Paul Rigby

An excellent thread, very useful to know intel opinion on research work. Thread should be expanded with all materials possible, "Kennedy-related" or not, as the whole ethos and organization olf modern intel are "Kennedy-related."

The first public - mainstream media - critique of the Angletonian "Monster Plot" of which I'm aware:

The Washington Daily News, 11 October 1965, p.31

Undercover and Underhand

By Richard Starnes

The Central Intelligence Agency has undertaken a long term task in reconstructing its public image, a reflection which heretofore has swung between the extremes of sinister empire building and ordinary bureaucratic all-thumbsmanship.

The grand design is lovely in its simplicity: Criticism and critics are to be suppressed and/or discredited; and simultaneously the large espionage apparatus is to be presented in the best possible light.

There is, to be sure, nothing original in the CIA’s techniques. Any reporter bright enough and tough enough to cross the large and unlovely spy agency knows full well that he will be assailed and blackguarded in a disgracefully underhanded manner.

Two notable (and notably unmoved) victims of this technique are the authors of the best book to date on the CIA, “The Invisible Government.” The authors, David Wise and Thomas Ross, have lately experienced a renewed episode of this sort of shabby efflorescence.

A notoriously complaisant spokesman for such organisms as the CIA wrote recently that any other nation would have hanged of imprisoned the authors, which could lead only to the conclusion that economic reprisals are not the only fate the powerful spy agency would like to visit on reporters it deems wayward.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk even joined the attacks when he told a recent audience that “The Invisible Government” was being widely used by communist agents in Asia and Africa and that it was, moreover, replete with errors of fact.

The first charge may well be true but it is not true that the book is inaccurate. To my knowledge the CIA has failed to show that it contains any significant inaccuracies. As to its alleged use by communists, it should be pointed out that its authors have done what they could to avoid this by refusing to sanction translated editions in communist bloc nations.

Apart from the routine blackguarding of journalists who err, the CIA has lately undertaken a curious exercise in historical syllogism. In the last fortnight it has circulated in the House and Senate, and elsewhere in the Nation’s Capital, a document purporting to blueprint a master Soviet plan to “defame and discredit” the American spy apparatus. The CIA describes a “Bureau of Disinformation” established by the Russian KGB in 1959, and to it lays the major role in the CIA busting that is said to be afoot.

The question occurs why, if the vile conspiracy has been underway for six years, the CIA is only now warning our lawgivers of it: More important, of course, is the CIA’s heavy borrowing from the tarnished techniques made infamous by the late Joe McCarthy.

In his ultimate paranoia, Sen. McCarthy saw the hand of communist conspiracy in every breath of criticism directed at him. You were for him and all his wicked foolishness, or you were a slavering Bolshevik bent upon impressing American womanhood into vile servitude in Red Army brothels.

With some superficial refinements, this is the path upon which the CIA has apparently embarked. Communists are its critics, hence it is implicit that all its critics are communists. It is an error that apprentice logicians frequently commit, and it is a sad earnest of the CIA’s misunderstanding of the role of a government agency in a democracy.

In my opinion, David L. Wolper's 1964 documentary film "Four Days In November" is easily the very best and most accurate movie (or TV documentary) ever produced about the events surrounding President Kennedy's assassination.

Naturally, of course, all conspiracy theorists will vehemently disagree with that last statement (and then some). But it's true just the same.

And what is even more remarkable, in my view, is the fact that Wolper and company made the film months BEFORE the Warren Commission even completed its investigation into JFK's death -- and yet Wolper, director Mel Stuart, and writer Theodore Strauss were still able to get virtually every fact correct in the movie.

Presumably Wolper and team simply asked their goods friends from OSS/CIA what the report was going to say:

Wolper had, after all, served as Executive Producer of 32 episodes of spook propaganda in the previous decade:

http://www.davidlwolper.com/shows/details.cfm?showID=508

I'm not sure which is more amazing: how much was known or how much wasn't known about President Kennedy's murder in February, 1964.

Saul Heller's acerbic essay that appeared in The Realist raised a lot of questions. Many of them have never been answered satisfactorily.

http://www.ep.tc/realist/47/13.html

Not seen this one before: Enjoyed it, and thanks for posting.

Irwin was never a JFK in any way whatsoever.

Marina Hyde's compulsive need to drag in both JFK, and conspiratorial interpretations of his death, into the most unrelated contexts, has never been more obvious. She should seek help: It's plain she can no longer control the compulsion.

Is there, I wonder, an elite clinic which specializes in the requisite cure(s)?

Yes, another day, another conspiracy - and yet another Guardian columnist in the grip of the same compulsive need to denigrate conspiratorial analyses of JFK's murder:

"For members of the grassy-knoll brigade, this little sequence of events had it all: an unpublicised meeting between two of the men who run Britain, a snatched photo of an internal email, and the suggestion that BBC staffers would now have to tone down their Spending Review season that begins this week. Cue arched eyebrows and indignant tweets all round."

Why was the BBC discussing its coverage of spending cuts with No 10? The BBC is helping convince viewers that spending cuts are inevitable. It's a large-scale version of peer pressure

By Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian, Tuesday, 7 September 2010, G2, p.5

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/bbc-spending-cuts-no-10

This bit is interesting:

It's a large-scale version of peer pressure and there's decades of evidence that shows it works. Nor is the evidence just in the academic journals: when the advertising folk proclaimed that "eight out of 10 owners" said their cats preferred one particular catfood, they were using social proof.

Grassy knoll gunman, anyone? Aditya?

Irwin was never a JFK in any way whatsoever.

Marina Hyde's compulsive need to drag in both JFK, and conspiratorial interpretations of his death, into the most unrelated contexts, has never been more obvious. She should seek help: It's plain she can no longer control the compulsion.

Is there, I wonder, an elite clinic which specializes in the requisite cure(s)?

To see how obsessive the Guardian's columnists are in denigrating conspiratorial interpretations of JFK's murder, consider the following example. The ostensible subject was Crocodile Dundee's tax dispute with the Aussie government. From this unpromising starting-point, Marina Hyde nevertheless contrived to reach the target:

But it was the loss of Steve Irwin that hit them the hardest – after all, Steve was really their JFK, until he was assassinated by that stingray he was papping.

Marina Hyde, "Paul Hogan, they want your fame, not your taxes," The Guardian, 26 August 2010, G2, p.3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2010/aug/26/lost-in-showbiz-paul-hogan

Many anti-conspiratorialists evidence the same pattern of obsessive interest in the case. No wonder CTers find these people, not to mention their weird theories, strange and disturbing.

Conspiracy theories are corroding our society

Not all conspiracies are false, but their recent proliferation is a problem that affects us all

By James Bartlett

It has been quite a week for conspiracy theories. First, the case of Dr David Kelly was revisited, accompanied by claims that he has been murdered at the behest of Tony Blair; then an MI6/GCHQ agent was found dead in his flat, which has sparked a new wave of speculation. Not all conspiracies are false of course: last week's investigation into the Claudy bombing revealed that the UK government had covered up a Catholic priest's involvement and new sources suggest the CIA tested the effects of LSD in Pont-Saint-Esprit. Next week, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, there are dozens of events dedicated to proving that the attacks were an inside job.

Conspiracy theories are often dismissed as a harmless irritation. The idea that all is not as it seems, that a small cabal of powerful people control world events has always been with us. But in recent years they have become a widespread and influential cultural phenomenon. In some contexts, they may have serious social implications.

In The Power of Unreason, a Demos report released last Sunday, we looked at the role of conspiracy theories in extremist groups, violent ideologies and radical doctrine. We analysed more than 50 extremist groups from across the spectrum (far-right, left, religious, cult, anarchic), and found conspiracy theories to be at the heart of a lot of them. We argued they are a "radicalising multiplier", which, when combined with extremist ideology, can push groups and individuals in a more radical direction. Timothy McVeigh, the Angry Brigade, Combat 18, the Peoples Temple – were all fervent conspiracists. Not only that, these theories clearly harm trust in government, in particular counter-terrorism work, in ways not fully understood.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/03/conspiracy-theories-corroding-society

James Bartlett - a man destined to work for the BBC.

The Politics of Genocide

Review of Book by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson

by Rick Rozoff

During the past two decades, the post-Cold War era, Washington has employed and exploited the word genocide in furtherance of geopolitical objectives in several strategic parts of the world...In one of the more impressive empirical confirmations of a hypothesis readers are likely to find anywhere, the results of Herman and Peterson's database research are both predictable and appalling: In case after case, major English-language newspapers such as the New York Times and The Guardian (as well as countless others) used the word 'genocide' in a manner that would have been approved of by the State Department, linking it consistently to toponyms like Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and Darfur, but rarely if ever to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq, whether Iraq during the "sanctions of mass destruction" era (1990-2003) or since the U.S. invasion and military occupation (from 2003 onward).

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20879

The Guardian: The CIA's favourite "liberal" British daily:

The new press service, FWF, was set up in offices on Kingsway in London with a holding company called Kern House Enterprises Inc., registered in Delaware as a front for CIA funding…By the late 1960s the FWF was providing a service that was no longer limited to news media in the Third World. In Britain the service was taken by the Guardian and the Sunday Times…

Paul Lashmar & James Oliver. Britain's Secret Propaganda war 1948-1977 (Stroud, Gloucester: Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1998), p.134

That must be more incomprehensible to our American friends than Craig's last post is to us!

Inconceivable! We need a Hamson-Lamson to help us interpret. Anything. Something.

If you can't PROVE your point, you HAVE no t'point.

He can't be from Yorkshire, surely? Well, he unquestionably gets straight t'point. And spells like a Tyke:

http://www.yorkshire-dialect.org/authors/sandra_mills.htm#a_consultation_fer_nowt

Extraordinary. Case closed. After three: "On Lamson Moor Baht 'at..."

A QUESTION FOR ANTI-ALTERATIONISTS - Who do you guys think puts up the most honest and well thought out defence to your claims and why? For example, Dale Myers is clearly the guy who hits all the sixes when it comes to the Tippit debate, whether you agree with him or not, he is clearly very well informed and thus a formidable opponent of CTs. Who is his photographic equivalent?

Can't say I admire or respect his conclusions, Bernie, but I would have to acknowledge the quality of information and presentation of it by Richard Trask. Mack's knowledge is formidable, but deployed with a contempt for truth that is itself contemptible.

Paul:

You live in your own jihad world.

Anyone who has any experience looking at films or understands who Doug Trumbull was (a guy you apparently never heard of) can see the difference between the Hitchcock film and the Kubrick film.

Oh dear. Your research is as brilliant as ever:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11808&highlight=Trumbull#post11808

Date: September 2009.

Later in the same thread:

What really attracted me to Weidner's very fine analysis of Kubrick and the curious qualities of the moon landing photos was what seem to me to be resonances in one particular section of the Z fake, specifically, the sequence following the famous crude splice at 207-211.

Was it Jack White or John Costella who commented on the transparency of one of Clint Hill's legs as he boarded the presidential limousine? Can't remember for the moment, but I offer as a hypothesis that this section of the film incorporates the use of Front Screen Projection (background) and studio-recreated (re-enacted) foreground.

Just to see where it takes us.

Paul:

This is what I mean about you.

In The Birds, the matte shots are detectable.

Now, in the Zapruder film, I don't see anything like that.

Of course not - it's your job not to. Your job is to defend that which Mack can no longer credibly do. But few are fooled.

Matte photography did not really advance until the making of 2001. In that film, the combination of matte shots with front projection techniques really constituted a leap forward in film special effects. But they had a lot of problems perfecting the techniques for that, plus it cost millions to do and it took five years.

Remind me - when did the second-version of the Z-fake surface publicly? It wasn't the same year as The Birds appeared, was it?

You see, that's what I mean about you, and it's most agreeable: No ability to think through the consequences of successive evasions or obfuscations.

November 22, 1963: 21:15hrs

Dulles to Angleton: "What are we going to do about this Z-film, Jim?"

Angleton: "Nothing, boss, it's private property."

Dulles: "But it exposes our deception, Jim..."

Angleton: "Bad break, boss, but that's just the way it goes."

Anti-alterationism: About as plausible as the single-bullet theory.

Only paul (i don't know how a shadow works) rigby....

Still festering about that one, eh, Craigster? No wonder. What a complete crock that rendition of the sun's position over Dealey was. But I did like the shadow squiggles.

Taxi for the Craigster!

I don't think The Birds is a good comparison since the techniques used there are pretty detectable.

Unlike,say, the enormous pink head-blob in the Z-fake, which is utterly undetectable; and was particularly so for the Parkland doctors, who saw nothing remotely resembling it.

Unless you are going to say that the whole thing was redone.

Or prepared in advance.

Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams. Murder From Within (Santa Barbara: Probe, 1974)

Chapter 4: The Filmed Assassination

One of the most important films of the murder was an 8 mm color movie taken by Abraham Zapruder. The Secret Service had first access to his original film, which was then altered in an attempt to cover up the agency’s part in the plot.

Zapruder stood mid-way between the depository and the underpass (1) and filmed the Presidential limousine from the time it turned the corner of Elm and Houston Streets until it reached the triple underpass. His untampered film recorded what occurred inside the vehicle.

A number of copies of the Zapruder film, whose clarity ranged from excellent to poor, including the films and slides at Life magazine and those at the National Archives, were made available to the authors. Each copy was carefully examined and this chapter deals basically with the results of that examination.

A movie is a series of individual pictures, or frames, in consecutive order (2). In describing the film, we refer to numbers assigned to each frame.

Description

The Presidential limousine first appears on available Zapruder film at frame 133, at a point in the street opposite the centre of the depository (3). The President, seated in the back on the right, is waving to the crowd with his right arm. He is hidden from camera view by a freeway sign, beginning at frame 203, and is shot in the throat at approximately frame 207. When he reappears from behind the sign at frame 225, his mouth is open and his hands are raised to his throat. From this point, he starts to lean forward, and to his left, until frame 313, when his head is impacted by a bullet.

Beginning with frame 305, the driver turns around, one hand on the wheel, and faces the President (4), at which point the President’s head is struck by the fatal bullet.

Between frames 313 and 323, the President is slammed backward by the impact of the shot. Between frames 323 and 340, he falls forward, and to his left, into his wife’s lap.

Mrs. Kennedy scrambles out of the limousine, over the trunk, between frames 345 and 375. Her bodyguard, Clinton J. Hill, touches the back of the limousine at frame 345, placing his foot on the car at frame 371, to assist her.

When the Governor reappears from behind the freeway sign at frame 223, he is looking to his right. Then he begins to turn his head forward. Between frames 227 and 230, he raises his hat (the whereabouts of which, possibly containing bullet hole, is unknown) up-and-down in reaction. At frame 233, he starts to raise his left forearm and to turn to his right again. The Governor’s mouth is open. Between frames 255 and 292, he continues to turn his head to the right, exposing his back to the front seat, until he is looking at the President. At frame 285, he is shot. He is then pulled backward by his wife.

After the fatal shot to the President at frame 313, the Governor begins to pull himself up, placing his right hand on the metal handhold on the top of the back of the front seat. At frame 323, he is sitting up, looking into the front seat.

A visible flare on the windshield of the limousine occurs at frame 330 as the result of another shot.

Authentication

For the Warren Commission, an FBI photographic expert numbered each frame of the Zapruder film. The first frame of the motorcade sequence was number “1” and the following frames were counted in order (5).

In its published record of the film, the Commission printed black-and-white photographs of frame 171 through 334. This is just before the limousine disappears behind the freeway sign until just before Mrs. Kennedy begins to climb out of the back seat (6).

The same numbering was used for those available copies of the Zapruder film that the authors examined. Each copy was placed on a viewer that allowed every frame to be seen and counted individually.

The examined copies agreed with the published version. For example, frame 171 of the copies we examined was identical to the published frame 171. The head shot at frame 313 in the copies was the same as frame 313 printed by the Commission.

All available copies were a single, continuous strip of film, without any mechanical splices.

In sum, those available copies matched the film that the Warren Commission viewed.

The original Zapruder film, however, seems to be unavailable.

Cuts

Between the period that Zapruder took his film and the Commission saw it, the film was altered.

Available copies that we examined showed splices present (Fig. 4-3). All splices were photographic, i.e., the mechanical splices of the original were copied onto the duplicates (7).

The following is an inventory of our examination.

Splices in frames 152-159 concern the period after the limousine turned Elm and Houston Streets and before the freeway sign.

Frame 152 is spliced at the bottom of the frame. In the next frame, splices exist at both top and bottom. In addition, the color changes. Instead of the previous warm color, the frames have a bluish cast. A great difference between frames 153 and 152 is indicated by the movement of the limousine: it makes an extremely rapid forward lurch indicating frames are missing here.

Frame 154 has a splice at the top and is bluish in cast. Frame 155 contains a splice at the top third of the frame. Splicing tape marks are present in the foreground of frame 156, which is also bluish; a crude splicing gap appears at the base. A splice may exist at the lower third of frame 159.

The next sequence in which splicing and color change occur is during the that period when the limousine is hidden by the freeway sign.

There is a possible splice in the top eighth of frame 205. Splicing tape adhesive marks are visible on the freeway sign in frame 206. Frame 206 has a bluish cast, as do frames 207-212.

Frame 207 is spliced at the top. A splice may have been made on frame 210 near the bottom. On frame 211, splicing adhesive tape marks are present. Splicing adhesive covers frame 212; a crude cut out is at the base. Frame 213 has a splice at the top; the color changes back to warm hues. At frame 215, a splice line runs across the top fourth of the frame.

Color change indicates that different copies of the film were used to produce one continuous film (8).

A graph, made to show the feet the limousine traveled per frame number, indicates the limousine moved about 20 feet every 20 frames (Fig. 4-4). Between frames 197 and 218, when the limousine is behind the freeway sign, it moved only 10 feet within 21 frames. This means that the limousine either slowed down or stopped between frames 197 and 218. If it stopped then an unaccountable number of frames could have been removed.

Throughout the entire Zapruder film, nothing indicates that frames have been added. What is clear is that frames have been removed. Time has been deleted from the film. With time removed, the film is useless as a clock for the assassination.

Retouching

Retouching has been done with the image of the driver in the film between frames 214-333. It appears after the limousine emerges from behind the freeway sign. Retouching is evident on the front of the limousine windshield on the driver’s side to obscure his movements. The author’s reconstruction film, taken of a car on Elm Street, under similar lighting conditions, on Nov. 22, 1969, at 12:30 p.m., shows the driver’s motions clearly through the windshield.

Retouching may also occur at the top of the freeway sign to obscure the action of the occupants and to hide the shot hitting the President in the throat.

The object in the driver’s hand is barely visible between frames 285 and 297, the sequence of the Governor’s wounds. Between frames 303-317, it is easily seen. The telling feature, especially in the latter sequence, is the action: the driver raises it, seems to aim, and, then, in the frame immediately after the fatal shot to the President in frame 313, brings it down.

Although splicing marks were undetectable about frame 313, it is likely that frames were removed and the remaining retouched. The appearance of frame 313 is vital to the health of the scenario.

Given the forward inclination of the President’s head at the time of the fatal shot (Fig. 4-5), a line drawn through the actual points of entrance and exit is horizontal. If a rifleman fired from above and behind, the line between the points of exit and entrance would be at an angle.

To camouflage evidence of a shot from the front, the actual exit wound at the side of the head (Fig. 4-5) was covered with opaque (Fig. 4-6).

Second, an exploding, bloody halo was manufactured on the film in the area around the President’s head in frame 313 (Fig. 4-6). Significantly, other films of the assassination lack this halo (9). The CBS reporter who saw the Zapruder film two days after the assassination at a press showing made no mention of an exploding head (10). Mrs. Kennedy failed to describe this burst in her testimony (11).

The halo, a cartoon-like, red-orange burst that nearly obscures the President’s head (12), not only confuses the features of the head, but also distorts the actual and less dramatic wounding (Fig. 4-5). Furthermore, the burst occurs for one frame only – an eighteenth of a second – and does not appear in the very next frame. The film should have shown the burst developing and decaying over a sequence of perhaps 18-30 frames. For example, a film made of the effect of a rock hitting a window would require a number of frames to record the moment of impact, the spidering and splintering of the glass, then the shattering effect of the rock, and the outward showering movements of fragments, and their eventual descent to the ground.

The two Secret Service agents in the front seat and both Connallys implied a shot came from the rear by claiming that a substantial amount of debris came forward and down on them (13). No pictorial evidence verifies their claims.

A good indication of removal of frames during the fatal shot sequence is found in the out-of-sequence movements of the legs of a woman running across the lawn in the background. The rhythm of her running is broken unnaturally, e.g., running on her left leg twice, which would indicate frame removal.

Retouching can be seen in a comparison of frames 317 and 321 (Fig. 4-7). The President and his wife appear large in frame 321, even though the dimensions of the two frames are equal in size. Frame 321 was optically enlarged and then reframed. This eliminated material at the right hand side of the picture, such as the driver and the windshield. In addition, it is possible that in frame 321 the windshield was painted-in; it fails to match the windshield in frame 317. In addition, a change in perspective occurs. The line in the back seat in frame 321 has shifted. This means that the limousine has gone further down the street and that an unknown number of frames were removed (14).

Refilming

More evidence of tampering is indicated with the framing of the pictures, especially between frames 280-300. There, the heads of both the President and Connally scarcely appear, and almost disappear from view. This means that the original film was probably refilmed, and reframed, in such a manner as to remove certain material just below their heads.

For example, on the afternoon of Nov. 24, 1963, two days after the assassination, CBS newsman Dan Rather viewed a copy of the Zapruder film in Dallas. His report noted that Connally, as he turned to look back at the President, “…exposed his entire shirt front and chest because his coat was unbuttoned…at that moment a shot very clearly hit that part of the Governor” (15). On available copies, only Connally’s head appears in this sequence.

The possibility exists that the original Zapruder film was refilmed on an optical printer. Modern cinematography laboratories are equipped with optical printing machines that can generate a new negative without the “errors” of the original. Optical printers can insert new frames, skip frames, re-size the images, along with other creative illusions. One hour on the optical printer could eliminate the Connally hit (16).

Deletions

Most available copies, when viewed on a screen as a movie, are slightly jerky, especially in the movement of the limousine. Perhaps the maximum number of cuts was made, the greatest number of frames removed, without making it obvious to the casual viewer.

Certain items could not be altered, such as the President’s head and body snapping backward, without elaborate artwork. But, of those who have seen the film, the cuts are overcome by the way in which people see the movie. The viewer’s focus is usually on the President, not on the other people in the limousine.

Some of the action depicted on the film that was difficult to explain had to be eliminated.

First, the limousine initially appears on available copies some 40 feet down from the top of the street; it literally leaps into view. Yet Zapruder stated that he filmed the limousine as it turned onto Elm St. from Houston St. (17). The copy that CBS reporter Dan Rather saw two days after the assassination apparently had the turn on it because Rather described it (18).

Frames deleted between 152-159 probably showed the decoy shot being fired from the Vice-President’s follow-up car.

Cuts between frames 205-215 likely relate to two areas: reaction to the decoy (first) shot, and the second (throat) shot.

Between frames 207-212, the President seems to swing his head very quickly to his left as if in reaction to the decoy shot. His action would indicate the direction of the Secret Service agent’s revolver as well as sharply contrast with the lack of reaction by those agents in the front seat of the Presidential limousine.

The President’s reaction to the second shot, which hit him in the throat, is missing. Zapruder testified, “…I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself like this (holding his left chest area)” (19). CBS reporter Dan Rather said that “…the President lurched forward just a bit, it was obvious he had been hit in the movie…” (20).

The Commission, which received the film from the Secret Service, published frames 207 and 212, both obviously spliced, but failed to print frames 208-211 (21).

The alterations after the fatal shot probably were concerned with eliminating the limousine stop and the rush by Secret Service agents upon it. Indeed, the Secret Service made an effort “…to ascertain whether any [movie news] film could be found showing special agents on the ground alongside the Presidential automobile at any point along the parade route” (22).

Film Confiscation

In other films of the assassination, activity in the front seat of the limousine is either obscured or absent. All known movie films of the murder (except Zapruder’s) omit the sequence where the President was first hit. Confiscation of film explains this less than random pattern; all would not stop their cameras at the same time.

Fig. 4-8 shows the areas of Houston and Elm Streets covered by nine known, amateur movie cameras, tracking the limousine. All of the professional movie cameramen were too far back to take footage of the action, except one.

One amateur said that his 8 mm color film was lost during processing. When it was finally returned, some frames were ruined, others were missing (23). The assassination sequence that reached the FBI had 150 frames, equivalent to eight seconds (24). The limousine was in the amateur’s view for some 20 seconds, not including the time it was stopped.

Another amateur’s 8 mm color movie film contained 66 frames of the assassination, approximately three and one-half seconds (25).

Two Secret Service agents obtained both of a woman’s black-and-white still Polaroid photographs (26). One photograph showed the motorcade with the depository in the background; the other caught the President a split-second after he was struck in the head (27). When the two pictures were returned, her friend thought “some things had been erased” (28). Her friend recalled that the woman took four or five photographs of the motorcade, including “two or three good ones” of the President (29).

A man turned his photographs over to a Secret Service agent who kept them for about one month before returning them (30). Retouching is apparent on a 35 mm colored slide he took about the time of the first shot (31).

James W. Altgens, a professional photographer, took his still black-and-white photographs back to his office at Associated Press, had the film processed, and put on the wire (32). The Secret Service was unable to intercept these.

Altgens snapped four photographs of the limousine as it approached Main and Houston Streets and turned right into Houston Street heading for the depository building. Then, he ran down across the grass triangle in the center of Dealey Plaza and into the sparsely populated assassination zone. Directly across from a grassy knoll, where Zapruder was filming, Altgens stepped from the curb and took a photograph of the approaching limousine approximately midway in the execution. Returning to the curb, he snapped another one of the limousine when it was two or three car lengths past him. These professional quality photographs were to become the clearest taken that day of the limousine on Elm Street.

Altgens moved approximately 240 feet from Main and Houston Streets to snap his Elm St. photograph of the limousine in mid-assassination. The limousine traveled approximately 330 feet during this time. These distances give some indication of the low speed of the motorcade.

A professional movie cameraman, within range, was referred to by an ABC News Director during a TV broadcast. The Director said:

“A tv newsreel man was following in a car just behind the Presidential motorcade and at that particular moment had the President in the frame of his camera. He had it on close-up and he was panning from the Texas Library building [sic]…As soon as he saw the President fall…he then panned up and he said…”If I have on film what I saw through the eye of my camera, I have the complete assassination.” At that particular point…he was picked up by a Secret Serviceman. The Secret Service impounded the film; it was allegedly 16 mm color” (33).

No such film has been located. Such professional quality film would show not only activity in the limousine, but also an empty “sniper’s nest” (34).

Getting the Zapruder Film

How did the Secret Service acquire Zapruder’s film?

After Zapruder completed his filming, he returned to his office and asked his secretary “…to call the police or the Secret Service” (35). Then he went to his desk where he waited “…until the police came and then we were required to get a place to develop the film” (36).

An inspector with the Dallas Police Dept. was notified about Zapruder’s film. A sergeant told him that Zapruder refused to give the police the film and was waiting for either the Secret Service or the FBI. The inspector sent the sergeant, with two other men, to bring Zapruder and his movie to him. Instead, the sergeant reported back that Forrest V. Sorrels of the Secret Service was with Zapruder. The inspector then told his men to go about their usual assignments because “…since Forrest was already there and talking to him [Zapruder], I knew that that part would be taken care of” (37).

Sorrels first learned about the film from a crime reporter for the Dallas Morning News (38). According to Sorrels, Zapruder “…agreed to furnish me with a copy of this film with the understanding that it was strictly for official use of the Secret Service…” (39).

Sorrels went to the Dallas Morning News in mid-afternoon (40). He found that the newspaper was unable to develop the film, but did learn that the Eastman Kodak Co., in Dallas, could do so (41).

The Kodak Film Processing Laboratory received “…one 8 mm Kodachrome II Film…” on November 22, and claimed they returned it unaltered to Zapruder. Kodak perforated the identification number 0183 at the “…end of the processed film and carrier strip [leader]…”(42).

Sorrels may have advised Zapruder to have three copies made of the film. Kodak was unable to do so. The Jamieson Film Co. of Dallas, however, could make copies if the 8 mm film was in its original form as a 25-foot roll of 16 mm (8 mm is made by dividing the 16 mm and splicing the two 25 foot rolls together). Zapruder, therefore, had Kodak process the film without splitting it, then took it to Jamieson (43).

Jamieson also received the film on November 22. The company asserted the film remained unaltered during the printing operation. Zapruder received three duplicate copies with the identification number 0183, at the end of the original film, printed onto the three duplicates (44).

Zapruder returned to Kodak where he had the three duplicates processed and developed. They were given the identification numbers 0185, 0186, and 0187 (45). What happened to 0184 is unclear.

Zapruder then had a total of four films, one original and three duplicates. He said he gave Sorrels two copies. Sorrels kept one and another was rushed to Washington, D.C., on November 22, by army plane. (46). Yet, according to a note of transmittal from a Secret Service agent to Secret Service Chief Rowley in Washington, D.C., the disposition was different. The agent stated: “Mr. Zapruder is in custody of the ‘master’ film. Two prints were given to SAIC Sorrels, this date. The third print is forwarded” (47).

Also on Friday evening, November 22, Sorrels did a frame-by-frame study of the Zapruder film in his Dallas office. According to Dallas Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes, who was present, “…we thumbed [through] that thing for an hour or more…push[ing] it up one frame at a time” (48).

The next day, November 23, Sorrels gave a copy to an inspector of the Secret Service who at a later date loaned it to the FBI. The FBI returned it to the inspector, who gave it to Sorrels for the Dallas office of the Secret Service (49).

The FBI was dependent upon the Secret Service for a copy of the film, which it then duplicated for its examination (50). The Secret Service retained the film until the altered version was prepared.

Life

On November 23, 1963, Zapruder made an agreement with Life magazine (51). Two days later, he asked Life to acknowledge receipt of the original and one copy (52). He wrote that the Secret Service had the other two copies, one in Dallas, and one in Washington, D.C. (53).

When did Life acquire physical possession of the film? On November 29, 1963, Life printed some frames. But it only talked of a “…series of pictures…”; it failed to mention that it was a movie and also the name of the man who made it (54).

There are two indications that Life was not in possession of the film. First, the lack of clarity in its reproduction suggests a copy. Second, the magazine enjoyed a reputation for its color printing. The film was in color, but Life’s reproduction was in black-and-white (55).

In its memorial edition of December 13, 1963, Life printed colored reproductions of the film and mentioned “a Dallas clothing manufacturer…[took] pictures with his 8 mm home movie camera: it is from his film that these pictures are taken” (56). Yet three days later, the Warren Commission only saw a series of still photographs made from the film (57). It was not until Feb. 25, 1964, that Life showed its version of the film to the Commission” (58).

It is likely that the Secret Service sanctioned what frames could be printed between 1963 and Sep. 1964, when the Commission issued its report. In the October 2, 1964, issue of Life, which covered the Warren Commission’s report, frame sprockets are missing on the cover and eight frames featured inside (59).

The October 2, 1964, issue of Life appeared in at least six versions (60). Frame 313, with the bursting head, appeared in color in three of the six versions.

Chairman Warren displayed his advance knowledge of the head burst before the Warren Commission on Dec. 16, 1963. “There’s another sequence which they [Life] did not include,” he said, “and it shows the burst of blood and things from his head, blown out” (61). This seems to be the earliest date when certain knowledge was expressed about the manufactured head burst. This frame was not printed in Life until Oct. 2, 1964. CBS reporter Dan Rather, who saw the film in Dallas two days after the assassination, did not mention this dramatic burst. In addition, other movie films of this same sequence failed to record it.

At what point did Life realize that it did not have the original film? It waited until May 1967 to copyright it (62).

Tell-Tale Sign

At some time between Nov. 22, 1963, and Dec. 5, 1963, the Stemmons Freeway sign was re-positioned and raised, invalidating any accurate reconstruction of the crime.

On Dec. 16, 1963, member John J. McCloy commented on it and its significance before a Commission meeting: “You see this sign here,” he said, “pointing to a frame from the Zapruder film, “someone suggested that this sign has now been removed…from the sign you can get a good notion of where the first bullet hit” (63).

It was on July 22, 1964, however, when the Commission interviewed the Dealey Plaza grounds keeper. He commented, “…they have moved some of those signs. They have moved that R.L. Thornton Freeway sign and put up a Stemmons sign” (64).

A photograph taken during the Secret Service re-enactment (Fif. 4-9) on Dec. 5, 1963, when compared to Zapruder frame 207 (Fig. 4-10) shows the following. First, the sign had been moved to the right and raised. Second, the angle of the sign to the camera differs from Zapruder’s. The sign’s new position is also shown when the FBI reconstruction photograph of May 24, 1964, (Fig. 4-11), is overlayed with the Secret Service photo of Dec. 5, 1963. The overlay (Fig. 4-12) was made by matching the tree (A), masonry holes (, and windows © in both.

The FBI apparently tried to have the sign replaced to approximately where it was on Nov. 22, 1963. Note how much of the stand-ins can be seen (Fig. 4-11) as compared to frame 207 (Fig. 4-10). There is also a difference in appearance between the two signs: the sign in frame 207 (Fig. 4-10) has a medium grey tone while that in the Secret Service (Fig. 4-9) and FBI (Fig. 4-11) reconstructions is solid black.

After May 24, 1964, the sign was removed, making any accurate reconstruction of the Zapruder film impossible (65).

Altering Time

The Secret Service produced the first re-enactment tests and surveys. These would be the basis of the information for both the FBI and the Commission, and thereby mislead them.

On Nov. 25, 1963, the Secret Service made a survey in Dealey Plaza to establish bullet trajectories (66).

Two days later, the Secret Service held its first re-enactment. Using a surveyor and the Zapruder film, an agent measured the distance from the eastern window ledge of the depository’s sixth floor to the car. The distance for the neck shot was given as 170 feet, the point at which the view of the car is blocked by the freeway sign. The head shot was stated as 260 feet. He claimed the point where Connally was shot was undeterminable (67).

The Secret Service photographs of its re-enactment show the car at 170 and 260 feet; its map designates these two shots at frames 207 and 375, with frame 330 as the shot for Connally (68).

Again, on Dec. 5, 1963, the Secret Service held another re-enactment. At that time, the car, according to photographs, was positioned at frames 207, 330, and 375. When this was put on a map, they co-ordinated with frames 207, 285, and 330 (69).

A final version of the hits further compressed the time. The Warren Commission stated that the President was first hit between frames 210-225, and Connally was hit between frames 235-240. Frame 313 was the final hit (70).

In short, the timing of the shots was compressed. This solved the problem of time that the film had created. Zapruder’s movie camera ran at 18 frames per second (71). The scenario rifle required a minimum of 2.3 seconds between shots, or 42 frames (72). The difference between the Commission’s designations of the first hit on the President and the hit on Connally was less than 42 frames, exceeding the rifles capability. If one shot hit both, however, then the Commission avoided the problem of having to deal with another gun and a conspiracy.

But the altered film still left major problems unexplained by the single-bullet hypothesis: 1) the lack of reaction by the President’s guards, who were supposed to protect him; 2) the backward movement of the President’s head after he was struck at frame 313; and 3) Mrs. Kennedy’s crawling across the trunk in panic.

Notes:

1) Abraham Zapruder, “Testimony of Abraham Zapruder [dated July 22, 1964],” in Hearings, v. 7, p. 570.

2) Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “Testimony of Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt [dated June 4, 1964],” in Hearings, v. 5, p. 139.

3) Calculation by photo triangulation.

4) “…the Secret Service agent…must be able to hit the target under any and all conditions…” (C.B. Colby, Secret Service: History, Duties and Equipment, p. 20.)

According to Merriman Smith, “All [agents on the White House Detail of the Secret Service] are crack shots with either hand. Their pistol marksmanship is tested on one of the toughest ranges in the country. The bull’s-eye of their target is about half the size of the one ordinarily used on police and Army ranges. They must qualify with an unusually high score every thirty days, and if any one of them – or any of the White House police, which falls under Secret Service jurisdiction – falls below a certain marksmanship standard, they are transferred. Agents must also qualify periodically firing from moving vehicles. This accounts for the requirement to shoot well with either hand. A right-handed agent might be clinging to a speeding car with that hand and have to shoot with the left.” (Timothy G. Smith (ed.), op. cit., p. 226.)

In his testimony, Greer claimed he “…made a quick glance and back again,” over his right shoulder, at the time of the second shot. He stated, “My eyes [turned] slightly [to the right] more than my head. My eyes went more than my head around. I had a vision real quick of it.” (Greer, op. cit., v. 2, p. 118.)

One study (1971) of the Zapruder film approximated the direction, clockwise, that the occupants faced in the limousine. In orientation, noon was the front of the car, 6 o’clock was on the trunk, 9 o’clock was the mid-point on the left, and 3 o’clock that on the right of the limousine. Greer was judged to be looking to the right and rear twice. He was in the 4:30 position from frames 282-290, the sequence when Connally is shot; in the 3:30-5 position from frames 303-316, the sequence with the fatal shot.

Another study (1967), made without the film and working only from the frames, estimated Greer to be 40 degrees to his right beginning at frame 240 and extending to 80 degrees from frame 270 through frame 309 (309 was the last frame available to the researcher). (Ronald Christensen, “A Preliminary Analysis of the Pictures of the Kennedy Assassination,” p. 69.)

5) Shaneyfelt, loc. cit.

6) Zapruder film, “Commission Exhibit No. 885. ‘Album of black and white photographs of frames from the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films,’” in Hearings, v. 18, pp. 1-80.

According to FBI Director Hoover, in a letter of Dec. 14, 1965, frames 314 and 315 were transposed in printing. Visually, it appears to reverse the direction of the head movement.

7) In a few of the more sophisticated available copies, splice marks were retouched out. A 16 mm version contained evidence of only one splice.

8) In a few of the more sophisticated copies, color change was consistent throughout the film A 16 mm version, in the Life magazine photo library, is of excellent quality, containing consistent color throughout. This copy, however, does contain evidence of a splice between frames 156-157.

9) Nix film. Muchmore film.

10) Dan Rather, loc. cit.

11) She stated, “And just as I turned and looked at him, I could see a piece of his skull sort of wedge-shaped like that, and I remember it was flesh colored with little ridges at the top. I remember thinking he just looked as if he had a slight headache. And I just remember seeing that. No blood or anything. And then he sort of did that, put his hand to his forehead and fell in my lap.” (President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Report of Proceedings, v. 48, June 5, 1964, p. 6814.)

12) Especially in Life magazine’s 4 x 5 transparency of this frame.

13) John Connally, op. cit., v. 4, p. 133.

Nellie Connally, op. cit., v. 4, p. 147.

Commission Document No. 188, p. 6.

Kellerman, op. cit., v. 2, pp. 74, 78.

In an interview with William R. Greer, Greer said, “…my back was covered with it.”

14) This area also displays optical enlargement, especially between frames 317 and 318 (magnification jumps from 1 to 1.3).

15) Dan Rather, loc. cit.

16) Modern Cinematographer, June 1969, pp. 566, 567, 568.

Note: Connally testified, “I had seem what purported to be a copy of the film when I was in hospital in Dallas.” (Connally, op. cit., v. 4, p. 145.)

17) Abraham Zapruder, Commission Document No. 7 [dated Dec. 4, 1963],” p. 12.

18) Dan Rather, loc. cit.

19) Zapruder, op. cit., v. 7, p. 751.

20) Dan Rather, loc. cit.

21) Zapruder film, “Commission Exhibit No. 885,” op. cit., v. 18, p. 19.

Note: Life magazine later accepted the blame for this. It said that four frames “…had been accidentally destroyed by its photo lab technicians.” (New York Times, Jan. 30, 1967, p. 22.)

22) Commission Document No. 87, p. 434.

23) Interview with Orville O. Nix in film Rush to Judgment.

24) Commission Document No. 385, p. 70. FBI lab report says Nix’s camera was running at an average speed of 18.5 frames per second.

25) Marie Muchmore. Commission Document No. 735, pp. 124, 103.

26) Mary Moorman. Commission Document No. 5, p. 37.

John Wiseman, “Decker Exhibit No. 5323. ‘Supplementary Investigation Report dated Nov. 23, 1963,’ within Dallas County Sheriff’s Office record…” in Hearings, v. 19, pp. 535-536.

“Commission Exhibit No. 1426, ‘FBI report dated November 23, 1963, of interview of Mary Ann Moorman at Dallas, Tex. (CD 5, pp. 36-37),’” in Hearings, v. 22, p. 839.

27) “Commission Exhibit No. 1426,” loc. cit.

28) Interview with Jean L. Hill.

29) Ibid.

30) Philip L. Willis. Commission Document No. 1245, pp. 44-47.

31) Willis slide number five.

32) Altgens, op. cit., v. 7, p. 519.

33) ABC Television, Nov. 23, 9:00 a.m. Tom O’Brian, ABC News Director.

34) Of the amateurs, an 8 mm color film by Robert J. Hughes does show the depository with the limousine directly below the sixth floor “sniper’s nest.” The FBI examined this film and concluded there was no person in the window (Commission Document No. 205, p. 158.) In addition, “Itek Corporation, a photo-optical electronics firm, concluded the object in the window…was not a person.”

(Life, Nov. 24, 1967, p. 88.) A polaroid photo taken by Jack Weaver, who was standing near Hughes at Main and Houston Streets, was also examined by the FBI with the same negative results (Ibid., p. 175).

35) Zapruder, op. cit., v. 7, p. 571.

36) Ibid.

37) J. Herbert Sawyer, “Testimony of J. Herbert Sawyer [dated April 8, 1964],’” in Hearings, v. 6, p. 324.

38) Forrest V. Sorrels, op. cit., v. 7, p. 352.

39) Commission Document No. 1014, “Sorrels memo to S.S. Chief Rowley and S.S. Inspector Tom Kelley [dated Jan. 22, 1964].”

40) Dallas Police Department, “Commission Document No. 705. ‘Channel 2’…” op. cit., v. 17, p. 482.

41) Sorrels, loc. cit.

42) Affidavit of P. M. Chamberlain, Jr., Production Supervisor, Eastman Kodak Co., Dallas, Tex., dated Nov. 22, 1963.

43) Letter of Abraham Zapruder to C.D. Jackson, Publisher, Life magazine, dated Nov. 25, 1963.

44) Affidavit of Frank R. Sloan, Laboratory Manager, Jamieson Film Co., Dallas, Tex., dated Nov. 22, 1963.

45) Affidavit of Tom Nulty, Production Foreman, Eastman Kodak Co., Dallas, Tex., dated Nov. 22, 1963.

46) Zapruder, op. cit., v. 7, p. 575.

47) Commission Document No. 87, “Max D. Phillips, Note of transmittal [undated] 9:55 p.m.”

According to Life’s representative, Richard B. Stolley, the disposition was “…one copy sent off to Washington and another given to Dallas police. Zapruder kept the original and one print…” (Richard B. Stolley, “What happened next…,” Esquire, November 1973, p. 135.)

48) Interview with Harry D. Holmes.

49) Inspector Kelley. Commission Document No. 1014, op. cit.

50) Shaneyfelt, op. cit., v. 5, p. 138.

51) Agreement between Abraham Zapruder and Time, Inc., dated Nov. 25, 1963.

52) Contract between Abraham Zapruder and Time, Inc., dated Nov. 25, 1963.

Record of physical possession is confused. Zapruder’s agreement of Nov. 23, 1963, reads: “You [Life] agree to return to me the original print of that film, and I will then supply you with a copy print.” Life’s agent, Richard B. Stolley, claimed he “…picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy…” after the agreement was signed. (Stolley, loc. cit.)

53) Ibid.

54) Life, Nov. 29, 1963, p. 24.

Time, Nov. 29, 1963, and Dec. 6, 1963, made no mention of the film although it printed four frames in the latter issue (pp. 33A, 33B.)

55) The issue dated for Nov. 29, 1963, was to have been on sale by Nov. 26, 1963. Although, according to Life, “The editors said that time limitations did not permit reproductions in color,” they also said “…they were unable last night [Nov. 23, 1963] to give precise details as to what the film showed but that they were assured that it depicted the impact of the bullets that struck Mr. Kennedy.” (New York Times, Nov. 24, 1963, p. 5.)

56) Life, Dec. 13, 1963. The Memorial issue is unpaginated.

57) Lifton (ed.), op. cit., p. 72.

58) Shaneyfelt, op. cit., v. 5, p. 138.

59) Life, Oct. 2, 1964, pp. 43-46.

60) Researcher Paul Hoch determined that five versions were issued by Life by comparing the text and captions 3, 5, 6, and 8 on p. 42; picture 6 on p. 45; the text in column 2 and caption of line 3 on p. 47; and 4 captions, lines 1, 9, 13 and 18, on p. 48. Using this method, the authors discovered a sixth version. Vincent J. Salandria noted three versions (“A Philadelphia Lawyer Analyzes the Shots, Trajectories, and Wounds,” Liberation, January 1965, pp. 6-7.)

61) Lifton (ed.), loc. cit.

62) “Motion Pictures and Film Strips,” Catalog of Copyright Entries, Third Series, v. 21, pts. 12-13, no. 1, January-June 1967, p. 19. Though the film is at least 27 seconds in length, Life, on Oct. 2, 1964, described it as “…an eight second strip…” In the Catalog of Copyright Entries, in 1967, it is listed as 10 seconds in length (p. 42).

Life’s representative, Richard B. Stolley, claimed it was “…seven seconds of film” (Stolley, loc. cit.) He also said, “…in the beginning of the film…pictured some children at play…” (Ibid., p. 134), a sequence not shown on any film made available to the authors.

63) Lifton (ed.), loc. cit.

64) Emmett J. Hudson, “Testimony of Emmett J. Hudson [dated July 22, 1964],” in Hearings, v. 7, p. 562.

65) An official use of the film, other than by the Warren Commission, was made by the CIA. It wanted to borrow the FBI’s copy”…for training purposes.” (J. Edgar Hoover, Letter of Dec. 4, 1964.)

66) Dallas Morning News, Nov. 26, 1963, Sect. 4, p. 7.

67) Agent John J. Howlett. Commission Document No. 5, p. 117.

68) “Commission Exhibit No. 585. ‘Surveyor’s plat of the Assassination Scene,’” in Hearings, v. 17, p. 262.

69) Ibid.

70) Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, pp. 105-109.

71) Ibid., p. 97.

Shaneyfelt, op. cit., v. 5, p. 153.

“Commission Exhibit No. 2444. ‘FBI report of FBI Laboratory examination of various items relating to the assassination (CD 206, pp. 45-61),’” in Hearings, v. 25, p. 576.

72) Report of the President’s Commission, loc. cit.

Obituary for Robert Boyle, Hollywood production designer, not least on several of Hitchcock's classics:

Boyle said that being production designer on The Birds was his most complex work. The town of Bodega Bay, where most of the action takes place, was actually a composite of several towns, reproduced on mattes. The filming of the fire was done in the studio parking lot and the town was added in, matte by matte, afterwards.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/10/robert-boyle-obituary

The anti-alterationist argument must necessarily be that CIA couldn't or wouldn't access and/or mimic contemporary Hollywood techniques; and that Dulles, Angleton et al were content to alter the Presidency, but not a piece of film. Ridiculous, but that's what they invite us to believe.

Best of all, they invite us to dismiss the CIA's ability to undertake pretty basic matte-ing on the basis of no knowledge or experience of the Agency's capabilities in this and related areas. Again, it's absurd, but that's what they would have us believe.

Ok, I sent off an email to UPI. If they respond I will post their reply, one way or the other.

I wonder if Arnaud de Borchgrave will answer in person?

In 1978 he told a Covert Action Information Bulletin editor:

… he considered his "key, best sources of information" in the world the heads of "intelligence services in Washington, London, Tel Aviv, and Pretoria, each of which I stay in close contact with." Despite such open reliance on close intelligence ties, de Borchgrave claims coyly nowadays that he spurned two CIA recruitment approaches.

—Louis Wolf, Fred Clarkson, op. cit. p. 35.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Arnaud_de_Borchgrave

But tell me, if UPI did release a copy of the Zapruder film to a television network or station, how does that support your claim that it was a forgery?

It doesn't; and I didn't say it did. What it does tell us is, given the extent of the cover-up, that version 2 is a different version.

The case for the first version also being a forgery is a separate issue.

Features in Zapruder public version 1 (Zpv1) absent from or different to Zapruder public version 2 (Zpv2):

1) Presidential limousine turning left from Houston onto Elm

2) No street sign interposed between camera and President at moment of impact of first bullet

3) Shooting took place further up Elm St towards Overpass, either opposite (or “abreast” of) Zapruder, or beginning at the steps leading up to the grassy knoll

4) Connolly’s white shirt visibly covered in blood following impact of shot

5) JFK’s head went forward in response to impact of head shot

Elements of Zpv1 (1) to (5) described in following:

1) Presidential limousine filmed turning left from Houston onto Elm:

• Abraham Zapruder on WFAA-TV, at 2:10pm CST, November 22, 1963: transcript: http://www.jfk-info.com/wfaa-tv.htm

• Dan Rather, CBS radio & TV, 251163: http://www.i-accuse.com/Rudd_Hotelet.html

• UPI (New York), “Film Showing Assassination Is Released,” The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5 (description of film shown on WNEW-TV, NY, at 00:46hrs, November 26, 1963)

• Arthur J. Snider (Chicago Daily News Service), “Movies Reconstruct Tragedy,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, (Evening edition), November 27, 1963, section 2, p.1

• Warren Report (U.S. Government Printing Office (1964), p.98

• Roy Kellerman, 090364 (2WCH91): http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/kellerma.htm

• Mark Lane. Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald (London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1966), p.66, footnote 2

2) No street sign interposed between camera and President at moment of impact of first bullet:

• Dallas Morning News, “Photographer Sells Pictures of Assassination for $25,000,” November 24, 1963

• Dan Rather, CBS radio & TV, 251163 (Richard Trask. Pictures of the Pain, p.87): http://www.i-accuse.com/Rudd_Hotelet.html

• Associated Press (Dallas), "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3

• UPI (New York), “Film Showing Assassination Is Released,” The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5 (description of film shown on WNEW-TV, NY, at 00:46hrs, November 26, 1963)

• UPI (Dallas), “Movie Film Shows Murder of President,” Philadelphia Daily News, Tuesday, 26 November 1963, p.3 (4 star edition)

• Express Staff Reporter (New York, Monday), “The Man Who Got the Historic Pictures,” Daily Express, Tuesday, 26 November 1963, p.10

• John Herbers, “Kennedy Struck by Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p.20

• Arthur J. Snider (Chicago Daily News Service), “Movies Reconstruct Tragedy,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, (Evening edition), November 27, 1963, section 2, p.1

• “The Man Who Killed Kennedy,” Time, December 6, 1963, p.29

• Abraham Zapruder (7WCH571): http://www.jfk-info.com/wc-zapr.htm

• William Manchester, Look magazine, 040467; Death of a President (London: Pan, paperback, 1968), p.234

3) Shooting took place further up Elm St towards Overpass, either opposite (or “abreast” of) Zapruder, or beginning at the steps leading up to the grassy knoll:

• Associated Press (Dallas), "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3

• John Herbers, “Kennedy Struck by Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p.20

• Abraham Zapruder, 7WCH571: http://www.jfk-info.com/wc-zapr.htm

• Harold Feldman, “Fifty-one witnesses: The Grassy Knoll,” The Minority of One, March 1965, p.17

• John Herbers, “Kennedy Struck by Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p.20

4) Connolly’s white shirt visibly covered in blood following impact of shot:

• Dan Rather, CBS, Radio & TV, 251163: http://www.etcfilmunit.com/iaccuse.html

5) JFK’s head went forward in response to impact of head shot:

• Dan Rather, CBS, Radio & TV, 251163 (Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain (Danvers, Mass.: Yeoman Press, 1994, p.87): http://www.etcfilmunit.com/iaccuse.html

• Associated Press (Dallas), "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3

• UPI (Dallas), “Movie Film Shows Murder of President,” Philadelphia Daily News, Tuesday, 26 November 1963, p.3 (4 star edition)

• John Herbers, “Kennedy Struck by Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p.20

• Cartha DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant (1995), p.139: http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/the_critics/griffith/Alteration.html

Most of the newspaper articles cited above can be found in the thread Eleven early print descriptions of the Zapruder film: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8953

What pre-altered Z-film did Dan Rather watch?

He didn't. The first version - the one he described, at least twice, on both CBS radio and TV, on Monday, 25 November - was no more an accurate record of the assassination than the second.

The original fake was withdrawn early to mid-morning on Tuesday, 26 November, largely, it would appear, due to concerns about the impact of the Parkland doctors' press conference, at which it was stated unequivocally that Kennedy was shot from the front.

The original fake failed to show JFK turning round to account for an entrance wound to the throat. It was therefore suppressed, and a revised fake substituted, one which sought to finesse the issue by depicting the throat wound's impact as taking place behind the street sign.

This attempt to defuse the issue of the throat wound's frontal entrance necessitated major changes: The bullet impacts were moved back down Elm Street, closer to the TSBD, with all the attendant problems that created in the first version's witness alignment etc, most notably on the south curb.

I dont trust him

Quite right - and nor do I. But we don't have to in this instance, for it is not the veracity of the film he saw which is here of primary importance, but the sequence and context.

Remember, Rather offered his first descriptions in the expectation that the film would soon be broadcast. Why would he offer such extended hostages to fortune and credibility in that circumstance?

Our problem is that we view everything through the prism of the much later versions of the films' histories; and not through the record as it unfolded. In short, we read everything backwards, and through the lenses the CIA created for us.

No, I just love watching paul (I don't know how a shadow works) rigby, stick his head up his butt.

Bit obsessed with your opponents' bottoms, I can't help noticing.

Here's Laney getting all righteous about Dan Rather and which version of the Z-fake is the bigger fake. Now there's a discussion for the philosophers, most likely of deception:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXi0usMq30E

In the documentary The Garrison Tapes, there's a wonderful segment on Lane's attempt, in conjunction with Mort Sahl, to prepare Garrison to feign shock on the Carson show. A skill he himself put to some use in 1975.

Like I said,

Translated form Rigbyspeak...NO

Photographic fact trumps witness testimony every time - er, doesn't it?

But there's your mission, Craigster, your chance to make a non-photographic research splash: Get Lane to go on record issuing a repudiation of what he wrote in 1963. Good luck with getting a reply. I believe the evidence of this forum isn't too auspicious!

Paul, did you email Lane to see why he said that and on what station the film appeared? Did you ask him if he still believes it?

Did you call the station and ask them? Did you contact UPI?

I presume you did, since I'm sure you consider this important enough to verify your sources. What did they say?

Robert Harris

I did a number of things, Bob, but, for the moment, I'll refrain from boring you with all of the tedious detail.

Translated from Rigbyspeak Robert.....

NO.

And I thought you were only interested in "photographic fact"! I am shocked to see you straying into the realm of, well, research. You sure you're feeling ok?

Lane was of little interest because he's i) a player* and ii) he's hardly likely to have videotaped WNEW-TV's showing of the Z-fake in November 1963. There were other, more interesting, priorities, not least trying to find a kinescope or a copy of the original UPI film. How thorough the CIA was in covering its tracks remains to be fully tested.

* Lane has had numerous opportunities to speak out on the issue, not least in April 1975. To the surprise of no one familiar with his career, he didn't take them.

Paul, did you email Lane to see why he said that and on what station the film appeared? Did you ask him if he still believes it?

Did you call the station and ask them? Did you contact UPI?

I presume you did, since I'm sure you consider this important enough to verify your sources. What did they say?

Robert Harris

I did a number of things, Bob, but, for the moment, I'll refrain from boring you with all of the tedious detail.

One avenue of inquiry provided powerful, if indirect, confirmation of my proposition. Without being too cryptic about it - for I made a promise to one respondent which I intend keeping - it's safe to say that sight of the first version of the Z-fake could be almost as injurious to health as witnessing the assassination itself.

A second elicited a mildly amusing reply from an eminent collector in the kinescope field, who irately demanded to know why I didn't just google "Zapruder film" and watch it on-line. I had sent him this:

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

I forgave him his impatience for the obvious reason.

Paul, would you mind posting verifiable citations and sources for Lane's statement(s) and the journalist who wrote that the Zapruder film was distributed by UPI?

“Lane’s Defense Brief for Oswald,” published by the National Guardian, 19 December 1963:

”A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show show exactly the same situation.”

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/Lane/Natl-Guardian/Natl_Guardian.html

How could Lane write, in an article published in the 19 December 1963 edition of the National Guardian, of having viewed the Zapruder film on television, when, according to the Department of Zapruderland Security and fellow-travellers, the film wasn’t shown on television until 1975? (1).

Well, if the hypothesis advanced in the thread Was Muchmore’s film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on 26 November 1963? – to wit, that the first version of the Z film debuted on that station at 12:46 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, 26 November 1963 - is correct, we have an explanation.

So where was Lane 25-26 November 1963? According to the forward to A Citizen’s Dissent: Mark Lane replies (NY: Fawcett Crest, April 1969), in New York. From the same source, we learn that he commenced work on his defence brief for Oswald on Tuesday, 26 November:

“…Henry Wade, the Dallas prosecutor, called a press conference soon after Oswald’s death was announced…When the New York Times published the text of the press conference two days later (2), I was able to study the allegations more leisurely…I sat down to analyze the charges…When I was finished, I had written a ten-thousand word article…,” p.16

Lane’s recollection of the showing of the Z film fulfils the classic criteria for preferment as an historical source: it was spontaneous; contemporaneous; and, seemingly, disinterested. It also had recent and related precedent.

Just as in the case of Dan Rather and his rather more detailed descriptions of the radically different first version of the Z film, as offered on CBS (radio and TV) on 25 November, Lane could have had no inkling of the plotters’ plans for the film. There never was, it almost passes without remark, formal notice of the first version’s withdrawal for “editing,” merely the announcement that Time-Life had acquired film rights in addition to the still ones.

In A Citizen’s Dissent, Lane noted that advance proof sheets of his original defense brief were “sent to the United Press International (UPI) by the Guardian. The UPI responded that they ‘wouldn’t touch it’” (3) No wonder. If the Milwaukee Journal report of 26 November 1963 was accurate, UPI had “obtained” (or, more likely, merely been allocated) the original film rights for the Z film’s first version (4). Lane’s reference to having viewed it on TV would inevitably have set alarm bells ringing within the senior ranks of the organisation: It was now involved in the dissemination of amnesia and confusion with regard to the film, not the film itself.

(1) Complete drivel, of course, as Pat Valentino recently proved on Len Osanic’s Black Op radio: the film was shown on a Los Angeles TV station, KTLA-TV, during the Clay Shaw trial, in February 1969, six years earlier than Groden and the DZS claim. http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2008.html (Show #368, 3 April 2008).

(2) DeLloyd J. Guth & David R. Wrone. The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Biography, 1963-1979 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), p.267: “Dallas Prosecutor’s News Conference,” NYT, 26 November 1963, p.14. The transcript, the compilers note in parenthesis, was “from WBC-TV.” Curious how this conference was faithfully recorded and transcribed, but not that given by the Parkland doctors on 22 November 1963.

(3) Mark Lane. A Citizen’s Dissent: Mark Lane replies (NY: Fawcett Crest, April 1969), p.19.

(4) AP, "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3: "The film also was being distributed by United Press International Newsfilms to subscribing stations. WITI-TV in Milwaukee is a subscriber, but will reserve judgment on whether to show the film until after its officials have viewed it." For the context of this paragraph, see here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12216&view=findpost&p=136517

It should be noted that:

1) Lane’s ignorance of the changes made to the first version of the Z-fake was still complete by the time of Rush To Judgment’s publication in 1966; and

2) the left turn was from Houston onto Elm is recorded as being present on the Z-fake (version 1) by the Warren Report itself, a fact blithely and enduringly overlooked by the sharp-eyed and principled defenders of the Z-fake’s veracity.

Mark Lane. Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald (London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1966), p.66, footnote 2:

The Commission explained the method it used to designate the individual frames of the film for purposes of reference: “The pictures or frames in the Zapruder film were marked by the agents, with the number ‘1’ given to the first frame where the motorcycles leading the motorcade came into view on Houston Street. The numbers continue in sequence as Zapruder filmed the Presidential limousine as it came around the corner and proceeded down Elm,” (223).

Note 223 to chapter 3 is to be found on p.423 – it cites WCR at 98. On p.418, Lane explains that the version of the WCR he used was the one published by the “U.S. Government Printing Office (1964).”

You’ll find these useful, too:

The edited Zapruder film: The vanishing left turn from Houston onto Elm

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8952&view=findpost&p=87147

Early print reports of the Zapruder film and its contents (most extensive, though there is an earlier version somewhere on this site):

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=261