed of sound, of bullets and of responses, cannot be violated and cannot be changed. So here you have a Yale Ph.D., a former professor of philosophy and a one-time Navy frogman offering a physically impossible explanation for now denying the--for most of us--important proof of conspiracy his book had to offer. Not only is his excuse for abandoning it preposterous, but Richard Feynman, the world famous physicist, had arrived at the same conclusion independently! And, in case anyone hasn't noticed, not only has he not responded to my argument, which reveals the depths of his desire to disentangle himself from "proofs of conspiracy", he is now on other threads in the process of denying the throat wound! In the thread, "A Few Thoughts on the Zapruder Film", which he (Thompson) no doubt created to distract others from this thread and the other devoted to SIX SECONDS, he has raised questions about the throat wound! But we know quite a lot about it.

I include a post about it below. In fact, Charles Crenshaw, M.D., even drew its appearance before and after the tracheotomy, which I published as Appendix A to ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998). It was a small, clean puncture wound that was easily identifiable as a wound of entry and, indeed, that afternoon and evening, as news poured in about the assassination, two wounds were repeatedly described on radio and television: the wound to the throat and the wound to the right temple, both of which were fired from in front. You can watch these reports as they were broadcast live by Chet Huntley and others on NBC, for example. Later, when the report comes in that the alleged assassin was above and behind his target, Frank McGee states, "This is incongruous! How can the man have been shot from in front from behind?"

So Josiah Thompson's mission now appears to be to raise concerns about every indication of conspiracy he can reach, including the through-and-through hole in the windshield, the entry wound in the throat, and the "double hit" theory he himself had previously championed! His technique is divide-and-conquer, which involves separating different aspects of the case and raising doubts about them. It will be fascinating to see how he will disavow the back-and-to-the-left motion in the film, which he takes to be "unambiguous evidence of a shot from the front". Probably he will admit that there was an additional shot from in front, but that--as for the rest--we will never know!

His purpose is not to convince anyone that Lee Oswald was the only shooter or that THE WARREN REPORT (1964) was correct, but that there is enough controversy ON BOTH SIDES that it is simply impossible to sort out! As Martin Schotz, HISTORY WILL NOT ABSOLVE US (1996), observed, the objective of the disinformation movement is not to defend the fantasies of the official account but to create the impression that, in relation to the assassination of JFK, everything is believable and nothing is knowable! We have long known that CASE CLOSED (1992), RECLAIMING HISTORY (2007) and many lesser works are never going to convince serious students of the case. But they can have the effect of creating uncertainly in the mind of the public!

And this, I now perceive, is the rationale for his relentless attacks upon me and the books I have edited. Because if you study ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), you will see that students with appropriate background, training, and skills are able to differentiated between genuine and fabricated evidence, which means that WE ACTUALLY CAN FIND THE TRUTH about the death of JFK, where his mission is to obfuscate and obscure that that objective can be attained. So OF COURSE these books represent the greatest threat to preserving the status quo. As long as the truth cannot be know, the CIA, the Join Chiefs, and others who were complicit in the crime can rest assured that their tranquility will not be disturbed! And Tink is on the job!

James H. Fetzer

Zapruder retained the best of the three first generation copies made by Jamieson. He held it from Saturday morning until late Monday afternoon or early evening when he turned it over to Stolley in accordance with the second contract. LIFE gave it back to the Zapruder family who gave it to the 6th Floor Museum.

Josiah Thompson

quote name='John Dugan' date='Jan 6 2010, 06:47 PM' post='177799']

so does the Zapruder family have the original copy? or does he have a 1st gen copy? or does nobody know for sure?

Thanks for the info Josiah.