Jeremy Bojczuk

Jim Hargrove writes: No, it's very weak. The identification of Oswald by Craig is credible (it's corroborated by two other witnesses), but there's no good reason to believe that the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, or anyone using that name, was on Cecil McWatters' bus. To support his and the Warren Commission's claim that Oswald was on that bus, Jim mentions three pieces of evidence: the bus transfer that was supposedly found in Oswald's shirt pocket; the claim during his interrogations that Oswald mentioned having taken a bus; and the fact that a number of officials were present at his interrogations, with the implication that they reported Oswald's claims accurately. Plenty of work has been done that casts doubt on Jim's and the Warren Commission's claim. Lee Farley's analysis in particular is very good: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213 Jim and the Warren Commission rely on the honesty of the FBI, Secret Service and other officials who reported what Oswald is supposed to have said under interrogation. But we know that they did not report everything Oswald said honestly or accurately. The officials misrepresented the most important statement of all, his alibi, in which Oswald appears to have said that he "went outside to watch the p[residential] parade" (yet another piece of evidence that is incompatible with the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense): http://www.prayer-man.com/then-went-outside-to-watch-p-parade/ For more about the misrepresentation of Oswald's alibi by the officials who attended his interrogations and by the Warren Commission in its report, see: http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi The claim that Oswald was on Cecil McWatters' bus relies ultimately on the testimony of Mary Bledsoe, who was perhaps the most unreliable of all the anti-Oswald witnesses (and McWatters wasn't much better). Anyone who is unfamiliar with the relevant evidence should read Lee Farley's account, which I've linked to above, and Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact, pp.75-83. There are numerous well-known problems with the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' argument that Oswald was on McWatters' bus. For a start, the basic presumption is far-fetched: that an assassin fleeing the scene of the crime would get on a bus that was heading straight back to the scene of the crime (not to mention that the bus wasn't heading close to the rooming house which was the supposed assassin's supposed destination). The accounts given by the three witnesses (Bledsoe, McWatters and Roy Milton Jones) are mutually contradictory in all sorts of ways, and contradicted several uncontroversial facts. McWatters and Jones claimed that the man they saw was wearing a blue jacket; but the only such jacket associated with Oswald was discovered in the book depository a few days later. The man, supposedly Oswald, whom Bledsoe encountered on the bus had a torn shirt; but Oswald's shirt was not torn until his arrest more than an hour later. The bus transfer supposedly found in Oswald's shirt pocket was in pristine condition despite his having been severely manhandled during and after his arrest. When the cops first searched Oswald, no bus transfer was found on him, but once it became known that the man on the bus had been given a transfer, one was found on Oswald. The transfer would have been of no use to anyone who immediately took a taxi away from the bus route, as the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' apologists would have us believe Oswald did. And so on. All we have is unreliable witnesses making contradictory claims. There is no good reason to believe that either Bledsoe or Oswald were on McWatters' bus. This leaves a significant void in the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' narrative. I was rather hoping that Jim would have found a way to reconcile all of this weak evidence into a coherent argument that Oswald was on that bus. Would Jim care to have a go? If he wants us to believe that he and the Warren Commission are correct, it's up to him to demonstrate that Oswald was on that bus.

John Butler doesn't seem to like the idea of his faith-based beliefs being questioned, does he? He writes: This is what John finds outrageous: That's what the double-doppelganger theory claims. John is correct: it is outrageous and has no basis in fact or reality. John continues: I'm not sure why John thinks any "professional studies" would go anywhere near the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. I suppose professional psychologists might find it an instructive case study. If John really wants to debate the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense yet again, he really should do so on one of the dozens of threads dedicated to this incoherent, self-contradictory and laughably far-fetched drivel. He could start by answering the central question I raised in my comment above, a question that has been raised many times and that no 'Harvey and Lee' believer has yet answered. Here is one of those threads in which I described this fundamental problem with the theory: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26056-evidence-for-harvey-and-lee-please-debate-the-specifics-right-here-dont-just-claim-someone-else-has-debunked-it/?do=findComment&comment=429433 Why would anyone have set up a long-term doppelganger project when they would have had a far simpler solution available? Please deal with that question on that thread, not this one. This thread's question, of whether the bus or the car came first, only matters if the bus story is accurate. The notion that Oswald was on that bus is a central feature of the Warren Commission's theory (and of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory too, naturally), and like every central aspect of those closely related theories, it isn't supported by any strong evidence. If the 'Harvey and Lee' believers want to convince the rest of us that any of the three or four Oswald doppelgangers were on that bus, they need to demonstrate it and not just parrot the Warren Commission's account. The same goes for the other central claims they share with the Warren Commission: they need to demonstrate that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the assassination, and that Oswald shot Officer Tippit, and not just assume that the Warren Commission was correct. But don't do it on this thread, please! Lee Farley seems to have been the first person to seriously question the supposed bus journey: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213 Gil Jesus points out problems with the witnesses here: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27429-the-bus-ride/ For a more plausible scenario, and links to several other discussions of the supposed bus journey, see: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1639-why-the-bus-escape The moral of the story is: don't try to squeeze every piece of evidence into some all-encompassing conspiracy theory. Before you know it, you'll have invented a collection of imaginary doppelgangers and you'll look very silly. Plenty of aspects of the assassination can be plausibly explained in other ways, without having to swallow the lone-nut idea. The supposed bus journey, for example, can be explained as an ex post facto means to get Oswald to the rooming house (in which he may not actually have been staying) to pick up a gun (which he may not actually have owned) and get to Tenth Street in time to shoot Tippit (which may not actually have had anything at all to do with the JFK assassination). The simpler a conspiracy theory is, the more credible it is.

As for Steve's original question, Greg Parker has something to say here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2567-which-came-first Greg points out that Roy Truly could not have reported Oswald missing until 12.45 at the earliest, when Oswald's lunch break ended. It may be significant that Officer Kaminski was not placed on guard duty at the front door of the book depository until shortly after 12.45.

I'd like to comment on two points. Firstly, the derailing of this thread to promote a nonsensical, far-fetched theory that almost no-one believes, and secondly the actual topic of the thread. Armstrong's theory is incoherent. His imaginary double-doppelganger project, which supposedly began in the late 1940s or early 1950s, was set up for one specific reason: to produce, several years in the future, a false defector who had a plausible American background and a sufficient knowledge of Russian to allow him to understand what was going on around him in the Soviet Union. According to Armstrong's theory, the two requirements were satisfied by recruiting two unrelated people who would share the same name. The need for a genuine American background was satisfied by recruiting a genuine American boy and his mother, and maintaining their household for a decade or so. The need for someone with a reasonable understanding of Russian was satisfied by recruiting a native Russian-speaking boy, along with a woman who would act as his mother, and maintaining that household for a decade or so. As if all of that isn't improbable enough, the theory required the Russian-speaking boy to forget most of his Russian, the very skill for which he was recruited in the first place, so that he had to teach himself the language again just before his false defection was due. It's nonsense. The theory is not only incoherent but unnecessary. There was no need to set up such a ridiculously complicated scheme. All that was necessary was to recruit a genuine American with a knack for languages, then get him up to speed in Russian during the several years that were available. There would have been more than enough suitable Americans to fill this role. The problem is that no-one has been able to explain why the vastly more complicated solution would have been chosen. Armstrong doesn't explain it in his book, as far as I'm aware, though if anyone can supply a page reference I'll be happy to be corrected (but please do so on another thread, not this one). I've mentioned the problem in several threads on this forum, and none of the diminishing band of 'Harvey and Lee' acolytes have come up with an answer either. See, for example: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26056-evidence-for-harvey-and-lee-please-debate-the-specifics-right-here-dont-just-claim-someone-else-has-debunked-it/?do=findComment&comment=429433 Every time I mention it, they run away, which suggests that no good explanation exists. If anyone has any ideas about why such a complicated long-term double-doppelganger project would have been set up, please visit one of the numerous 'Harvey and Lee' threads and do so there, not here. Bernie Laverick had something to say about the lack of support Armstrong's theory has acquired despite more than 20 years of promotion: You do know that more people believe that the Queen of England is a lizard than believe in H&L? In fact, I'd go further, more people would probably rather accept that she was one of the shooters than accept this relentless trolling disguised as a risible theory, one that relies on deliberate falsification and mistruths, and whose sole design is to divert, confuse, and slow down the search for the truth. (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/23677-a-couple-of-real-gems-from-the-harvey-and-lee-website/?do=findComment&comment=362658) Again: if anyone wants to promote the double-doppelganger nonsense, please don't do it on this thread.

Paul Bacon writes: My mind is open to any strong evidence you care to provide. I'll be perfectly happy to accept that the Zapruder film is a fake, as soon as someone comes up with strong evidence to justify that claim. So far, two areas of evidence have been put forward. 1 - The Car Stop I can go over this yet again if you insist. No-one has shown why we should prefer the evidence of a minority of witness statements over (a) the majority of witness statements and (b) no fewer than four home movies which show that the car did not stop. Chris is the only person to come up with a coherent argument against this, by suggesting that we should interpret the plain "slowing down" witness statements to mean something like "slowing down (almost) to a stop". Because witnesses are often inaccurate when recalling details, Chris's interpretation is plausible. But so is the opposite interpretation: that the "slowed almost to a stop" witnesses were exaggerating what they saw. Personally, I think it's far more likely that people would exaggerate the extent of the slowing down than fail to mention that the car came (almost) to a stop. A large proportion of the spectators who could see the car at the time of the head shot didn't report the car slowing down at all, let alone coming to a stop. The slowing down was not significant to them. As we see in the four home movies, the car didn't slow down by a huge amount. 2 - The Film's Chain of Custody Look at the document I linked to earlier (http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf), which contains a plausible interpretation of the film's chain of custody that is contrary to Horne's. Zavada made a good case that the film Brugioni and McMahon recalled several decades after the event was not the original but two separate copies. So far, no-one has pointed out any problems with Zavada's account. Until someone can show that Zavada's account is not plausible, why should we not accept it? Horne's account requires the extra complication of a team of Bad Guys going to a lot of trouble to alter a home movie to support the lone-gunman theory but doing it so incompetently that the film ended up contradicting the lone-gunman theory. Zavada's account does not require this extra (and incoherent) complication. The only rational course is to accept the simplest, least complicated account. 3 - The Turn Onto Elm Street There's a third claim that needs to be resolved, but for some reason no-one seems able even to state what the claim actually is. Again, if anyone really thinks there was something incriminating in the car's turn onto Elm Street that necessitated the removal of a chunk of the Zapruder film, could you please fill in the missing details? Since it was Ron who made the original claim, perhaps he could explain what he thinks happened and why it was so incriminating. Until someone actually explains what the problem is, we can ignore the turn onto Elm Street, don't you think? The Standard of Proof I realise that the 'everything is a fake' types might find it puzzling even to think about something like a standard of proof. If it makes you feel all fuzzy inside to believe that the film has been altered, isn't that enough to prove that the film has been altered? I mentioned earlier that the appropriate standard of proof is: evidence that would convince rational, open-minded people with no preconceived opinions about the assassination. Does everyone agree? If not, could you explain what you think would be a reasonable standard of proof for a claim like 'the Zaprduer film is a fake'? If you do accept this standard of proof, why you think no-one has come close to reaching it with the evidence that's been put forward so far?

Ron Bulman writes: Thank you, Ron, but I don't smoke. Horne spent a lot of his time with the ARRB trying to push Lifton's body-alteration nonsense, a topic few people take seriously. That should warn you that he's liable to make far-out claims based on minimal evidence. In a subject as contentious as the JFK assassination, you shouldn't believe any significant claims without checking the relevant evidence and examining alternative interpretations. Did you take these elementary precautions? You appear not to have done so. If not, why not? If you don't exercise sufficient critical thought, you're liable to end up believing any old nonsense. This is a big problem with the JFK assassination, in which all sorts of wacky, nonsensical ideas are floating around. Only a few hours ago on another thread, someone repeated the claim that the driver shot JFK, as though it was a serious idea. People who are willing to apply critical thought to the nonsensical lone-gunman theory then switch off their brains and swallow equally weak claims about ridiculously improbable conspiracies. If you want to do more than simply confirm your own biases, you have to question the conspiracy theories too, I'm afraid. Horne's claims are based on little other than decades-old recollections. You must have been aware that decades-old recollections are liable to be mistaken. What critical thought did you apply to Horne's claims? Any at all? What other interpretations did you consider before you decided that Horne's far-fetched speculation was the most convincing interpretation around? I'd guess you didn't consider any alternative interpretations. If you didn't take this elementary step, what were the reasons behind your decision not to do so? Was it because Horne told you what you wanted to hear? I gave you a link to an alternative interpretation of the Zapruder film's history. Were you aware of this document's existence before you went public? Evidently not. Have you read the document yet? If not, why not? Here's that link again. It's Roland Zavada's open letter responding to chapter 14 of Horne's book. It deals with the technical aspects of altering Kodachrome films, and with the Zapruder film's chain of possession: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Perhaps you could read it and let us know why we should believe Horne's claims instead. Warning 1: the document is over 30 pages long! It will probably require more effort to read this than to watch a YouTube video. Warning 2: once you have read the document, you will need to evaluate competing claims about topics such as chains of custody and whether this or that copy of the film was slit or unslit at a particular time. This will certainly require more effort than passively accepting a far-fetched YouTube video. Here's Zavada's conclusion: The very interesting twist to your chapter is that it has done more to ensure the Zapruder film at NARA is authentic rather than altered. Your interviews with Dino Brugioni and Homer McMahon and their handling of what they interpreted [Zavada's emphasis] as "original" films, most likely were the Jamieson copies provided to the Secret Service by Zapruder and flown to Washington on successive days. (With the FBI requesting two copies, returned to Dallas, of their viewed double 8 copy.) Nonetheless, your analysis of those interviews and the conclusions you draw about the briefing boards have provided a tight focus to establish the time frame and possible venue for the purported 'sanitizing' of the Zapruder original. Both reinforce all of the technology and film reproduction constraints to confirm our conclusion that alteration to the 8mm original and its reconstitution, as a 'sanitized' KODACHROME II equivalent, was impossible. So much for Horne's claims. I'm still curious about Ron's original claim that a section of the film was removed to hide the car's turn onto Elm Street. No-one seems willing to explain what this is all about. What is supposed to have happened when the car turned onto Elm Street? How is this supposed to be evidence of conspiracy? What was so incriminating that it required a section of the film to be removed?

Rather than derail the current Minox camera thread, which has moved back to discussing Minox-related matters, I thought I'd use this Zapruder film-related thread to reply to a couple of Zapruder film-related points. Sandy Larsen wrote: Thank you! At last, someone is brave enough to admit that there is nothing in the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory. The film does not contain evidence that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory, but it does contain evidence that contradicts that theory. I hope everyone is now aware of this important fact, and will take it into account. The second point is that one of the three claims Ron made was that the car's turn onto Elm Street is evidence of conspiracy, and was the reason for chopping out part of the Zapruder film. Could someone explain what the deal is with the turn onto Elm Street? This is a genuine question. I've heard several times now that something sinister happened, but no-one has explained what it is that's supposed to have happened, or what the evidence is that anything suspicious happened, or why this mysterious event was so incriminating that it would have necessitated altering a home movie.

Chris Bristow writes: Maybe it could, given that the details of witnesses' recollections are often inaccurate and are able to be interpreted in different ways. But there is no justification for supposing that it did, for two reasons. Very few witness statements specifically claimed that the car slowed "almost to a stop" (or words to that effect), and there are four home movies which all show that the car did not slow down to anything like that speed. Witness statements and photographic evidence are not equally likely to be inaccurate. Witnesses are often wrong about the details of what they saw, but home movies and photographs are almost never maliciously altered (I'm not aware of any uncontroversial examples of such alteration, though I suppose some may exist). When there is a conflict, we have to trust the films and photos unless there is strong independent evidence for alteration. A plausible explanation for many discrepancies in witnesses' statements is that the witnesses were exaggerating what they saw. It is uncontroversial that people exaggerate things (I could cite trillions of examples of this). Rather than interpret the many plain "the car slowed down" statements to mean that the car slowed down drastically to something that was virtually indistinguishable from a stop, we should instead do the opposite, and interpret the few "almost to a stop" statements as exaggerations. If you interpret these few anomalous statements as exaggerations, even more of the witness statements support what we see in the four home movies. Since the four home movies and two photos corroborate the majority of the witness statements, it is perverse to believe the minority, no matter how exciting it might be to imagine all-powerful Bad Guys seizing and altering a bunch of home movies and photos in order to support the lone-gunman theory but doing it so incompetently that none of those home movies or photos actively support the lone-gunman theory and at least one of them positively contradicts that theory. The car did not stop; it slowed down, but not to anything like half a mile per hour. Accepting that a film is not altered is the only rational starting point. Because home movies and photographs do not routinely get maliciously altered, the default position with home movies and photographs is that they are genuine. If anyone wants to challenge this default position, it is up to them to prove (to whatever degree of certainty is considered appropriate) that the film or photo has been altered. It is not up to anyone else to prove that the film or photo is genuine. This really is a huge barrier, and it's hardly surprising that no-one has succeeded in surmounting it. The degree of certainty that I would go for is that the proof of alteration should satisfy a rational, open-minded person with no preconceived opinions about the assassination. Does that sound reasonable? Unfortunately, no-one has got anywhere near this level of proof. All we have is anomaly-spotting and speculation. And that's after three decades of trying, which suggests that such proof is unlikely to be found, and that it's time for the film to be accepted as genuine even by the more speculative and fanciful enthusiasts who still cling to the notion that the Zapruder film might be faked. The more rational critics of the lone-gunman theory have accepted it as genuine for decades, mainly because of the simple fact that the film not only contradicts the lone-gunman theory but is one of the most crucial pieces of evidence against that theory. The evidence we have is insufficient to prove alteration. Is any new evidence likely to come along? There may be one or two witness statements somewhere in the Dallas police's files or down the back of a drawer in the National Archives, but surely there won't be enough of them to make any difference. There may be a hitherto unknown home movie or photograph (the latter is more probable than the former), but what are the chances that it will contradict the films and photos we already have? It's more likely to corroborate them, isn't it? Of course, people can keep playing the game if it amuses them. But it's difficult to see how they aren't wasting their time when they could be doing something productive to help get the case reopened.

Mark Knight writes: Sorry, Mark! But sometimes humour is appropriate. The JFK assassination is a serious topic, unlike faked moon landings, faked films, faked Oswalds, and faked trees on the grassy knoll. This sort of stuff reinforces the media's line that anyone who questions the lone-nut theory is an irrational 'conspiracy theorist', in the propaganda sense of the term. It's better to laugh at the far-out stuff than have the assassination itself turned into a subject of ridicule in the minds of any rational outsiders who happen to visit this forum. If the JFK assassination is ever going to get treated seriously by the authorities, it needs the support of the general public. The 'everything is a fake' sub-culture is liable to alienate the general public.

John Butler writes: But John hasn't presented any evidence! No-one has raised any bars. No-one has demanded impossible proof. John made a claim: I've asked him, four times now, to provide evidence to justify his claim. All he needs to do is cite a scene or incident or event in the Zapruder film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory. If any such evidence exists, John shouldn't have any trouble finding it. Come on, John! Give us the evidence from the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory! You can do it! Of course, as I've demonstrated already, the Zapruder film in fact contradicts the lone-gunman theory. The problem, which I imagine even John has worked out by now, is that if the Zapruder film does not support the lone-gunman theory, how could anyone have altered it to support that theory?

Richard Price writes: I presume you mean this Marcus Allen and Randy Walsh: https://authorrandywalsh.com/ Here is a passage from the web page in question: I presume that Richard agrees with these people that the moon landings were a hoax. That's OK - everyone is entitled to their opinion. But in the interests of balance, here are a just a few sources arguing that the moon landings did indeed happen: https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/moon/how-do-we-know-we-went-to-the-moon https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48774080 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-stanley-kubrick-faked-moon-landings/ http://www.clavius.org/jackwhite.html https://www.history.com/news/moon-landing-fake-conspiracy-theories NASA has announced plans for "astronauts landing on the lunar South Pole by 2024" (https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/back.html). I don't know whether it will happen as soon as that, but they certainly appear to have solid plans to go (back, maybe) to the moon. This raises a couple of questions: What is the moon-hoax community's opinion of this? If this plan goes ahead, will these moon landings be hoaxes too? Since Stanley Kubrick is no longer with us, does NASA have any other directors in mind? To guide this thread back to JFK-related matters, I'm also curious about what a moon-hoax enthusiast would think of John Butler's theory that all the home movies and photographs from Dealey Plaza were faked. How would Richard rate John's theory on the wacky-o-meter, using a scale of 1 (perfectly sensible!) to 10 (fruitcake alert!)? In other words, is John's theory more or less credible than the moon-hoax theory?

Chris Bristow writes: But what we can assume is that they noticed nothing that struck them as suspicious. We can be sure that the car slowed down, because there are a number of witnesses who said so, and because four home movies show it doing so. But we can't be sure that the car stopped, since only a minority of those witnesses said so, and none of the films show it doing so. Of course, it's conceivable that the 'slowing-down' witnesses saw the car stop but didn't think it was worth mentioning. But it's also conceivable that the 'car-stop' witnesses were mistaken, especially as some of them were not consistent in claiming that the car stopped. Yes: the car slowed down but didn't stop, which is exactly what all the home movies show. As I pointed out, two of the four cops were not consistent. Each claimed that the car both stopped and didn't stop: Hargis: "the Presidential car slowed down. ... the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that." And "[the car] slowed down almost to a stop." Chaney: "from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped." And "the automobile came to — almost came to a complete halt after the first shot — did not quite stop, but almost did." The question is: which of their statements are more likely to be correct? It's a simple matter of weighing up the evidence for and against. A few witnesses claimed that the car stopped, but no films show that the car stopped. A larger number of witnesses claimed that the car merely slowed down, and four films show that the car merely slowed down. There's no contest. Chaney's claim that the car "pulled to the left and stopped" is also contradicted by those four home movies and at least two photos. The Moorman photo and the Altgens 7 photo show that the car had not "pulled to the left" during the shooting; the Altgens 7 photo actually shows that the car moved to the right, not the left. No photos or home movies, as far as I'm aware, show the car in the left-hand lane. We can be certain that that part of Chaney's claim is incorrect. Exactly! Home movies do not, as a general rule, get maliciously altered. If someone is claiming that even one home movie was maliciously altered, let alone four of them, the onus is on them to prove it. It's an enormous hurdle to overcome, and no-one has yet come close to doing so. If it were just a matter of X number of witnesses said this and Y number of witnesses said that, one could argue that either group could have been correct. But when you consider that one group of witnesses can only have been correct if four home movies were altered (and maybe a couple of photos too), that claim becomes far more difficult to accept. Until someone comes up with proof that the four films were altered, the claim is worthless. That difficulty increases further when you consider these facts: The Zapruder film contradicts the lone-gunman theory, a fact that somewhat undermines the notion that the film was altered to support that theory. There appears to be nothing in the film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory (as we've seen on another current thread). Almost all of the claims for alteration rely on nothing more than amateurish anomaly-spotting (back-to-front cars, Phil Willis's extra-long leg, and other similar nonsense). People have been searching for around 30 years, and no-one has come close to demonstrating the sort of proof of alteration that would satisfy a reasonable, open-minded person.

Referring to my comment about the supposed car stop, John Butler writes: I've explained all of this several times, here and on other threads. There is more than enough "reasonable doubt in the vehicle stop notion". That doubt is largely based on which witnesses are corroborated and which aren't. I'll try again, and see if the message gets through at the umpteenth attempt: Only a minority of witness statements claimed that the car stopped. A larger number claimed that the car didn't stop, but merely slowed down. All four of the home movies which show the car at around the time of the head shot fail to show the car stopping. All four films corroborate the witnesses who claimed that the car didn't stop. No evidence exists which corroborates the witnesses who claimed that the car stopped. If you are arguing that the car stopped, you are arguing that all four of the home movies were altered, and that the majority of the witnesses were mistaken. You need to prove all of that. I don't think I can make it any clearer. If John still doesn't grasp the point, it must be because he is incapable of processing arguments that contradict his beliefs.

John Butler writes: On the contrary, all John has to do is provide evidence to justify his claim. Here it is: Why is John so reluctant to justify his claim? I've asked him three times now, and he still hasn't come up with anything. What do we see in the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory?

Sandy Larsen writes: I'm genuinely puzzled why anyone should think the car's turn on Elm Street was evidence of conspiracy. No-one has explained what was so incriminating that it necessitated altering a home movie. John Butler writes: In real life, Abraham Zapruder filmed the Zapruder film. In Jack White world, it was probably Stanley Kubrick, who, as we all know, went on to do something similar in the Arizona desert with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In John Butler world, I dread to think who filmed the Zapruder film. Betty Oliver, perhaps. Or the same team of Martian doppelganger lizard people who were responsible for faking all the other home movies and photos from Dealey Plaza.

Jim Hargrove writes: You can't be serious! It's "highly plausible" that there were two Oswalds running around inside the book depository? Contrary to Jim's and the Warren Commission's account, Oswald almost certainly was not on the sixth floor, shooting at JFK. What's highly plausible is that the one and only Oswald's movements during the half hour or so until the assassination were deliberately misrepresented by the Warren Commission, and that his alibi was deliberately misrepresented in the FBI's reports of his interrogations: http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi http://www.prayer-man.com/then-went-outside-to-watch-p-parade/

Ron Bulman writes: You shouldn't come to a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. As I pointed out, Horne is not a reliable source. He believes in Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! If someone like that tells you something, you really ought to check out alternative accounts. You could start by checking the document I linked to earlier, from a review of Horne's book, which gives a plausible alternative account of the film's history: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf If there's a plausible account that doesn't require the extra complication of film-alteration, why choose the account that does require that extra complication? There were far fewer than 60 witnesses who claimed that the car stopped. Again, I provided a source which analysed the witness statements. Why not read it? Only a small minority claimed that the car stopped. Most of them claimed that the car merely slowed down, just as we see in the Zapruder film, the Muchmore film, the Nix film, and the Bronson film. If you are basing your conclusion only on the number of witnesses, your conclusion must be that the car didn't stop. If you are basing your conclusion on the number of witnesses combined with the film evidence, your conclusion must also be that the car didn't stop. Here's the balance of the evidence about the supposed car-stop: Yes, the car stopped: supported by a minority of witness statements but no home movies. No, the car didn't stop: supported by a majority of the relevant witness statements and no fewer than four home movies. To put it another way, for the car to have stopped, the Zapruder film must have been altered, and the Muchmore film must have been altered, and the Nix film must have been altered, and the Bronson film must have been altered, and many more witnesses must have been mistaken than correct. If someone is going to assert that the car did stop, they need to demonstrate that all four films were altered, and why we should discard the majority of the witness statements. Until they do this, there is no good reason to suppose that the car stopped.

Chris Bristow writes: Yes, we absolutely should not expect witnesses to have perfect recollections of a sudden, unexpected and traumatic event. Far too much trust has been placed in anomalous witness statements in this and other areas of the JFK assassination. But that doesn't entitle us to assume that all the witnesses who didn't mention a car-stop were mistaken. A large majority, around 80%, of the witnesses who would have been in a position to notice a car stop didn't mention any such event. Is that percentage significant? Should we expect 80% of witnesses to miss something like that? I don't know. If anyone is claiming that 80% of a group of witnesses were mistaken, that claim needs to be demonstrated. That's where the burden of proof rests here. The pertinent fact is that a small number of statements claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that the car merely slowed down. Both groups cannot be correct. All other factors being equal, the larger group is more likely to be correct. Add to that the fact that four home movies show the car at around the time of the head shot, and none of them show it stopping. To claim that the car stopped, it's necessary to claim that all four films were altered. That's something else that needs to be demonstrated. Until someone does so, there's no good reason to suppose it happened. They weren't consistent. Two of the four made statements denying that the car stopped: Hargis: "slowed down almost to a stop" Chaney: "almost came to a complete halt after the first shot — did not quite stop, but almost did." The other two weren't exactly positive about an obvious stop: Martin: the car stopped "just for a moment." Jackson: "the car just all but stopped ... just a moment." The bike cops were just as inconsistent as most witnesses to the assassination. Witnesses who claimed that the car both stopped and didn't stop are not good evidence for a car stop.

I seem to have got the 'everything is a fake' gang rather worked up, haven't I? Anyone who has argued with religious fundamentalists will probably have experienced the same type of hysterical reaction when you ask them to justify a particularly irrational belief. They simply can't cope with the notion that their belief ought to be questioned. Clearly, Zapruder film alteration is a sacred dogma that must be accepted without question. David Healy writes: That sums it up. That's the sort of intellectual giants we're dealing with. David appears not to have heard of the elementary concept known as the burden of proof. If someone makes a claim, the onus is on that person to justify their claim. Until they do so, their claim is worthless. Let's start again. Ron, you made three claims. You need to provide proof, not empty assertions. Until you do so, your claims are worthless. Can you prove that the turn was eliminated? Why, in the unlikely event that it happened, would anyone have wanted to remove something so innocuous? Can you prove that the car stopped? You might like to read the evidence I presented which very strongly suggests that the car didn't stop, and see if you can come up with something better than that. Why should we believe that the forward motion of JFK's head in the Zapruder film is evidence of alteration? It's quite remarkable that we're having to deal with people who don't understand that if you make a claim, you're obliged to justify that claim. Didn't they learn critical thinking at school? John Butler writes: Evidently not.

Sandy Larsen writes: Yes, but that doesn't mean much. It is an uncontroversial fact that witnesses get things wrong occasionally. We should expect there to be anomalous statements about all sorts of aspects of the assassination, and that's exactly what we find. Take, for example, the number of shots. Witnesses claimed that there were one, two, three, four, five or six shots, or maybe more. Some of those witnesses must have been mistaken. It's no big deal. We need evidence that's a lot more solid than that even to suspect, let alone to demonstrate, that a home movie was physically altered. Let's look at each of Sandy's examples: The Wide Turn This is probably the weakest argument for alteration I've heard (well, apart from back-to-front cars and extra-long legs). Even if the Secret Service agent who drove the car messed up a sharp left turn, so what? I can't believe that anyone would put that down to negligence. And even if the car did turn wide, what effect could that have had on the assassination, given that the shooting didn't start until the car was further down the road? Surely no-one would go to all the trouble of altering a film just to disguise something so innocuous! The Car Stop We can be certain that the car didn't stop. Even the witness evidence alone argues against the car having stopped. A small number of witness statements claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that it merely slowed down: http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street Not only that, but three other home movies also fail to show the car stopping: the Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films. There's also the Moorman photo and the Altgens 7 photo, which show that the car didn't swerve to the left while stopping, as some of the car-stop witnesses claimed. We have to decide which of the following options is the more likely: A small number of witnesses were correct, and a larger number were mistaken, and the Zapruder film was altered, and the Muchmore film was altered, and the Nix film was altered, and the Bronson film was altered, and the Moorman photo was altered, and the Altgens 7 photo was altered. Or a small number of witnesses were mistaken, a larger number were correct, and none of the films or photos were altered. It isn't a difficult decision, is it? The Head Wounds This belief seems to rely on misunderstandings of what the doctors actually stated. I'm not an expert on the medical evidence, but Pat Speer has assembled a pretty comprehensive collection of the doctors' statements. They indicate that the head wound the doctors saw was consistent with its appearance in the Zapruder film. I'd advise anyone who's interested in this question to read Chapter 13 onwards at Pat's website, and let us know what he got wrong: https://www.patspeer.com/ The main problem remains. If anyone wants to claim that this or that aspect of the Zapruder film is not genuine, it's up to them to do more than cite a few anomalous witness statements. The claim needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted. What exactly was altered? Why was it altered? What actual proof is there that the film was altered? So far, after three decades of searching, no-one has come up with the sort of proof that would convince a reasonable, open-minded person. True dat! What I'm keen to learn is why he thinks the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory. If that is what he believes, he should be able to explain the reasons behind that belief. I've shown that the Zapruder film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory. No-one has yet shown that it supports that theory. It makes no sense to claim that the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory when the film does not in fact support the lone-gunman theory!

Ron Bulman writes: That's three claims you need to demonstrate, not merely assert. What evidence is there that the turn was eliminated? What was so incriminating about the turn that it would have required the film to be altered? What evidence is there that the car stopped? That claim has been debunked here, several times. See, for example, this thread: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27114-what-prevented-dulles-angleton-from-destroying-the-zapruder-film/?do=findComment&comment=441219 A small number of witnesses claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that the car merely slowed down. Why should we believe the smaller number over the larger number? The witness evidence is collected and analysed here: http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street If the car stopped, it isn't just the Zapruder film that must have been altered, but also the Muchmore film, the Nix film, and the Bronson film, and possibly the Moorman photo too. Is all of that even remotely credible? If you think it is, you need to demonstrate how such a task was possible. A couple of people recalled JFK's head moving forward. How does this prove that the film was altered? The film does show JFK's head moving forward, after the 'back and to the left' movement which indicates to most people that he was shot from the front, and which for some reason was not removed from the film. How is that supposed to work? They altered the film to remove the innocuous turn onto Elm Street but forgot to take out the part that shows him being shot from the front? As I've pointed out elsewhere, the film provides strong evidence against the lone-gunman theory. How does that fit with the idea that it was altered to support that theory? What is there in the film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory? And as for Douglas Horne, there is no reason to take anything he says seriously unless it is confirmed by a reliable source. Horne even supports Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! Would you buy a used theory from this man? Horne's claim relies on interviews made several decades after the event. His account of what happened to the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination is contradicted by Roland Zavada's account in his review of Horne's book, here: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Here is where I pointed out that the Zapruder film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27703-is-there-or-is-there-not-a-minox-camera-in-this-dpd-evidence-photo/?do=findComment&comment=458154 The Zapruder film is evidence against the lone-gunman theory, not for it.

Still no answer from John Butler, I see. He claimed that John has so far been unable to show us how the film supports the lone-gunman theory. Evidently, the film does not support that theory. Does anyone else really believe that the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory? If so, could you give John a hand and tell us exactly what there is in the film that supports the lone-gunman theory? I pointed out in my comment at the top of page 8 how the film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27703-is-there-or-is-there-not-a-minox-camera-in-this-dpd-evidence-photo/?do=findComment&comment=458154 Not only does the Zapruder film not support the lone-gunman theory, it is actually one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the lone-gunman theory. In that case, how could it have been altered to support that theory?

Pat Speer writes: I'm sure he was a pleasant person, and I've heard stories from others about his helpfulness. And, of course, he was a fashion icon, with his trademark turtleneck and cardigan combo. But he was wrong about almost everything. I think I began lurking here at the end of the Jack White era, and I would have dismissed him as a figure of fun, just one of those crazy types who get attracted to the JFK assassination when they should really be out looking for flying saucers and the lizard people. One problem was his embarrassing appearance before the HSCA, when he was in effect representing critics of the Warren Commission, combined with his crazy claims about the moon landings being faked and that no planes hit the World Trade Center. That nonsense can't have done the public image of JFK assassination research any good at all. Within the 'community' too, his influence was negative. His everything-is-a-fake obsession would have not only attracted gullible and paranoid people but also repulsed rational people. Looking back through this forum's history, I've noticed plenty of decent researchers who made very useful contributions but who have abandoned the subject. I recall at least one such who gave up researching the assassination because of the influence of White and his intellectual successors.

Richard Price writes: I presume you're referring to the Secret Service re-enactment. I'm not sure why it matters that the re-enactment had the car starting out in this lane rather than that lane, since the shooting didn't begin until the car was some way down the road. What was so incriminating about which lane the car was in at that point? Why would this have required that section of the film to be destroyed? I'm not sure where this idea came from in the first place. Is it just a matter of some witnesses claiming something that doesn't quite match what we see in the film? If so, there's a simple explanation: witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes. Take the number of shots. Witnesses claimed there were any number of shots from one to six or more. Some of those witnesses must have been mistaken. Some witnesses claimed that the car stopped, while others claimed that it didn't stop but merely slowed down. One group must have been mistaken. It's no big deal. Witnesses get stuff wrong from time to time. If we are going to claim that a film has been altered, we'll need much stronger evidence than some anomalous witness statements. Until proper, strong evidence is produced, there's no reason to suppose that the Zapruder film was altered to remove the car's turn onto Elm Street.

John Butler writes: Correct. And I've explained in detail the reasons for thinking that the man was George Applin. The man cannot have been Oswald, because we know that Oswald was taken out of the front of the building: numerous witnesses saw him, and there are photographs to prove it. Unless those photographs were faked, I suppose. Here, again, is a link to my comment on page 7 in which I explained why the man escorted out of the rear entrance almost certainly was George Applin: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27683-how-did-fritz-know-when-ruby-was-in-position-to-kill-oswald/?do=findComment&comment=458087 The point is that they were both white men in their early twenties. That's all the resemblance that's needed to explain Bernard Haire's mistaken impression that the man he saw being escorted by police officers was the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. At the time Haire saw the man being led out of the building, he had not heard about the assassination. He didn't know what the commotion was all about. He didn't find out who Oswald was until afterwards. According to Jim Marrs, Haire did not discover for nearly 25 years that Oswald had been escorted from the front of the building. Haire clearly had little interest in a newsworthy event that happened right next to his place of work. The simplest explanation is that Haire mistook one young white man for another young white man. Can John think of a simpler explanation than that? Seriously? Click the link I've just provided. Yes, it is. Those are the very words that appear on page 354 of my scruffy old paperback of Marrs' Crossfire. The man Bernard Haire saw must have been George Applin. There is no other plausible explanation. You can find a summary of the Texas Theater evidence here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170