Jeremy Bojczuk

John Butler writes:

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One way to check is to see if the photos published in this book match what is seen in the current version of Marie Muchmore.

Since, you mentioned it what was the name of the book?  I don't know of many published within less than 2 months of the assassination. 

According to Richard Trask (Pictures of the Pain, p.214, n.13), the book was called Four Days, the Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy. The author or publisher is given as "United Press International and American Heritage". Trask doesn't give a precise date for the book's publication; it's just "early 1964".

Incidentally, I'm relying on Trask's accounts of what happened to the various films and photos. If anyone has a better source, please let us know. Currently, there appears to be no evidence that the authorities ever had access to the original Muchmore and Bronson films.

Sandy continues:

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There are quite a few witnesses who thought that the limo stopped. Either it stopped, or it was an illusion it stopped.

Here we are, back at the beginning. The "quite a few witnesses" amounted to a small proportion of those who would have seen the car stop, had it done so. Many more witnesses claimed that the car merely slowed down, and some of the witnesses who claimed that the car stopped also claimed in other statements that the car merely slowed down.

Once you accept that witnesses sometimes exaggerate what they saw, you have a plausible explanation for the minority of witnesses who claimed that the car either stopped or slowed down drastically. You've eliminated the minority of witness statements which contradict what the films show.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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That's because most of us are looking for the truth, not just to exonerate Oswald.

I was replying to David Healy's incoherent implication, not for the first time, that it was necessary to alter the Zapruder film in order to claim that Oswald was a lone gunman. He's wrong.

If frames were removed, the original film would have permitted the claim that Oswald was a lone gunman.

If frames were not removed, the film rules out the claim that Oswald was a lone gunman.

David Healy doesn't seem able to get his head around this, but I presume that Sandy can.

David Healy writes:

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no one can validate it's [sic; see https://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling] originality, hence, any case against Oswald is toast.

This is probably the most ridiculous claim we've heard so far. David is implying that if the Zapruder film is authentic, it supports the lone-gunman theory.

That's not the case. If the film is authentic, it contradicts the lone-gunman theory. The Zapruder film is probably the most important single item of physical evidence which undermines the lone-gunman theory, for two main reasons:

• Firstly, the famous back-and-to-the-left head movement after frame 313 is, to most viewers, the most obvious prima facie evidence of a shot from the front. Maybe it is consistent with a shot from behind, but the lone-gunman apologists' explanations (e.g. the jet effect, or some sort of muscular spasm) have failed to convince most people.
• Secondly and more importantly, the film allows us to time the car's progress throughout the shooting, from the first shot (whenever that may have been) to the head shot at frame 313. This timing puts a limit on the amount of time available for a lone gunman to fire three shots from the sixth-floor rifle. Once you take into account the time a non-expert would have taken to aim, fire and reload that rifle three times, the lone-gunman theory becomes, in David's description, toast.

This last point is worth emphasising. If no frames were removed from the Zapruder film, the car was moving too fast to allow a non-expert lone gunman to have fired three shots in the time available. The Zapruder film undermines the lone-gunman theory.

There's also the film's depiction of Governor Connally, which demonstrates to most people, including Connally himself, that he wasn't hit at he same time as President Kennedy at around frame 225. If that's the case, we can say goodbye to the single-bullet theory, which also means that the lone-gunman theory is toast.

The Zapruder film shows that the lone-gunman theory cannot be correct. If you are claiming that the film is not authentic, you are invalidating this evidence. It would be just as though the film did not exist at all.

Without the Zapruder film, lone-gunman apologists would be able to claim that, however long a non-expert gunman would have taken to fire three shots, the car took longer than that to travel the required distance. The Zapruder film is the only evidence we have that contradicts that claim.

It's bizarre that the 'everything is a fake' brigade don't seem to appreciate that the Zapruder film is evidence against the lone-gunman theory, not for it.

David Lifton writes:

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There's no question, but that the JFK limo stopped (momentarily).

If anyone still wants to claim that the car stopped, you need to find a way around these obstacles:

• A large majority of the witnesses who would have seen the car stop did not report that it stopped.
• A minority of those witnesses reported that the car slowed down, but did not report that it slowed down drastically.
• Three home movies show that the car neither stopped nor slowed down drastically.
• These three home movies, along with a fourth home movie and at least two photographs, also contradict those car-stop witnesses who claimed that the car pulled to the left when it stopped.
• If the car stopped, three home movies must have been altered by having frames removed.
• If the car pulled to the left as it stopped, four home movies must have been altered by having frames removed, and two photos must have been substantially altered. Of the two photos, one was distributed around the world half an hour later, and the other was broadcast on TV less than three hours later.
• Those home movies and photos came into the possession of the authorities at different times, and some of them may never have come into the possession of the authorities at all.
• Once copies were made of unaltered original films, any alteration would have been at risk of discovery.

Rather than invent far-fetched theories about papier-mâché trees and presidential body-snatchers, perhaps David could formulate a theory that will provide a plausible explanation for all of these facts.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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But either 1) all the films had frames removed, or 2) the slowing-down witnesses were all wrong.

No. Either all the films had frames removed, or the slowing-down witnesses were correct and the car-stop witnesses were wrong.

The bulk of the witnesses who would have noticed that the car stopped did not mention that the car stopped. Many of them mentioned that the car slowed down, just as we see in the home movies.

The slight slowing down that we see in the home movies is consistent also with the many witnesses who didn't mention any slowing down, let alone that the car stopped. The evidence that the car did not stop is overwhelming.

John Butler writes:

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Just out of curiosity, where would you place this slow down or stop at?  Front of the TSBD or down by the GK?

The few witness statements which claim that the car stopped either state or imply that this took place either immediately before or after the head shot at Zapruder frame 313.

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You keep saying a small minority as versus a larger majority saw the slow down or stop.  Can you put a number to the small minority and the larger majority.

 There's an analysis of the statements here, if you want to add up the numbers:

http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street

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The date of this 302 is 12/4/63.  Marie sold her film on 11/25/63.  Do you think that the FBI didn't know about the sale?

The FBI eventually found out about the sale of her film, since it was the publication in a book of several frames from her film that prompted the FBI to track her down. The book didn't mention her by name, but attributed the images to UPI. On 10 February 1964, the FBI contacted UPI, who told them about Muchmore.

I presume the FBI didn't know about the sale at the time of her interview with the agent Robert Basham (whose report is the document John has included), since Basham's report doesn't mention it. I'd guess that Muchmore didn't tell Basham about it, for whatever reason. Since Muchmore sold her film before it had been developed, she may not have known that it contained anything of interest to the FBI. Alternatively, Basham may not have thought it was worth including in his report, for whatever reason. Either way, no-one further up the FBI food chain would have known about the film until February.

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she said she was standing on Main and Houston Streets when the parade passed by and she heard a shot.

Muchmore's later FBI interview gives a more detailed account, and contains this sentence: "Mrs. MUCHMORE stated that after the car turned on Elm Street from Houston Street, she heard a loud noise which at first she thought was a firecracker but then with the crowd of people running in all directions and hearing the two further noises, sounding like gunfire ..." (Commission Document 735, p.8: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11133#relPageId=17).

There appears to be no evidence that the FBI or any other official agency knew of Muchmore's film until the middle of February, by which time frames had been published and the film had been shown on TV. The evidence we have suggests that no official agency ever had possession of the original film. Without having access to the original film, how could any official agency have altered it?

Sandy Larsen writes:

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You are making an argument where you assume that any witness who noticed the slow-down would have mentioned it. That is a bad assumption to make. For example, it's possible that ALL the witnesses noticed the slow-down but only a few mentioned it.

Lots of unlikely things are possible. But not all possible things are equally likely to have happened.

In this case, we have a large number of witnesses who would have had a good view of the car at the time it is claimed to have stopped (or almost stopped, or slowed down significantly). It is reasonable to assume that all or virtually all of those spectators would have been looking at the car, firstly because looking at the car was what they had come to Elm Street to do, and secondly because several films and photos show that virtually all of the spectators were facing the motorcade.

It's also reasonable to assume that spectators would have found a car stop more significant than a drasitc slowing down, and that they would have found a drastic slowing down more significant than a slight slowing down. The more significant the event, the more likely it is to have been mentioned.

We know that only a small minority of those spectators claimed that the car came to a stop (or almost came to a stop). What we have to decide is which of the following two options is the more likely:

• The car came to a stop (or almost came to a stop), and a large majority of the spectators who saw it didn't think it was worth mentioning.
• The car merely slowed down a bit, just as we see in the home movies, and a large majority of the spectators either mentioned it or didn't think the slowing down was significant enough to mention.

It has to be the second option, doesn't it? It's far more likely that a slight slowing down was exaggerated by a few than that a severe slowing down was considered insignificant by many.

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I've now read the testimony of the slow-down witnesses and I find it hard to believe that so many witnesses could have seen a significant slow-down had there not been one. 

But there weren't "many" witnesses who claimed this. As I've explained, it's much more likely that a small number of witnesses could have been mistaken than that a much larger number failed to mention something that would have struck them as worth mentioning.

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I studied the three films -- Nix, Muchmore, and Bronson -- carefully and could not detect any significant slowdown in any. I determined that the Bronson film was useless in drawing any conclusions. But the other two were clear enough to see that there is no slowdown.

The Bronson film's relevance is that it appears to be consistent with the Nix, Muchmore and Zapruder films in showing that the car didn't slow down significantly before going out of the frame immediately before the head shot.

It's good that Sandy acknowledges that all of the other three home movies (Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore) show no significant slowing down of the car at around the time of the head shot. If one of them was altered to hide a drastic slowing down or stopping, all of them must have been altered.

It's also good that Sandy acknowledges that the witnesses who claimed the car came to a stop could have been exaggerating what they saw. Witnesses do sometimes exaggerate, and this provides a plausible explanation for any statements that the car slowed down more drastically than we see in the home movies.

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Problem is, the films were in other people's hands and could have easily been "borrowed" by the FBI for altering.

Again, just because something is possible doesn't mean that it happened. If the claim is that the FBI (or whoever) altered a particular film, it's necessary to show, at the very least, that they had the opportunity to do so. But such opportunities appear to have been very limited:

In the case of the Nix film, the FBI had the original for three days from 1 December, after which time at least one copy existed and any alterations to the original were at risk of discovery.

In the case of the Zapruder film, copies were made on the afternoon of the assassination and other copies were made the following day, again creating the risk of discovery; and it's quite possible that the authorities didn't have access to the original until much later.

In the case of the Muchmore film, the authorities appear not to have had possession of the film at all, and weren't even aware of its existence until after frames had been published in a book a few months later.

In the case of the Bronson film also, the authorities appear never to have had possession of the film.

There seems to have been very little opportunity to alter any of these films without the risk of discovery. No-one has yet come up with a plausible scenario that explains how the authorities could have altered two home movies for which early copies existed and two others to which the authorities never had access, in order to eliminate a car stop which the bulk of the witness evidence shows never actually occurred.

John Butler writes:

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Personnel, rogue or otherwise, from the CIA and the FBI are responsible for all or most of the film alteration in Dealey Plaza. ...  the folks at Jaggers, Chiles, Stovall are responsible for some alterations.  I also think that Altgens home base, The Daily Morning News, is also responsible for some alterations.

That's a good start. We've got some suspects. Now we need some details.

Let's start with the Moorman photo that John famously claimed was altered within a couple of hours of the assassination by having its original background (the book depository) replaced by the fake background we see today (the grassy knoll). How was that done?

It's a Polaroid photo. Can John demonstrate that it is even possible to alter a Polaroid without leaving traces? Once he has done that, can John demonstrate that swapping one detailed background for another equally detailed background could have been done in the limited time available? If he can't, will he acknowledge that he's wrong and that the Moorman photo is genuine?

Once John has shown that the Moorman photo could have been altered, he can try the Muchmore film, which he claims "has had frames removed". I've provided evidence that none of John's above-mentioned suspects would have had access to the original Muchmore film for a long time after the assassination, if ever. Can he demonstrate that the alterations he mentions were possible?

On the subject of the practicality of altering films and photos, let's return to something Sandy wrote earlier:

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If other films show that there was NOT an abrupt slowdown, and if those films were never in the hands of the feds, then I agree that it didn't happen

I've provided evidence (in this post) that two of the films "were never in the hands of the feds". These two films, along with the other two films, do not appear to show anything like an "abrupt slowdown", let alone a complete stop.

Will Sandy admit that the "abrupt slowdown ... didn't happen"?

John Butler writes:

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The Muchmore film has had frames removed when the p. limo was in the intersection of Maine and Houston Street.  There are several gaps there. The Nix film and the Bronson film have been altered.  The Bell film has been altered on Houston Street.

This has to be a joke, surely? It was the lizard people who did all of this, right? Or was it aliens from the planet Zog?

Did the lizard people fake these home movies before they faked the Moorman photo? No, faking the Moorman photo must have come first, mustn't it, because that photo was shown on TV not long after the assassination. So how was that done? How did they remove the original background and replace it with a fake background, as John claimed on another thread?

And how did the aliens insert a back-to-front car in the Zapruder film, as John has also claimed? Did the aliens do that at the same time as the lizard people were faking the Moorman photo? Who was it who did all the face-mask alterations on the Altgens photo? Was that the aliens or the lizard people? How exactly did they do it?

How exactly was the Muchmore film altered? How exactly was the Nix film altered? How exactly was the Bronson film altered? How exactly was the Bell film altered?

David Healy writes:

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"which matches what we see..."  and ah....who is *we* big guy?

Anyone who can read English should be able to work out that "we" refers to everyone who has watched the Zapruder film, the Muchmore film, the Nix film, and the Bronson film.

All of these four home movies show us that the car neither stopped nor slowed down significantly, which is consistent with the balance of the witness evidence.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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you are ignorant of the number of witnesses who noticed the significant slowdown. Just because a person didn't mention it doesn't mean they didn't notice it. Thus, it's an argument-from-ignorance logical fallacy.

I was referring to those witnesses who were in a position to see the car clearly at the time it is supposed to have stopped. It's reasonable to assume that pretty much all of them were looking at the car, since that is what they had come to see. If the car had stopped or slowed down significantly, those witnesses would have noticed it.

That is not an example of the argument from ignorance fallacy, because I gave a specific reason why those witnesses would have noticed that the car had stopped, if it had.

If the car had stopped, plenty of people would have noticed it, and plenty of people would have found it significant enough to mention.

If the car had merely slowed down somewhat, as all four home movies show, plenty of people would have noticed that too, but far fewer of them would have found it significant enough to mention.

The fact that only a small proportion of those witnesses actually mentioned the car stopping or slowing down abruptly is good evidence that the car didn't stop or slow down abruptly. What the four home movies show us is what actually happened.

Sandy continues:

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If other films show that there was NOT an abrupt slowdown, and if those films were never in the hands of the feds, then I agree that it didn't happen ... Can anybody tell me which films were not confiscated?

There were four home movies which showed the car when it is supposed to have stopped, at around the time of the fatal head shot. According to Richard Trask's book Pictures of the Pain, this is what happened to them:

• The Zapruder film was sold on 23 November to Time Life, who had possession of the original for some unspecified time after that. This is consistent with the document I linked to earlier, which explains that the film supposedly sent to NPIC probably wasn't the original.
• Orville Nix retained possession of his film until he handed it to the FBI on 1 December, more than a week after the assassination. The FBI made a copy and returned the original to Nix three days later. A couple of days after that, Nix sold the original to UPI. The Warren Commission began examining the original film no earlier than 29 January. (Trask, pp.183-190.)
• The Bronson film, in which the limo goes out of sight immediately before the head shot, was developed at the Kodak plant in Dallas on 24 November. The FBI were contacted, and two agents watched the film, along with Bronson. The agents reported that the film contained nothing of interest. Trask writes: "As for Bronson and his pictures, that was the last contact he had with any investigative official. No agency contacted him again, no copies of his pictures were requested for study purposes, and the cursory examination of the film and slides by these two FBI agents satisfied any interest in the Bronson eyewitnesses or the fim and pictures" (Trask, p.288). Bronson's film did not become widely known until the late 1970s.
• The Muchmore film was sold, undeveloped, to UPI on 25 November. UPI had possession of the film thereafter. The authorities were unaware of the existence of Muchmore's film until 10 February, when frames were published in a book. The FBI contacted UPI, asking about where the images came from. Muchmore was interviewed, but only as a witness; the FBI showed little interest in her film. UPI sent the FBI a copy of the film for examination, but kept the original. (Trask, pp.205-206.)

In summary, none of these films were confiscated. In the case of the Bronson and Muchmore films, the authorities don't seem to have had access to the originals at all. We know from the accounts of other Dealey Plaza photographers that the authorities showed little interest in the films and photos in general.

Anyone who wants to claim that any or all of these four home movies were altered needs to come up with a plausible scenario that's consistent with the varying times at which the original films became available to the authorities, which in the case of two of the films appears to be never.

Also in need of an explanation is the absence of any obvious inconsistencies between the four films, and the fact that none of them appear to show the car either stopping or abruptly slowing down.

Until anyone does all of that, the default explanation still holds: what we see in the four films is what actually happened.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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That's an argument from ignorance logical fallacy: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The argument from ignorance fallacy is essentially a shifting of the burden of proof, e.g. you haven't shown that the trees on the grassy knoll were not made of papier-mâché; therefore they were made of papier-mâché.

The claim I made was:

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A large majority of witnesses who would have had a good view of the car at the time of the head shot didn't mention that the car slowed down at all

This isn't an argument from ignorance. I'm claiming that a drastic slowing-down or a complete stop would have been noticed by a large number of witnesses. There's a specific reason that explains this particular absence of evidence.

The fact that only a small minority of these witnesses mentioned such an event, combined with the fact that witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes, is positive evidence for two conclusions:

• For a large majority of the witnesses, the slowing-down of the car wasn't drastic enough to be worth commenting on, which matches what we see in the home movies.
• The car neither stopped nor slowed down significantly, just as we see in the home movies.

Paul Bacon writes:

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Dino Brugioni has a very vivid and detailed memory of what he saw.

Of what he thinks he saw nearly half a century earlier.

People get stuff wrong sometimes. This particular 48-year-old memory contradicts not only the majority of the fresh witness accounts but also several home movies. It's irrational to prefer a small amount of weak evidence over a larger amount of strong evidence, even if the weak evidence tells you what you really, really want to hear.

I've explained why each of the four claims for frame-removal have failed:

• The car-stop witnesses were in a small minority, and four home movies show that the car didn't stop.
• The 'violent' forward head movement witnesses were in an even smaller minority, and three home movies fail to show a 'violent' forward head movement.
• The vertical spray of debris is still visible in the film, and so cannot have been removed from the film.
• The horizontal spray of debris need not have been caught on film; it could have happened while the shutter was closed between frames 312 and 313.

Against all of that, an anomalous 48-year-old recollection counts for nothing. Then you have to consider that for Brugioni's 48-year-old recollection to be accurate, a ridiculously complex and incoherent scenario must have occurred. There's no contest.

The majority of the witnesses were correct, and what the four home movies show is what actually happened.

Joseph McBride quotes Senaator Yarborough:

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The second shot, the motorcade almost came to a halt.

Correct. The cars following at a close distance behind the presidential car would have slowed down more severely than the presidential car, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has driven in rush-hour traffic. Part of the motorcade did almost come to a halt.

What Yarborough recalled is what many of the supposed car-stop witnesses recalled: the cars behind the presidential car slowed down.

James DiEugenio writes:

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I just learned there will be no DVD distributed directly in the UK. ... So I guess if you live in UK, you will have to order from either the USA or Australia.

Thanks for the update. It's a surprising decision, given that the 60th anniversary isn't far away and there are plenty of areas in the UK that don't yet have fast internet access.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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the car's abrupt and significant slow-down most certainly did happen.

It's good that Sandy is not arguing that the car stopped. I've given reasons to doubt that the car stopped, all of which apply to the claim that there was an "abrupt and significant slow-down":

• Only a small minority of witness statements mentioned that the car stopped or nearly stopped. Many more of them mentioned that the car slowed down, but very few said that there was anything like an "abrupt and significant slow-down".
• A large majority of witnesses who would have had a good view of the car at the time of the head shot didn't mention that the car slowed down at all, let alone that there was an "abrupt and significant slow-down" or that it stopped.
• In addition to the Zapruder film, three other home movies fail to show the car stopping or coming to an an "abrupt and significant slow-down".
• If anyone is still claiming that the car pulled to the left-hand curb and stopped (or came to an "abrupt and significant slow-down"), you can add the Moorman photo and the Altgens 7 photo to those four home movies. They show that the car stayed in the middle lane.

A large majority of the witness evidence and 100% of the relevant photographic evidence are consistent with the claim that the car slowed down, but not abruptly or significantly. Isn't it reasonable to conclude that what we see in all four home movies is what actually happened?

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The forward head movement can be seen and measured in the extant film.

As I pointed out earlier, this allows us to explain the very few witness statements that mention a 'violent' forward movement as nothing more than exaggerations. Isn't that a reasonable explanation, given that those witnesses were in a small minority?

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the spray is significant only on frame Z313, can barely be seen on close inspection on perhaps two other frames

I gave links to relatively poor-quality copies of frames 314, 315 and 316, in which the spray is visible. I wouldn't be surprised if better-quality copies not only show the spray more clearly in these frames, but show it in later frames too. If better-quality copies exist which don't show any of this, I'd be interested to see them.

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the spray described by Brugioni was much more significant

Described by Brugioni nearly half a century after the event. What's so unlikely about a 48-year-old recollection being inaccurate?

The point about the relative numbers of witnesses is important. If a claim (in this case, that frames were removed) is based on nothing but witness statements, and a certain number of witnesses said or implied that X happened while a larger number of witnesses said or implied that X didn't happen, we are obliged to believe the majority. The witness statements give us no good reason to believe that frames were removed.

Paul Bacon writes:

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How do you and Zavada explain Dino Brugioni's observations?  Faulty memory?

Of course. I have no reason to suppose that he was lying.

Brugioni's interview with Horne took place in 2011, I believe. That means I was mistaken when I wrote earlier that he was interviewed three or four decades after the event. It was actually 48 years after the event.

Once you accept what we've learned so far in this thread, namely that

• the car-stop almost certainly didn't happen,
• and that the 'violent' forward head movement almost certainly didn't happen,
• and that the vertical spray of brain matter is still visible in several frames after frame 313,

there's no good reason to believe that any frames were removed, or that Brugioni's anomalous long-distance recollections were accurate.

Incidentally, Horne claims that a fourth item of incriminating evidence was removed from the film: a trail of brain matter flying horizontally backwards. There's plenty of evidence suggesting that debris did indeed fly backwards, but there's no reason to assume that it would have been caught on film. It could easily have happened while the shutter was closed between the exposure of frames 312 and 313.

None of those four claims stand up. No frames were removed. There's still the matter of the car's turn onto Elm Street, though. Does anyone know what that's all about, or can we assume that that claim fails too?

David G. Healy writes:

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For some debate is over regarding the Z-film alteration, for years.

Correct. It has been clear for ages that the evidence for alteration is much weaker than the evidence against.

There's no need to make up a complex scenario when a much simpler scenario is available, especially when the simpler scenario provides plenty of evidence that the lone-gunman theory is wrong.

Paul Bacon writes:

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Doug is trying to rectify [reconcile?] what Dino Brugioni told him versus what we see in the Zap film.  And I think Doug's speculation makes perfect sense.

It only makes perfect sense if you start with a quasi-religious belief that the film was altered. If you look at the evidence objectively, Horne's speculation makes no sense at all, because a far simpler explanation exists that requires much less speculation.

It makes no sense to use a complex and incoherent explanation (a team of people removed an unspecified number of frames for no good reason, in a way that evaded detection by expert examiners, in order to create a film that supported the lone-gunman theory, only to end up creating a film that refuted the lone-gunman theory) when a much simpler and entirely coherent explanation exists (what the film shows is what actually happened: JFK getting shot by more than one gunman from more than one direction).

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Leaving his recollections about what he saw in the film aside, the fact of the two briefing board events alone, require an explaination.

Roland Zavada has demonstrated that the unslit film received by NPIC was a first-generation copy, not the original film. He also demonstrates that the alterations Horne proposed could not have been done in the time available, and that any such alterations would contain detectable defects which the film at NARA does not contain. See the document I've linked to several times, but which people don't seem to have bothered to read: 

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

Can Paul point to any problems with Zavada's analysis? If he can't, the first point alone refutes Horne's claim: because Brugioni and McMahon did not have access to the original Zapruder film, there's nothing to see here.

On the subject of unreliable recollections, I presume Paul now accepts that the car stop witnesses and the 'violent' forward movement witnesses were mistaken. In each case, these witnesses were in a small minority. In each case, many more witnesses would have seen what the minority claimed to have seen, but failed to corroborate their claims. Not only that, but four home movies failed to show the car stopping, and three home movies failed to show the 'violent' forward movement. The only rational conclusion is that the car didn't stop and JFK's head didn't move violently forward.

If Paul (or anyone else) doesn't accept that these minority witnesses were mistaken, he needs to explain why we should believe what they say when much stronger evidence indicates that we shouldn't believe them. An explanation along the lines of "but I desperately want the film to be a fake!" isn't good enough.

If the car-stop didn't happen and JFK's head didn't move violently forward, there would have been no need for any frames to be removed. And if no frames were removed, there's no need for Horne to explain away the 'back and to the left' movement. The film shows the 'back and to the left' movement because that's what actually happened.

So much for frame-removal. That leaves us with the possibility that someone painted over a hole in the back of the head. But the only evidence we have for that seems to be a processed copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of one frame with a blob in it.

There's still the idea that a section of the film was removed to disguise something to do with the car's turn onto Elm Street. Has anyone managed to work out what the problem might have been with the turn onto Elm Street? What is supposed to have happened that required that part of the film to be removed?

Paul Bacon writes:

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Doug Horne's theory is that the rest of that forward motion is excised, and that the back and to the left was an artifact of frame removal. In other words, the back and to the left, was sped up as a result of frame removal.

Yes, I understand what Horne is claiming. What I'm claiming is that Horne is trying to explain something that doesn't need explaining.

Horne's explanation is only necessary if frames of the film were removed. But, as I've already demonstrated, the balance of the evidence gives us no good reason to assume that frames were removed.

Two hypothetical events have been put forward that required frames of the film to be removed. Each hypothetical event is supported only by a minority of witnesses. There's no justification for supposing that either event actually happened:

• The car stop: supported by only a small minority of witnesses, and contradicted by a large majority of witnesses and four home movies which show that the car merely slowed down a little.
• The 'violent' forward head movement: supported by a small number of witnesses, but not mentioned by the majority of witnesses, and not shown by any of the home movies.

Take away those two claims, and there's no need for the 'back and to the left' head movement to be explained as an unintended by-product of frames being removed. The default explanation works perfectly well: the film shows it because it actually happened.

Horne invented a complex explanation when a far simpler one existed. The extra complexity is not needed.

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it was an imperfect alteration ... And that's why the film was suppressed (among other reasons) for so long

The film was suppressed mainly to keep the general public from knowing about the very obvious 'back and to the left' head movement. It was suppressed not to hide an imperfect alteration, but to hide a real event.

Again, when it comes to explaining the suppression of the film, we have a choice between a complex explanation and a simple explanation. The only rational choice is to go with the simpler explanation: the film was suppressed because it depicted something that actually happened.

You could also argue that the film was suppressed to keep the public from questioning a couple of other aspects of the lone-gunman theory that are contradicted less obviously by the film:

• the timing of Connally's wounds, which fails to clearly support the single-bullet theory and may contradict it;
• and the speed of the car's journey down Elm Street, which sets a limit on the time available for the shooting.

If frames were removed, these items of evidence can no longer be used against the lone-gunman theory. In particular, if the Zapruder film doesn't depict the speed of the car accurately there would be no way to stop a lone-gunman advocate claiming that there was plenty of time for three shots to be fired from the sixth-floor rifle.

If frames were removed from the Zapruder film, the lone-gunman theory becomes more difficult to disprove.

Jonathan Cohen writes:

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That black patch is not evident on any copy of the film I have ever seen

Indeed. If that patch doesn't exist in other copies, that particular copy is worthless.

Copies several generations removed from the original are likely to contain all sorts of weird marks that aren't present in the original. If anyone wants to demonstrate that a black patch exists, the first thing you need to do is to show that it clearly exists in the best quality copy that's available. Those Hollywood experts we've been hearing about for years: have they published anything yet?

This is one more example of uncritical believers seeing what they want to see. It's just like believers who see the image of their preferred deity in a piece of toast.

Paul Bacon writes:

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His head actually moved forward before the back and to the left.  The rest of that forward movement was excised, per Doug Horne.  This is what Dan Rather saw in the unaltered version.

I'm not aware of Rather saying anything about JFK's head moving forward before moving backward. John Kelin's article, 'Forward with Considerable Violence', includes transcripts of Rather's first two interviews. Neither transcript includes any mention of the forward head movement occurring before a backward head movement:

http://www.kenrahn.com/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/d_rather.html

Kelin points out that Rather included two pieces of information that he cannot have got from watching the film, but which just happened to reflect the official non-conspiracy explanation: there was one gunman, and he was shooting from the book depository. Rather also has Governor Connally being shot in the chest, not in the back as everyone except David Lifton accepts.

I don't see any good reason to believe that Rather genuinely saw JFK's head move violently forward:

• Rather's description included things that he couldn't have seen.
• He claimed to have seen one event that didn't happen.
• Part of his description is accurate: JFK's head does in fact move forward, though not violently.
• Very few other people, whether witnesses in Dealey Plaza or early viewers of the film, described what Rather claimed to have seen.
• None of the home movies or photographs show what Rather claimed to have seen.

Maybe Rather was honestly mistaken about what he saw. Maybe he was exaggerating what he saw. Maybe he was making stuff up. Each of those explanations is more plausible than the self-contradictory idea that a home movie was altered to support the lone-gunman theory, only for the film to end up seriously undermining the lone-gunman theory.

Greg Doudna writes:

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You accept that Oswald entered his rooming house in Oak Cliff about 1 pm with Earlene Roberts there?

I'm not convinced that's true. The ROKC guys make a plausible case that Oswald may not actually have been living there. See, e.g.:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2127-the-beckley-bunch

Personally, I wouldn't claim that that scenario is conclusively proved either, but there are reasons to doubt that Oswald lived there, and thus to doubt that he returned there en route to the Texas Theater.

I'm no expert on this aspect of the case, but I get the impression that the whole subject of where Oswald stayed while he was working at the TSBD, and how he got to and from work when Frazier wasn't driving him, weren't properly investigated at the time. Consequently, there are too many holes to allow us to come to any firm conclusions.

It's worth remembering that the placing of Oswald on McWatters' bus was a solution to a specific problem. The authorities needed to get Oswald from the TSBD to Tenth Street in time to shoot Tippit using a gun Oswald hadn't brought to work with him that morning, and they needed to get him there without the involvement of associates such as the driver of the car Roger Craig saw. The authorities may have stumbled upon Oswald's actual movements, but other scenarios are at least as plausible, though equally speculative. Oswald may have been driven away in a car. He may have got another bus, such as the one that was behind McWatters'. He may have got a combination of buses.

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On the jackets have you seen my piece on the jackets (new topic post on this forum). ... He wore his gray jacket to work from Irving that morning.

Yes, it's an interesting analysis. But the contradictory nature of the evidence means that every analysis has weaknesses. There's always something that doesn't make sense, whether one wants to demonstrate that:

• Oswald was escaping from the scene of a crime he'd committed,
• or that he sensed that something was wrong and that he might be implicated,
• or that he had no idea he was implicated and decided to watch a film while waiting to join Marina and Ruth on their planned shopping trip.

Whichever jacket one claims Oswald wore at whichever time that day, it's necessary to claim that one or more witnesses were mistaken about something, usually the colour of the jacket the witness saw Oswald wearing. In Greg's case, it would be the bus witnesses who must have got the colour of the jacket wrong. Milton Jones must have got Oswald's physical description wrong too.

Greg's suggestion is that Oswald picked up the blue jacket in his rooming house, and that this jacket was later found in the Texas Theater and then planted in the TSBD. It's more credible than the Warren Commission-H & L scenario, which requires Oswald to have worn the blue jacket on McWatters' bus. Greg's scenario has the advantage of providing a less implausible reason for the blue jacket's discovery in the TSBD. If we accept that Oswald was actually living at that rooming house, Greg has probably come up with the best account so far.

Nevertheless, the evidence for Oswald's journey from the TSBD to the Texas Theater, and what he was wearing, is too inconclusive for us to say anything for certain except that the Warren Commission's scenario is contradictory and not well supported.