Josiah Thompson

Pamela, I apologize for not replying sooner. You got it right. Back in 1967, I was interested in another question concerning the Altgens photo: Was it Oswald or Billy Lovelady in the doorway of the TSBD? Because of that we went to AP and got prints from the original negative. It was a pain in the neck but finally we succeeded. One dividend from that was that it was possible to see that the windshield was undamaged at the time of the Altgens photo (Z 255). Since it is damaged a few seconds later (as shown by Altgens' second photo) the damage occurred in the interval between the two photos. It's not even close. The windshield looks completely pristine and the soccalled "spiral nebula" is clearly a swirl in the clothes of a woman in the background. I got my copies from the original AP negative. Many years later you got your copy from the original AP negative via NARA. What more is there to be said. All my photos from Six Seconds are about to be returned to me by the 6th Floor Museum. Hence, I don't have photos here that can be scanned like yours was. Josiah Thompson You are making the assumption that Tink was looking at the same version of the Altgens 1-6 that Weldon was. The NARA copy, made from the negative, shows no defect in the windshield. Copies of the version uploaded to the newswires have a flaw that looks like something in the windshield. I tried uploading the NARA copy but it was too large. For the time being, here is a link to that section: http://www.in-broad-daylight.com/altgens1-6snbl.gif

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

Thank you for this post, Bill. Sometimes the tribal answers to questions and almost by rote attacks on members of the other tribe, bore the hell out of me. I sometimes wonder why I even take the time to look at this site. Then I have the kind of exchange with David Lifton that I had and recognize that old campaigners always have new things to teach one another. I very much appreciate you calling attention to a level of discourse here that is truly important. Thank you. Josiah Thompson Censored and misleading summaries of eyewitness testimony in Six Seconds in Dallas Six Seconds In Dallas (Bernard Geis, 1967), Appendix A, "Master List of Assassination Witnesses": Witness Austin Miller, witness 96, p.262: Location: RR overpass No. of shots: 3 Bunching of shots: 2 & 3 Direction of sound/shots: --- Date of report: 11/22/63 Total time of shots: "few seconds" References: 6H223-227; 19H485; 24H217; Archives CD 205, p.27 Remarks: Saw "smoke or steam" coming from a group of trees N. of Elm; saw shot hit street past car Inspect the first testimony cited by Thompson and you find Miller not offering the following opinion on the origin of the shots on Elm St: Unscrupulous coves, these people who quote eyewitness testimony accurately. Not that you would know, of course, having sought systematically to expunge any testimony you found inconvenient. Paul, I have to take exception to your characterization, as over the years, decades now, I've found TT to be an exceptionally good mind to bounce ideas off of, get precise answers from, and to try to determine the best way to proceed to our mutual goal of getting to the total truth. He was there, he had access, he knew all the original researchers - God Bless them!, and he is still here with us to continue the quest for the truth. As you have pointed out, Doug Horne does explore the eyewitness and earwitness reports of a gun being fired from within the car, and I'm sure it will be used to discredit him, but that will come with the territory. TT has also stuck his neck out on sensitive issues and has been called on it many times, but to his credit he keeps coming back. I've tried to post Doug Horne's take on Six Seconds on the Six Seconds thread, but both times I've posted it Prof. Fetzer has stepped on it, intent on keeping up his now one-sided debate with TT. I thought it was a great tribute to John Simpkin for sponsoring such a forum that not only could include the Great Fetzer-TT debate, but also bring in David Lifton for good measure. Horne says at one point that it has been difficult to deal with people with great egos, like Fetzer, Livingstone and somebody else, but Livingstone interviewed now dead witnesses and Fetzer published anthologies that included some very significant chapters, and he couldn't have written his book without referencing them. Doug Horne says that both TT's Six Seconds and David Lifton's Best Evidence were paradigum changers, that made you look at the assassination from a different perspective than ever before, and that made it possible to move on to the next level and helped get to where we are now. And it is a great tribute to John Simkin for hosting a forum that includes both of these paradigum shifters - TT and DL, and bringing them together and asking and trying to answer mutual questions of interest all takes the whole effort to another level. And it isn't an accident, as Doug Horne writes as another one of his influences, The Nature of Scientific Revolutions, which I too remember as a Paradigum shifter in my education at Dayton, in which the study of scientific revolutions indicate that it is those who approach the question and subject from an entirelly different angle that allows for the breakout of a new revolution in any field of inquiry. I don't know whether to attribute it to Doug Horne alone, but there is a new line in the sand, and those "Conspiracy Theorists" who want to continue the debate with the "Lone-Nuts" and promote the idea that "we'll never know," will be left in the dust as others firgure it all out. And God Bless TT and DL for sticking around and staying in the game, even if you disagree. Don't we live in interesting times? BK

Fascinating Jack. Could you tell us more about it? Any idea of who the "official photographer" was or what organization he worked for? Any idea what he looked like or how tall he was? Was it he and not Zapruder who took the "official film" to the Kodak lab in Dallas and got it developed? Josiah Thompson THe dark forces behind the assassination didn't plan for everything? In my opinion, Zapruder did not take the "Zapruder film". An "official film" of the assassination was part of the plotters' scenario. The "official photographer" was on the pedestal. Zapruder was just a "front man" to take credit for it. The reason for an OFFICIAL FILM is that it could be used to counteract any testimony or photos to the contrary. There is ample evidence that Zapruder was not on the pedestal, and that other films were confiscated and altered to conform with the "official film." Jack

"Yikes. The "Thorburn" reflex was a myth propagated by Dr. John Lattimer and Gerald Posner in an attempt to explain how Kennedy could have raised his hands to his throat within a split second after being hit by the single-bullet shot. It was debunked my Wallace Milam and Millicent Cranor years ago." Excellent point, Pat. The "Thorburn reflex" has been a dead puppy for years! Josiah Thompson Yikes. The "Thorburn" reflex was a myth propagated by Dr. John Lattimer and Gerald Posner in an attempt to explain how Kennedy could have raised his hands to his throat within a split second after being hit by the single-bullet shot. It was debunked my Wallace Milam and Millicent Cranor years ago. Now, Kennedy may have reacted to his throat injury by raising his hands...but it was not the "Thorburn" reflex. From patspeer.com, chapter 12; Dr. Lattimer and his devotees, in an attempt to preserve the single-bullet theory, have tried to pretend that the HSCA Photographic Panel was full of beans and that there are no signs of Kennedy's being hit before frame 224 of the Zapruder film. While looking to Connally's movements to tell them the moment of a first shot miss circa frame 160, they willfully ignore Kennedy's far more significant movements between frames 190 and 210. Somehow they perceive the frantic movements apparent as he heads behind the sign as his calmly waving to the crowd. Heck, even the Warren Commission knew this wasn't true. To refresh, a 4-22-64 memo written by Warren Commission counsel Melvin Eisenberg revealed: * A screening was held of the Zapruder film and of slides prepared by LIFE from the film. Each slide corresponded with a separate frame of film, beginning with frame 171. The consensus of the meeting was as follows: * The President had been definitely hit by frames 224-225,when he emerges from behind a sign with his hands clutching his throat. * The reaction shown in frames 224-225 may have started at an earlier point - possibly as early as frame 199 (when there appears to be some jerkiness in his movement) or, with a higher degree of possibility, at frames 204-206 (where his right elbow appears to be raised to an artificially high position). So, how do Lattimer and his #1 devotee, Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed, deal with this memo? They are, after all, defenders of the Warren Commission. They can't just ignore that the commission lawyers charged with studying the Zapruder film saw evidence suggesting that Kennedy was hit before the frame number eventually chosen as the moment of the first shot's impact. Wanna bet? In Case Closed, Posner presents "The latest enhancements show that before the President disappeared behind the sign at frame 200, he was waving to the crowd with his right hand. Even when the car and his body are obscured by the road sign, the top of his right hand can be seen waving." The "jerkiness" and "artificially high position" of Kennedy's right elbow had thereby been flushed down the memory hole. Even sillier (or devious--let's get real) is that Lattimer and his devotee Posner try to explain away what would have to be seen as an incredibly rapid reaction by Kennedy to the bullet striking him at 224 by asserting that the bullet nicked his spine and caused him to assume the “Thorburn’s Position.” an immediate locking of the arms. The reasons for this silliness were clearly demonstrated in the 1992 mock trial of Oswald put on by the American Bar Association, and televised by Court TV. During this trial, prosecution witness Dr. Robert Piziali, after studying President Kennedy's movements in the Zapruder film after frame 224, asserted that the same bullet struck Kennedy and Connally at frame 224, and that a "reflexive reaction" to this impact would take "approximately 200 ms, which is exactly the time from when the bullet passes through Governor Connally's lapel and we see the first motion of the President's elbow." Ouch. This was painfully incorrect. It was so incorrect that even the most ardent single-assassin theorists could see that it was incorrect. Beyond that the bullet did not pass through Connally's lapel, but at a lower point on his jacket, 200 ms is more than three-and-a-half frames of the Zapruder film. No one outside Dr. Piziali, of whom I am aware, has ever, after studying the Zapruder film, asserted that Kennedy's "reflexive reaction" doesn't start till frame 227 of the film. Equally suspicious, upon cross-examination, Dr. Piziali confirmed that yes, it was his expert opinion that Kennedy was bringing his hand down after a wave in frame 225. This ignored that Kennedy's hands began rising back up in frame 226, not 227, and that frame 226 was not three and a half frames after the impact on Connally first apparent at frame 224. Afterward, defense witness Dr. Roger McCarthy confirmed that a reflexive reaction on Kennedy's part would take about 200 ms, but disagreed with Piziali's conclusions. He asserted that Kennedy's hand movements in frames 225 and 226 were much too rapid to be reflective of his bringing his hand down after a wave, and that Kennedy was therefore most likely reacting to a shot at this time. He testified that, accordingly, Kennedy was most likely hit no later than frame 221, by a different bullet than the one hitting Connally at frame 224. This didn't jive with the single-assassin theory, of course, and had to be rejected. Thus, in 1993, the next year, writer Gerald Posner offered the single-assassin faithful the hope they'd been looking for, telling them on page 328 that a spinal injury to Kennedy's sixth cervical vertebra, as purported by Lattimer, would cause an "instantaneous reaction." On the next page he spelled out just how "instantaneous." He wrote: "Kennedy's Thorburn response, from spinal damage, at frames 226-227, came between one tenth to two tenths of a second after the bullet hit him, which translates to 1.8 to 3.66 Zapruder frames." By pretending that Kennedy's reaction could have started as late as frame 227, and that it could have taken as little as one-tenth of a second, Posner was, not surprisingly, covering his pet assassination theory. If people said Kennedy was hit by 227, he could say the reaction took two-tenths of a second. If they said he was hit by 226 he could say it took one tenth of a second. Posner failed to tell his readers that both the Warren Commission and HSCA concluded that Kennedy was clearly reacting to something before frame 226, and that both sides of the 1992 mock trial he cited throughout his book agreed that the reaction time would be at least two tenths of a second, and that the one tenth of a second reaction time he presented for his readers' consideration was something he just made up. The irony here is that I agree with Posner about the one-tenth of a second reaction time. Well, only sort of. It seems quite possible that Kennedy, at frame 226, is reacting to the same burst of gunfire hitting Connally at frame 224. You see, the flipping of Connally's lapel was most probably not caused by the bullet itself, but by the explosion of blood and rib from Connally's chest after the bullet made its exit. The bullet causing this reaction would most probably have hit Connally just after frame 223. Kennedy's hands lift in frame 226, which means they had reversed course either between frames 224 and 225 or 225 and 226, most logically the latter. This would indicate a reaction time of around 2 frames or just over the one-tenth second reaction time offered by Posner, provided both men were hit by the same bullet. If Kennedy and Connally were hit by separate shots fired from an automatic weapon, of course, the overly-rapid reaction by Kennedy in comparison to the impact on Connally is more readily explained. But that's neither here nor there. For now. What's important for now is that we realize that Lattimer and his devotee Posner, by pushing the "Thorburn theory," were simultaneously rejecting the conclusions of both the Warren Commission and HSCA that Kennedy was hit when he came out from behind the sign, and were instead pushing that Kennedy was not responding to a shot, but only waving, in frames 224 and 225 of the Zapruder film. And that's just plain silly. Actually, Posner and the single-assassin community's propping up of Lattimer and his "Thorburn theory" to help sell the single-bullet theory is worse than their simply being silly. Lattimer's "Thorburn theory," holding that Kennedy's arms immediately locked into place after being hit, was, and is, a hoax. A careful viewing of the Zapruder film shows that although Kennedy’s elbows remain slightly bent after frame 224 for the phenomenal length of five seconds, his arms themselves are far from locked and drop almost immediately. Even more damaging, as discovered by Millicent Cranor and reported by Wallace Milam, the position described by Thorburn in the 1800's was not an immediate locking of the arms, but a position assumed over a couple of days as the afflicted patient sunk into paralysis and death.

Maybe I'm just not understanding you and you have a valid point. So let me try again. You write: "Once again, the fallacy of false alternatives. What if there was not *the* Z-film to posit? What if there were an original and three copies, any of which could have been altered? What if the alterations did not occur all at once, but over time? How would viewers know which copy of the Z-film they were seeing? If there were differences between them, who would know?" One way of knowing the film has been altered is finding out that various copies don't match. Let's say NBC buys the copy Zapruder retained and turned over to them on Monday night. When NBC shows that copy, it will become apparent that frames from that copy do not match, say, the frames printed in LIFE magazine that Horne presumes have been altered. Or try the reverse of what I've just supposed. Since there is a transmission tape of what got shown on NBC and since LIFE was printed in millions of copies the two could be compared at any time. And instead of pointing to phantom "other films" seen purportedly by Rich Dellarosa, Professor Fetzer could point to a real, existing difference in copies of the film. Am I on the right track or am I missing your meaning? Josiah Thompson [Your opinion. But you never reach the point of the post. By November 23rd or 24th, if you want to alter the Zapruder film you are going to have to seize it.] Once again, the fallacy of false alternatives. What if there was not *the* Z-film to posit? What if there were an original and three copies, any of which could have been altered? What if the alterations did not occur all at once, but over time? How would viewers know which copy of the Z-film they were seeing? If there were differences between them, who would know?

As I think we've both discussed, David, the first time the Zapruder film was ever shown on any network was in 1975 on the Geraldo Rivera, program... Groden's copy. At least that's all I know. My point here is certainly not that any network bought the film on November 23rd and 24th, but rather that from Saturday morning on Zapruder wanted to sell film rights and had a copy at his disposal to accomplish such a sale. No hypothetical conspirator planning to alter the film could know on Saturday or Sunday that Zapruder's copy of the film might end up in the hands of a network by Monday evening. This would be kind of a chilling thought to which an intelligent mastermind would respond, "Okay seize it! Both the LIFE original and the copy still in Zapruder's possession." Would you agree or disagree? I'm interested in your take on this. I think this is an angle on all this that hasn't been discussed before. If we presume any altering is done by a high-level government conpiracy, why not seize it? Josiah Thompson Dr. Thompson, question, to the best of your recollection has there ever been an air-check film or dub made of any live broadcast showing the Zapruder film broadcast on ANY carrier service (independent, network affiliate or indeed one of the big three tv networks)? If so, made by whom, what circumstances, the air date and time when(s) and where the telecast originated.... please? David Healy

My answers in boldface: [Your opinion. But you never reach the point of the post. By November 23rd or 24th, if you want to alter the Zapruder film you are going to have to seize it.]

Given the mutability of human memory, it’s always useful to have documents signed at particular times. So with the provenance of the Zapruder film. Dick Stolley has said and certainly believes that he left Zapruder’s office on the morning of November 23rd with both the camera-original film and one of the Jamieson copies. Both Dan Rather’s viewing of the film on Monday afternoon and signed agreements between Stolley and Zapruder indicate the opposite. Stolley most likely left Zapruder’s office on November 23rd with the camera original. It was only Monday afternoon... after Dan Rather had viewed Zapruder’s copy... that Stolley left Zapruder’s office with the remaining Jamieson copy. The written record establishes this interpretation. Here is the written, signed contract between Stolley and Zapruder from November 23, 1963: Nov. 23, 1963 In consideration of the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.), I grant LIFE Magazine exclusive world wide print media rights to my original 8 mm color film which shows the shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. I retain all motion picture rights, but agree not to release the film for motion picture, television, newsreel, etc., use until Friday, Nov. 29, 1963. You agree to return to me the original print of that film, and I will then supply you with a copy print. Abraham Zapruder Agreed to: Richard B. Stolley LIFE Magazine Witnesses [Lillian Roger, Erwin Schwartz] If Stolley walked out of the office with both the camera original film and Zapruder’s remaining Jamieson copy, why would the agreement specify “you agree to return to me the original print of that film, and I will then supply you with a copy print”? Moreover, this agreement specifically envisages Zapruder selling the “motion picture, television, newsreel, etc., use” to a third party. To do that, Zapruder would have to retain a copy to show a prospective buyer. No one would be willing to plunk down the kind of money Zapruder would want without first seeing what they were buying. But by this time, Zapruder had given two copies to the Secret Service. He would have to hold onto the copy he retained in order to have something to show a prospective buyer. Monday afternoon Dan Rather gets to view Zapruder’s remaining copy of the Zapruder film. That same afternoon, Zapruder signs with Stolley a new contract for universal rights to the Zapruder rights. This contract triples the purchase price and is a several-page-long letter from Zapruder to the publisher of LIFE magazine. The letter agreement states: “You [that is, LIFE’s publisher] acknowledge receipt through your agent of the original and one (1) copy thereof, and it is understood that there are two (2) other copies, one (1) of which is with the Secret Service in Dallas, Texas, and one (1) copy of which is with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C.” Along with the contract, Zapruder signed a letter affirming the authenticity of the original and certifying that three and only three copies had been made. Zapruder also submitted with his certification affidavits from personnel at the Kodak lab and Jamieson Film Company stating that three and only three copies had been made. The importance of knowing that the remaining Jamieson copy remained in Zapruder’s custody through the weekend until Monday afternoon is that it underlines the problem any conspirator would face in getting the genie back in the bottle. From Saturday morning on, Stolley and LIFE magazine in Chicago had the camera original of the film. One copy had been flown by the Secret Service to Washington, D.C. Another copy rested in the custody of the Secret Service in Dallas. A final copy resided with Zapruder in Dallas until he turned it over to Stolley on Monday afternoon. This was the copy shown to family members over the weekend and seen by Dan Rather Monday afternoon. Given this complex web with various copies in various locations and no certainty as to where they would end up, the only plausible action for a conspirator who wanted to alter the film would have been to seize it as evidence. That might have worked. Agents would have appeared at Zapruder’s home on Saturday or Sunday and demanded the remaining copy of the film. Other agents would have appeared at the Donnelly printing plant in Chicago and demanded the camera original. The Zapruder film would have disappeared into the maw of government possession only to reappear if and when the purported conspirators wanted it to appear.. if ever. Horne posits the possibility of government agents appearing at the Donnelly plant in Chicago in the midst of LIFE preparing its November 29th issue and asking to “borrow” the camera original. As Horne points out, LIFE had dispatched Assistant Managing Editor Roy Rowan, writer John Dilles, Associate Art Director David Stech and layout artist John Geist to set up shop in the Donnelly printing plant in Chicago. In Chicago, numerous black and white prints were made by a Chicago photo lab and some of them selected for publication in the issue then going to press. Under these circumstances, that LIFE magazine would part with the camera original on the basis of a request to borrow it for awhile... it just doesn’t pass the smell test. And the remaining copy in Zapruder’s hands, the copy that he is retaining in hopes of selling it as a film to some network, what about it? Once a network buys it and broadcasts it, the genie has flown. If a decision had been made to alter the Zapruder film, then the only effective way of doing it would be to seize it. This would have been palatable to the American public at the time and would have given whatever dark forces one imagines control of the situation. The scenario purported by Horne leaves numerous pieces of the puzzle far out of the conspirators control. Seizure was the only way to get the genie back in the bottle. Yet seizure did not occur. What does that tell us? Josiah Thompson

Cool Jerry. Sounds good to me. Tink

Hi Bill and Jerry, "Counting the extant film as zero, she had obtained a fifth generation copy (as explained earlier in this chapter). If she had requested a projection print (i.e., a positive) she would have purchased a fourth generation copy; but the preferred medium for studying film characteristics in Hollywood is a motion picture negative, so she settled for a dupe negative of a fourth generation projection print.." Wow! A fifth generation copy! Isn't the image quite degraded as one goes from copy to copy of copy to copy of copy of copy to copy of copy of copy of copy? Aren't better copies than this available from other sources... for example, the DVD made by the Zapruder family a few years ago. I can understand why one would want to use a copy certified as a copy by NARA. But a 5th generation copy? Some time ago people were looking at Z film copies of copies and coming up with a chrome revolver in Bill Greer's hand. Josiah Thompson Hey Jerry, Good to hear from you. While I'd like to keep this thread focused on the film's chain of custody and not the conent or anamolies, certainly making a 35 mm copy of the original from the NARA qualifies as a chain of custody issue. While I might have misstated what I thought happened, here's what Doug Horne says, with the approrpriate sentences hightlighted: Addendum: The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood It is misleading to claim that scientific advances and scholarly experiments can causeall photo fakes to be unmasked. Questions about authenticity remain. Many photosthat once were considered genuine have recently been determined to be faked. —Dino Brugioni of NPIC, the authorof Photofakery: The History andTechniques of Photographic Deceptionand Manipulation (1999). Synchronicity sometimes plays an important role in human affairs; things occasionally come together in such a way, and with such timing, that the circumstances could not be more fortuitous, or more beneficial. Some would call it fate; others would call it luck; and I prefer to call it synchronicity, which falls somewhere in-between fate (or destiny) and pure luck. Consider the events described below, and you will see what I mean. At precisely the time when I was 99% finished with my Zapruder film chapter, and thought there was nothing remaining to do but a bit of word smithing and fact checking, Good Fortune descended upon me in a way that was almost too good to be true; and yet, if not for my earlier involvement with Zapruder film issues while a member of the ARRB staff, none of this would have happened to me, and someone else would be writing about these experiences today. On June 2, 2009 I was notified by researcher and author Dick Russell (author of The Man Who Knew Too Much and On the Trail of the JFK Assassins) that Jim Marrs (author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy) was trying to contact me on behalf of a personal friend of his who was involved in a Zapruder film research effort. I subsequently found out through both Dick Russell and Jim Marrs that researcher Ed Sherry in Florida (Meeting Coordinator for the South Florida Research Group) had put out an “all points bulletin” for me in his blog on behalf of Jim Marrs’ friend in the Los Angeles greater metropolitan area. Because I am a semi-recluse, and was also industriously trying to finish my manuscript, normally I would not have been interested, but there were two reasons why this occasion was different: (1) Jim Marrs personally vouched for the character of the person seeking me out, and (2) she was conducting Zapruder film research. Having been deeply immersed in Zapruder film issues for the preceding three months, I was amazed at how fortuitous the timing was. I decided to contact Jim Marrs’ friend in Los Angeles at the e-mail address he provided to me. On June 3, 2009 I exchanged introductory e-mails with one Sydney Wilkinson, an accomplished professional in film and video post-production in Hollywood—specifically, in the marketing of postproduction services within the motion picture film industry. She has decades of experience under her belt in dealing with editors, experts in film restoration, and film studio executives. She lives and breathes the professional culture of the motion picture film industry, and has working relationships with many of the major players involved in post-production in Hollywood. When she first introduced herself to me she insisted that she was neither a researcher, author, nor a historian; and in spite of her 1353 continued self-deprecation, I have explained to her on numerous occasions since that day that she is now indeed a JFK assassination researcher, by simple virtue of what she is doing, whether she ever publishes a word or not! We are what we do, and what Sydney Wilkinson has done is truly extraordinary. Sydney revealed to me in short order that she had purchased a dupe negative on 35 mm film of the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film created by the National Archives. She did so purely for research purposes, to satisfy her own curiosity about whether or not the extant film in the Archives was the authentic out-of-camera original, or whether it was an altered film masquerading as the original. She had already purchased a copy of the Zavada report from the National Archives and knew its contents backwards and forwards, and was also familiar with the interviews of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter of NPIC conducted by the ARRB staff in 1997. She was aware of my former role as the ARRB’s liaison with Kodak and Rollie Zavada, and was also very familiar with the existing literature about the film’s possible alteration. In short, she was simply a very curious American citizen who, out of both natural curiosity and a sense of patriotism, wanted to know the truth about this famous film. She had literally “put her money where her mouth was” by forking out $ 795.90 for a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from a source whose honesty and integrity could not be challenged by any future researchers: the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Counting the extant film as zero, she had obtained a fifth generation copy (as explained earlier in this chapter). If she had requested a projection print (i.e., a positive) she would have purchased a fourth generation copy; but the preferred medium for studying film characteristics in Hollywood is a motion picture negative, so she settled for a dupe negative of a fourth generation projection print. She wanted a dupe negative because her intent from the beginning was to subject the Zapruder film to the serious, professional scrutiny of Hollywood film professionals in an attempt to resolve the ongoing debate about its authenticity. Sydney’s attitude going into this effort was similar to my own attitude about the Zapruder film when I began working for the ARRB in 1995; she was very curious about the issues that had been raised about the Zapruder film’s authenticity, and simply wanted to know the answer, one way or the other. I was stunned by the simplicity and power of the concept behind her ongoing research effort: only Hollywood visual effects technicians or other film professionals familiar with the optical effects techniques of the 1960s would be truly qualified to say whether or not there was evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film’s image content! While Rollie Zavada was a film chemist and a Kodak project manager (and was eminently qualified to study film density and edge print), he had no practical experience with the creation of motion picture visual effects, and I therefore viewed him as unqualified to make a final determination as to whether or not the Zapruder film was an altered film. (The ARRB’s senior management understood this also, which was why he was not asked to comment upon the film’s image content in his limited authenticity study.) I immediately wondered: Why hadn’t anyone ever attempted this before? If anyone had attempted it before 2003 (the year that Monaco in San Francisco made the Forensic Copy of the extant film for NARA), the only tool available for study in Hollywood would have been a multi-generation bootleg copy of one of the Moses Weitzman blowups (from 8 mm to 35 mm) made circa 1968; because the provenance of the bootleg copy would have been suspect, so would any results obtained from such a study. If anyone had attempted this subsequent to 2003, neither Sydney nor I was aware of such an effort. Intuitively, I felt that this was a “first.” A big first......

Sure thing. My answers in bold-face:

I guess my best answer would, "I don't know." And the same answer would apply to a number of questions in this case. And Happy New Year to you. It's fun exchanging opinions and laying out facts. Josiah Thompson OK Josiah, one final point on the throat: Am I correct in thinking that you also do not believe that a bullet EXITED the throat at the midline, for the same reason, namely that on its way there it would have had to have blown the bejesus out of the spine and spinal cord? SO is it your view today that there is no throat wound, either entrance or exit? And is it your view view that there WAS a back wound, but it did not exit? Oh, and Happy New Year to you.

I just found this while working on something that has nothing to do with the discussions on this board. I find it inherently interesting and a useful prod to thinking about the Zapruder film. On September 17, 1977, Chief Counsel Blakey convened a meeting with various critics in Washington, D.C. Sylvia Meagher, Paul Hoch, Peter Dale Scott, me, Mary Ferrell, Larry Harris, Jim Kostman, Gary Shaw and some others. We sat around a big table and the critics discussed with Blakey things HSAC might pursue. After a bit, talk turned to the Zapruder film and I told the group what we had learned about via discovery in the lawsuit brought against us by Time, Inc. A transcript of the discussion that day exists and I was reading it for another purpose. I came across this exchange on pages 146 and 147 of the transcript: Ms. Ferrell: Jamieson Film Labs was where it was developed. It was not developed at Kodak. Mr. Thompson: I beg to differ. I have got affidavits from people who worked at Kodak. Ms. Ferrell: Well, Jamieson Film Labs is in the 26 volumes, it is in documents, and January of 1968 we had an old Vice President of Chrysler visiting us and I didn’t know what to do with him, he just kept sitting, and I thought, well, you are from Detroit. Maybe you are interested in the assassination, that’s the only thing I am interested in. So I said, have you ever seen the Zapruder film, you know, the one taken of the Kennedy assassination. Oh yes, I’ve seen it. And I said when, sir? And he said, well, my sister worked for Jamieson Film Laboratories, and my wife and I visited here Christmas of 1963, and she had a copy, all of them had copies of it. In essence, the claim comes down to Mary Ferrell saying in September 1977 that she entertained an out-of-town visitor in 1968, a Vice-President of Chrysler. According to Mary Ferrell, he said he had viewed the Zapruder film when he visited his sister in Dallas over Christmas in 1963. His sister worked at Jamieson Film Laboratories and had acquired a copy there as had other employees. Do I believe that this is a hot lead to an undiscovered and early copy of the Zapruder film? No. If memory serves, Rollie Zavada learned that exactly three (3) copies of Kodachrome II Type A indoor film were available at the Kodak plant and these were sent over to Jamieson along with Zapruder and his original film. Who knows? Mary Ferrell may have misremembered what she had been told? The Chrysler Vice-President may have been shown some other film of the assassination and thought it was the Zapruder film? This may well turn out to be just another phantom Zapruder film like the one Pamela thought she saw in New York or Rich Dellarossa thought he saw in Maryland. Or it might be true. Perhaps Jamieson had additional film stock on hand, and, during the copying process, additional copies were made from the original. Some relative of the Vice-President’s sister may be going through cardboard boxes in their attic months from now and discover the copy of the film referred to here. A call will get made to the 6th Floor Museum and we will learn for the first time of the existence of this additional Jamieson copy of the film. However, my point is quite different. Why try to alter or fake up the Zapruder film when the genie has already escaped from the bottle? Let’s say you are the mastermind of a plot to make the Kennedy assassination look like the work of a single gunman. Let’s say that no one ever imagined that someone like Zapruder would get up on his pedestal and shoot the assassination as he did. Although Forrest Sorrels did not display great interest in the film he saw at Kodak... Zapruder had to go hunting for him at DPD headquarters on the night of the 22nd... after the film reached the FBI and Secret Service later that night, you are asked to make a command decision: Shall we try to get hold of the film and change it? The easy and obvious choice is: You seize the film and all its copies. At 11:00 PM that night, Zapruder is home. We know that from the Stolley phone call. You send two agents to his home in the dead of night and they seize the film and its copies. Zapruder would have bitched about it but who cares. Then you would have sent agents to both the Kodak plant and Jamieson to seize any additional copies of the film that had been made. The reason for the seizures: evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation. What makes no sense at all is to let Zapruder sell his film to LIFE, let Stolley courier the original to the printing plant in Chicago and let Zapruder keep a copy. After all this has happened, you politely ask LIFE to borrow their copy in midst of them trying to get out next week’s issue? I don’t think so. Once the film arrives in Chicago, copies are being turned out as part of the production process and the genie is truly out of the bottle. Of course, the real danger to any attempt to fake up the photo record is the blunt fact that no one can control the photo record of Dealey Plaze. If you fake up film “A,” it won’t match other films taken in the Plaza. It will stand out. And you can never know what films were taken in Dealey Plaza. The attempts to get film evidence by the FBI was desultory at best and these efforts were limited to Dallas. No one could know that a tourist from Omaha or Calgary might have important film that would expose the fraud. Josiah Thompson

Pamela, You write: "You are making the assumption that Tink was looking at the same version of the Altgens 1-6 that Weldon was. The NARA copy, made from the negative, shows no defect in the windshield. Copies of the version uploaded to the newswires have a flaw that looks like something in the windshield." Thank you for pointing out that the Altgens photo in a NARA copy made from the negative "shows no defect in the windshield." If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Weldon and Fetzer were misled by relying on a newswire copy instead of getting a copy from the original negative. That seems about right to me. Josiah Thompson You are making the assumption that Tink was looking at the same version of the Altgens 1-6 that Weldon was. The NARA copy, made from the negative, shows no defect in the windshield. Copies of the version uploaded to the newswires have a flaw that looks like something in the windshield. I tried uploading the NARA copy but it was too large. For the time being, here is a link to that section: http://www.in-broad-daylight.com/altgens1-6snbl.gif

Professor, Same old... same old. There's nothing here to reply to. You offer speculations and smears as questions and expect me to reply to them. No, I don't think so. I think just about everyone reading this thread will be happy that I haven't bothered to bore them any longer by continuing to deal with you. Then, too, I've got other things to do. Josiah Thompson

Jack, Same old... same old. This is a tune you and Fetzer have been playing for a long, long time. Anyone who doubts your extravagant claims doubts them for reasons of narrow self interest. They are defending positions and reputations they've held for a long time. While you and Fetzer... who have hung your very identities on the claim of Zapruder film alteration... you are just discovering "evidence" and passing on "information." The problem is that your "evidence" turns out to be speculation and your "information" crashes and burns when it is subjected to criticism. Only when you cannot defend your views rationally, do you play the oldest card in the deck.... attack the motives of the person who disagrees with you! It's all quite transparent. Josiah Thompson

Professor Fetzer, Since Pat Speer has handled your latest, somewhat hysterical outbursts, I’ve kept silent.... figuring that the more you rant the more you expose who you are. Your latest attempt at character assassination seems to be based on the claim that forty years ago I didn’t write the book that you would expect me to write now. After all these years, isn’t that a rather unrealistic expectation? To advance your smear, you point to various arguments I didn’t make and various sketches I didn’t include. You claim that this is all part of some dark conspiracy on the part of me and unnamed others to keep the truth from the American people. Given that you charge me with a dark conspiracy, it seems only right for me to point out that you have ended up over time misleading that small group of people who read your books by publishing photos that really show the opposite of what you say they show. Make no mistake. I am not charging that this feature of your work is part of a dark conspiracy. I am sure it is not. It is most likely only the result of slovenly editing. Unlike your dark conspiracy that I defy anyone to figure out, it is simplicity itself to show how you have misled your readers. (1) Take the photo that started the recent debate... the red pickup truck in Dealey Plaza taken from one of Rollie Zavada’s studies. In TGZFH, you published it in a blurry, black and white copy and then claimed it failed to show “left full frame image penetration.” As we’ve seen however, it is precisely “left full frame image penetration” that this photo demonstrates. (2) In your latest foray, The 9/11 Conspiracy, you are trying to show that fires in WTC 7 were not very extensive or ferocious. As someone hired to investigate this building’s collapse on 9/11, I can tell you they were both. No matter. To prove the point you are trying to make, you publish a photo of the building showing it standing serene and untouched with a flash of orange near its base. The caption describes this photo as follows: “WTC-7, above right, during the attack on the Twin Towers, appears undamaged except for a modest fire at street level.” Well, the building should “appear undamaged” since the photo was taken in 1997. And the “modest fire at street level”? Well, that is a bright orange, Calder statue to be found on the mezzanine level. (3) Years ago in MIDP, you published a photo purporting to show a particular sight-line in the Moorman photo (the line-up of the left top corner of the Zapruder pedestal with the right bottom corner of a pergola window behind it). The only problem was that you covered up the relevant intersection point with an orange cross. The effect was that the reader had to believe your caption about what was shown. Whoops! When the orange cross was removed, it became clear to the naked eye that the two points did not line up and, therefore, the whole argument was bogus. (4) Again in MIDP, you publish the famous Altgens photo taken at Z 255 and showing the windshield pristine and undamaged. You circle a pristine area of the windshield and caption the circle as follows: “Circle 1. The apparent through-and-through hole in the windshield.” But there isn’t any hole. There isn’t even any suggestion of a hole. The surface of the windshield is pristine. I point these facts out since it is very easy do so and requires not much description. I know you will say that the mistakes are not yours but those of your contributors. And, to some degree, you are correct in saying that. But I raise these mistakes also for another reason. Don’t you become so hysterical about me... wigged out enough to produce a completely silly theory of conspiracy to charge me with... because a few days ago I pointed out these mistakes? Aren’t you really so angry simply because I won’t go away and keep pointing out your errors? Isn’t that the real reason behind your recent tirade? Josiah Thompson Fantasies of sticking forks in opponents now? Let's hope Dr. Fetzer doesn't get his hands on a gun.

Sure thing. I guess the preeminent reason is that I can't figure out how a bullet could enter the throat on the midline and not the blow the bejusus out of the spine and and spinal cord. I also have trouble working out a trajectory that would get a bullet into JFK's throat from any plausible location. Finally, I believe the shirt and the tie suffered damage that did not include any metal or lead being found on either. Then too, there is Frazier's testimony that the fibers in the shirt were protruding outward. Let me just leave it at that. I too enjoy talking about things in the way we have. Josiah Thompson Josiah, it is a great pleasure to discuss these matters with an officer, a scholar and a gentleman. Could you humor me one more time and tell me what evidence convinces you that the throat wound is not a wound of entrance?

In short, you believe the acoustics evidence is invalid for two reasons: (1) A Committee of the NAS has said it is invalid. (2) This evidence does not accord with your view that a shot from the front hit JFK in the throat. Fine. I guess we'll just have to disagree then. I think Thomas has shown that the Committee's conclusions are erroneous and I don't think the evidence sustains the view that JFK was hit from the front in the throat. Josiah Thompson When you say STANDS UP SCIENTIFICALLY you are completely discounting the National ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. Based on the NAS findings, it is fair to say that the theory that the assassination was recorded on the Dallas Police dictabelt is NOT GENERALLY RECOGNIZED in the relevant scientific community. If the best scientists assembled by the NAS unanimously say the original acoustics evidence is wrong, then who am I to disagree, especially since I can see no other good reasons to believe the theory that 3 or 4 shots were fired from the North side of Elm? We have good reasons to believe that the throat wound was an entry wound, and we have good reasons to believe that the shot at Z313 came from the from the front also, so Thomas's theory doesn't jibe with other evidence.

You write: "The hit and the response cannot have happened at the same time. Your argument is clearly based upon a false premise." I didn't discover this. Don Thomas did. He worked out the details and published them in various lectures. In my opinion, it's a very compelling argument. Without taking the trouble to look up all the figures of muzzle velocity, speed of sound in Dealey Plaza, etc. here's what Thomas came up with. Assume that the bullet striking JFK's head at 313 came from the rifle found in the Depository and that it was fired from the 6th Floor sniper's nest. Knowing when it hit, one can infer back when the muzzle blast was initiated. That sound had to get by line-of-sight to Zapruder. Zapruder had react involuntarily to the sound to produce a smear. The math indicates that the smear would occur (if memory serves) in Z 315. Now do the same thing for a shot fired from the stockade fence. The math indicates that the smear would occur in Z 313. Since the smear occurs in Z 313, this would appear to be evidence that this shot was fired from a position much closer to Zapruder than the other shots. It certainly looks to me like a sound argument. You reject it without even knowing how it's put. Fine. But perhaps someone else would care to look at this argument and say what they think. Josiah Thompson Perfect statement Prof Fetzer, you took the words right out of my mouth Dean Removed personal attack on member

Right now we have to assume that the original dictabelt is the one that has been studied although certain features of it suggest it may be a copy. Even if we assume it is an original the acousitics evidence stands up scientifically. So I'm not basing my opinion on a "maybe." Right now all Don Thomas or anyone else can say is that one shot came from the stockade fence and four from the north end of Elm Street. Timing of the shots from the north end of Elm Street suggests all those shots could not have come from the rifle found in the Depository. Much more than that would just be guesswork right now. Josiah Thompson Well Josiah you probably taught your philosophy students back in the day that MIGHT BE's do not warrant anyone's BELIEF. And so far the acoustics have fared no better. I submit that, when it came to finding novel scientific theories, Blakey was infallible. He was ALWAYS wrong. I am not going to hang my hat on a MAYBE - maybe the acoustics will prove 3 shots from the TSBD. I have serious doubts that 3 shots (or any shots) were fired from the TSBD, and the present precarious position of the Acoustics -- dangling on the fringes of the scientific community, with all due respect to Don Thomas -- gives me no good reason to BELIEVE. I would turn the question around, Josiah, and ask you WHY YOU BELIEVE, apart from your personal admiration for Don THomas. I am assuming that THomas's version of the acoustics claims 3 shots from the TSBD. If so, do you think there are OTHER good reasons --besides the opinion of Don THomas -- to believe in 3 shots from the TSBD?

I'd be interested to find out why you think the acoustics evidence is invalid, Ray. I was present in the room when on September 17, 1977 Mary Ferrell told Blakey that a "radio guy" had given her a copy of the Dallas radio channel where shots occur. It didn't start with Blakey. It started with Mary Ferrell and the Blakey's conference with critics in Washington on September 17, 1977. Then the old homicide inspector from Baltimore, Moriarty, was sent to Dallas and befriended various DPD officers. When he came back with the dictabelt recording, Blakey had it sent off to Cambridge for review. Barger reviewed it and out of his review came both the reconstruction firing test and further review by Weiss and Ashkenazy. This record surely looks like Blakey is simply following up on a piece of evidence handed to him and not a ploy by Blakey "to shore up 399.. etc." It is beginning to look like what was studied was a copy and not the original... although this certainly has not been decided. Right now there is one item of cross-talk that places the shot impulses right where they should be if they are indeed shots. There is one other item of cross-talk that places the shot impulses about 30 seconds off. If what was studied was a copy not an original, it becomes easier to understand how this cross-talk problem came to be. I agree with you that the jet effect/neuro theory and Guinn's NAA tests have been shown to be silly science. However, I think the acoustics are something quite different. Please let me know why you reject the acoustics evidence. Josiah Thompson I agree. Zapruder authenticated the film under oath on two separate occasions and the alterationists have not met the burden of proving that he was either lying or mistaken. Profound disagreement here. The acoustics have led the research community on a wild goose chase, and continue to do so. Josiah THompson was the first (or one of the first) Warren critics to argue that CE399 was planted. If it was planted, it was planted in an effort to PROVE that the SN rifle was the murder weapon. The acoustics evidence was introduced by Blakey to shore up CE399, the magic bullet theory, and to disprove claims by critics that the Sniper's Nest evidence was planted. If CE399 was planted, then so were the limo fragments found in Washington. FOr the HSCA the acoustics, the Jet Effect/Neuro theory, and GUinn's bullet lead theory formed a three-legged stool PROVING that the autopsy was correct and that JFK was killed by shots from the TSBD. All three legs of that stool have collapsed under scrutiny, including the acoustics. I suggest that Josiah keep that in mind as he dons his goggles to plunge into Doug Horne's study of the medical evidence.

As I said, I'm not informed enough about this tangle of evidence to say anything. I look forward to reading Doug Horne's four volumes on this to learn. If I finish that in the next few weeks or months I'll get back to you. You know it's not required of any of us that we know everything about everything. I hope you'll find my modesty here refreshing. Tink

A Few Thoughts on the Zapruder Film Think for a moment of what our knowledge of November 22nd would be without the Zapruder film. Sure we’d have the other films shot in Dealey Plaza and the Moorman photo and the Altgens photo. From the other films and witness reports we’d have some fragmentary sense that JFK might have been bowled over backwards by the shot that killed him. But we’d have nothing firm, nothing that was indisputable. And the single-bullet theory would have nothing concrete to show the impacts on the two men were off in timing. There would be a general fog over the event complicated by contradictory witness reports and physical evidence that made things even less clear. Whatever happened that day would remain forever a mystery. No one could have expected we would have an 8 mm film taken from the position a Hollywood film crew would have picked to film the assassination. From back in the spring of 1964 when John and Mrs. Connally and several Parkland doctors were confronted with the film, it became clear that this completely unexpected gift to knowledge of the shooting was causing insuperable difficulties for the official story. Point after point raised by critics since that time have depended upon details available to inspection only via the film. The film could have been seized as evidence. Forrest Sorrels could have watched the film after its development at the Kodak plant in Dallas and said to Abraham Zapruder, “I’m sorry, Mr. Zapruder, I’m seizing your film as evidence in this crime.” At any time that weekend, the film could have been seized. It would have disappeared into government hands never to reappear or only to reappear in whatever guise was decided. What saved this film from that fate is still to me unclear. If there was a giant conspiracy to make the shooting look like the work of an isolated lone nut and if the film was central piece in the puzzle why not just seize it? No one then would have objected and the conspirators would have covered any angles with respect to the film that they needed to cover. Some have asked why I have so vehemently defended the authenticity of the Zapruder film. Professor Fetzer, always ready to impugn the motives of anyone he disagrees with, has claimed that I defend the authenticity of the Zapruder film because Six Seconds was built on it. That, of course, is untrue. Six Seconds was built on the concept that no one had tried to reconstruct what happened in Dealey Plaza from the available evidence. We knew the Warren Report was woefully defective but that didn’t mean that we knew what happened that November noon. Six Seconds was an attempt to answer that question. In answering the question, it drew on every piece of evidence available at that time. To this day, the Zapruder film remains a central and indispensable piece of evidence. Hence, I relied on it as everyone else did and does. In spite of what Fetzer says, Six Seconds was not built on the Zapruder film and I have never claimed to be an expert on it. I believe the Zapruder film to be authentic because no significant case has ever been made to show its inauthenticity. It is elementary that photos and films of the same event taken from different vantage points have to match. If one doesn’t, it stands out like a sore thumb. In spite of persistent and long-lasting efforts that stretch now over several decades, no one has yet been able to show any discrepancy in the photo record of Dealey Plaza. The photo record from Dealey Plaza forms a self-authenticating whole Given this fact, the exponents of Zapruder film tampering have had to expand the circle of faked-up films to encompass virtually the whole inventory of films and photos of the assassination. The long-lasting argument over Mary Moorman’s position in the Zapruder film illustrates this point. Jack White mismeasured a line-of-sight present in the Moorman photo that would establish the height of her camera above the ground. When the mistake was pointed out and the line-of-sight correctly measured, it coincided with the position of Moorman’s camera in the Zapruder film. This sort of exact correspondence between different photos and films establishes the basis for the film’s authenticity. Recently, it has become apparent that another, distinctly different kind of evidence confirms the authenticity of the film. I have in mind here the acoustic evidence. With the revelations brought forward by Don Thomas in the last decade, it is now possible to see that shot events on the Dallas police channel can be correlated exactly with visual events in the Zapruder film. Both the impact of shots on the occupants of the limousine and the involuntary startle response of Zapruder to these shots can be shown to match up exactly with the shots on the Dallas police channel. Putting these two elements together provide us for the first time with an armature on which to both hang and evaluate other evidence. What does that armature look like? Five shots from three directions. The fourth at Z 313 from the stockade fence. One or two from a location at the north end of Elm Street. Two or three from the TSBD 6th floor window. Additional work needs to be done, but, for the first time, I can see a consensus solution to the puzzle. From the very beginning, the Zapruder film has been the bugaboo of the Warren Commission and the most indisputable evidence of a shot from the right front. With the advances of the last decade, this consensus solution will form a basis for future historians when they get around to writing a history of the event. At certain times, it has come to seem that any questioning of Zapruder film tampering was a reactionary move... a protective move on the part of “the old guard” to protect its turf and reputations. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, it is the proven authenticity of the Zapruder film that vouches safe a scientifically confirmed reconstruction of the event. This fact is becoming ever more clear as wrangling over the film continues even more heatedly. An example of this wrangling has occupied us over the last week. Back in 2003, David Lifton claimed that Doug Horne had found in Zavada’s experiments significant evidence that the Zapruder film was a fake. The evidence? Using cameras of the same make and model as Zapruder’s, Zavada had been unable to achieve “full flush left image penetration.” “In not one instance – not a single one – could Rollie Zavada get the image to go full flush left,” wrote Lifton in Fetzer’s book, TGZFH. “It couldn’t be done because the camera just isn’t designed that way.” Lifton and Fetzer even published photos from Zavada’s studies to demonstrate their claim. Zavada, however, was having none of it. He pointed out two photos from his studies showed precisely the effect Lifton said he could not achieve. One of these was actually used by Fetzer and Lifton in a blurry, black and white version. When the photo was scanned from Zavada’s study and it exhibited “full flush left image penetration” Fetzer and Lifton agreed that it falsified Lifton’s claim. Why had it been published with text that said the opposite? Fetzer said it was Lifton’s fault. Although Lifton had produced the blurry, black and white version, he said he had never seen the clear color original in Zavada’s Study #3. Lifton and Doug Horne have been working on this issue since at least 2003. Again and again we have heard the complaint that Rollie Zavada did not run test shots though the Zapruder camera. They have proposed that even now test shots be made by filming Dealey Plaza with the Zapruder camera. As Duncan MacRae brilliantly pointed out yesterday, precisely such a film was made in the spring of 1964 and sits in NARA. Zapruder’s camera as well as other cameras were used in 1964 to take test shots during the reconstruction. If this film in NARA shows what we have every expectation it will show, then this little theory.... like “the seven foot woman,” like “Moorman-in-the-Street,” like all the silly-ass little sketches made for tabloids that I can’t remember... will end up like all the others in the dust pile. And so it goes. The exponents of alteration will continue finding ever more arcane reasons for believing the film has been altered by shadowy conspirators. The argument over this will proceed into its second decade and maybe its third. Meanwhile, the path of fruitful inquiry will continue to lie elsewhere. As for me, I’m sure many others will pursue this question and be able to mount the appropriate counter-arguments to each new iteration of the alteration claim. I hope you will all understand if I say that after a decade of arguing against this claim, I have better things to do. Why, for example, should I even care to learn what “full frame left image penetration” is when it finally leads nowhere and when its exponents could have resolved the question years ago? Josiah Thompson