Keven Hofeling

Now is probably a good time to give the loyalists of the stenographers to power the bad news about the Nix film as well... From Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., professor of law emeritus at the University of Georgia: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1207&context=fac_pm Film Altered, Eyewitness Ignored The Best 2014 Book on the JFK Assassination By Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. [T]he Warren Commission’s Report was an interim fabrication that was intended only to satisfy immediate political needs and not to answer the questions of the “who” and “why” of Dallas. . . . [I]t is time we pulled the plug on the Warren Report’s life-support system.—history professor Gerald D. McKnight In recent years numerous books on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been published. Most fall into either of two categories. In the first category are the books that praise the Warren Commission or buy into the principal findings of the Warren Report; on the whole, these books are not worth much. In the second category are the books that take the opposite position; and while some of these were written by crackpots or by intelligence agency assets clandestinely seeking to impede the search for truth about the assassination, many others are the result of legitimate research or investigation by serious scholars or writers. The best of the 2014 books, in my opinion, is Gayle Nix Jackson’s Orville Nix: The Missing JFK Assassination Film (Semper Ad Meliora Publishing). Orville Nix, who died in 1972 at the age of 60, became a person of historical interest on Nov. 22, 1963, when, using his 8 mm home movie camera, he caught on silent color film the final phase of the Kennedy assassination. Nix was standing just across the street from Dealey Plaza, near the intersection of Main and Houston Streets and to the left of the presidential limousine as it proceeded down Elm Street at the unusually low speed of 11.2 mph. When Nix began filming, the target vehicle, the slow-moving limousine, now inside what military ambush manuals call a “kill zone,” was already under deadly fire. The portion of the film depicting the assassination and its immediate aftermath is only six and one-half seconds long and consists of 122 frames. Except for the Zapruder film (another 8 mm silent color home movie), the Nix film is our most important motion picture depiction of the assassination. Unlike the Nix film, the Zapruder film was taken from a position to the right of the limousine. Both films were used by the Warren Commission to assist in calculating the time frame of the assassination and fixing the various locations of the limousine on Elm. A high-quality copy of the Nix film is on YouTube. View it. When the portion of the film capturing the assassination begins, we see an already wounded JFK in distress being tended by his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, who is sitting next to him on his left. Then suddenly, when a bullet crashes into his skull, JFK’s head is thrown violently backwards (indicating that, contrary to the Warren Report, the shot did not come from the rear) and for an instant what appears to be a puff of smoke emerges from his head. In her pink suit the stunned First Lady then turns around to her right and rises out of her seat and crawls onto to the limousine’s trunk. Meanwhile, heroic Secret Service agent Clint Hill, racing up from the followup car, climbs with difficulty onto the rear of the trunk, approaches the First Lady and begins gently but firmly to nudge her back into her seat. Here the assassination part of the Nix film ends. Unbelievably, there is nothing in the Warren Report or its 26 volumes of accompanying exhibits indicating that Orville Nix, a known eyewitness to the assassination, ever was questioned about the events of the assassination itself by the Warren Commission staff or by the FBI (which performed most of the Commission’s investigative work, including the interviewing of witnesses). No published Warren Commission documents indicate that Nix was ever asked, for example, about the number and the direction of the shots fired at the limousine. The only documents published by the Warren Commission that concern Nix focus on the characteristics of his camera and how Nix had operated it while filming the assassination. This is strange. Many—but certainly not all—of the assassination witnesses were interviewed by local law enforcement officers or FBI agents and questioned about the assassination, or submitted affidavits on what they observed, or testified before or gave oral depositions to the Warren Commission or its staff. The evidence these witnesses provided as to what they thought had happened is set out in the Warren Report and the 26 volumes of exhibits published by the Commission. Abraham Zapruder, for example, was orally deposed by Warren Commission staff and asked about the assassination. The transcript of his testimony appears in volume 7 of the exhibits published by the Warren Commission. (Typically, the Commission waited until July 22, 1964—eight months after the assassination—to question Zapruder, whose deposition lasted less than 90 minutes and whose testimony takes up only eight printed pages. Zapruder was one of six persons deposed that day by the same Commission staff member, who, in the words of one assassination scholar, was engaging in “assembly-line interrogations.” When shown and asked to comment on various still frames from his famous film, Zapruder complained that “I wish I had an enlarger here for you.” Typically, the staff member, who had not bothered either to bring an enlarger for the benefit of the witness or to advise the witness to bring one, responded by changing the subject and never offered to procure an enlarger to assist this crucial witness.) Orville Nix thought it odd that the FBI did not seem interested in interviewing him about the facts of the assassination. The questions FBI agents asked him related to his act of filming the assassination. One agent did ask him how many shots he heard, and Nix told him at least four, maybe five. When the agent asked Nix which shots hit the president, Nix replied that he wasn’t sure, but he knew that it was the third shot that hit JFK in the head. The agent appears not to have written down what Nix said about the shots. None of Nix’s statements to the FBI about the shooting (as opposed to his filming) ended up in any FBI report. Scandalously, therefore, the 27 volumes published by the Warren Commission reveal nothing about what Orville Nix, an important witness, saw or heard when the assassination took place. Fortunately, however, due to the efforts of New York attorney Mark Lane, one of the earliest critics of the Warren Commission, who conducted a filmed interview of Nix, we now know in his own words exactly what Orville Nix observed in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. Lane, along with Edward Epstein, the now deceased Sylvia Meagher and Harold Weisberg (also now deceased), is among the most renowned of the first generation of Warren Report critics; by 1967 each had written one or more books questioning the performance of the Warren Commission and challenging the accuracy of the Report. Those books—Epstein’s Inquest (1966), Lane’s Rush to Judgment (1966), Meagher’s Accessories After the Fact (1967) and Weisberg’s Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report (1965), Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-Up (1966) and Oswald in New Orleans (1967)—are now classics. Lane’s filmed interview of Nix on black and white sound film was in 1966, three years after the assassination and six years before Nix’s death. The Orville Nix interview is on YouTube. Take a look at it. During the interview, Nix tells Lane that at the time the shots were fired he thought they came not from the School Book Depository, which was behind the limousine, but instead from the stockade fence, which was at the top of the grassy knoll and to the right of the limousine. Nix also says that other witnesses—“most everyone”—and even a Secret Service agent friend of his were in agreement at the time that the shots came from the fence. Nix also tells Lane that some frames were missing when his film was returned to him by the FBI. Gayle Nix Jackson, the author of Orville Nix: The Missing JFK Assassination Film, is Orville Nix’s granddaughter. Subtitled The Unflinching True Story of an Ordinary Man Swept Up in an Extraordinary Event, the book includes an abbreviated biography of Orville Nix, who worked for the federal government as an air conditioning repairman, and was born, lived and died in Dallas, TX. A modest, gentlemanly, straightforward man, Nix had many friends, including Forrest Sorrels, the Secret Service Special Agent in Chief of the Dallas office—one of the security officials responsible for the catastrophic decision to route JFK’s motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Even if you don’t read Gale Nix Jackson’s book, you might consider looking, on YouTube, at the two-and-a-half minute video by her daughter (and Orville Nix’s great granddaughter) Taylor Jackson, who discusses the original Nix film, the mystery of its disappearance and the continuing efforts of the Nix family to recover it. The best parts of Gayle Nix Jackson’s book deal with (1) what Orville Nix did and observed in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963, and (2) the original Nix film itself and the various copies made over the years. Here are some of the facts the book presents: ● Like Abraham Zapruder, who also personally watched a president shot in the head, Orville Nix had recurring nightmares the rest of his life. ● Nix heard more than the three shots the Warren Report claimed had been fired. “I heard four or five shots… I heard at least four shots, maybe five.” This of course is what he had previously told the FBI agent who failed to write down what Nix said. ● Although the Warren Report concluded that all the shots were fired from the Book Depository behind the limousine, eyewitness Nix believed the shots “came from that little park area [the grassy knoll to the right of the limousine] in front of the train yards by the Triple Underpass.” This of course is what Nix said in his 1966 interview with Mark Lane. ● Nix delivered his film to the FBI on Dec. 1, 1963. When it was returned to him several days later, he became “convinced that his returned film looked changed from the time he had seen it [when it was first developed].” The film, Nix believed, was “different” after its return by the FBI. Nix said something similar in his 1966 interview with Mark Lane, where he also told Lane that some of the frames in his film had been “ruined.” ● Nix delivered his motion picture camera to the FBI in January 1964. When it was returned to him the following June, it had been taken apart and was in pieces. “[T]he camera of history… the camera that took an important assassination film… [had been] destroyed.” The FBI apologized, repaired the camera and also gave Nix a new one. This satisfied Nix. ● Nix later sold the original film to UPI for a paltry $5,000 and a cowboy hat, but was allowed to retain a copy. The original was to be returned to Nix after 25 years. UPI kept the film inaccessible to the public and never returned it to the Nix family. ● In 1965, UPI took the Nix film for a special optical scan to a secretive, CIA-connected company that manufactured sophisticated reconnaissance cameras for use in spy satellites. ● The original Nix film has probably been destroyed. At any rate, the present location of the original Nix film is unknown. Believing the film may still exist, the Nix family continues to work for its return. ● According to one theory, in 1974 a UPI executive placed the original Nix film in a safety deposit box in a New York City bank. This, it is said, is the last known location of the original film, which, it is claimed, has not been seen since. The building housing the bank, it appears, was later demolished. ● According to a perhaps more likely theory, the original Nix film disappeared in 1978, after it was returned to UPI by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. ● A copy of the Nix film was broadcast on television for perhaps the first time in a 1988 British TV documentary, “The Day the Dream Died.” ● The Warren Commission’s copy of the Nix film (which it obtained from the FBI) has been in the National Archives since 1964. Not until 1966 was a researcher (Harold Weisberg) even allowed to see the copy. The Warren Commission’s critics have compiled long lists of examples of the Warren Commission not doing its job. The story of Orville Nix and his film, told by author Jackson, provides us with even more examples of the inadequacies of the government’s investigation of JFK’s assassination. Let’s look at just three. First, the Warren Commission took no steps to ensure the preservation and availability of the original of the second most important film of the assassination, and as a result of that negligence the original has been missing for years and may well have been destroyed. Does this inspire confidence in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Second, even though he had witnessed the assassination, filmed part of it and handed his film over to the FBI, Orville Nix, as previously noted, was not asked to testify before the Warren Commission. Furthermore, also as previously noted, neither the Warren Report nor any of the Commission’s published materials tells us anything about what Nix saw or heard in Dealey Plaza. If the government agencies investigating the murder of a president did not think it necessary or appropriate to put on the record a statement of what Nix observed, what faith can we have in such an investigation? Third, it was not the government but a private researcher who interviewed Nix on film, asked him questions about the shots fired and made sure the filmed interview was preserved and made available to the public. Does this alleviate concerns about the adequacy of the official investigation? Orville Nix: The Missing JFK Assassination Film is further proof, half a century after the assassination, that Americans must embrace a very painful truth. That truth is not just that the Warren Commission failed to adequately investigate the murder of a president or that the Warren Report was fundamentally wrong. Rather, the truth that anguishes is that the official government investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a bad-faith investigation, and the Warren Report, the result of that investigation, is, as to its main conclusions, a cunning piece of deception. Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. is a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, where he taught in the law school for 40 years. This is his 39th published article on the JFK assassination.

David Wrone's book on the subject states that issues of the November 29, 1963 issue of LIFE hit newsstands on Monday, November 25, while Harrison Livingstone's "Hoax of the Century" states that it was Tuesday, November 26th.

With regard to Mr. @Pat Speer's anecdotal story about Mary Moorman, what comes to mind for me is the following excerpt from David Lifton's "Pig on a Leash," describing the control exerted over Mary Moorman and her story by the Sixth Floor Museum (which is, in my opinion, a CIA front) during the filming of a documentary, and I just have to think to myself, "that poor woman": Consider what happened on a recent documentary shoot in Dealey Plaza. Here was an important issue for The Sixth Floor Museum, which controls both the Moorman copyright as well as the Zapruder. Mary Moorman was being interviewed for a documentary to be broadcast on national television. Mary told major media interviewers as recently as a few years ago how she stepped into the street to take President Kennedy's picture and then, after the shots were fired, stepped back on the grass. She was most specific about these two events: the step into the street, the step back onto the grass. Here are here exact words: Moorman: Uh, just immediately before the presidential car came into view, we were, you know, there was just tremendous excitement. And my friend was with me, we were right ready to take the picture. And she's not timid. She, as the car approached us, she did holler for the president, "Mr. President, look this way!" And I'd stepped out off the curb into the street to take the picture. And snapped it immediately. And that evidently was the first shot. You know, I could hear the sound. And ... Jones: Now when you heard the sound, did you immediately think, "rifle shot"? Moorman: Oh no. A firecracker, maybe. There was another one just immediately following which I still thought was a firecracker. And then I stepped back up on the grassy area. I guess just, people were falling around us, you know. Knowing something was wrong. I certainly didn't know what was wrong. The trouble is the Zapruder film shows no such thing. And if this actually happened, then Mary's account is further evidence-just like the car stop-that the film was altered through professional optical editing, where Mary was put up on the grass. But now, some years later, at a time when The Sixth Floor Museum controls Mary's copyright, she is being interviewed by the Museum's Gary Mack. Mack has learned she should not say she stepped into the street, but she still says she stepped forward. And she says so again and again, on each successive take. The problem is: Mary doesn't even do that on the Zapruder film. She just stands there. And Mary apparently remembers something else-how slowly the car was moving. Just the way she told me when I visited her back in November 1971 and she told me that it stopped. Now she simply says it "wasn't going that fast." The film shoot stops. Mack cuts in. HE turns to the cameraman and says, "That's it", indicating the camera should be turned off. Someone says "going that fast". Gary Mack looks down at the grass and fidgets at Mary's blooper. HE turns to Mary and says, "They will or will not use that. That's OK." A senior producer walks over, in a casual manner: "Wasn't going that fast"? he says, mimicking her. Then he continues, "Mary, you're so cute!" The implication is clear. She should be careful about what she says and stick to the script. A later situation -- reminiscent of the coercion of Mary Moorman by the Sixth Floor Museum -- developed during a 2016 presentation by Dealey Plaza witness, Bill Newman, which was being moderated by Sixth Floor Museum curator, Stephen Fagen, who can be seen in the following video intervening to get Newman to change the subject after he (Newman) had begun to tell his story about the Presidential Limousine coming to a complete stop in Dealey Plaza during the assassination (yet another event that is not depicted in the Zapruder film): But getting back to controversy regarding the question of whether the accounts of Mary Moorman and Jean Hill having stepped onto Elm Street for Moorman to shoot Polaroid #5 (when the Zapruder film depicts them at that second standing on the grass), a closely related issue is the question of why the black shoes of both women are depicted in the Zapruder film as being white? For Mr. Cohen, who has presented an article from the old John McAdams (aka "Paul Nolan") propaganda site showcasing the results of an "experiment" that Josiah Thompson characterized as having disproved Mary Moorman's standing in the street story (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/moorman1.htm), I present the following research article from Professor James Fetzer, written as a response to Thompson's article in 2009 (prior to Fetzer's Sandy Hook related problems), which demonstrates that Thompson's article was a smear job that proved nothing, performed in the spirit of the Sixth Floor Museum -- as elucidated above -- in association with the Sixth Floor Museum's Gary Mack: Moorman In The Street Revisited https://www.assassinationresearch.com/v5n2/v5n2-moorman-revisited.pdf

Mr. Gram: Your analysis is clearly being hindered by the fact that you are working with fragmentary information. I believe that you will find the following [Pages 1229 through 1243 of Inside the Records Review Board by Douglas Horne] because it contains David Wrone's account of his 2003 interview of Dino Brugioni, a detailed summary of Peter Janney's interviews of Brugioni, and a great deal of information about why Brugioni's 12/23/1963 NPIC briefing board session was entirely separate and distinct from the 12/24/1963 briefing board session of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter. I have in the past searched high and low for the MP3's of the Peter Janney interviews of Dino Brugioni without success. Doug Horne's summary of those interviews appears to be the best that is publicly available: Volume IV, Pages 1229 through 1243 of Inside the Records Review Board by Douglas P. Horne

Based upon the extant Zapruder film headshot footage, it certainly does not appear that there was an explosion of biological debris out of the back of JFK's head, nor do we see in the footage the slightest hint of the skull and brain fragment retrieved from the trunk lid by the First Lady that you reference in the final clause of your comment... But because same is not depicted in the highly questionable extant Zapruder film do we simply disregard the accounts of the long list of witnesses who attested to having seen, and in some cases felt, the rearward flying blood, brain and skull from JFK's occipital-parietal wound that was so well documented minutes later at Parkland Hospital? Perhaps the most intriguing of this list of witnesses is Erwin Schwartz, Abraham Zapruder's business partner, who attested to having seen the biological debris flying backwards and to the left in the camera-original Zapruder film itself when viewed the camera-original Zapruder film multiple times on Friday and Saturday, 11/22/1963 and 11/23/1963, while Schwartz was accompanying Zapruder to have the film developed, and watched it projected multiple times for journalists and investigators. From Noel Twyman's "Bloody Treason": "...When I interviewed Erwin Schwartz, I asked him several questions about what he saw on the film when he first viewed it in its original state at Eastman Kodak. [In a footnote, Twyman made clear that Schwartz was referring to first viewing the film in its 16 mm wide, unslit state at the Kodak plant in Dallas.] ...I also asked him to describe what he saw at the instant of the fatal head shot. His answer was very descriptive. He said he saw Kennedy's head suddenly whip around to the left (counter-clockwise). I also asked him if he saw the explosion of blood and brains out of the head. He replied that he did. I asked him if he noticed which direction the eruption went. He pointed back over his left shoulder. He said, "It went this way." I said, "You mean it went to the left and rear?" He said, "Yes." Bartholomew then asked him, "Are you sure that you didn't see the blood and brains going up and to the front?" Schwartz said, "No; it was to the left and rear." We went over this several times with him to be certain he was clear on this point. He was very clear. Of course. Schwartz's statement that the blood and brains went back to the rear and left was completely consistent with all of the eyewitnesses who said they saw the rear of Kennedy's head blow out and brain and blood go to the rear. It was also consistent with Dallas motorcycle policeman Bobby Hargis's testimony that he was riding to the rear and the left of limousine and was splattered with blood and brains...So here we have testimony from a man who first saw the original Zapruder film (he said he looked- at it at least fifteen times over the weekend)...who...saw the eruption of blood and brains in a direction opposite [to] what we now see on the Zapruder film...." The obvious question is why, given that Schwartz viewed this imagery in the camera-original Zapruder film, do we not see the same thing in the extant "original" Zapruder film today? Of course, such imagery is completely absent from the extant "original" Zapruder film (instead, we see only the morphing trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head): The fraudulent nature of the morphing trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head -- perhaps best seen in the following 6K frames from Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead's film -- is so obvious it prompted one noted Hollywood expert in post production -- Ned Price, the Head of Restoration at a major motion picture studio -- to say: "Oh that's horrible, that's just terrible. I can't believe it's such a bad fake." The following additional witness accounts are indicative of the rearward flying biological debris we should be seeing in the Zapruder headshhot sequence directly above, but which has clearly been completely excised from the extant film: __________ "...BLOOD, BRAIN MATTER, AND BONE FRAGMENTS EXPLODED FROM THE BACK OF THE PRESIDENT'S HEAD. THE PRESIDENT'S BLOOD, PARTS OF HIS SKULL, BITS OF HIS BRAIN WERE SPLATTERED ALL OVER ME -- ON MY FACE, MY CLOTHES, IN MY HAIR..." Secret Service Agent Clint Hill (in his 2012 book "Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir"). __________ "...I HAD BRAIN MATTER ALL OVER MY WINDSHIELD AND LEFT ARM, THAT'S HOW CLOSE WE WERE TO IT ... IT WAS THE RIGHT REAR PART OF HIS HEAD ... BECAUSE THAT'S THE PART I SAW BLOW OUT. I SAW HAIR COME OUT, THE PIECES BLOW OUT, THEN THE SKIN WENT BACK IN -- AN EXPLOSION IN AND OUT..." Secret Service Agent Samuel Kinney (3/5/1994 interview by Vince Palamara). "...WHEN PRESIDENT KENNEDY STRAIGHTENED BACK UP IN THE CAR THE BULLET HIT HIM IN THE HEAD, THE ONE THAT KILLED HIM AND IT SEEMED LIKE HIS HEAD EXPLODED, AND I WAS SPLATTERED WITH BLOOD AND BRAIN, AND KIND OF A BLOODY WATER...." Dallas Motorcycle Patrolman Bobby Hargis (4/8/1964 Warren Commission testimony). __________ "...I CAN REMEMBER SEEING THE SIDE OF THE PRESIDENT'S EAR AND HEAD COME OFF. I REMEMBER A FLASH OF WHITE AND THE RED AND JUST BITS AND PIECES OF FLESH EXPLODING FROM THE PRESIDENT'S HEAD..." Dealey Plaza witness Bill Newman interviewed about the JFK assassination -- 0:13-0:27 -- https://youtu.be/EEhlbAwI7Zg?t=13 __________ "...THE HEAD SHOT SEEMED TO COME FROM THE RIGHT FRONT. IT SEEMED TO STRIKE HIM HERE [gesturing to her upper right forehead, up high at the hairline], AND HIS HEAD WENT BACK, AND ALL OF THE BRAIN MATTER WENT OUT THE BACK OF THE HEAD. IT WAS LIKE A RED HALO, A RED CIRCLE, WITH BRIGHT MATTER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT - IT JUST WENT LIKE THAT...." Dealey Plaza witness Marilyn Willis from 24:26-24:58 of TMWKK, Episode 1, at following link cued in advance for you https://youtu.be/BW98fHkbuD8?t=1466 ). __________ "...Charles Brehm: 0:21 WHEN THE SECOND BULLET HIT, THERE WAS, THE HAIR SEEMED TO GO FLYING. IT WAS VERY DEFINITE THEN THAT HE WAS STRUCK IN THE HEAD WITH THE SECOND BULLET, AND, UH, YES, I VERY DEFINITELY SAW THE EFFECT OF THE SECOND BULLET. Mark Lane: 0:38 Did you see any particles of the President's skull fly when the bullet struck him in the head? Charles Brehm: 0:46 I SAW A PIECE FLY OVER OH IN THE AREA OF THE CURB WHERE I WAS STANDING. Mark Lane: 0:53 In which direction did that fly? Charles Brehm: 0:56 IT SEEMED TO HAVE COME LEFT AND BACK...." Dealey Plaza witness Charles Brehm interviewed about JFK assassination by Mark Lane for the 1967 documentary "Rush to Judgment": https://youtu.be/RsnHXywKIKs __________ "...I SAW THE HEAD PRACTICALLY OPEN UP AND BLOOD AND MANY MORE THINGS, WHATEVER IT WAS, BRAINS, JUST CAME OUT OF HIS HEAD...." Testimony of Dealey Plaza witness Abraham Zapruder -- who filmed the assassination -- at the Clay Shaw trial -- https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/zapruder_shaw2.htm __________ "...Brugioni's most vivid recollection of the Zapruder film was "...OF JFK'S BRAINS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR." He did not use the term 'head explosion,' but rather referred to apparent exit debris seen on the film the night he viewed it. "...AND WHAT I'LL NEVER FORGET WAS -- I KNEW THAT HE HAD BEEN ASSASSINATED -- BUT WHEN WE ROLLED THE FILM AND I SAW A GOOD PORTION OF HIS HEAD FLYING THROUGH THE AIR, THAT SHOCKED ME, AND THAT SHOCKED EVERYBODY WHO WAS THERE..." Excerpt from interview of Dino Brugioni -- Photoanalyst at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center -- who viewed the camera-original Zapruder film the evening of 11/23/1963. Douglas Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" , 2009, Volume IV, Chapter 14, page 1329. __________ I therefore respectfully dispute your claim that "the fact that there is not an explosion out the back of the head is not at all probative," and assert that the fact that the extant Zapruder film does not depict the explosion out of the back of the head that was attested to by multiple witnesses is probative as to the question of whether said explosion has been crudely edited out of the film. I certainly concur with your favorable assessment of Milicant Cranor's work concerning the head wound, but would also like to point out that Cranor feels very strongly that the Zapruder film has in fact been altered. She wrote an excellent article on the topic in 2018 as follows: 'JFK ASSASSINATION FILM: PROOF OF TAMPERING?' By Milicent Cranor | 07/12/18 https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/jfk-assassination-film-proof-of-tampering/ And when I sought additional feedback from her on Facebook on 8/17/2021, she broke down the salient point of her article as follows: "When comparing Jackie's position in the two films, please note that in the Nix film, Jackie's right arm is parallel to the trunk, and her hand clearly reaches to the end of it. In the Z film, her right arm is bent, and her right palm is flat on the trunk, not reaching out to Hill. And her distance from the end of the trunk could not possibly be explained by angle of camera." https://www.facebook.com/groups/2232161073506616/posts/4392428030813232/ Agreed, but I think this just supplements the evidence outlined above. The large avulsive wound reported and attested to by all of those witnesses at Parkland and Bethesda had very definite characteristics that did not in any way resemble the trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head that we see here in Z-317:

And supplementing all of the above about Mary Moorman and Jean Hill repeatedly attesting that they had stepped onto Elm Street just before Moorman took Polaroid #5 are the differences between the same split-second scene as depicted by the Nix film and the Zapruder film. In the Zapruder film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing on the grass about two feet back from the road, and in the Nix film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing in the road, on Elm street, just like they both repeatedly said they were over the years following the assassination... POLAROID # 5

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/why-last-of-jfk-files-could-embarrass-cia-118233 Why the last of the JFK files could embarrass the CIA By BRYAN BENDER 05/25/2015 07:15 AM EDT Updated: 05/28/2015 12:34 PM EDT COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Shortly after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Chief Justice Earl Warren, who oversaw the first official inquiry, was asked by a reporter if the full record would be made public. “Yes, there will come a time,” the chairman of the Warren Commission responded. “But it might not be in your lifetime.” It will soon be in ours — that is, unless the CIA, FBI or other agencies still holding on to thousands of secret documents from related probes convince the next occupant of the White House otherwise. A special team of seven archivists and technicians with top-secret security clearances has been set up at the National Archives and Records Administration to process all or portions of 40,000 documents that constitute the final collection of known federal records that might shed light on the events surrounding JFK’s murder, POLITICO has learned — files that, according to law, must be made public by October 2017. But the records’ release is not guaranteed, says Martha Murphy, head of the National Archives’ Special Access Branch. While the JFK Records Act of 1992 mandated the files be made public in 25 years, government agencies that created the paper trail can still appeal directly to the president to keep them hidden. And some scholars and researcher not to mention the army of JFK conspiracy theorists, fear that is exactly what will happen given the details about the deepest, darkest corners of American spy craft that could be revealed — from the inner workings of the CIA’s foreign assassination program and front companies to the role of a CIA psychological operations guru accused of misleading congressional investigators about alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities. “We have sent letters to agencies letting them know we have records here that were withheld, 2017 is coming,” Murphy said in a recent interview at the primary government records repository in the D.C. suburbs. She said while no agency has formally requested a waiver yet, some “have gotten back to ask for clarification” and are seeking “more information.” “Within our power, the National Archives is going to do everything we can to make these records open and available to the public,” she added. “And that is my only goal. There are limits to my powers, and the president of the United States has the right to say something needs to be held for longer.” The review now underway marks the start of a long-awaited — and many would say tortuous — process to unlock more pieces of the puzzle surrounding the assassination of the nation’s 35th president. Among the questions still hotly disputed: Did Oswald, who had defected to Russia in 1959 and was tied to radical groups seeking to overthrow the communist government in Cuba, act alone — as the Warren Commission concluded? Did some U.S. officials or intelligence assets have prior knowledge of the plot? Did American leaders willfully prevent a full investigation to protect other closely guarded secrets? At minimum, in the estimation of Murphy, who has reviewed some of the still-secret documents, they will provide a “beautiful snapshot of Cold War America and the intelligence community.” Some predict there could still be a “smoking gun.” The documents were originally requested from dozens of agencies at the request of the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent panel of experts established by the broadly defined 1992 law that sought to collect all government records that might have a bearing on one of the most searing and vexing events of the 20th century. In all, the collection amounted to 5 million records, the vast majority of which have been made available to researchers. But among the 40,000 documents are roughly 3,600 that have never been seen by the public. They have been “withheld in full” primarily because they contain information that was considered “security classified” but also to protect personal privacy, tax and grand jury information, and “because information in the document reveals the identity of an unclassified confidential source,” according to Murphy. Among the 3,600 are roughly 1,100 CIA documents, which make up the largest share. The second-largest batch belongs to the FBI, according to Murphy, while the rest include testimony and other records of the Warren Commission itself; the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reopened the investigation into JFK’s death in the late 1970s and concluded it was the result of a conspiracy (though the panel couldn’t prove it); records from the National Security Agency and other Defense Department offices; and files from a pair of 1975 congressional probes of CIA abuses — the so-called Church and Pike committees — and a related commission led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The withheld CIA files include those on some of the most mysterious and controversial figures in the history of American espionage — particularly individuals who were known to be involved in CIA assassination plots around the world. There are at least 332 pages of material on E. Howard Hunt, an almost mythical spymaster who is most famous for running the ring that broke into Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Office Complex in 1972, setting in motion the events that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. But a decade before, he played a leading role in the agency’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. The failed attack by CIA-trained guerrillas generated deep discontent with Kennedy from Cuban exiles seeking to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro and who felt the president had let their forces die on Cuba’s beaches by refusing to provide air support against Castro’s army. It was Hunt, shortly before he died in 2007, who claimed that he had been privy to a plot by several CIA affiliates to kill Kennedy — what he referred to as “the Big Event.” Also under review by the special team of archivists are at least 606 pages about David Atlee Phillips, another CIA officer, who won a medal for his role in overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954, went on to run operations in Latin America, and, along with Hunt, played a leading role in anti-Castro activities in Cuba. Phillips was accused — though never charged — of committing perjury when asked about agency ties to Oswald by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Phillips, too, late in life attributed the JFK assassination to “rogue” CIA officers. It is the type of information that many researchers believe the agency would still like to keep secret. “I don’t see the CIA handing out 600 pages on David Atlee Phillips in two years,” said Jefferson Morley, a leading Kennedy researcher and founder of JFKfacts.org, who has sued the CIA to reveal more information about several key figures known to be the focus of some of the withheld files. “It may have nothing to do with JFK but about other assassinations,” he added. “They still don’t want to open that window and let everyone look in. I expect the worst.” Another colleague of Phillips at the CIA was Anne Goodpasture. The career agency officer denied to congressional investigators in 1970 that she had any knowledge of recordings of Oswald’s phone calls in possession of the CIA’s Mexico City station, where she worked. But she later admitted in sworn testimony that she had, in fact, disseminated the tapes herself. A 286-page CIA file about her is among the documents that are supposed to be released in two years. Also among the agency’s withheld files: 2,224 pages of the CIA’s interrogation of Yuri Nosenko, a Soviet KGB officer who defected to the U.S. shortly after the Kennedy assassination. He claimed to have seen the KGB files on Oswald in the 2 ½ years before the assassination when Oswald lived in the Soviet Union. Rex Bradford, who runs the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a research organization that has digitized more than 1 million records related to the JFK case, has also identified numerous depositions before the Church Committee that are referenced in the panel’s final report but have yet to be made public. They include testimony on secret plots to assassinate Castro from CIA officers; Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy; and the head of the CIA at the time, John McCone. “The principal question we were trying to pursue was who ordered the assassination of Castro and five other leaders around the world — was it the president or the attorney general?” former Sen. Gary Hart, who was a member of the Church Committee and tasked with looking into the issue, said in an interview. It was Hart’s digging that first revealed that the CIA had enlisted leading figures in organized crime to help kill Castro, who had closed down all their gambling and prostitution rings in Havana when he took power in 1959. The CIA’s assassination plots at the time have been considered by many government investigators to be relevant to finding out who might have had a motive to kill the American leader. “How could the U.S. government bring itself to order these [CIA] assassinations?” added Hart. “We never resolved that. If these documents answer any of those questions it would be worthwhile.” Also withheld are the Church Committee’s interviews with CIA officials about “JM/WAVE,” the code name for the secret CIA station overseeing covert operations in Cuba that was located on the campus of the University of Miami — and files on the obscure figure who ran its psychological operations branch, George Joannides. It was revealed in a previous document release in 2009 that Joannides had links to some of the same anti-Castro forces that were connected to Oswald — something that was never shared with the Warren Commission. Meanwhile, Joannides also served as the liaison between the agency and the House assassinations panel that reopened JFK’s murder in 1978 and inquired about the agency’s links to Oswald. But Joannides never told the panel about his role in Miami, a failure that the federal judge who ran the Assassination Records Review Board recently said amounted to “treachery.” The CIA acknowledged in a lawsuit filed by Morley that there are more than 50 documents about Joannides’ activities, including in 1963 and 1978. The bulk of the JFK collection now being processed by the National Archives includes thousands of files that were partially released over the years but with key sections blacked out — some of them “heavily redacted,” according to Murphy. Among these files are the CIA’s official history of its Mexico City station (which was opened in 1950 by Hunt). Oswald visited Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination seeking visas to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union, which he was denied. Previous government disclosures have revealed that while initially the CIA denied any knowledge of Oswald’s activities, at the time itwas monitoring him closely and created several cover stories to hide what it knew. Meanwhile, as PBS reported in 2013, “intelligence documents released in 1999 establish that, after Oswald failed to get the visas, CIA intercepts showed that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls made to the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban consulate and linked Oswald to a known KGB assassin — Valery Kostikov — whom the CIA and FBI had been following for over a year.” Bradford believes the heavily redacted CIA history of the Mexico City station could still reveal new things after all these years. “It looks very clear [from the partially released file] that they have microphones in the Cuban Embassy [in Mexico City],” he said in an interview. “When were those microphones planted? Were they operational in October [of 1963]? There is also information about human informants and spies that were inside the embassy.” There could be more to learn from “knowing who those people were — probably dead by now, maybe not — [and] whether they see Oswald. There is all kinds of stuff in that thing that is relevant to the Oswald visit and what happened there that we only have a small glimpse into because of all the secrecy surrounding the records related to it.” A spokesman for the CIA, Dean Boyd, said the agency is working with the National Archives on the JFK records but declined to comment on the circumstances in which the CIA might seek a waiver from the president to continue to withhold information. “We are aware of the process and will work judiciously within that process,” he said. Others who have closely followed the paper trail also wonder whether the additional files will shed light on how the federal government seemingly went to great lengths to obstruct the investigation into the JFK assassination (and Oswald’s killing while in police custody a few days later by Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner with Mafia ties). Adam Walinsky, who worked in the Kennedy Justice Department, believes that the mounting evidence over the years of a purposely botched autopsy of the president and the multiple “suicides” of so many figures connected to the events strongly suggests such a coverup from high levels. Walinsky suspects that the documents could reveal more about “the role of the FBI, under the direction of President [Lyndon] Johnson and Director [J. Edgar] Hoover, in preventing any serious investigation of the assassination at the time.” “That is still capable of being considered a smoking gun,” he added. But there are concerns among long-time observers of the declassification process that the battle inside the national security bureaucracy over the fate of the records is only just beginning. “There are going to be appeals to the president, the Central Intelligence Agency for sure,” predicted Malcolm Blunt, a British researcher who has spent nearly two decades poring over JFK records. “Particularly on cover issues — corporations and financial institutions, banks and business used for cover purposes.” David Marwell, who served as executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board from 1994 to 1997, said of the withheld records: “Often it was the stuff unrelated to the assassination but intimately related to how intelligence agencies do their business. There were practical and institutional reasons it was important for them to keep that stuff. They were very protective of relationships they had with foreign intelligence sources or situations where they might have a base or a station in a particular country.” He also said that some of juiciest stuff about the assassination may have been destroyed or never sent to the Assassination Records Review Board in the first place. “Unless you can enter yourself into the agencies’ files at any time and search for anything you want, how can you know you found everything?” he asked. But Murphy, whose role is to get the 40,000 documents released, isn’t prepared to say that they won’t reveal new things about the assassination itself. “I’ll be honest,” she says. “I am hesitant to say you’re not going to find out anything about the assassination.” She clearly wants the secretive agencies now being consulted to decide what they want to do. “We want this to go as smoothly as possible,” she said. “We don’t want them to wait until the last minute. It is our interest to know the status of the records as soon as possible because we are going to begin scanning them.”

Mr. Cohen: In what way, and when and where (citations!) did Josiah Thompson show Mary Moorman's claim that she stepped onto Elm Street prior to shooting Polaroid # 5? Mary Moorman herself -- who in recent years has been under the influence of a group of lone nutters closely associated with the Sixth Floor Museum -- told me on Facebook a few years ago that she had not in fact stepped into the street to take the photo, but when I researched the question I found the following: The Dallas Times-Herald Reported on the day of the assassination that Mary Moorman and Jean Hill had been standing in the street when Moorman took the photograph. In a 1967 CBS special on the Kennedy assassination Mary Moorman specifically described that she stepped out into the street "and stood there and looked through [her camera] for quite a few seconds" before taking the photograph (See footage of the interview in the video below). In an interview with Charley Jones on News Radio 1080 KRLD, broadcast live from The Sixth Floor Museum in 1997, Mary Moorman reiterated the claim that she was in the street when she captured the photograph. Jean Hill, after the assassination, told authorities that she had called to the President to get his attention, and Mary Moorman also repeated this claim in a Discovery Channel special. To the Warren Commission in 1964, and in a 1995 letter to historian Richard B. Trask, Hill stated that she had "jumped into the street and yelled, 'Mr. President, we want to take your picture!'" From the Warren Commission testimony of Jean Hill [https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Hill.pdf]: Thus, based upon their own accounts, Mary Moorman stepped into the street to take Polaroid #5, and Jean Hill stepped into the street with her to get the President’s attention. The Zapruder film, however, depicts both women standing on the grass and shows Hill standing completely still on the grass, with hands clasped, and only turning her head toward the President at the last moment. Unless you are among the lone nutters who summarily dismiss the testimony of 50 Parkland and Bethesda witnesses attesting to the existence of the large occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head, these discrepancies between Moorman and Hill's testimony and the imagery of them depicted in the Zapruder film are a serious problem, especially for Zapruder film authenticity apologists of all colors and stripes. My interest in these questions stemmed from the fact that I had always been troubled by the Zapruder film imagery of Mary Moorman and Jean Hill because Mary Moorman and Jean Hill are depicted as towering giants in the background, larger in size than the occupants of the Presidential Limousine in the foreground, which is violative of basic photographic principles. In the video below -- as indicated in the brief segment following Mary Moorman's filmed statement to CBS that she had in fact stepped into the street -- the presence of the towering giant spectator imagery in the extant Zapruder film are indicative of compositing techniques by which foreground imagery can be manipulated with a new background added in: The film compositing and masking techniques alluded to in the video above are more fully explained in the following video: 'Uncovering the Probable Techniques Used to Alter the Zapruder Film in November 1963' https://youtu.be/hgCCl5ep9dI Drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking research of esteemed Australian physicist John Costella, this video delves into a meticulous examination of the intricate processes possibly employed in the creation of the Zapruder film. By exploring the technological capabilities accessible to forgers during the pivotal year of 1963, we aim to provide a detailed and enlightening analysis of the potential methodologies utilized in crafting this historic piece of footage. Join us on a journey through history and technology as we uncover the secrets behind one of the most iconic films of our time.

It is an outstanding article for the early date it was written (pre-ARRB). I last posted it in a thread of Roger's entitled "The Logic of Zapruder Film Alteration" https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30150-the-logic-of-zapruder-film-alteration/?do=findComment&comment=528709 which I thought you had participated in. The following links to another version online that is a little bit easier to read: https://jfk.deeppoliticsforum.com/melanson.html HIDDEN EXPOSURE Cover-Up and Intrigue in the CIA's Secret Possession of the Zapruder film by Philip H. Melanson It has been called the film of the century. It is surely America's most historically important twenty-two seconds of film: the Zapruder film (the Z-film, as researchers call it). On November 22, 1963 Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder had come to see President Kennedy pass through Dealey Plaza. Zapruder had forgotten his camera; he rushed home to get it and returned just in time to view the motorcade. Standing on a low concrete wall to the right front of the approaching Presidential limousine. Zapruder peered through his 8-millimeter, zoom lens, Bell & Howell movie camera. The camera was fully wound and set manually on maximum zoom. The shocking tragedy captured in color by the Z film is all too familiar to many Americans: the death of John F. Kennedy. As the film begins, the motorcade turns and comes toward the camera. President and Mrs, Kennedy smile and wave from inside the open limousine. For several seconds, the President is blocked from Zapruder's view as the limousine passes behind a street sign. When the limousine emerges from behind the sign, Kennedy is clearly reacting to a wound: his hands move up to clutch his throat. He totters to his left; Jacqueline Kennedy looks toward him anxiously. Then the fatal head shot impacts; the President's head explodes in a ghastly corona of blood and brains. His body is thrust violently backward against the seat then bounces forward. Kennedy's exposed skull gleams in the bright Texas sunshine. He falls sideways into his wife's arms. Mrs. Kennedy climbs onto the trunk of the limousine to recover a fragment of her husband's skull. A Secret Service agent jumps aboard and pushes her into her seat as the limousine speeds away. The Z film is more than gruesome history; it is also the best evidence of the assassination, the baseline of time and motion. By analyzing blowups and calculating elapsed time according to the running speed of Zapruder's camera, investigative bodies from the Warren Commission to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (in 1978) have drawn their conclusions about the timing, number, and direction of the shots, as have scores of private researchers. It is the timing between shots that provides crucial data for the key question: was it a conspiracy? If the elapsed time between bullets hitting the President is too short for a lone assassin to have aimed and fired, then there is proof of conspiracy. Over the years there have been allegations that elements of the American intelligence community, especially the CIA, were involved in covering up a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, or were active participants in a conspiracy. Some assassination researchers have also suggested that the Zapruder film may have been subjected to sophisticated altering designed to hide a conspiracy. They point to apparent anomalies in the motion of the President's body and to an apparent shadow appearing toward the front of Kennedy's head.1 The speculation is that the original film may have shown that Kennedy was shot from the front, from the grassy knoll, rather than from the rear (from the Book Depository from which Oswald was supposed to have fired); but that the film was altered before it reached the hands of official investigators. In any criminal case, the integrity of evidence depends upon its chain of possession: who had it when, how and for what purposes before it came into the possession of official investigators to be analyzed by them. In the JFK case the Warren Commission was the official investigating body and the FBI its official investigative arm which conducted tests and analyses of the evidence, including the Z film. Documents obtained from the FBI, CIA and Secret Service through the Freedom of Information Act contain startling revelations about the Z film's chain of possession. The first documents surfaced in 1976; others in 1981. They provide considerable support for allegations of a CIA cover-up and for allegations regarding possible CIA manipulation of evidence. There is now good reason to question the evidentiary integrity of the Z film. Moreover, it is clear that before the FBI had obtained the film, CIA experts had already analyzed it and had found data which strongly suggested a conspiracy. The official version of who had the film and camera when and how is as follows.2 The afternoon of the assassination Zapruder took his film to a commercial photo studio in Dallas for rush developing. Word of the film's existence soon leaked out and, within hours, several news and publishing organizations contacted Zapruder with offers to buy it. Zapruder had three copies made. He immediately gave two copies to the United States Secret Service. The Service kept one copy for itself and gave one to the FBI the day after the assassination. Zapruder sold the original and one copy to LIFE magazine on November 23, reportedly for $25,000. LIFE published pictures from the film in its November 29th issue and locked the original film in a New York vault. Zapruder's camera was given to the FBI by Zapruder so that the Bureau could determine the running speed (the number of frames per second at which the film moved through the camera). This figure would then be used to clock the precise time between shots. The FBI later returned the camera to Zapruder, who gave it to the Bell & Howell Company for its archives. I had long suspected that the official version was incomplete. Several Warren Commission witnesses had mentioned that a copy of the film had gone to Washington, but their references to such an event were vague and conflicting. According to FBI documents, the Bureau did not obtain a copy of the film until the day after the assassination when it borrowed one of the Secret Service's copies. The FBI had the technical expertise for analyzing the film but did not have the film for twenty-four hours; the Secret Service got two copies right away but, by all indications, lacked the technical capacity for a sophisticated in-house analysis. It was clear from CIA documents declassified in the 1970s -- documents unrelated to the assassination -- that the Secret Service of the 1960s and early 1970s had some sort of technical dependence upon the CIA. The CIA had provided technical assistance, equipment and briefings to the Secret Service, even to the point of manufacturing the color-coded lapel pins worn by Secret Service agents.3 It made sense that Secret Service, lacking its own high-powered photographic expertise, might turn to the CIA for help in analyzing the Zapruder film; but there was nothing to substantiate this hypothesis. Then, in 1976, assassination researcher Paul Hoch discovered CIA #450 among a batch of documents released by CIA because of a Freedom of Information Act request. Item 450 consists of nine pages of documents relating to an analysis of the Z film conducted for the Secret Service by the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, one of the world's most technically sophisticated photo-analysis laboratories. For the first time, there was evidence that CIA had possessed and analyzed the film. Apparently CIA had gotten the film from the Secret Service. There is nothing in Item 450, however, that states when the NPIC analysis was done -- hours after the assassination? weeks? months? Nor is it clear whether NPIC analyzed a copy of the film or an original. Among the nine pages in Item 450 are four pages of handwritten notes and calculations. One notation describes photographic work done by NPIC: -- Proc, dry 2 hr. -- Print test 3 hr. -- Make 3 prints 1 hr. -- Proc. and dry prints 1 1/2 hr. In Dallas, Zapruder was supposed to have had an original and three copies. No other copies were known to exist. Now we find that the CIA laboratory in Washington made three prints -- the same number as were supposed to have been made in Dallas. Did NPIC make more, unaccounted for copies; or did the NPIC-produced copies somehow end up as the Dallas copies? Was NPIC producing third-generation prints; or had it somehow obtained the original? It was researcher David Lifton who, through our discussions and exchanges of date, first suggested that the previously described notation ("proc. dry" etc) referred to work being done with the original film, not a copy. My discussions with a half dozen photographic experts from both academic and commercial photo laboratories, confirm this point.4 "Processing" refers to developing an original. If NPIC had been working with a copy, the first step would have been to print, then process. The NPIC notation "print test" refers to a short piece of film printed from the original and used to check the exposure -- to see if the negative is too light or too dark -- before printing copies from the original. Thus there is strong indications that NPIC had the original. The original is assumed to have remained in Dallas in Zapruder's possession until he sold it to LIFE on November 23, the day after the assassination. This allowed time enough for the original to have been flown from Dallas to D.C., analyzed, and returned to Dallas before LIFE got it. Yet, according to Zapruder and the Secret Service, the original never left Dallas until LIFE purchased it. Perhaps the original made a secret trip to Washington. Zapruder had already kept one secret about the film from the Warren Commission. In his testimony to the Commission, Zapruder stated that LIFE had paid him $25,000 for the film, all of which he donated to charity. What he did not reveal, even under questioning, was that the deal actually called for $125,000 more to be paid in five yearly installments.5 Zapruder also told the Warren Commission that immediately after the assassination, he went to his office and told his secretary to call the police or Secret Service because "I knew I had something, I figured it might be of some help."6 But according to Dallas Secret Service Agent Forrest Sorrels, he was alerted to the film by a reporter from the Dallas Morning News who contacted him and informed him that a man had made some movies that the Secret Service might be interested in.7 The reporter took Sorrels to Zapruder's office. As Sorrels described it, "Mr. Zapruder agreed to furnish me with a copy of this film with the understanding that it was strictly for official use of the Secret Service and that it would not be shown or given to any newspapers or magazines as he expected to sell the film for as high a price as he could get for it." Whether Sorrels was summoned by Zapruder or got word of the film by some other means and surprised Zapruder by showing up at his office, the question still remains whether the Secret Service would be willing to accept only a copy of the film instead of the original. In 1973, LIFE's Richard B. Stolly, who negotiated the purchase of the film from Zapruder, opined that "If the federal government had not been in such disarray at that moment (immediately after the assassination) somebody with authority and a sense of history would probably have asked Zapruder for the original film and he probably would have relinquished it."8 Whether someone in authority asked or told Zapruder, indications are that he did indeed relinquish it. Was Zapruder really in a position to get the Secret Service to accept his conditions concerning the use of the film? Presumably, the original could have been subpoenaed as evidence, thereby delaying -- perhaps even ruining -- Zapruder's chance to make a lucrative deal. The Secret Service, having just lost a President, may not have been inclined to accept a copy of the film instead of the original or to adhere to conditions set by Zapruder. Out at Parkland hospital, Dallas County Medical Examiner Earl Rose, accompanied by a Justice of the Peace, informed Secret Service agents that they could not remove the President's body and take it to Washington, a position fully consistent with Texas law. The agents drew their guns, pushed the medical examiner and the justice against the wall and took the body. If Secret Service agents were such lions in dealing with Earl Rose, why their lamb-like behavior with Abrahan Zapruder? If Zapruder did manage to strike a bargain with the Secret Service, the terms may well have been that the Service took the original for a brief time (perhaps only eighteen hours) but promised to keep the loan secret so as not to jeopardize Zapruder's chances for a deal. If potential buyers knew that the original had been out of Zapruder's hands, they might have perceived it as second-hand merchandise; if they knew the government was printing extra copies, the exclusivity of the purchase rights might be in doubt. Exclusivity was very important to the deal, and Zapruder knew it. LIFE's Richard B. Stolly recalled that through all the chaos, Zapruder kept his "business sense."9 Stolly says that Zapruder claimed to have obtained sworn statements from the employees at the film lab in Dallas where the film was first developed, stating that no extra copies of the film had been "bootlegged"; thus "whoever bought the film would have it exclusively." Even if NPIC was not analyzing the original film but only a copy, documents in CIA Item #450 reveal that the analysis produced some striking data which logically supported a conclusion of conspiracy. he main thrust of NPIC's analysis was to construct various three-shot scenarios. The film was studied and the elapsed time between the frames on which the shots occurred was estimated. Nine different three-shot scenarios were produced, by varying the points (frames) at which the President appeared to have been shot by varying the estimated running speed of the camera. Whether NPIC knew it or not, the majority of their scenarios precluded a lone assassin. In 1964 the FBI tested the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository. The Bureau discovered that marksmen could not re-aim and re-fire the weapon any faster than 2.25 - 2.30 seconds.10 Thus any interval between shots which is shorter than that would constitute persuasive evidence that there were two gunmen. Five of NPIC's scenarios had intervals that were too short -- 2.1 seconds, 2.0, even 1.0. There is no indication in the released documents that NPIC thought that the five two-gunmen scenarios were any less valid than the four scenarios which allowed sufficient time for a lone assassin. One of the scenarios which does allow enough time between shots for a lone assassin is labeled "LIFE Magazine." The calculations in this scenario are identical with those appearing in LIFE's December 6, 1963 article "End to Nagging Rumors: Six Critical Seconds." The article used an analysis of the Z film to attempt to prove that Oswald acted alone. The question arises: was NPIC generating data for LIFE magazine or was the country's most sophisticated photo-analysis laboratory reading LIFE for analytic clues? So far as we know, LIFE conducted its own analysis for its own auricle, and there is no conclusive evidence to the contrary. But one handwritten note scrawled near the LIFE magazine scenario reads: "They know the exact time of the 1st and 2nd shot?" It is a strange question if "they" is LIFE and if their article is already finished or on the stands. Presumably, LIFE should already know whatever their article states that they know, and the article boasts that LIFE has reconstructed the "precise timing" of the shots. In 1982 Bernard Fensterwald Jr., a Washington attorney and assassination researcher, filed suit in federal court against the CIA and forced the release of six hundred pages of previously classified documents relating to the assassination. Among them were additional documents concerning NPIC and the Z film. The documents dated back to the mid 1970s when assassination researcher Paul Hoch asked the Rockefeller Commission, which was investigating possible CIA involvement in the JFK assassination, to check into the NPIC analysis of the Z film. The document, which were withheld by the CIA until Fensterwald's suit in 1982, concern CIA's response to a Rockefeller Commission query about the NPIC analysis. By itself, and it believed, the 1982 release seemed to minimize CIA's involvement with the Z film. CIA documents claimed that the Agency never possessed its own copy of the film until February 1965, when Time Inc. (TIME-LIFE) provided a copy to the CIA's Office of Training.11 According to an agreement between TIME and the CIA, the film was not to be duplicated, exhibited or published but only used for CIA "training" -- whatever that meant.12 There was no mention of the three copies mysteriously printed by NPIC. As for the NPIC analysis of the film, the CIA told the Rockefeller Commission that the Secret Service did bring a copy of the film to CIA Director John McCone "late in 1963." NPIC conducted an analysis "late that same night." But "it was not possible to determine the precise time between shots without access to the camera to time the rate of spring rundown." Furthermore, said CIA, Secret Service agents were present during the analysis and "took the film away with them that night."13 All of this certainly refers to the same NPIC analysis described in CIA Item #450. The "rate of spring rundown" (running speed of the camera) was not known and had to be estimated by NPIC. Again, if the Secret Service took one "copy" away with them, what happened to the other NPIC copies? Did the Secret Service know about them? And what about the substantive data produced by the NPIC analysis (the nine scenarios, five of which precluded a lone assassin?) There are indications that the Secret Service never got that data, even though it was precisely the kind of information that they hoped to get from the CIA experts at NPIC. In responding in 1976 to the Rockefeller Commission's query about the NPIC analysis, the CIA stated: "We assume that Secret Service informed the Warren Commission about anything of value resulting from our technical analysis of the film, but we have no direct knowledge that they did so."14 There is no evidence that the Secret Service ever told the Warren Commission about the existence of the NPIC analysis much less about the results. One possible explanation for this is that the Secret Service withheld the data so that the Warren Commission wouldn't see the five conspiracy scenarios. Another possibility is that the CIA withheld the data from the Secret Service so that the Service wouldn't see them. One CIA memo contained in Item #450 states "We do not know whether the Secret Service took copies of these notes (on the three-shot scenarios) at the time of the analysis."15 It would seem odd for the Secret Service to go to the trouble to seek out an expert analysis and then not take away any of the data. Yet, no trace of the NPIC analysis has ever appeared in declassified Secret Service files or Warren Commission documents, only NPIC-CIA files. Perhaps the Secret Service never knew that the data existed; perhaps Service agents were only "present" for part of the analysis. The most intriguing reference in the 1982 release is the CIA's description of when NPIC performed its analysis for the Secret Service: "late in 1963." This could mean November 22 or December 31. Didn't CIA know the date when the analysis took place; or was it using the euphemism "late in 1963" because it was unwilling to admit that it had the film within forty-eight hours of the assassination? CIA stated that NPIC's analysis was done "late that same night" that the Secret Service brought the film to CIA. Why rush or work overtime, unless "late in 1963"16 really meant November 22nd or 23rd? I decided to pursue another avenue. Several months after the 1982 CIA release, I initiated a Freedom of Information request to the Secret Service and asked for "any and all documents relating to Secret Service possession or analysis of the Zapruder film of the John F. Kennedy assassination, or of Mr. Zapruder's camera, inclusive of any and all documents relating to possession of the film and/or camera by the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) or the Central Intelligence Agency." The Secret Service response came as a surprise. They claimed that in 1979 they had turned over to the National Archives in Washington all documents relating to the Kennedy assassination. I had previously researched all of the Warren Commission records in the National Archives pertaining to the CIA and the Secret Service but had found nothing relevant to NPIC's analysis. I called Mr. Marion Johnson, the archivist in charge of the Warren Commission records, to inquire whether the 1979 material passed on by the Secret Service had been in the files I had already examined. It had not. Due to a shortage of staff, the Archives had not yet security-cleared and processed the six boxes of "new" material. Johnson and his staff processed the boxes within two weeks. After five hours of wading through the hodgepodge of newly processed documents -- which included everything from carbon copies of previously released documents, to copies of the contents of Lee Harvey Oswald's wallet at the time of his arrest, to 5x8 close-ups of the blood stains and brain matter on the seat of the limousine -- I came across the only documents related to the Z film. They reveal that, in 1964, Henry Suydam, LIFE's Bureau Chief wrote to Secret Service Director James Rowley to say that LIFE believed that the Secret Service had two copies of the Zapruder film.17 Suydam stressed that the copies were the property of TIME, Inc. and that they should not be shown to anyone outside the government. He further stipulated that the Service could keep them as long as it needed them but must return them to TIME, Inc when it was finished. Secret Service Director Rowley wrote to Forrest Sorrels, the agent in charge of the Service's Dallas office, and asked for a detailed account of how the Zapruder film came into Secret Service possession.18 Agent Sorrels' response provides a strong indication that "late in 1963," as the CIA vaguely described it, was, in fact, the night of the assassination. Sorrels states that after the film was developed, he obtained "two copies" from Zapruder (the standard explanation), "one copy of which was immediately airmailed to chief (Director of the Secret Service in Washington)."19 "Immediately" would be sometime late in the afternoon following the 12:30 P.M. assassination, after Sorrels had caught up with Zapruder. After a three hour flight from Dallas to Washington, the film would arrive at Secret Service headquarters, be taken to CIA headquarters, then to NPIC -- probably not before early- to mid-evening. So NPIC would be working late into the night on its rush analysis of this most important piece of evidence. It now seems clear that "late that same night," as CIA described it, was actually the very night of the assassination. Why after all -- after rushing the film to Washington by plane -- would the Secret Service delay an expert analysis of a film which could conceivably reveal the President's assassin(s)? And why would the Secret Service be satisfied with a copy which was less clear than the original? Since it seems certain that NPIC conducted its analysis on the night of the assassination, this greatly increases the likelihood that NPIC had the original (as is indicated by the notations on the CIA Item #450 which described the photographic work). LIFE took possession of the original on November 23; but, before then, Zapruder could have secretly loaned the original to the Secret Service. In addition to the chain of possession of the film, there is also the matter of Zapruder's camera. The Z film's evidentiary potential is, to an important degree, dependent upon calculating the average running speed of the camera. The reader will recall that at the time of its analysis, NPIC did not know the exact speed of Zapruder's camera. Without this data, absolute and precise determination of the elapsed time between shots are not possible. An interval of forty-two frames between shots with an estimated camera speed of eighteen frames per second would produce an elapsed time of 2.33 seconds. This would allow enough time for a lone gunman to have done the shooting, according to the FBI's calculation of 2.25 to 2.30 as the minimum time needed to aim and fire. But if Zapruder's camera ran at 18.8 frames per second instead of 18.0, this same 42-frame interval would be only 2.23 seconds and would fall just below the lone-assassin minimum. The FBI, having official investigative responsibility, obtained the camera from Zapruder, tested it, and found the average running speed to be 18.3 frames per second.20 This took place nearly two weeks after the assassination.21 But what of NPIC's very-rushed, very sophisticated analysis conducted the night of the assassination? It makes no sense that after calculating the time between shots in terms of tenths of seconds, NPIC and the CIA would sit back and wait for a couple of weeks until the FBI provided this key piece of data -- the camera speed. In October 1982, while searching through the FBI's voluminous, poorly organized assassination files, I came across a memo which strongly supported the notion the NPIC had not waited for the FBI. The December 4, 1963 memo written by FBI agent Robert Barrett, reports that on the date Zapruder handed his camera over to the FBI. Barrett goes on to say that, "He (Zapruder) advised this camera had been in the hands of the United States Secret Service agents on Dec. 3, 1963, as they claimed they wanted to do some checking of it."22 We do not know how long the Secret Service had the camera or when they got it from Zapruder. Zapruder told the FBI that the Secret Service had the camera on December 3, when they returned it to him; the Service could have borrowed it from him days before that. Thus we have an important break in the known chain of possession of the camera. It went not from Zapruder to the FBI but from Zapruder to the Secret Service then back to Zapruder and then to the FBI. It was then that the FBI made the crucial calculation of 18.3 frames per second, which everyone henceforth would use as the time frame for analyzing the Z film. It is surely possible, even reasonable, that the Secret Service might have done with the camera what it did with the film -- secretly rush it to NPIC where it could be analyzed, but where it also could have been tampered with. The search for additional documents continues. Someday, we may know the real chain of possession of the film and camera. For now, this much is clear. The official, historically accepted chain of possession is wrong. The film's secret journey to a CIA laboratory in Washington on the night of the assassination raises serious doubts about the film's integrity as evidence. It also raises questions about who in the intelligence community knew what, when and how concerning John Kennedy's assassination. If, as appears to be the case, it was the original of the Z film that was secretly diverted to the CIA laboratory on November 22, 1963, then the means and opportunity for sophisticated alteration did, in fact, exist -- alteration that even the most expert analysis would have difficulty in detecting. By the 1960s cinematography labs had the technical capacity to insert or delete individual frames of a film,to resize images, to create special effects. But it would take an extraordinary sophistication to do so in a manner that would defy detection -- the kind of sophistication that one would expect of CIA photo experts. Between Zapruder and the Secret Service, they had possession of all three of the Dallas-made copies for nearly twenty-four hours. With the original at NPIC and with three copies made there, it is possible that if the film was doctored, the three NPIC copies of the doctored film were substituted for the three Dallas-made copies. It is even possible that all of the Dallas-made copies went to NPIC along with the original and that the switch was made there. We have only Zapruder and the Secret Service's assertions as to where the copies were for twenty-four hours. Setting aside the worst-case scenario (so alteration of the original film in order to hide a conspiracy), there is still the fact that NPIC generated data which would logically support a conspiracy theory, and that this data never reached the Warren Commission and appears to have been withheld from the Secret Service as well. It is possible that the film of the century is more intricately related to the crime of the century than we ever knew -- not because it recorded the crime of the century, as we have assumed, but because it was itself an instrument of conspiracy. Footnotes: 1. See David S. Lifton, Best Evidence (New York: Macmillan, 1980), p. 355n, 557n. 2. Zapruder testimony in Warren Commission Hearings, vol7, pp. 569-76; Lifton, loc. cit; FBI report of agent Robert M. Barrett, Dec. 4, 1963; statement of George Hunt, Managing Editor, LIFE (cited in Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds In Dallas, Berkeley Ca (Berkeley Publ. Co., 1976, pp. 217-18); Richard B. Stolley, "What Happened Next?" Esquire Nov. 1973, pp. 134-5; 262-3. 3. CIA memo of June 5, 1973 "Secret Service Request," (for technical equipment). This document was part of the CIA's "Domestic Police Training File" (362 pages) obtained by the author through a 1982 Freedom of Information Act request, 1976 hearings of the House Intelligence Committee. 4. I am indebted to Elaine Fisher, Professor of Visual Design at Southeastern Massachusetts University, for providing expertise and suggesting other resource persons. 5. New York Times, May 13, 1965. 6. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, pp. 569-71. 7. Sorrels testimony: Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 5, p.352. 8. Stolly, "What Happened Next." 9. Stolly, "What Happened Next." 10. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 407 (Frazer); vol. 3, p. 153. 11. CIA memo of Oct. 23, 1975 for Deputy Director, "The 'Zapruder Film' of President John F. Kennedy's Assassination" Doc. 1472-492-BT 12. CIA memo of Apr. 23, 1975 for Office of the Inspector General, subject: "The 'Zapruder Film' of President John F. Kennedy's Assassination" (Doc. 1627-1085) 13. CIA "Addendum to Comment on the Zapruder Film," p. 16, 1982; CIA release to Fensterwald. 14. Ibid 15. CIA Item #450, "NPIC Analysis of Zapruder Filming of John F. Kennedy Assassination" 16. CIA "Addendum to Comment . . " (see citation 13 above) 17. Suydam letter to Rowley, Jan. 7, 1964 18. Rowley memo to Sorrels, Jan. 14, 1964 (Secret Service 00-2-34-000) 19. Sorrels to Inspector Kelly, "Zapruder Film of the Assassination of President Kennedy," Jan. 21, 1964. 20. Warren Report 21. Report of FBI Agent Robert M. Barrett (see citation 2), Barrett reports that he received the camera from Zapruder on Dec. 4. 22. Barrett report.

The million-dollar question in relation to these two questions, as Doug Horne articulates in the excerpts below, is: IF LIFE HAD THE CAMERA-ORIGINAL ZAPRUDER FILM THE WEEKEND OF THE ASSASSINATION THEN WHY DID LIFE PRINT ONLY LOW RESOLUTION GRAINY BLACK AND WHITE STILLS IN ITS 11/29/1963 ASSASSINATION EDITION? The following are excerpts from Doug Horne's comprehensive footnoted online essay which traces the chain of custody of the camera-original Zapruder film and the three contemporaneously struck copies which seems to me to be the best presentation available of the evidence that the camera-original Zapruder film was diverted from its reported destination to LIFE's printing plant in Chicago on Saturday, 11/23/63: 'The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: SIGNPOSTS POINTING TO THE FILM’S ALTERATION' By Douglas P. Horne, Author of “Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" http://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/ "...Saturday, November 23rd: Abraham Zapruder met with Secret Service officials and Mr. Stolley of LIFE in his office on Saturday morning, 11/23/63, and projected the original film for them on his 8 mm projector.[9] [9] Trask, 2005, p. 127-131; and Wrone, 2003, p. 32-35. He then struck a deal with Richard Stolley, selling to LIFE, for $50,000.00, worldwide print media rights to the assassination movie (but not motion picture rights). Zapruder agreed in this initial contract that he would not exploit the film as a motion picture, himself, until Friday, November 29th. Zapruder immediately relinquished the camera-original film to LIFE for a six day period, and kept in his possession the one remaining “same day copy.” By the terms of this initial contract with LIFE, Zapruder was to have the original film returned to him by LIFE on or about November 29th, and in exchange he was then to give LIFE the remaining first day copy.[10] [10] Horne, 2009, p. 1200. Richard Stolley immediately put the film on a commercial flight bound for Chicago, where LIFE’s principal printing plant was located.[11] [11] Trask, 2005, p. 131; and Wrone, 2003, p. 34-35. The presses for the November 29th edition had been stopped on Friday, the day of the assassination, and the plan was to make major use of the imagery from Zapruder’s film as the issue was reconfigured. Now, here is the doubtful part of the chain of custody story that will require modification after we study the two NPIC events the weekend of the assassination: the traditional belief, for decades, was that the original Zapruder film remained with LIFE in Chicago from early Saturday evening, until Tuesday, November 26th, when the first issues of the reconfigured November 29th issue began to appear on local newsstands. The principal reference supporting this traditional view of the Zapruder film’s chain of custody, from Saturday through Tuesday, has been pgs. 311-318 of Loudon Wainwright’s 1986 memoir, titled The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of LIFE. In his book, Wainwright recounts hearsay passed along to him from others at LIFE about how the film was processed in Chicago—who was on the team that prepared the use of blowups from the film, how they worked on the layout, etc.[12] [12] Horne, 2009, p. 1346-1350. The magazine was actually printed at Chicago’s R. R. Donnelly and Company printing plant; prior to the actual layout and graphics work at the printing plant, numerous 8 x 10 inch prints were run off at a separate Chicago photo lab.[13] [13] Trask, 2005, p. 152-155; and Wrone, 2003, p. 34-35, and 52-53. We shall further discuss the activities in Chicago, and what was actually published in the November 29th issue, toward the end of this article. The only part of the Chicago story that is subject to doubt is the exact timing of when the LIFE editorial and technical team actually performed its layout of the Zapruder frames for the November 29th issue: was it actually Saturday night, or was it really Sunday night, or perhaps even early Monday morning before dawn? Sunday, November 24th: On Sunday evening, Richard Stolley, on behalf of LIFE, approached Abraham Zapruder on the phone and requested that they meet to negotiate LIFE’s acquisition of additional rights to the film. “Something” had happened that caused the magazine to seek all rights to the film, including motion picture rights, and outright ownership of both the original film, and all copies. These additional rights would prove extremely expensive to Time, Inc., LIFE magazine’s parent company. Monday, November 25th: After the conclusion of President Kennedy’s funeral on Monday—the funeral ended at about 2 PM Dallas time (CST), with Air Force One flying over the gravesite at 2:54 PM EST, and with the former First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, lighting the eternal flame at 3:13 PM EST—Stolley, Zapruder, and his attorney for this purpose, Sam Passman, met to renegotiate the sale contract for the film. Earlier that day, LIFE’s publisher, C.D. Jackson, had relayed to Stolley the formal approval of the Board of Time, Inc. for him to renegotiate the contract.[14] [14] Wrone, 2003, p. 34-37. For a renegotiated total price of $150,000.00 ($100,000.00 more than the original contract signed on Saturday), Time, Inc. now gained all rights to the Zapruder film’s imagery (domestic and foreign; and newsreel, television, and motion picture); and permanent ownership of the original and all three copies of the “8 mm color films,” thus erasing any doubt that the original and the copies had been slit to 8 mm on Friday. In addition, the new contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would pay to Zapruder an amount equal to one half of all gross receipts for use of the film, above and beyond the new $150,000.00 sale price. (The contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would also own the two “first-day copies” that Zapruder had loaned to the Secret Service, once they were returned; they never were returned.)[15] [15] Horne, 2009, p. 1200-1201. Tuesday, November 26th: The first newsstand copies of the November 29th issue of LIFE began to trickle out; the issue displayed a total of 31 fuzzy, poor resolution, black-and-white images of blowups from individual frames of the film.[16] [16] Trask, 2005, p. 154-155. Twenty-eight of them were quite small; two were medium sized; and one was a large format reproduction. What is hard to understand, in retrospect, is why LIFE magazine published such muddy, indistinct images of a film that its parent company, Time Inc., had spent an additional $100,000.00 to repurchase...." "...Let us reexamine where the three copies were that day, on Saturday, 11/23/63. One “first day copy” remained with Zapruder in Dallas; one had been loaned to the FBI in Dallas by the Secret Service in Dallas, and was flown to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night, via the Baltimore airport;[23] [23] Trask, 2005, p. 122. and the third “same day copy” had been flown to Secret Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Friday night, and had arrived sometime between midnight and dawn. Let us assume that the Secret Service copy in the nation’s capital had arrived by sunrise (a conservative estimate), and that officials at Secret Service headquarters had spent all morning Saturday reviewing it. Even if those conservative timelines were the case, then if it were the film brought to Brugioni for the briefing board work, WHY WAS IT NOT DELIVERED AT NOON, OR ONE O’CLOCK PM ON SATURDAY? The fact that the film delivered to him arrived at 10 PM, and the fact that it had not been seen by the two men who couriered it to NPIC, mitigates against the film he worked with having been the “first day copy” sent to Washington by the Dallas Secret Service (Max Phillips) on Friday night. That is most unlikely for another reason, as well. Enlargements of tiny 8 mm frames for briefing boards would not have been made from a copy film if the original film were available. Furthermore, Dino Brugioni himself would have noticed the soft focus if he had been working with a copy film, instead of an original. So in my view, it is clear that the camera-original Zapruder film was intercepted in Chicago by Federal agents identifying themselves as Secret Service late on Saturday afternoon or early Saturday evening, and then flown directly to Washington D.C., and taken immediately to NPIC, in the Navy Yard, from Washington National Airport. What this means is that the timing of the activities in Chicago reported by Loudon Wainwright in his memoir (mentioned above) was simply off by 24 hours. No doubt he got all the names of those involved correct, and their various roles in preparing the layout in the November 29th issue correct, but was just off by one day in recounting when it happened. After all, he was not present at those events, and was reporting hearsay. We know that the alteration at “Hawkeyeworks” was finished sometime before the middle of the evening on Sunday, November 24th. We know that because the altered film, now in 16 mm wide, “double 8” format again, arrived at NPIC Sunday night, after dark. We even know that “dupes” of the film were made at “Hawkeyeworks,” according to Bill Smith.[24] [24] ARRB interview of Homer A. McMahon conducted on July 14, 1997 by Douglas Horne. https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf And there is strong evidence that such dupes—or at least one such dupe—known in the trade as “dirty dupes,” were run off as black and white copies at “Hawkeyeworks,” and then rushed to Chicago Sunday night so that the magazine could begin its layout for the revised November 29th issue. Three such “dirty dupes”—all unslit, 16 mm wide, “double 8” versions of the Zapruder film—surfaced in January of 2000 when the LMH Co. materials were physically transferred to the Sixth Floor Museum, in Dallas. They are all black and white products (as are the 31 poor quality blowup prints of the Zapruder film published in the November 29th issue of LIFE). As noted by author Richard Trask, one of them, a “reversal black-and-white positive,” does contain markings that “…appear to be markings used to determine selected images for inclusion in LIFE magazine.”[25] [25] Trask, 2005, p. 118. Unfortunately, both Roland Zavada and Richard Trask (who has endorsed Zavada’s view) have gotten carried away by the discovery of these three black-and-white “dirty dupes,” and have drawn entirely the wrong conclusion from these materials discovered about twelve-and-one-half years ago. They have both concluded that the camera-original Zapruder film was not slit after all, at the Kodak Plant in Dallas, the day of the assassination. This absurd conclusion flies in the face of the expert testimony collected by Zavada himself in 1997 and 1998 as he repeatedly interviewed and corresponded with the surviving managers and technicians who worked at the Kodak Plant in Dallas on the day of JFK’s assassination; flies in the face of the manuscript written by Mr. Phil Chamberlain (the Production Supervisor of the Kodak Plant in Dallas) in the late 1970s; and flies in the face of the many witnesses who saw Mr. Zapruder project his 8 mm camera-original film, using an 8 mm projector, on Saturday, November 23rd. [26] [26] Trask, 2005, p. 117-119; and Horne, 2009, p. 1277-1281. I have an alternative, and more reasonable, explanation for the origin of these “dirty dupes”—one more in line with Occam’s Razor, and which respects expert eyewitness testimony (instead of disrespecting it). I believe that at least one of the three unslit “double 8” Zapruder film “dirty dupes” found at the Sixth Floor Museum in January of 2000, among the donated materials from the LMH Co. (that once belonged to LIFE magazine), was run off in a contact printer at “Hawkeyeworks” on Sunday evening after the alteration of the Zapruder film was completed. It was then, I believe, rushed to Chicago from Rochester so that LIFE magazine, now behind schedule, could get going on its layout for the delayed November 29th issue. Arrival of just one “dirty dupe” at the Donnelly printing plant on Sunday night would have provided the imagery necessary for the first mail-out issues of the magazine to be ready for mailing Monday afternoon, November 25th, and would also have been consistent with the first newsstand issues hitting the shelves on Tuesday, November 26th, as reported by Trask. In his 2005 book, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Trask writes (on p. 117): “The cardboard container associated with the 16 mm films included a printed address reading ‘Allied Film Laboratory, 306 W. Jackson, Chicago 6, Illinois.’” In my view, this might merely indicate that one “dirty dupe” was received from “Hawkeyeworks,” and that the lab in question ran off two more copies of the first “dirty dupe” after it arrived in Chicago Sunday night. Or it might indicate nothing at all related to the provenance of the dupes. Even if the box does indicate a connection between Allied Film Laboratory and the dupes, the presence of the box alone does not indicate that all three of the dupes were run off in Chicago, nor does it tell us that they were copied from the camera-original film. As Trask himself says, Kodak lab personnel interviewed in “recent years” (presumably he means the 1980s through 2005, when his own book was published) “…seem to recall that in 1963 all four films were slit into 16 mm format.” Yes, that’s what they have recalled, because that is what happened—all four films (the camera-original, and the three first-day copies) were all slit down to 8 mm on Friday night in Dallas, after the three copies were developed, and before Zapruder departed the Kodak Plant. There is no serious or believable reason to doubt their consistent recollections. In conclusion, a highly significant fact about the November 29th issue of LIFE, and the four briefing board panels at NARA, that even many “alterationists” have not dealt with adequately, is that the frames in that early issue of LIFE that depict JFK’s head wound appear to show the same head wound seen in the extant film today. [This makes perfect sense to me; no cabal at “Hawkeyeworks” in charge of altering the film to hide evidence of shots from the front would have dared to allow LIFE to have a print of the movie before the film was altered.] My main point here, though, is that the prints posted on the four briefing board panels at the Archives (from the McMahon event) are also consistent with the frames published in LIFE on November 29th, and have frame numbers assigned to them in the NPIC working notes that are consistent with the frame numbers used today in association with those same frames in the extant film. About five or six of the frame numbers denoted in the NPIC notes (which describe the photos mounted on the four briefing board panels) are off by one frame (denoting human fallibility—obvious counting errors attributable to fatigue, or haste that night), but the frame numbers and images associated with the briefing boards are consistent with the extant film today. That is to say, there are no major deviations, or patterns in the frame numbering indicating that the film McMahon worked with was structured differently than the one we know today. The obvious implication of these facts discussed above is that at least the major alterations to the Zapruder film (such as frame excisions and deletions, and alterations of the head wound images) were completed by Sunday night, 11/24/63—and that perhaps all of the alterations were completed by Sunday night, when the film left “Hawkeyeworks,” on its way to NPIC in Washington, D. C...." "...In my view, the alterations that were performed were aimed at quickly removing the most egregious evidence of shots from the front (namely, the exit debris leaving the skull toward the left rear, and the gaping exit wound which the Parkland Hospital treatment staff tells us was present in the right-rear of JFK’s head). I believe that in their minds, the alterationists of 1963 were racing against the clock—they did not know what kind of investigation, either nationally or in Texas, would transpire, and they were trying to sanitize the film record as quickly as possible before some investigative body demanded to “see the film evidence.” There was not yet a Warren Commission the weekend following the assassination, and those who planned and executed the lethal crossfire in Dealey Plaza were intent upon removing as much of the evidence of it as possible, as quickly as possible. As I see it, they did not have time for perfection, or the technical ability to ensure perfection, in their “sanitization” of the Zapruder film. They did an imperfect job, the best they could in about 12-14 hours, which was all the time they had on Sunday, November 24, 1963, at “Hawkeyeworks.” Besides, there was no technology available in 1963 that could convincingly remove the “head-snap” from the Zapruder film; you could not animate JFK’s entire body without it being readily detectable as a forgery, so the “head-snap” stayed in the film. (The “head snap” may even be an inadvertent result—an artifact of apparently rapid motion—caused by the optical removal of several “exit debris” frames from the film. When projected at normal speed at playback, any scene in a motion picture will appear to speed up if frames have been removed. Those altering the film may have believed it was imperative to remove the exit debris travelling through the air to the rear of President Kennedy, even if that did induce apparent “motion” in his body which made it appear as though he might have been shot from the front. The forgers may have had no choice, in this instance, but to live with the lesser of two evils. Large amounts of exit debris traveling toward the rear would have been unmistakable proof within the film of a fatal shot from the front; whereas a “head snap” is something whose causes could be debated endlessly, without any final resolution.) Those who altered the Zapruder film knew that the wound alteration images in frames 317, 321, 323, 335, and 337, for example, were “good enough” to show investigators the film on a flimsy movie screen coated with diamond dust, but they also knew the alterations were not good enough to withstand close scrutiny. That is why I believe C.D. Jackson—the CIA’s asset at LIFE and its best friend in the national print media—instructed Richard Stolley to again approach Abraham Zapruder on Sunday night, and to offer a much higher sale price for Zapruder’s movie, in exchange for LIFE’s total ownership of the film, and all rights to the film. By Sunday night, the name of the game at LIFE was suppression, not profit-making. By Sunday night, November 24th, C. D. Jackson was wearing his CIA hat, not his Time, Inc. businessman’s hat. After striking the new deal with Time, Inc. on Monday, Zapruder received an immediate $25,000.00, and the remainder of his payments ($25,000.00 per year, each January, through January of 1968), were effectively structured as “hush money” payments. His incentive to keep his mouth shut about the film’s alteration would clearly be his desire to keep getting paid $25,000.00 each January, for the next five years. The alterationists in 1963 also had a “disposal” problem, for they had three genuine “first day copies” of the Zapruder film floating around which threatened to proliferate quickly, unless they could get them out of circulation immediately, replaced with new “first generation copies” stuck from the new “Hawkeyeworks” master delivered to NPIC on Sunday night. For them, speed was of the essence, not perfection. I believe that once the new “master” was completed at “Hawkeyeworks” early Sunday evening, three new first generation copies were struck from it, as well as at least one “dirty dupe” for the LIFE editorial crew standing by in Chicago. Only after these products were exposed at Rochester, early Sunday evening, was the “new Zapruder film” (masquerading as an unslit, 16 mm wide camera-original “double 8” film) couriered down to NPIC by “Bill Smith,” who took his cock-and-bull story along with him, to his everlasting discredit. Of course, the cock-and-bull story worked, since Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter knew nothing about the event with the true camera-original film at NPIC the previous night. McMahon and Hunter had no reason, on Sunday night, 11/24/63, to disbelieve “Bill Smith” when he told them that he had brought “the camera-original film” with him, after it had been “developed” at Rochester. After all, the product handed to them looked like a camera-original “double 8” film: it was a 16 mm wide unslit film, with sprocket holes on both sides, and exhibited opposing image strips, upside down in relation to each other, and going in reverse directions. I am quite sure that by Tuesday, November 26th, all of the original “first day copies” had been swapped out with the three replacements made at “Hawkeyeworks” Sunday night from the new “original.” NPIC finished up with the new “original” Zapruder film by some time Monday morning, November 25th, or perhaps by mid-day Monday at the latest. McMahon went home after the enlargements (the 5 x 7 prints) were run off, but the graphics people at NPIC still had to finish assembling the three sets of four panel briefing boards. And the rest is history. Now, through the magic of high resolution digital scans—technology undreamed of in 1963, in an analog world—the forgery and fraud of November, 1963 is being exposed, slowly but surely. Alterations that were “good enough” to hold up on a flimsy, portable 8 mm movie screen back in 1963, look quite bad—very crude—today, under the magnifying glass of today’s digital technology. The two back-to-back “briefing board events” the weekend of President Kennedy’s assassination at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, D.C.—compartmentalized operations bracketing the Zapruder film’s alteration at the “Hawkeyeworks” lab in Rochester, N.Y.—are the signposts that illuminate for us, like two spotlights piercing the night sky, the hijacking of our nation’s history almost 49 years ago. The Zapruder film was altered by the U.S. government, using clandestine, state-of-the-art Kodak resources in Rochester, to remove the most egregious evidence within the film of shots that came from in front of JFK’s limousine. The true exit wound in the rear of his head was blacked out in many frames; frames showing exit debris from the fatal head shot propelled violently to the left rear were removed from the film; and a false “exit wound” was added to many of the image frames, in an attempt to support the lone assassin cover story. The altered film is one of the strongest proofs of a massive government cover-up following President Kennedy’s death, and the intelligence community’s third party surrogates are doing all they can, today, to deny that the film was ever altered, and discredit this story. I believe the facts speak for themselves...." 'Uncovering the Probable Techniques Used to Alter the Zapruder Film in November 1963' Drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking research of esteemed Australian physicist John Costella, this video delves into a meticulous examination of the intricate processes possibly employed in the creation of the Zapruder film. By exploring the technological capabilities accessible to forgers during the pivotal year of 1963, we aim to provide a detailed and enlightening analysis of the potential methodologies utilized in crafting this historic piece of footage. Join us on a journey through history and technology as we uncover the secrets behind one of the most iconic films of our time.

I've figured out why we were not on the same page on that. It was literally because we were not on the same page. The NARA file I used to take a screenshot of the LIFE computations NPIC sheet was apparently scanned through an automatic feeder, resulting in the outer left-hand side of the page (with the brackets) being omitted from the scan: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10336-10024.pdf The version you were using from the Mary Ferrell Foundation site, conversely, is complete as far as I can tell: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=11 What I see when comparing the two NPIC sheets below, which you have referenced, is that the panel computations on the second sheet (which both Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter told the ARRB they did recognize) is reproduced almost identically in the far-left column of the LIFE computations sheet (which both Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter told the ARRB that they did not recognize): https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=11 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=9 Or perhaps the LIFE 18 FPS computations were not made in conjunction with briefing boards, and were limited to the comparative timing analysis itself? And would you please kindly specify the precise basis and rationale for your belief which suggests to you that the Zapruder film activities of McMahon and Hunter should be conflated with the LIFE computation sheets which both men specifically disclaimed having any knowledge of? What is so different between what you are describing and simply stating that McMahon and Hunter's timing analysis data was imported verbatim to the left column of the LIFE computations sheet to serve as a point of reference/comparison for the 18 FPS timing analysis? Correct me if I am wrong, but the point you seem to be making here is that there are calculations in intervals of 18 FPS associated with the LIFE computation sheets (which McMahon and Hunter indicated they had never seen before), and that there are calculations in intervals of 16 FPS associated with the sheets that McMahon and Hunter did recognize? Well isn't that the whole point of the Paul Mandel 12/6/1963 LIFE article? That wherein it had been previously believed that Zapruder's camera operated at 16 FPS per its specifications , Mandel's article revealed that it actually operated faster at 18 FPS? As elucidated by Doug Horne at page 1208 of his Inside the Records Review Board, the significance of the timing analysis in relation to the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article is as follows: Furthermore, at the only point in Homer McMahon's ARRB interview that 16 FPS was mentioned, McMahon concluded by saying "[t]his might have been a further analysis": From page 20 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf Gunn (28:57): Do you remember when you prepared the notes that we just examined? McMahon: Yeah, we were in a briefing room, ah, in building 213 in the Navy Yard. And, it was --- we were viewing it there because of the equipment. Gunn: So they --- these were made on the day then that you --- [were] processing --- McMahon: Yes, this is when we --- these are fairly accurate timing shots --- tim -- -the way that, that it, that we timed it. The 16 frames per second --- I, I don't know whether I agree on the 18 --- it might have been 18 frames per second. This might have been a further analysis. [Emphasis not in original] And Ben Hunter also opined that the LIFE computation sheets must have been produced during an NPIC session subsequent to his own: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] Now if you could prove that Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter had anything to do with any of the 18 FPS computations, that would certainly be significant in the context of this discussion, but you have not done so yet. All of these notes associated with the LIFE computation sheets you have just described were disclaimed by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, right? I agree that if Hunter McMahon and/or Ben Hunter had firmly identified the mathematical calculations (as follows) that it would have been significant: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=10 However, although McMahon did initially identify the mathematical computations in question as his own, upon further reflection, be backed away from that identification and said more tentatively, "no," that it was either his own or Hunter's writing, followed by Horne saying that he would show McMahon a sample of Hunter's writing for comparison, but then they moved on to discussion of other matters and did not return to it. Thus, this is not as conclusive as you suggest, particularly in light of the fact that McMahon and Hunter disclaimed having any knowledge of all of the other sheets associated with the LIFE computations sheet and the 18 FPS analysis. From page 19 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf Horne: Below that, there are some --- that's in pencil /meaning the time duration for the creation of internegatives and prints discussed above] --- below that there are some blue ink, ah, long divisions and additions. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: And those [the arithmetic calculations in blue ink] are also your writing? McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Also the pencil? McMahon: Yes. Horne: OK, could you explain what that --- well, what are the long divisions and additions, do you recall what those are? McMahon: [Sighing] Idiot marks --- I don't know what they --- it's my writing, I think. Horne: OK McMahon: No, wait --- wait a minute --- I think it's my --- it's either mine or Ben's. Horne: OK McMahon: And, have you got Ben's handwriting? Horne: I, I can show you one section on these notes that he recalled was his handwriting, ah, if you'd like, and then I can ask you that --- Thus, with the following, you have presented me with a false choice, because you haven't demonstrated that McMahon and Hunter performed a 18 FPS comparative analysis: An equally valid, and perhaps even superior option, is that Hunter McMahon and Ben Hunter performed their NPIC analysis exactly when they said they did, the day before the President's funeral (Sunday, November 24, 1963), and that the timing analysis based upon the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article was conducted by an entirely different team, days, months, or maybe even years later. And precisely why do you doubt such a possibility, Mr. Gram? What can you tell me about the document handling procedures of the NPIC and the CIA in support of said doubt?

All we know is that the CIA released five pages to the Rockefeller Commission. We don't know if there were more, or the CIA's rationale for the release of these particular pages. But we do know that there was a method to the CIA's madness; there always is. You are going to have to be more specific about what similarities you believe you see between the two pages you referenced. I see a common number in a few instances, but not the same patterns of numbers one would expect if they were from the exact same analysis. You seem to be making some assumptions: What leads you to conclude that the "exact same set of briefing boards" played any role in a post 12/6/1963 analysis? And what leads you to conclude that "the same yellow legal pad" was used by McMahon and Hunter AND by another team conducting a post-12/6/1963 analysis? As for whether or not it makes sense that another team would conduct a separate post-12/6/1963 analysis, my question for you is what information do you have that would lead you to conclude it does not make sense? Was the analysis conducted days, months or even years after the weekend of the assassination? Could the analysis have been conducted to supply Paul Mandel with the timing data for the propaganda piece of his that was published in LIFE on 12/6/1963? Or rather, was the CIA trying to figure out how Paul Mandel reached the timing conclusions that he did for some reason? Was the analysis performed for the Warren Commission the following year? The questions could go on endlessly. When physicist and JFK researcher John Costella looked at these issues fourteen years ago he hypothesized that the CIA was trying to figure out "how in the hell" Paul Mandel came to the timing conclusions that he did for his 12/6/1963 article, which I agree is a very plausible scenario. You think this is not as valid of a potential scenario as yours because? https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=183378 You've listed some additional possibilities, but why would the SS agent be doing the job of the NPIC technicians by writing notes, and if any of the considerable time spent by McMahon and Hunter was devoted to an analysis of the timing calculations in Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 article, then why didn't the notes prompt the memories of McMahon and Hunter? They seemed to remember the details associated with the other notes, so why not these? They just both forgot the details associated with the LIFE computations but remembered the details associated with the other pages? Is memory deterioration over time so unevenly distributed in this manner? What exactly are your qualifications as a handwriting expert that make you so sure that you can recognize McMahon and Hunter's handwriting better than they could themselves, Mr. Gram?

Yes, @John Costella is a member of this forum, but hasn't posted for a number of years, and he did post a review critical of Doug Horne's Inside the Assassination Records Review Board which seemed to focus primarily upon issues related to the fact that the five volumes were self-published, but as you will see below, Costella continued to agree with Horne on certain matters concerning the alteration of the Zapruder film. But you are really setting up an enormous straw man fallacy when you insinuate that anyone who suspects that photographic evidence related to the JFKA is doing so just to support "Horne's theories." For example, I had serious suspicions about the autopsy photographs and the Zapruder film in the early 80's before I had ever heard of Doug Horne, and when Horne started putting out information to the research community in the 1990's about the work of the ARRB, and especially after he published his books in 2009, he filled in many gaps in my understanding about the medical evidence and Zapruder film photographic forgery, but it was not because he had presented me with theories that he had made up, but because he brought to my attention new evidence that had been heretofore unknown to me, such as the Tom Robinson and Ed Reed interviews, and the interviews of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter. Horne did not make up these interviews and associated evidence, and his interpretations of same, though imperfect in some minor instances, do not constitute deviations from the evidence he is interpreting. Horne has done a great service to the research community, and it is perhaps for that reason that he has become such a lightning rod for lone nutters and hybrid lone nutters like yourself. Having said that, I can't recall ever seeing Denise post accolades for Doug Horne, and that your lens translates any mention of any researcher who has concluded that some of the JFKA photographic evidence is fraudulent as meaning that they are doing nothing other but supporting "Horne's theories" just serves to further reveal formidable bias and resentment on your part (perhaps best exemplified by your very recent ridiculous musings that anybody who disagrees with your methods and interpretations is engaged in a conspiracy against you on behalf of Doug Horne and/or Dr. David Mantik). You wear your resentments like a scarlet letter, and that is plain for all to see. As for when the LIFE computation notes were made, that's a complete mystery, as there is nothing in that page or the couple of pages with similar data that provides us with a date. But what we do know is that McMahon and Hunter both said they did not produce and had never seen those pages before when asked by the ARRB. When this same controversy was being discussed on this forum over fourteen years ago, John Costella weighed in with his belief that the LIFE computations were made some time after Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 article in LIFE in an effort to try to figure out how Mandel came to the conclusions that he did (recall that the 12/6/1963 article was a propaganda piece apparently calculated to sell the Oswald scenario, blatantly misrepresenting the Parkland evidence, and claiming that Kennedy had been shot in the throat while turned around and waiving to the crowd). Costella, in my view, has the most plausible explanation. https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=183378 Except that McMahon and Hunter specifically disclaimed producing or having ever seen the three pages of notes you wish to rely upon for setting the date of the second briefing board session beyond 12/6/1963, as shown in the following: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] From pages 18-20 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon, with images of the documents being discussed: Horne (22:39): OK, we're back on the record. And from Record Group 233, Flat 90A, at the Archives, I have pulled out, ah, document ID number 1993.07.22.08:41:07:620600, titled "Analysis of Zapruder Film." Ah, the document date on the RIF [Record Identification Form] is 5-22-1975; and I'm now going to hand these, ah, notes to Mr. McMahon and let him read them and tell us whether he's seen them before. Please take your time. McMahon (24:35): [Witness examines documents for a considerable period of time --- a total of five pages, with one page a half-sheet, having writing on both sides.] Some of the writing is mine; I don't know whose this is. Horne: And by "this" --- ah, this page here, sir? McMahon: I don't know whose that is. Horne: OK, the page that we're not sure about is the page with 3 shot scenarios --- ah, one, one [shot scenario] is labeled: "LIFE magazine," and then the [other] two [are labeled] "other possibilities," OK. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: OK, the one that Mr. McMahon has identified as his writing is on the back side of a half- - 18 - page, and the back side reads: "shoot internegatives, one-and-a-half hours; process and dry internegatives, two hours; print test, one hour; make three prints," [it] looks like, the 'each' sign [that is, the symbol "@" follows the phrase "make three prints," and precedes the time duration of "one hour; process and dry prints, one-and-a-half hours;" for a total of "seven hours." McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Below that, there are some --- that's in pencil /meaning the time duration for the creation of internegatives and prints discussed above] --- below that there are some blue ink, ah, long divisions and additions. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: And those [the arithmetic calculations in blue ink] are also your writing? McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Also the pencil? McMahon: Yes. Horne: OK, could you explain what that --- well, what are the long divisions and additions, do you recall what those are? McMahon: [Sighing] Idiot marks --- I don't know what they --- it's my writing, I think. Horne: OK McMahon: No, wait --- wait a minute --- I think it's my --- it's either mine or Ben's. Horne: OK McMahon: And, have you got Ben's handwriting? Horne: I, I can show you one section on these notes that he recalled was his handwriting, ah, if you'd like, and then I can ask you that --- McMahon: This --- this looks like Ben's handwriting, here. Horne: OK, and now you are looking at the other side of the half-sheet --- McMahon: This looks like my writing here --- Horne: --- OK, the other side of the half-sheet, which is a description of the four (4) briefing board panels, and when you said it looked like Ben's writing you were pointing at the, the pencil: "Panel I, Panel II, Panel III, Panel IV." [Transcriber's note: these are column headers on the short half-sheet; and below each column header there are two sub-columns, listing print numbers, and corresponding frame numbers, for the prints mounted on each briefing board panel.] McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Ben identified for us, right below that, ah, the printing: "print #" and "frame #" --- these, these two marks here are the only two that he thought were his writing, right here, in [pointing] --- which are underneath the column labeled "Panel I." McMahon (27:01): Mmm-hmmm. This is in --- this looks like Ben's writing, to what I ... [now, suddenly focusing on the bottom of the half-sheet] this looks like my writing. Horne: And your writing, ah, would be, ah, at the bottom of the half page, where we're, we're talking about frame numbers and time between shots. [Transcriber's note: the writing referred to here is found at the bottom of the front of the half-sheet, the side containing the content descriptions for the four briefing board panels.] - 19 - McMahon: This is --- yeah --- and, I'm not sure about this --- this looks like mine, and this looks like mine.Horne: OK, so the, ah --- McMahon: Ah --- Horne (27:33): --- just for the record, the descriptions of how long it took to make internegatives and prints are Mr. McMahon's writing. McMahon (27:54): This is not mine. Horne: OK, Mr. McMahon is now looking at the page, ah, [wherein] the top half says, "at 18 frames per second;" the bottom half [reads] "at 16 frames per second;" and he has just said that --- McMahon: This is not mine. Horne: --- that is not his writing. McMahon: OK, and, this is not my writing --- and now, that might have been Ben Hunter's writing. Horne: This next page that is not Mr. McMahon's writing is a page which, in the upper right-hand corner, reads: "Questions from the 8 mm film --- how do they know exact frames of first and second shot?" Question --- McMahon: OK, we didn't know --- we were told what they thought they were; and this is what we were told they thought they were; and this is what we concluded they were; and this is what we set the photography team [unclear]. Ah [that's the] best I can do for ya. Gunn (28:57): Do you remember when you prepared the notes that we just examined? McMahon: Yeah, we were in a briefing room, ah, in building 213 in the Navy Yard. And, it was --- we were viewing it there because of the equipment. Gunn: So they --- these were made on the day then that you --- [were] processing --- McMahon: Yes, this is when we --- these are fairly accurate timing shots --- tim -- -the way that, that it, that we timed it. The 16 frames per second --- I, I don't know whether I agree on the 18 --- it might have been 18 frames per second. This might have been a further analysis. Gunn: Do you know whether somebody else was preparing other notes that you don't recognize, at that time, or were they made later [unclear]? McMahon: Ah, they, they conform to my best recollection of, of what we wrote on, that's all I know. I don't know why I remembered that. Horne: By that you mean the yellow, legal-sized paper? McMahon: Yeah. It's the tortured and implausible interpretations of you and your lone-nutter and hybrid-lone-nutter confederates that are problematic, not Horne's straightforward interpretation of the NPIC evidence. But you wouldn't know that because, as you have elsewhere confessed, you are absolutely unfamiliar with this evidence which you are so opinionated about. It wouldn't add up if there was any truth to your claim, made elsewhere, that Brugioni claimed there was an explosion at the top of JFK's head. That claim, of course, is just as valid and sound as the claims you make about others, such as Dr. Robert McClelland, Nurse Audrey Bell and James Jenkins... Here at 1:02 is that hand gesture of Brugioni's that you claim indicates he had seen an explosion at the top of JFK's head:

@Pat Speer If you are talking about your notion that Dino Brugioni claimed that the head shot plume that he remembers is somehow associated with the top of JFK's head, the answer is that you are getting that from a very brief and ambiguous upward gesture Brugioni made with his hand above his head during his interview by Horne. At the time of the gesture, Brugioni was saying that there was more to the plume than can be seen today, and that it went higher in the air. Somehow your mind has twisted this into meaning that Brugioni was talking about an explosion on the top of JFK's head, but other than the ambiguous hand gesture, Brugioni never communicated what you keep asserting that he did. The following is the abbreviated version of Horne's take on the two events at NPIC, and on Dino Brugioni. It is long and comprehensive, but much shorter than the chapters he devotes to the matter in Volume IV of his book... "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" by Douglas P. Horne https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

The issue with regard to the briefing board session conducted by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, it seems to me, is whether or not the timing analysis sheets based upon Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 LIFE article were produced during their briefing board session or were produced by others unknown during some subsequent NPIC analysis of some kind. You seem to be assuming that if any type of timing analysis was performed during McMahon and Hunter's NPIC briefing board session that such timing analysis accounts for the creation of the three full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes containing three possible 3-shot scenarios and a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis ("the LIFE computations"), and I think this assumption is unwarranted, based upon the available evidence. The following are the references that Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter made to the analysis of the film they were involved in, and not only did neither of them mention anything even suggestive of any analysis of Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 LIFE article, but they both denied producing or ever having seen the LIFE computations when the three full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes containing three possible 3-shot scenarios and a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis were shown to them by the ARRB. Thus, it appears certain that a timing analysis was conducted by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter but I see nothing in the documented record to serve as justification for your conflation of the two events, and solid documented justifications for concluding that the analysis conducted by McMahon and Hunter (and apparently unnamed others) was not the same event that produced the LIFE computations, namely that they both specifically indicated they had no knowledge of the LIFE computations when asked: From the 6/12/1997 ARRB Call Report of a telephonic interview of Homer McMahon: -McMahon did recall the Zapruder film analysis in some detail, and confirmed ARRB's understanding that the analysis (of which frames in which shots struck occupants of the limousine) was performed at the request of the Secret Service. [Emphasis not in original] -Prior to the production of intemegatives and color prints for briefing boards, he said he recalled an analysis "to determine where the 3 shots hit." He said he would not share the results of the analysis with us on the telephone. The film was projected as a motion picture 4 or 5 times during the analysis phase, for purposes of determining "where the 3 shots hit." [Emphasis not in original] From the 6/17/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Ben Hunter: ...He said that the assigned task was to analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants. He recalled laying the home movie out on a light table and using a loupe to examine individual frames. [Emphasis not in original] From the 7/14/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Although the process of selecting which frames depicted events surrounding the wounding of limousine occupants (Kennedy and Connally) was a "joint process," McMahon said his opinion, which was that President Kennedy was shot 6 to 8 times from at least three directions, was ultimately ignored, and the opinion of USSS agent Smith, that there were 3 shots from behind from the Book Depository, ultimately was employed in selecting frames in the movie for reproduction. At one point he said "you can't fight city hall," and then reminded us that his job was to produce intemnegatives and photographs, not to do analysis. He said that it was clear that the Secret Service agent had previously viewed the film and already had opinions about which frames depicted woundings. [Emphasis not in original] From page 4 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (12:04): Well --- ah --- heh, heh --- well, Eastman Kodak had, had contracts with the U.S. government, and if you want to know, you can go through the CIA, they'll tell you [unclear]. OK, but he, he got the film processed, and he brought it to us, and he, and three other people, ah, timed the film, for the --- through observation you could tell where the gunshots actually caused the hits and the slumps. We didn't know anything about any audio --- ah, it was just visual. And we timed it and determined, where the, the time between the, ah --- physically timed it, with a stopwatch --- ah, where the gunshot "hits" hit. And we, we, we, we went from, I think, maybe two frames before the first hit, and then we hit every single frame --- through, and we only, he only counted three hits, possibly four --- ah, couldn't tell, I think, when, when Connally got hit. It was obvious when, when he [JFK] got hit the first time, and then the second time, as his head [was] going off into the angle, up, and --- [Emphasis not in original] From page 9 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (35:33): Ah --- now, the, the mounting on the briefing boards, and the, the photointerpretation, so to speak --- I was not involved in, OK --- Horne: OK 16 McMahon: --- and, I think I went home. Heh, but Smith probably went to another --- it's not even a vaulted area, it's a finishing room upstairs. Horne: Ah, did you and Mr. Hunter stop work at about the same time, or do you recall? McMahon: Well, he might have stayed on and helped, but, ah, there was another chap that probably was involved in that work, and it probably was done by the other chap, not --- and I'm sure Bill Smith.... [Emphasis not in original] From page 10 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (37:13): Ah, you just mentioned another chap who may have been involved with briefing boards and photoanalysis --- McMahon: --- and I can't recall his name --- Horne: --- can't recall his name --- McMahon: --- even if I could, I couldn't tell you, because he was young. [Transcriber's note: the witness meant that because this person was a young employee in November of 1963, he might still be "current" or active, in 1997 at the time of the interview, and for that reason he would not divulge his name, even if he remembered it. The CIA culture is very protective of the names of its employees, particularly if they are operating under cover.] [Emphasis not in original] From page 11 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (40:01): Did you create, or do you recall anyone else creating, any records or notes during your work? McMahon: I think, ah, Hunter and I did the only records of the work, and I think it was on, a, either a yellow, or a ah, a ah --- [chuckling] add something to this --- Horne: You, you just put your hand on a yellow legal pad --- McMahon: Yeah, it was on a legal type pad, unless it was recorded on --- we made our own, ah, marks on some of the --- to keep the --- but I did not put any classification or any[thing] of that nature--- I didn't put any control, no classification or control on any of the documents. Normally that's required before you could leave the vault; it has to be controlled with a Top Secret cover sheet. I did not do that. Now, after the briefing board is made from the material, then that classification precedes the classification of, in the [unclear] cover sheets. We made briefing boards, teleprompters, and view graphs, as --- for dissemination to the Intelligence Community. Horne: For other types of work --- ah, routine --- but for this job you, you recall that you may have made notes on a yellow legal pad --- McMahon (41:35): Now, I 'm sure that this did --- I'm sure that this did not go to the Intelligence Community --- it was not part of the CIA --- it was not --- this was [done on] a, a "need-to know" basis, and it was used by whoever brought it in [chuckling] for, for either the Warren Commission, or to brief somebody else. From page 12 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Gunn: Ah, yes. Ah, this goes back to something you said, ah, early on in the interview, where, ah, a couple of things, where you said, as I recall, ah: "He had --- he took three hits, possibly four." And it wasn't clear to me whether the "he" was Kennedy, or included Connally. Did, did you reach a conclusion as to the number of hits 20 that you thought President Kennedy had [unclear --- several words too indistinct to be made out]? McMahon (45:13): Ah, my guess was 6 or 8, but the, the consensus of opinion was 2 or 3. Gunn: Hits on Kennedy? McMahon: Yeah. Connally, they said it hit Kennedy and then went into Connally --- ricocheted. Horne: Did they say that that night? Or is this --- McMahon: That, that, that was the --- we, we were just trying to, to get where all the shots of action ---and covered frames from both ends of it.... From page 16 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Gunn (13:18): So, what was it that you observed on the film of the assassination? 26 Horne: Your opinion. McMahon: About eight (8) shots. Gunn: And where did they come from? McMahon: Three different directions, at least. Gunn: Do you remember where --- what the directions were? McMahon: No; but if you have the film --- you can plot vectors. Because you, you can go out --- I'm a photogrammetrist, as well [chuckling] --- [you] go out --- with a --- OK, there's a way to do it, believe me. Gunn: Were you ever asked to do any of that kind of analysis on the --- McMahon: No, no. Gunn: Did you say this at the time that you were looking at the film with the others? McMahon: I wasn't a photogrammatrist at that time [chuckling]. Gunn: No, I understand, but if --- when --- when you --- McMahon: I later, I later worked for Photoscience. This was a photogrammetry [job] --- I was a, a, a [sic] aerial photographer, and I, I did aerial photography for, ah, whatever you want to call it, for mapping, for first, second, [and] third order, ah, survey; and I did that for about twelve years. McMahon (14:38): And --- now, I was a shooter, and that's the only reason I can tell you what I saw, and thought I saw; and it wasn't stereo-vision, it was just intuition. No, I did not agree with the analysis at the time that I was doing the work; but that --- I didn't have to, because I wasn't a photogrammetrist [chuckling], I wasn't, I wasn't asked to do that. Yes, the following is suggestive that there were issues involving the involvement in the analysis of individuals whose identities were still classified at the time of the ARRB in-person interview of McMahon. Something that goes with the landscape involved, the CIA, and spooks, and all that... From page 10 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (37:13): Ah, you just mentioned another chap who may have been involved with briefing boards and photoanalysis --- McMahon: --- and I can't recall his name --- Horne: --- can't recall his name --- McMahon: --- even if I could, I couldn't tell you, because he was young. [Transcriber's note: the witness meant that because this person was a young employee in November of 1963, he might still be "current" or active, in 1997 at the time of the interview, and for that reason he would not divulge his name, even if he remembered it. The CIA culture is very protective of the names of its employees, particularly if they are operating under cover.] [Emphasis not in original] I've seen no indication that the ARRB ever learned the identities of the three NPIC employees you've referenced, and Ben Hunter in fact did indicate that he was assigned to "analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants," and Homer McMahon told the ARRB that he left the facility earlier than Hunter, that Hunter "might have stayed on and helped" with the analysis, and that both he and Hunter recorded calculations on a yellow legal pad (though McMahon and Hunter both denied having any knowledge of the pages containing the LIFE computations): From the 6/17/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Ben Hunter: ...He said that the assigned task was to analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants. He recalled laying the home movie out on a light table and using a loupe to examine individual frames. [Emphasis not in original] From page 9 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (35:33): Ah --- now, the, the mounting on the briefing boards, and the, the photointerpretation, so to speak --- I was not involved in, OK --- Horne: OK 16 McMahon: --- and, I think I went home. Heh, but Smith probably went to another --- it's not even a vaulted area, it's a finishing room upstairs. Horne: Ah, did you and Mr. Hunter stop work at about the same time, or do you recall? McMahon: Well, he might have stayed on and helped, but, ah, there was another chap that probably was involved in that work, and it probably was done by the other chap, not --- and I'm sure Bill Smith.... [Emphasis not in original] But when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize the three legal pad pages of timing analysis data that are arguably associated with the 12/6/1963 LIFE article. I don't see how you can justify just ignoring this fact: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] From pages 18-20 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon, with images of the documents being discussed: Horne (22:39): OK, we're back on the record. And from Record Group 233, Flat 90A, at the Archives, I have pulled out, ah, document ID number 1993.07.22.08:41:07:620600, titled "Analysis of Zapruder Film." Ah, the document date on the RIF [Record Identification Form] is 5-22-1975; and I'm now going to hand these, ah, notes to Mr. McMahon and let him read them and tell us whether he's seen them before. Please take your time. McMahon (24:35): [Witness examines documents for a considerable period of time --- a total of five pages, with one page a half-sheet, having writing on both sides.] Some of the writing is mine; I don't know whose this is. Horne: And by "this" --- ah, this page here, sir? McMahon: I don't know whose that is. Horne: OK, the page that we're not sure about is the page with 3 shot scenarios --- ah, one, one [shot scenario] is labeled: "LIFE magazine," and then the [other] two [are labeled] "other possibilities," OK. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: OK, the one that Mr. McMahon has identified as his writing is on the back side of a half- - 18 - page, and the back side reads: "shoot internegatives, one-and-a-half hours; process and dry internegatives, two hours; print test, one hour; make three prints," [it] looks like, the 'each' sign [that is, the symbol "@" follows the phrase "make three prints," and precedes the time duration of "one hour; process and dry prints, one-and-a-half hours;" for a total of "seven hours." McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Below that, there are some --- that's in pencil /meaning the time duration for the creation of internegatives and prints discussed above] --- below that there are some blue ink, ah, long divisions and additions. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: And those [the arithmetic calculations in blue ink] are also your writing? McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Also the pencil? McMahon: Yes. Horne: OK, could you explain what that --- well, what are the long divisions and additions, do you recall what those are? McMahon: [Sighing] Idiot marks --- I don't know what they --- it's my writing, I think. Horne: OK McMahon: No, wait --- wait a minute --- I think it's my --- it's either mine or Ben's. Horne: OK McMahon: And, have you got Ben's handwriting? Horne: I, I can show you one section on these notes that he recalled was his handwriting, ah, if you'd like, and then I can ask you that --- McMahon: This --- this looks like Ben's handwriting, here. Horne: OK, and now you are looking at the other side of the half-sheet --- McMahon: This looks like my writing here --- Horne: --- OK, the other side of the half-sheet, which is a description of the four (4) briefing board panels, and when you said it looked like Ben's writing you were pointing at the, the pencil: "Panel I, Panel II, Panel III, Panel IV." [Transcriber's note: these are column headers on the short half-sheet; and below each column header there are two sub-columns, listing print numbers, and corresponding frame numbers, for the prints mounted on each briefing board panel.] McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Ben identified for us, right below that, ah, the printing: "print #" and "frame #" --- these, these two marks here are the only two that he thought were his writing, right here, in [pointing] --- which are underneath the column labeled "Panel I." McMahon (27:01): Mmm-hmmm. This is in --- this looks like Ben's writing, to what I ... [now, suddenly focusing on the bottom of the half-sheet] this looks like my writing. Horne: And your writing, ah, would be, ah, at the bottom of the half page, where we're, we're talking about frame numbers and time between shots. [Transcriber's note: the writing referred to here is found at the bottom of the front of the half-sheet, the side containing the content descriptions for the four briefing board panels.] - 19 - McMahon: This is --- yeah --- and, I'm not sure about this --- this looks like mine, and this looks like mine. Horne: OK, so the, ah --- McMahon: Ah --- Horne (27:33): --- just for the record, the descriptions of how long it took to make internegatives and prints are Mr. McMahon's writing. McMahon (27:54): This is not mine. Horne: OK, Mr. McMahon is now looking at the page, ah, [wherein] the top half says, "at 18 frames per second;" the bottom half [reads] "at 16 frames per second;" and he has just said that --- McMahon: This is not mine. Horne: --- that is not his writing. McMahon: OK, and, this is not my writing --- and now, that might have been Ben Hunter's writing. Horne: This next page that is not Mr. McMahon's writing is a page which, in the upper right-hand corner, reads: "Questions from the 8 mm film --- how do they know exact frames of first and second shot?" Question --- McMahon: OK, we didn't know --- we were told what they thought they were; and this is what we were told they thought they were; and this is what we concluded they were; and this is what we set the photography team [unclear]. Ah [that's the] best I can do for ya. Gunn (28:57): Do you remember when you prepared the notes that we just examined? McMahon: Yeah, we were in a briefing room, ah, in building 213 in the Navy Yard. And, it was --- we were viewing it there because of the equipment. Gunn: So they --- these were made on the day then that you --- [were] processing --- McMahon: Yes, this is when we --- these are fairly accurate timing shots --- tim -- -the way that, that it, that we timed it. The 16 frames per second --- I, I don't know whether I agree on the 18 --- it might have been 18 frames per second. This might have been a further analysis. Gunn: Do you know whether somebody else was preparing other notes that you don't recognize, at that time, or were they made later [unclear]? McMahon: Ah, they, they conform to my best recollection of, of what we wrote on, that's all I know. I don't know why I remembered that. Horne: By that you mean the yellow, legal-sized paper? McMahon: Yeah. See above. There were three sheets that McMahon did not recognize. The LIFE computations sheet, the sheet with 18 FPS at the top and 16 FPS in the middle, and the sheet directly above that mentions LIFE magazine on the top left side. These are all of the sheets that have anything to do with the 12/6/1963 LIFE article, and this combined with the other disclaimers of McMahon and Hunter has great probative value and is entitled to significant evidentiary weight. Hunter's opinion that McMahon had a good memory is one of the reasons why I suspect that after his first ARRB telephonic interview, McMahon was either advised or decided himself to throw a poison pill into the mix, deliberately sabotaging the credibility of his account. I'd like further substantiation of his dementia/alcoholism claims... You are grasping at straws, Mr. Gram. There is zero evidence that the LIFE computations have anything to do with McMahon and Hunter's briefing board session, and a good deal of affirmative evidence that they don't. I'm aware of no transcript of Ben Hunter's ARRB interview, and I'd be interested in seeing specific examples from you in support of your contention that "McMahon’s actual transcript, which you provided, reveals a lot of relevant information that was not reported by Horne in the summary report."

Mr. Gram, you seem to be placing an enormous amount of emphasis on Doug Horne's speculation about the significance of the sheet of timing analysis data that appears to rely upon the 12/6/1963 LIFE article of Paul Mandel that was turned over to the Rockefeller Commission by the CIA in 1975, characterizing it as "documentary evidence" cited by "Doug Horne, himself" that the second NPIC briefing board session could not have taken place until after Paul Mandel's article was published by LIFE on 12/6/1963. The speculation of Doug Horne you are relying upon was made in memos written by Horne prior to the ARRB's discovery of the NPIC employees who conducted the second briefing board session, Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and the subsequent interviews of the two men which resulted in Horne reassessing and amending his earlier speculation because both McMahon and Hunter attested that the NPIC briefing board session had taken place the weekend of the assassination prior to the funeral of the President AND both men, after having been shown the timing analysis in question, had specifically disclaimed producing it, and stated they had never seen it before. The timing analysis in question is as follows: And as Doug Horne would point out again in 2009, on page 1208 of his Inside the Records Review Board, the significance of the timing analysis in relation to the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article is as follows: But the problem with using the above as "documentary evidence" that the second briefing board session at NPIC did not take place until after 12/6/1963 is that when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize that particular sheet of timing analysis data: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] Below, please find the original ARRB Meeting Reports for Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, containing the above referenced passages (and with indications highlighted that they were working with what they believed to be the camera-original Zapruder film under the supervision of the Secret Service during the weekend of the assassination at NPIC):

The following file contains the ARRB Homer McMahon interviews of 6/12/1997 and 7/14/1997, and the ARRB Ben Hunter interviews of 6/17/1997 and 6/26/1997 (I was unable to locate the ARRB joint interview of McMahon and Hunter dated 8/14/1997): https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10336-10024.pdf Transcript of ARRB Staff Interview of Homer A. McMahon (Former CIA/NPIC Employee) conducted on July 14, 1997 at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. Interviewers: Douglas P. Horne and T. Jeremy Gunn. (Transcribed by Douglas Horne in May 2012): https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf Pages 1220-1226 of Volume IV of Doug Horne's self-published book, Inside the Records Review Board (2009), containing summaries and analysis of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter ARRB interviews follows:

Mr. Bojczuk, you state that David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) is the "definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film, but in light of the issues Doug Horne raises with the book in pages 1226-1230 of Volume IV of his self-published book, Inside the Records Review Board (2009), it is difficult to take this claim seriously. Horne documents a series of misrepresentations and omissions made by Wrone concerning the critical subject of the evidence of a broken chain of custody of the camera-original Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination, and even demonstrates that Wrone's criticisms of the ARRB interviews of NPIC's Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter (which Wrone misrepresents as instead being the claims of Doug Horne himself) contradicted evidence Wrone presented earlier in his book concerning his (Wrone's) interview of Dino Brugioni which, unbeknownst to Wrone, had established that Brugioni had made briefing boards using the camera-original Zapruder film at NPIC during the weekend of the assassination. Starting at the top of page 1229 (see below), Horne points out that Wrone, on page 125 of The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, recited the findings of an interview he had conducted of Dino Brugioni on May 12, 2003, duringh which Brugioni had recounted that the Secret Service had presented the Zapruder film to him in 8mm format, and that Brugioni had to wake a local merchant to requisition an 8mm projector, because NPIC did not possess one to show the film. Wrone evidently did not realize the significance of this: The copies of the Zapruder film were in 16mm format, and it was only the camera-original film that was in 8mm format. When Doug Horne would himself interview Dino Brugioni on film six years later, Brugioni would tell him the same story about getting a local merchant to open his store late at night so that NPIC could requisition an 8mm projector, as follows: When Peter Janney and Doug Horne conducted their interviews of Dino Brugioni six years later, they discovered that Brugioni had led an entirely different briefing board session than the one described by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter that had been so completely compartmentalized that the two separate crews had no knowledge of the other briefing board session, and David Wrone completely missed this, and simply conflated the two briefing board sessions into one. David Wrone had stumbled across the definitive evidence that the Zapruder film that was at the NPIC the evening of Saturday, November 23, 1963, was in fact the camera original Zapruder film, and yet he completely failed to realize its implications. David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) is therefore anything but the "definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film." That this article is extremely biased and one sided is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that it provides links to every significant anti-alteration article and website available, but fails to mention or provide a link to the best source of information about the two NPIC events available on the web: "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" by Douglas P. Horne https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/ And that, for example, it includes a link to Rollie Zavada's response to Doug Horne, and fails to include a link to Doug Horne's reply to Zavada's response: DOUG HORNE'S 5/29/2010 RESPONSE TO ROLLIE ZAVADA'S CRITIQUE OF 'CHAPTER 14: THE ZAPRUDER FILM MYSTERY' OF "INSIDE THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD" https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/4900.html

They've both forgotten more than you will ever know...

I don't have the lone nutter predilection for the battle cry of the Ostrich that you have with regard to such serious issues, Mr. Cohen; and though I have not directly screened the film at the Wilkinson/Whitehead home myself, I have seen the film; have read all of the available information about it and the issues involved; I trust the accounts given by researchers who did attend those screenings such as Jim DiEugenio, Dr. David Mantik Doug Horne and others; and I find same to be completely credible. That you know nothing about any of this tells me that you yourself -- who constantly posts claims about what a world-renowned researcher you think you are -- have never even had the slightest clue about the existence of the highly significant work that Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead have contributed to JFKA research concerning the Zapruder film. It's high time that you pull your head out of the sand and hit the books, don't you think, Mr. Cohen?

Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead on many occasions opened their home for JFKA researchers for screenings of the film and to share their data over a decade ago when their journey first began, and in more recent years they have taken their documentary to JFKA conferences and shown it to audiences. I think the snap judgments you are making about them and a supposed lack of transparency are completely unwarranted, and drawn from a state of ignorance more than anything else. This is a Facebook address at which Thom Whitehead can be reached: https://www.facebook.com/thom.whitehead.3 Before you continue on with your disparagement of Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead, I suggest you contact them and express interest in screening the film and seeing their data. I have no reason to believe that they wouldn't be perfectly happy to do so, and neither do you. And that goes for you too @Benjamin Cole.

The analyses will become available once Wilkinson and Whitehead have surmounted the hurdles your friends at the Sixth Floor Museum are deploying in an effort to prevent them from publishing their documentary, Alteration, which I am confident they eventually will. And as for "blather," the blather that seems to be repeated so often by the two finger wonders who can do no better than type a few critical lines on this forum, without ever providing any evidence, is to throw around the name Zavada, a Kodak chemist who was neither qualified nor commissioned by the ARRB to perform content analysis of the Zapruder film. All that Zavada was qualified to do was confirm that the extant "original" Zapruder film used Kodak film product, which of course it does, as Hawkeyeworks was a joint CIA/Kodak facility. Zavada would later go beyond his ARRB mandate and privately attempted to perform content analysis of the Zapruder film, but he simply never had the needed expertise and qualifications to do so. With regard to frame 317 of the Zapruder film, even Rollie Zavada has acknowledged the black patch and conceded that "...it certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration...." Again, note that Rollie Zavada is not and never claimed to be an expert on film alteration or cinematography. Zavada was a Kodak employee with expertise in Kodachrome II film, and thus is not qualified to evaluate the Zapruder film for content falsification, and the ARRB mandate that Zavada presented to Zavada did not include "content analysis" for which he is not qualified. Zavada authenticated that the extant Zapruder film is on Kodak Kodachrome II film -- which is no surprise given that Hawkeyeworks was a joint CIA/Kodak facility -- and then went beyond his expertise to claim that the film had not been altered. But as you can see below, even Rollie Zavada, viewing an inferior copy of Z-317, admitted that the black patch looks like an alteration, but not being an expert in film alteration, simply said he refused to believe it because he hadn't seen evidence of how it could have been done.... "It certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration. But I haven't seen evidence of how it was done, so I refuse to believe it." Having no expertise in film alteration whatsoever he resorted to blind faith in a sacred cow instead of following the evidence wherever it leads -- even though the Heavens may fall... But the Hollywood professionals enlisted by Wilkenson and Whitehead, who are genuinely true and tried experts in cinematography, are qualified to perform content analysis, and their conclusions are that the extant "original" Zapruder film is not authentic: -------------------------------------------------------------- DOUG HORNE TAKES ROLLIE ZAVADA TO TASK OVER ZAPRUDER FRAME 317 [THE BLACK PATCH SUPERIMPOSED OVER JFK'S OCCIPITAL BLOW OUT WOUND]: https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html "...In the breakout session, when Josiah Thompson asked him to display the controversial frame 317 and comment on whether the black object covering the rear of JFK's head was a natural shadow or evidence of alteration, Rollie [Zavada] put up the slide (a very dark, muddy image of 317 with much contrast present---an image greatly inferior to the Hollywood scans of the forensic copy), and then said words to the effect: "It certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration. But I haven't seen evidence of how it was done, so I refuse to believe it." [This is very close to a verbatim quote---guaranteed to be accurate in its substance.] I and several others, including Leo Zahn of Hollywood, then suggested---demanded, actually---that Rollie display ALL of frame 317---not just the portion showing JFK's head. When this slide was finally displayed, I asked everyone present in the room what explanation those who were against alteration had for the extreme difference in density between the shadow on Governor Connally's head, and the extremely dense and dark (almost D-max) "anomaly" on JFK's head in that same frame. The two so-called "shadows" have absolutely no relation or similarity to each other, yet both men were photographed in the same frame, at the same instant in time, on the same planet, with the same light source (i.e., the sun). The ensuing silence was more profound than that inside the whale that swallowed Jonah. Rollie and Tink had no explanation for this. Nor does anyone else, who believes that the Zapruder film is an unaltered film. The most reasonable, and currently the only known explanation for this paradox in frame 317, is alteration---the blacking out of the true exit wound on the back of JFK's head in that frame, and in many others, with crude animation...." 'JOSIAH THOMPSON AND ROLLIE ZAVADA AT JFK LANCER: A CRITICAL REPORT' by Douglas P. Horne, author of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html

As I predicted, Mr. Cohen, you don't understand or agree with the method that our civilization has designated as the means by which questions of fact and authenticity are ultimately decided. Authentication relies upon the testimony of expert witnesses, and if you don't like that, you can take it up with the legislature. I also predict that you will not understand, and will not agree with the fact that Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead's 6k scans of the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film that they purchased from the National Archives have resolution that is superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" film (struck directly from the extant "original" Zapruder film) because of the differences between logarithmic vs. linear color: And why are Wilkinson and Whitehead's 6k scans superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" stills? The answer has to do with the distinction between and utility of logarithmic color versus standard colorization. The scratches and mold that you can see on the film are because the 6k scans were made in log color. Sydney Wilkinson explained this to Doug Horne in a letter that he read while being interviewed on the 1/7/2019 Midnight Writer News, Episode 107, https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-107-douglas-horne-on-the-zapruder-film-alteration-debate/ , as follows: ---------------------------------------------------- SYDNEY WILKINSON WROTE: "Our scans show everything in the frame, the good, the bad, and the ugly." By that they mean the scratches and the mold on the film. They wrote "There is so much detail that individual grains of 8mm film stock are evident in the 6k logarithmic scans. It's hardly pretty, but the images are glaringly sharp. That is why we see all the scratches, mold, dirt, stains, and other film anomalies. Linear color is what we view on our TVs and computers, the color looks right to us. The versions of the Zapruder film we see on television documentaries or DVDs like "Images of an Assassination" sold in 1998 or on YouTube have been cleaned up and color corrected. Much of the scratches, dirt, mold, etc., have been removed along with color correcting each scene to create a much richer looking element. The processes used to do this can be grueling and take a long time depending upon how much money and how much time the producers want to spend on it. But we did not want to make our images look prettier. We did not want to touch anything because our goal was to conduct a forensic scientific study of the film. We wanted to see what was really there in every frame not what might have been hidden or obscured by cleaning or color correcting. So logarithmic color, or log color for short, is what professionals use when coming from or going to film because it brings out much more detail in blacks and mid-blacks by stretching the blacks into grays. However, without color correction, which we have not done, the image looks a little washed out, but the amount of information in the blacks is substantially increased. The primary reason we want log color space was to see all the information in the shadows, and what we saw was astounding. If our transfer was linear color we never would have seen the patch on the back of the head in frame 317 or it would have looked like a shadow. Most importantly, log shadow space does not make a shadow look like a patch." ---------------------------------------------------- And here are some additional technical details from Sydney Wilkinson which others who are genuinely interested in this subject may find useful: "...A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR 35MM DUPLICATE NEGATIVE OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM (SW) In 2008, my partner (and husband), Thom Whitehead, sold our startup editing company to Deluxe Film Labs. Thom was hired to oversee their newly created editorial department in Burbank, and I chose a new path. After spending over twenty years in sales and development in the post-production industry, I was ready for a new challenge. I have been interested in the JFK assassination history for decades. In 1978, I spent a memorable college semester in Washington, D.C., working as a congressional intern and studying the activities of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). One of the key subjects that piqued my interest was the iconic Zapruder film. In 2008, I rekindled my interest and began to read about the film with a renewed vigor. I was surprised to discover there were serious concerns about its authenticity. Most notably, there had never been a truly independent, forensic, imaging study---one that was not connected to a government or private entity. It suddenly dawned on me that I might have a golden opportunity to delve deeper into the film imagery by utilizing the resources of Deluxe Labs92--one of the largest and most prestigious professional film labs in history. We knew they would allow us to use any/all of their state-of-the-art film and digital technology. Additionally, considering that Thom and I had spent years working with the top film restoration and post-production experts in the world, I felt confident we would be able to solicit their professional, unbiased guidance. With the absolute best technology and talent available at the time, all we needed was the best possible film element to study. In November 2008, we purchased a 35mm duplicate negative (dupe neg) of the "forensic version' of the Zapruder "camera original" 8 mm film housed at NARA. It is a US government authorized and certified, third generation film copy. To our surprise, and to the best of our knowledge (as of 2018), it is the only third generation 35mm dupe neg acquired for the purpose of an independent, expert evaluation since NARA made such elements available to the public in 2003. The following is a brief timeline of the steps I had to take to acquire our 35 mm dupe neg from NARA. It took eight months, and they certainly did not make it convenient, or cost effective in 2008. I hope they have simplified the process since then. According to NARA, the film element used to complete my transfer was their 35mm Intermediate (or "reproduction") copy, which is an interpositive,97 silent, color film descended from the direct blow-up 35mm Internegative. NARA considered it to be a "preservation master." At that time, they offered two versions to the public: (1) a "forensic” version--a 35mm, direct optical blow-up Internegative (without any image improvement) from Zapruder's 8mm camera "original,"98 and (2) a “de-scratched" version--a 35mm film element that has been "cleaned up" to look visually appealing. The latter effectively removes dirt and scratches via "a diffused light source in analog printing instead of using a traditional wet-gate method.99 We chose the forensic version because we wanted to work with unadulterated images--as close to the "original" as possible--where nothing had been done to enhance or improve them in any way. TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF OUR 6K SCANS (SW) We scanned our 35mm dupe neg directly to 6k files using a Northlight film scanner. At the time, the Northlight scanner was instrumental in the production of Hollywood films and was considered state-of-the-art technology in post­ production.100 It created digital files from the optical image of a film. Great care was accorded to this process in a post-production environment because the introduction of any artifacts or discontinuities could ruin the day for a film director or director of photography. The digital file that is created must replicate exactly the image on the film and reveal all the information present on each film frame. Due to the relatively small size of the original 8mm Zapruder film (when viewing the entire 35 mm frame on the dupe neg) we decided to scan at Northlight’s maximum available scan size of 6k. The 6k refers to a size of 6144 x 4668 pixels with an effective size of 114.7 Mb of digital data per frame. To put this into perspective, a home HDTV only presents 1920 x 1080 pixels with about 9.7 Mb per frame. Therefore, our scans have more than ten times the resolution and data size as an HD television image. This additional resolution allowed us to electronically zoom into the image without any apparent loss of detail or fidelity. Finally, we could see down to the grain of the 8mm film with complete sharpness and detail--including all of the inter-sprocket and edge areas. As far as we know, the Zapruder film had never been reproduced or studied at this level of digital resolution. Another important aspect of our scanning process was the use of logarithmic color space, rather than linear color space. This is critical because the use of logarithmic color allows all the color information of the image to be present in the scans, preserving all of the highlight and shadow information. Linear color is what we are accustomed to seeing on TV and computer screens. Although linear color looks correct/normal and lifelike to our eyes, very bright and dark areas of the image must be "clipped" in order to make the majority of the image appear correctly. Logarithmic color, although looking to the untrained eye as "muddy" or "flat," is actually the best way to retain all of the color information in the film. Finally we used the film industry standard "DPX" (Digital Picture eXchange)101 format to allow easy transfers between various professional workstations. One of the state-of-the-art workstations we continue to use is an Autodesk product called Smoke.102..." https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30150-the-logic-of-zapruder-film-alteration/page/7/#comment-528713

Actually, there is the expert testimony and analyses that your friends over at the Sixth Floor Museum are working so hard to keep concealed from the American people... You may not understand this, and obviously you will not agree with it, but it is through exactly this type of expert testimony that the chief arbitrers of our civilization decide such issues of fact and authentication, courts of law, and in that context your particular point of view is utterly meaningless, and means absolutely nothing. These experts are telling you that the D-max black hexagon shaped patch with sharp edges that you are so convinced is a natural shadow wouldn't even fool a 12-year-old. Let that sink in... https://www.fff.org/2023/08/16/the-evidence-that-convicts-the-cia-of-the-jfk-assassination-part-4/ "...In my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, I include a partial transcript of an interview of Rutan and Smith, both of whom closely examined a high-quality copy of the extant Zapruder film — that is, the film that is in the National Archives that is purported to be the original film but that is actually the altered, fraudulent copy of the film that the CIA secretly produced at its top-secret Hawkeyeworks facility in Rochester, New York. I was fortunate to be able to include a portion of that interview in my book. The interview was conducted by Thom Whitehead, a Hollywood television and feature-film mastering editor specializing in motion pictures. The interview was conducted as part of a documentary on the Zapruder film that is being produced by Whitehead and his colleague Sydney Wilkinson. Douglas Horne, the author of the watershed book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board and who served on the staff of the ARRB, requested permission from Whitehead and Wilkinson to include a portion of the interview in my book, and they graciously agreed. As far as I know, my book is the first and only place where that portion of the interview has been published. Rutan and Smith The following are excerpts from the partial transcript of that interview that I included in my book: Smith: .…Now, as to my credibility, thirty-seven years in the movie business, I’m not sure how much lower you can go than that; and [I] just got done with nearly twenty-five years at Paramount, where I basically ran their mastering for most of those years and spent the last few years investigating new digital production technology. Rutan: [I’ve] been doing this since 1968, I was delivering film in New York City; and then full time from ’74 I got hired to work for my Dad, and I worked for him for 12 years — started out as janitor, and then shipping, and then film cleaning, and then film repair, and then optical lineup, and then optical printing. So, ever since then I’ve worked for a couple of companies, set up a department at COMPAC video, and I had my own company for 14 years doing restoration. Whitehead: Do you see any signs of alteration? Rutan: Yes. Whitehead: Where do you see them? Rutan: Well [speaking while pointing at frame 313 on a large HD monitor], in the — this explosion right here doesn’t look, it’s, see [pointing] — it’s got defects on it — but it just doesn’t look real, it doesn’t look like blood, it just doesn’t look real…. Rutan: I think you’re looking at a patch, at a photographic patch that they put on the back of his [JFK’s] head. It’s crude, but if you run the film you’ll see that it moves — differently than his head does, as well. So, it’s an optical, some sort of an optical [effect] that they put on there, to not show the back of his head. Whitehead: In your opinion, what do you think would have been the most likely way this would have been accomplished? Rutan: With an optical printer, with an aerial optical printer…. Rutan: Well, the only thing I can see really is how predominant the black patch is in this particular frame [pointing]. I mean, it’s clear to me that that is not the back of his head, that that is some kind of a [sic] optical effect, that has been laid on the back of his head by an optical house. And this [pointing at the large pink “blob” on the right side of JFK’s head] is also an optical effect. But the back of his head is what always — what I’m always drawn to, because you — it’s almost like he’s wearing a toupee, because there’s the top of his head [pointing at JFK’s auburn hair on the very top of his head] and that’s basically the color it should be, and then it’s black, it’s just solid black. Smith: You know, the density doesn’t match — the shoulders don’t match that [meaning that the shadow on the back of JFK’s shoulders does not match the black patch on the back of his head] and [the black patch] doesn’t match the top of his head [pointing to JFK’s auburn colored hair on top]…. Smith: It just seems really obvious that the frames where they’ve matted out the back of the head, and added in the pink splash, the pink water-balloon — whatever it is that’s supposed to be the blood — it’s just not even believable … maybe fifty years ago that might have passed muster, but for anybody — I mean — my impression is if I showed it to a 12-year old kid, they would say it was a cartoon…."

In the context of the JFK assassination and other crimes perpetrated by the United States Government, absolutely yes, we should be skeptical of what is claimed to be "hard evidence," such as in the cases of photographic and autopsy report evidence in particular, and even just as skeptical when there is an absence of evidence as the result of government concealment. If all is on the up and up with the involvement of the CIA's NPIC and Hawkeyeworks with the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination then there should be absolutely no problem with releasing each and every item of evidence that pertains to those particular sojourns of the film, right? Dr. David Mantik puts it much more aptly in the following abstract of his article entitled JFK Assassination Paradoxes: A Primer for Beginners: "In the 54 years since November 22, 1963, numerous paradoxes in the JFK assassination have been exposed. Many of these relate to the autopsy, which was performed that same evening. Because of my life in medicine, this review focuses mostly on the medical evidence. These paradoxes are so profound (and remain officially unanswered) that the chief conclusion is inescapable: Critical primary evidence items cannot be authentic. This review identifies specific altered evidence. Most supporters of the Warren Commission (WC) fail to acknowledge this corruption of the data base. The disingenuous acceptance of this evidence has led to the misperception that the case is still a mystery. However, once specific items are recognized as fraudulent, it becomes clear that the corrupted evidence was not accidental—and the overall features of the case (for conspiracy) emerge with surprising clarity." 'JFK ASSASSINATION PARADOXES: A PRIMER FOR BEGINNERS' Journal of Health Science & Education | David W. Mantik, MD https://escires.com/articles/Health-1-126.pdf Mantik DW (2018) JFK Assassination Paradoxes: A Primer for Beginners. J Health Sci Educ 2: 126.