Was Muchmore’s film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on November 26, 1963?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

[Paul Rigby]

To commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, the Columbia Journalism Review exhumed from its archives Maurice W. Schonfeld’s

The Shadow of a Gunman: An account of a twelve-year investigation of a Kennedy assassination film

The author, managing editor of UPI Newsfilm, the film service of United Press International, at the time President Kennedy was killed, had added a second Epilogue, dated 22 November 2011, to a piece originally published in the Review’s combined July-August 1975 issue. The update’s penultimate paragraph, containing a fascinating tit-bit which I’ve highlighted, ran as follows:

Originally, UPI Newsfilm had blown the Muchmore film up to 16mm, slow-moed it, stop-motioned it and delivered prints with scripts to all its clients. The original was turned over to the UPI still picture service, which sent frames from it to its clients. It later cut into the film to print other stills for inclusion in its best-selling book on the day of the assassination. The film was never fully restored.

This was compelling and, seemingly, due to the source, definitive: The original Muchmore had ceased to exist as a film no later than late-December 1963, and for many years after that, with the publication of the joint UPI-American Heritage Magazine commemorative work, Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy, a work, it should be noted, of quite astonishing tedium.

It was also quite surprising, as according to the FBI in February 1964, based on conversations the previous day with senior people in UPI rather well-placed to know, the original was still intact, and residing happily in a New York bank vault, a full two months after being cut up.

Sometimes I really don’t know which is the more remarkable – those slippery media types, or the strange assassination films which passed through their hands.

[Paul Rigby]

Dan Rather, CBS Radio interview, 25 November 1963:

"I…have just returned from seeing a…a movie…the President's open black automobile…made a turn, a left turn off of Houston Street in Dallas onto Elm Street…as the car completed the turn…,"

Richard Trask. Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (Danvers, Ma: Yeoman Press, 1994), pp.86-87.

As US television coverage of President Kennedy’s funeral demonstrated beyond peradventure, few things are more injurious to rational enquiry than a scheme of state mourning (1). Or, for that matter, more tedious: By the conclusion of CBS’s live-feed from the country’s capitol, official mourning’s staples – in no particular order, sententiousness, pedantry, and lugubriousness, to name but three - had not merely triumphed, but taken human shape, by name George Herman, to whom fell the thankless task of commentating on the arrival of the country-delegations at the White House, via the North West Gate, there to pay respects to the widow within (2). Even the shadowy, fleeting shots of Pennsylvania Avenue traffic were more interesting.

Like all bad things, mercifully, this coverage came to an end, and viewers were, in an instant of casual television magic, once more back in a New York studio and in the marginally less bromidic presence of Walter Cronkite. Here, things swiftly took an unexpected turn for the more interesting, as I recently discovered when viewing, not before time, some mislaid DVDs I bought a couple of years ago, each of them containing an extended segment of CBS television’s output on Monday, November 25, 1963. The DVD coverage extends to, rough guess (3), no later than about 1630hrs (EST), but it nevertheless proved sufficient to shed revealing light on the heroic labours of both Larry Dunkel (for the uninitiated, aka “Gary Mack,” the curator of Dallas’ Sixth Floor Museum), and Richard B. Trask, two stalwarts of the anti-alterationist camp.

Dunkel, it will be recalled, had, in a late August 1980 edition of Penn Jones’ probing organ, The Continuing Inquiry, damned Dan Rather with a manuscript of the latter’s only television description of the Zapruder film, “aired at 6:30pm (EST)” in the course of “CBS Evening News,” on November 25. Dunkel knew it was the only such television description as a direct consequence, presumably, of his “studies,” about which he about he boasted in the paragraph preceding the transcript, and which were of such a comprehensive and vigilant nature as to compel a scathing denunciation of the CBS man’s efforts. “There are,” Dunkel boomed, “at least eight significant errors in Rather’s description” (4). So many, perish the heretical thought, that it was almost as if Rather had viewed a different, and earlier, version of the Zapruder film.

One man similarly determined to banish all such non-conformist nonsense, albeit a quarter of a century later, was Richard B. Trask, whose National Nightmare on six feet of film: Mr. Zapruder’s home movie and the murder of President Kennedy (Danvers, Mass: Yeomen Press, 2005) sought not to belabour Rather but instead, somewhat ambitiously, to reintegrate Rather’s multiple faux-pas into a all-new meta-narrative of authenticity, in part by the addition of another Rather transcript, that of the reporter’s earlier radio description of the Zapruder film, as furnished to Hughes Rudd and Richard C. Hotelett (5). This transcript was sourced to the papers of another indefatigable upholder of the authenticity of assassination films and stills, Richard E. Sprague (6).

There was, it should be noted, an interesting, if unacknowledged, shift in accounting from Dunkel to Trask. Where Dunkel insisted upon one Rather television description, but permitted the possibility of more than one radio version (7), Trask acknowledged he wasn’t sure how many descriptions had been offered – but then proceeded as if there was one and only one description on each medium (8). The truth proved more Trask, than Dunkel, but neither emerge with any credit, as will become clear.

In fact, as I established from the vantage point of a desk several thousand miles away, unfettered by the meagre resources of the Sixth Floor Museum, Rather had not one, but two goes at summarizing the film within 25 minutes of the cessation of CBS’ funeral coverage, with less than 9 minutes separating the attempts. The effect of such rapid quasi-repetition was dizzying - and profoundly suspicious. Indeed, one man who appears to have found it both was Walter Cronkite: In apparent response to a piece of paper landing on his desk instructing him of the imminent return to Dallas for Rather’s second shy at the target, he became notably discombobulated as he read the news item immediately preceding the reprise.

So to the text of Rather’s first televised description of the Zapruder film. It occurred sometime between 3:45pm and 4:15pm (EST), occupied just under 6 minutes of air-time, and comprised a tad over 700 words:

Walter Cronkite: Let’s go to Dallas now for developments there today.

Dan Rather: We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination and the shooting of Texas Governor John Connally. Here is what the motion picture shows.

The automobile, the black Lincoln convertible, with the top down - carrying, in the front seat, two secret service agents; in the middle, or jump seat, the Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy – made a turn off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street. This was a left turn and was made right in front of the building from which the assassin’s bullet was fired.

After making the turn, and going about 35 yards from the corner of the building – six stories up in which the assassin had a window open – and keep in mind here that President Kennedy and Governor Connally are seated on, both on the same side of the car, on the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally are on the side of the car away from the assassin.

About 35 yards from the base of the building, President Kennedy, in the film, put his hand up to the right side of his face, the side facing the assassin. He seemingly wanted to brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow. Mrs. Kennedy at this moment was looking away, or looking straight ahead. She was not looking at her husband.

At that moment, when the President had his right hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurched just a bit forward. It was obvious that the shot had hit him. Mrs. Kennedy was not looking at him, nor did she appear to know at that instant that her husband had been hit.

Governor Connally, in the seat immediately in front of the President, apparently either heard the shot or sensed that something was wrong because, Governor Connally, with his coat open, his button was undone, turned in this manner (turns back to his right with right arm extended), his hand outstretched, back toward the President; and the Governor had a look on his face that would indicate he perhaps was saying “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or “Can I help?” or something. But as Governor Connally was turned this way, his white shirt front exposed well to the view of the assassin, the Governor was obviously hit by a bullet, and he fell over to the side.

Governor Connally’s wife, immediately, seemingly instantaneously, placed herself over her husband in a protective position, it appeared; and as Governor Connally fell back, President Kennedy was still leaned over. At that moment another bullet obviously hit the head of the President. The President’s head went forward, violently, in this manner (gestures). Mrs. Kennedy, at that instant, seemed to be looking right-square at her husband. She stood up. The President slumped over to the side and, I believe, brushed against Mrs. Kennedy’s dress.

Mrs. Kennedy immediately turned and flung herself on the trunk of the automobile, face-down on the trunk, almost on all-fours. The First Lady appeared to be either frantically trying to get the secret service man who was riding on the bumper of the car - the single secret service man riding on that bumper - to come into the car or to tell him what had happened; or perhaps, from the picture, it appeared she might have been trying to get out of the car some way.

The car never stopped. The secret service man in the front seat had a telephone in his hand. The car…its acceleration increased rapidly and it disappeared under an underpass. Three shots - the first one hitting President Kennedy, the second one hitting Governor Connally, the third one hitting the President – consume, possibly, five seconds. Not much more than that, if any.

That is the scene shown in about twenty seconds of film that the FBI has in its possession. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who was in a very advantageous position, and who had his camera trained on the President’s car from the time it made the turn in front of the assassin until it disappeared on its way to the hospital.

This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

Walter Cronkite: A most remarkable story.

Quite; and about to get a little more remarkable.

So to Rather’s second take, offered, as noted above, a full less-than-nine-minutes later. This was a superficially pithier affair, markedly so in time (5 minutes 20 seconds, give or take), less so in word-count (688). The shift in emphasis is most obvious at the end. Repeat after me: the limousine never stopped...

Walter Cronkite: Let’s go Back now to Dallas and Dan Rather.

Dan Rather: We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments immediately preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination.

The motion picture shows the limousine carrying: in the front seat, two secret service men; in the middle, or jump seat, Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy; a single secret service man standing on the back bumper; the top of the black Lincoln convertible down.

The car made a turn, a left turn, off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street, on the fringe of Dallas’ down-town area; that turn made directly below the sixth floor window from which the assassin’s bullets came.

After the left turn was completed, the automobile, with only one car in front of it - a secret service car immediately in front – the President’s car proceeded about 35 yards from the base of the building in which the assassin was.

President Kennedy and Governor Connally were seated on the same side of the open car, the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally on the side of the car opposite the assassin.

President Kennedy is clearly shown to put his right hand up to the side of his face as if to either brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow. Mrs. Kennedy at that instant is looking away, and is not looking at the President.

At almost that instant, when the President has his hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurches forward something in this manner (gestures): The first shot had hit him. Mrs. Kennedy appeared not to notice. Governor Connally, in the seat right in front of the President – by the way, the Governor had his suit coat open, his suit was not buttoned – perhaps either heard the shot or somehow he knew something was wrong because the picture shows just after that first shot hit the President, the Governor turned in something this manner, with his right arm stretched back toward the President, as if to say “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or say something. It exposed the entire white front shirt of the Governor to the full view of the assassin’s window; and as the Governor was in this position, and President Kennedy behind him was slumped slightly over, a shot clearly hit the front of Governor Connally; and the Governor fell back over towards his wife.

Mrs. Connally immediately put herself over her husband in a protective position, and as she did so, in the back seat, this time with Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes apparently right on her husband, the second shot – the third shot in all – the second shot hit the President’s head. His head went forward, in a violent motion, pushing it down like this (leans forward, lowering his head as he does so). Mrs. Kennedy was on her feet immediately. The President fell over in this direction (leans to his left). It appeared his head probably brushed or hit against Mrs. Kennedy’s legs.

The First Lady almost immediately tried to crawl on – did crawl on - to the trunk of the car, face-down, her whole body almost was on that trunk, in something of an all-fours position. She appeared to be either trying to desperately get the attention of the secret service man on the back bumper, or perhaps she was stretching out toward him to grab him to try get him in. Perhaps even trying to get herself out of the car.

The car was moving all the time, the car never stopped.

The secret service man on the back bumper leaned way over and put his hands on Mrs. Kennedy’s shoulders – she appeared to be in some danger of falling or rolling off that trunk lid. He pushed her back into the back seat of the car.

In the front seat, a secret service man with a phone in his hand.

The car speeded up and sped away. It never stopped, the car never paused.

That’s what the film of the assassination showed. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who had placed himself in an advantageous position: eight millimeter color film.

This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

Walter Cronkite: Throughout Texas there were memorial services today…

So what on earth was going on here? Why the manifestly hasty and crass second attempt? Well, one obvious potential explanation is that Rather’s director(s) felt it imperative to get the interpretative prism just right for viewers before the film itself was shown later that evening on CBS. Is there any evidence for such wild and irresponsible heresy? Not for the first time in this thread, it would appear so, at least, according to an intriguing passage from the Black Op Radio appearance of John Barbour, producer of the Garrison Tapes documentary (8), just over three years ago:

Oh, I have a lot of footage. I have some stunning footage. I got, I got a piece of footage that I would have loved to have put in there, and I could never get it in there. And it’s footage of Dan Rather.

You know Dan Rather was just a local reporter in Dallas at the time. Now how is it that Dan Rather, a local reporter, gets to go on CBS News to describe the Zapruder film - the Zapruder film which is in the hands of the Federal Government - and then goes on the air to lie about it? And the lie I’m telling you about is this.

I have him in a kinescope on television. He’s on CBS evening news and you see the motor vehicle moving and he’s describing everything that Jackie Kennedy’s wearing, the little pea-pod hat, the little pink outfit, the little roses on her lapel, describing what Kennedy’s wearing, describing everything that Connally has, got a little hat in his hand, describing everything, and he’s absolutely right in what he’s describing.

Then it comes to the time of the fatal shot. And he stops the Zapruder film and he looks into the camera. And he says: “This is too gruesome for you to see so I just have to describe what is happening. There is a gunshot. John Kennedy is struck in the back of the head and thrown violently forward.” Now I’ll tell you how I came across this film.

I was a lecturer at a university and some students got a hold of this film. Then they got a hold of the Zapruder film, and they ran Dan Rather’s audio over the Zapruder film, so you can see the man is obviously lying, because the gunshot hits him in the right temple, he’s thrown violently backwards, half of the skull is thrown out the left rear and on to a motorcycle cop, part of the skull is in the back and Jackie jumps out to grab it to bring it to the hospital in hopes she can repair her husband’s shattered head. And the College students, eighteen or nineteen years of age, start hooting and hollering that Dan Rather is a xxxx. You never saw that on the news. You never saw anybody report about how this guy lied; and nobody ever confronted him.

I never got that into the documentary. It would have made it too long. Because I was trying to tell Jim’s story and that’s a different story. If I ever get round to part II, part II will be about the extensive media cover-up…(10)

If Barbour was - is - right, and Rather did appear on CBS Evening News on Monday, November 25, 1963, accompanied by some or all of the Zapruder film, the orthodox history of the film and its chain of possession is, irrespective of the version shown, a corpse, and its advocates discredited.

But was it the same version? The enduring, systematic suppression of the full number and nature of Rather’s television appearances describing the Zapruder film on Monday, November 25, 1963, strongly suggests not.

Endnotes:

(1) For a British example of this universal truth, see the funeral of the assassinated Diana, Princess of Wales.

(2) For an early description of Jacqueline Kennedy’s post-funeral meetings at the White House, see William Manchester. Death of a President: November 20-November 25, 1963 (London: Michael Joseph, 1967), 689-696.

(3) In the absence of on-air time checks, or a detailed CBS log for the day, I rely based this guess on a combination of Manchester’s Death of President, NBC’s There was a President (New York: The Ridge Press, 1966), 152, in particular, and on the evidence contained within the DVD in question.

(4) Gary Mack, ‘The $8,000,000 Man,’ Continuing Enquiry, Vol 5 No 1, (August 22, 1980), 3-4.

http://digitalcollec...o-jones/id/1181

(5) Richard B. Trask. National Nightmare on six feet of film: Mr. Zapruder’s home movie and the murder of President Kennedy (Danvers, Mass: Yeoman Press, 2005), 138-142.

(6) Ibid., 360, Endnote 73: “’CBS Radio Description of Zapruder Film by Dan Rather,’ from a transcript from the Richard Sprague Papers, Special Collections Division , Georgetown University Library, Washington D.C. , p.[1-3].”

(7) Mack, ‘The $8,000,000 Man,’ 3: “He [Rather] apparently did one or two versions for the CBS Radio Network, and another for CBS television.”

(8) Trask. National Nightmare on six feet of film, 137: “How many times Rather described the viewing of the Zapruder film on Monday is unclear.”

(9) John Barbour (Dir.). The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) 96 min: http://www.johnbarbo...m/garrison.html

(10) Black Op radio, show #435, August 6, 2009, 44:40 until 47:36.

It used to be available, but is no longer, at this link:

http://www.blackopra...chives2009.html

The show in question is still obtainable, though on disc only, at the following:

http://www.blackopra...m/products.html

[David Lifton]

Pretty spectacular research, Paul. Only wish I could see the Muchmore frames.

Kathy

You can view all of the Muchmore frames here Kathy. This is a great resource.

Muchmore Frames

Duncan

Duncan, the link you have posted here does not work. Hopefully, you can fix it? Thanks. DSL

[Paul Castaldi]

Duncan, the link you have posted here does not work. Hopefully, you can fix it? Thanks. DSL

Duncan may have a better suggestion, but in the meantime: since the 2008 link is no longer valid, you can probably find what you're looking for in the Muchmore album http://www.jfkassass...ls.php?album=10 at the JFK Assassination Research Photo Galleries.*

* http://www.jfkassass...iongallery.com/

Edited November 17, 2012 by Paul Castaldi

[Ken Rheberg]

Dan Rather described the Zapruder film THREE separate times on CBS-TV Monday 11/25/63. The final report was televised at approximately 8:26PM EST.

[Mike Rago]

I would like to point out that in the Muchmore film, as in the Nix film , the view of the corner of the retaining wall and behind it is not available.

In another thread I pointed out that the Nix film was "lost" at the processing plant and a copy of that film was not delivered to the government until December 5, 1963 because it was "lost". The view of the retaining wall corner and behind is also not available in the Nix film.

There is no film taken that day that shows us that area of the Grassy Knoll.

Like the Nix Film, the Muchmore film was obtained by United Press International.

You can read about it here(Click the image to enlarge)

Credit Robin Unger Gallery

http://www.jfkassass...album=10&page=4

Edited November 17, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Paul Rigby]

Dan Rather described the Zapruder film THREE separate times on CBS-TV Monday 11/25/63. The final report was televised at approximately 8:26PM EST.

Ken,

What is your source for the above timing? And does the source give the precise times for the two Rather descriptions for which I have provided transcripts? If there were three, as you have stated, I take it there was no version offered at the time specified by Dunkel?

Paul

[Paul Rigby]

So to the text of Rather’s first televised description of the Zapruder film. It occurred sometime between 3:45pm and 4:15pm (EST), occupied just under 6 minutes of air-time, and comprised a tad over 700 words:

Walter Cronkite: Let’s go to Dallas now for developments there today.

Dan Rather: We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination and the shooting of Texas Governor John Connally. Here is what the motion picture shows.

The automobile, the black Lincoln convertible, with the top down - carrying, in the front seat, two secret service agents; in the middle, or jump seat, the Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy – made a turn off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street. This was a left turn and was made right in front of the building from which the assassin’s bullet was fired.

After making the turn, and going about 35 yards from the corner of the building – six stories up in which the assassin had a window open – and keep in mind here that President Kennedy and Governor Connally are seated on, both on the same side of the car, on the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally are on the side of the car away from the assassin.

About 35 yards from the base of the building, President Kennedy, in the film, put his hand up to the right side of his face, the side facing the assassin. He seemingly wanted to brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow. Mrs. Kennedy at this moment was looking away, or looking straight ahead. She was not looking at her husband.

At that moment, when the President had his right hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurched just a bit forward. It was obvious that the shot had hit him. Mrs. Kennedy was not looking at him, nor did she appear to know at that instant that her husband had been hit.

Governor Connally, in the seat immediately in front of the President, apparently either heard the shot or sensed that something was wrong because, Governor Connally, with his coat open, his button was undone, turned in this manner (turns back to his right with right arm extended), his hand outstretched, back toward the President; and the Governor had a look on his face that would indicate he perhaps was saying “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or “Can I help?” or something. But as Governor Connally was turned this way, his white shirt front exposed well to the view of the assassin, the Governor was obviously hit by a bullet, and he fell over to the side.

Governor Connally’s wife, immediately, seemingly instantaneously, placed herself over her husband in a protective position, it appeared; and as Governor Connally fell back, President Kennedy was still leaned over. At that moment another bullet obviously hit the head of the President. The President’s head went forward, violently, in this manner (gestures). Mrs. Kennedy, at that instant, seemed to be looking right-square at her husband. She stood up. The President slumped over to the side and, I believe, brushed against Mrs. Kennedy’s dress.

Mrs. Kennedy immediately turned and flung herself on the trunk of the automobile, face-down on the trunk, almost on all-fours. The First Lady appeared to be either frantically trying to get the secret service man who was riding on the bumper of the car - the single secret service man riding on that bumper - to come into the car or to tell him what had happened; or perhaps, from the picture, it appeared she might have been trying to get out of the car some way.

The car never stopped. The secret service man in the front seat had a telephone in his hand. The car…its acceleration increased rapidly and it disappeared under an underpass. Three shots - the first one hitting President Kennedy, the second one hitting Governor Connally, the third one hitting the President – consume, possibly, five seconds. Not much more than that, if any.

That is the scene shown in about twenty seconds of film that the FBI has in its possession. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who was in a very advantageous position, and who had his camera trained on the President’s car from the time it made the turn in front of the assassin until it disappeared on its way to the hospital.

This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

Walter Cronkite: A most remarkable story.

So to Rather’s second take, offered, as noted above, a full less-than-nine-minutes later. This was a superficially pithier affair, markedly so in time (5 minutes 20 seconds, give or take), less so in word-count (688). The shift in emphasis is most obvious at the end. Repeat after me: the limousine never stopped...

Walter Cronkite: Let’s go Back now to Dallas and Dan Rather.

Dan Rather: We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments immediately preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination.

The motion picture shows the limousine carrying: in the front seat, two secret service men; in the middle, or jump seat, Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy; a single secret service man standing on the back bumper; the top of the black Lincoln convertible down.

The car made a turn, a left turn, off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street, on the fringe of Dallas’ down-town area; that turn made directly below the sixth floor window from which the assassin’s bullets came.

After the left turn was completed, the automobile, with only one car in front of it - a secret service car immediately in front – the President’s car proceeded about 35 yards from the base of the building in which the assassin was.

President Kennedy and Governor Connally were seated on the same side of the open car, the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally on the side of the car opposite the assassin.

President Kennedy is clearly shown to put his right hand up to the side of his face as if to either brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow. Mrs. Kennedy at that instant is looking away, and is not looking at the President.

At almost that instant, when the President has his hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurches forward something in this manner (gestures): The first shot had hit him. Mrs. Kennedy appeared not to notice. Governor Connally, in the seat right in front of the President – by the way, the Governor had his suit coat open, his suit was not buttoned – perhaps either heard the shot or somehow he knew something was wrong because the picture shows just after that first shot hit the President, the Governor turned in something this manner, with his right arm stretched back toward the President, as if to say “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or say something. It exposed the entire white front shirt of the Governor to the full view of the assassin’s window; and as the Governor was in this position, and President Kennedy behind him was slumped slightly over, a shot clearly hit the front of Governor Connally; and the Governor fell back over towards his wife.

Mrs. Connally immediately put herself over her husband in a protective position, and as she did so, in the back seat, this time with Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes apparently right on her husband, the second shot – the third shot in all – the second shot hit the President’s head. His head went forward, in a violent motion, pushing it down like this (leans forward, lowering his head as he does so). Mrs. Kennedy was on her feet immediately. The President fell over in this direction (leans to his left). It appeared his head probably brushed or hit against Mrs. Kennedy’s legs.

The First Lady almost immediately tried to crawl on – did crawl on - to the trunk of the car, face-down, her whole body almost was on that trunk, in something of an all-fours position. She appeared to be either trying to desperately get the attention of the secret service man on the back bumper, or perhaps she was stretching out toward him to grab him to try get him in. Perhaps even trying to get herself out of the car.

The car was moving all the time, the car never stopped.

The secret service man on the back bumper leaned way over and put his hands on Mrs. Kennedy’s shoulders – she appeared to be in some danger of falling or rolling off that trunk lid. He pushed her back into the back seat of the car.

In the front seat, a secret service man with a phone in his hand.

The car speeded up and sped away. It never stopped, the car never paused.

That’s what the film of the assassination showed. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who had placed himself in an advantageous position: eight millimeter color film.

This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

Walter Cronkite: Throughout Texas there were memorial services today…

So what on earth was going on here? Why the manifestly hasty and crass second attempt?

Craig Lamson posted the following interview with Rather, recorded in 2005*. within the thread Ask the Experts #52 :

How accurate was Rather's recollection? Above, the text of Rather's first two televised descriptions of the Zapruder film, from which it is clear that Rather did NOT eliminate from the second all mention of Jackie Kennedy's movements post-shooting.

So what about his third televised description of the day - did that skip any mention of the same feature? Not a bit of it:

In offering this demonstrably untrue explanation of why the second description of the Z-fake followed so hard on the heels of the first, Rather sought to obscure the real reasons for it.

*Dan Rather was interviewed for nearly eight hours (in two sessions) in New York, NY. He talks at length about growing up in Houston, Texas and his early years as a radio and television journalist in the local market. He describes in detail his work at KHOU-TV, where his dramatic continuous coverage of "Hurricane Carla" garnered national recognition and brought him to the attention of CBS News. In addition, he explains the challenges and lessons he learned from covering monumental moments in the Civil Rights Movement and the assassination of President Kennedy, and why CBS News, due to logistics, did not broadcast live television's first on-air murder -- that of Lee Harvey Oswald. He concludes with recollections on covering the war in Vietnam, the Nixon White House, and 9/11, and also speaks of his work on 60 Minutes and on succeeding Walter Cronkite as anchor of CBS Evening News. The two-part interview was conducted by Don Carleton on April 7 and November 7, 2005.

http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/dan-rather

[Paul Rigby]

Posted by Tracy Riddle at the DPF - very interesting it is, too:

The CIA at CBS (Daniel Schorr 1977)
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisb.../Item%2001.pdf

Found in Wesiberg's archives

[Paul Rigby]

So who did instruct Rather to repeat his description of the Z-film, only this time with a shift in emphasis, so soon after delivering his first attempt on CBS TV on the afternoon of November 25, 1963?

After leaving The Washington Post in 1977, Carl Bernstein spent six months looking at the relationship of the CIA and the press during the Cold War years. His 25,000-word cover story, published in Rolling Stone on October 20, 1977, is reprinted below.

THE CIA AND THE MEDIA

How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

BY CARL BERNSTEIN

http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

The Columbia Broadcasting System.

CBS was unquestionably the CIAs most valuable broadcasting asset. CBS President William Paley and Allen Dulles enjoyed an easy working and social relationship. Over the years, the network provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well‑known foreign correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes of newsfilm to the CIA (3); established a formal channel of communication between the Washington bureau chief and the Agency; gave the Agency access to the CBS newsfilm library; and allowed reports by CBS correspondents to the Washington and New York newsrooms to be routinely monitored by the CIA. Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.

The details of the CBS‑CIA arrangements were worked out by subordinates of both Dulles and Paley. “The head of the company doesn’t want to know the fine points, nor does the director,” said a CIA official. “Both designate aides to work that out. It keeps them above the battle.” Dr. Frank Stanton, for 25 years president of the network, was aware of the general arrangements Paley made with Dulles—including those for cover, according to CIA officials. Stanton, in an interview last year, said he could not recall any cover arrangements.) But Paley’s designated contact for the Agency was Sig Mickelson, president of CBS News between 1954 and 1961. On one occasion, Mickelson has said, he complained to Stanton about having to use a pay telephone to call the CIA, and Stanton suggested he install a private line, bypassing the CBS switchboard, for the purpose. According to Mickelson, he did so. Mickelson is now president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, both of which were associated with the CIA for many years.

In 1976, CBS News president Richard Salant ordered an in‑house investigation of the network's dealings with the CIA. Some of its findings were first disclosed by Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times.) But Salant's report makes no mention of some of his own dealings with the Agency, which continued into the 1970s.

Many details about the CBS‑CIA relationship were found in Mickelson's files by two investigators for Salant. Among the documents they found was a September 13th, 1957, memo to Mickelson fromTed Koop, CBS News bureau chief in Washington from 1948 to 1961. It describes a phone call to Koop from Colonel Stanley Grogan of the CIA: "Grogan phoned to say that Reeves [J. B. Love Reeves, another CIA official] is going to New York to be in charge of the CIA contact office there and will call to see you and some of your confreres. Grogan says normal activities will continue to channel through the Washington office of CBS News." The report to Salant also states: "Further investigation of Mickelson's files reveals some details of the relationship between the CIA and CBS News.... Two key administrators of this relationship were Mickelson and Koop.... The main activity appeared to be the delivery of CBS newsfilm to the CIA.... In addition there is evidence that, during 1964 to 1971, film material, including some outtakes, were supplied by the CBS Newsfilm Library to the CIA through and at the direction of Mr. Koop (4)....

Notes in Mr. Mickelson's files indicate that the CIA used CBS films for training... All of the above Mickelson activities were handled on a confidential basis without mentioning the words Central Intelligence Agency. The films were sent to individuals at post‑office box numbers and were paid for by individual, nor government, checks. ..." Mickelson also regularly sent the CIA an internal CBS newsletter, according to the report.

Salant's investigation led him to conclude that Frank Kearns, a CBS‑TV reporter from 1958 to 1971, "was a CIA guy who got on the payroll somehow through a CIA contact with somebody at CBS." Kearns and Austin Goodrich, a CBS stringer, were undercover CIA employees, hired under arrangements approved by Paley.

Last year a spokesman for Paley denied a report by former CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr that Mickelson and he had discussed Goodrich's CIA status during a meeting with two Agency representatives in 1954. The spokesman claimed Paley had no knowledge that Goodrich had worked for the CIA. "When I moved into the job I was told by Paley that there was an ongoing relationship with the CIA," Mickelson said in a recent interview. "He introduced me to two agents who he said would keep in touch. We all discussed the Goodrich situation and film arrangements. I assumed this was a normal relationship at the time. This was at the height of the Cold War and I assumed the communications media were cooperating—though the Goodrich matter was compromising.

At the headquarters of CBS News in New York, Paley's cooperation with the CIA is taken for granted by many news executives and reporters, despite tile denials. Paley, 76, was not interviewed by Salant's investigators. "It wouldn't do any good," said one CBS executive. "It is the single subject about which his memory has failed."

Salant discussed his own contacts with the CIA, and the fact he continued many of his predecessor's practices, in an interview with this reporter last year. The contacts, he said, began in February 1961, "when I got a phone call from a CIA man who said he had a working relationship with Sig Mickelson. The man said, 'Your bosses know all about it.'" According to Salant, the CIA representative asked that CBS continue to supply the Agency with unedited newstapes and make its correspondents available for debriefingby Agency officials. Said Salant: "I said no on talking to the reporters, and let them see broadcast tapes, but no outtakes. This went on for a number of years—into the early Seventies."

In 1964 and 1965, Salant served on a super-secret CIA task force which explored methods of beaming American propaganda broadcasts to the People's Republic of China. The other members of the four‑man study team were Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a professor at Columbia University; William Griffith, then professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology., and John Haves, then vice‑president of the Washington Post Company for radio‑TV5. The principal government officials associated with the project were Cord Meyer of the CIA; McGeorge Bundy, then special assistant to the president for national security; Leonard Marks, then director of the USIA; and Bill Moyers, then special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson and now a CBS correspondent.

Salant's involvement in the project began with a call from Leonard Marks, "who told me the White House wanted to form a committee of four people to make a study of U.S. overseas broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain." When Salant arrived in Washington for the first meeting he was told that the project was CIA sponsored. "Its purpose," he said, "was to determine how best to set up shortwave broadcasts into Red China." Accompanied by a CIA officer named Paul Henzie, the committee of four subsequently traveled around the world inspecting facilities run by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty both CIA‑run operations at the time), the Voice of America and Armed Forces Radio. After more than a year of study, they submitted a report to Moyers recommending that the government establish a broadcast service, run by the Voice of America, to be beamed at the People's Republic of China. Salant has served two tours as head of CBS News, from 1961‑64 and 1966‑present. At the time of the China project he was a CBS corporate executive.)

Notes:

(3) From the CIA point of view, access to newsfilm outtakes and photo libraries is a matter of extreme importance. The Agency's photo archive is probably the greatest on earth; its graphic sources include satellites, photoreconnaissance, planes, miniature cameras ... and the American press. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Agency obtained carte‑blanche borrowing privileges in the photo libraries of literally dozens of American newspapers, magazines and television, outlets. For obvious reasons, the CIA also assigned high priority to the recruitment of photojournalists, particularly foreign‑based members of network camera crews.

(4) On April 3rd, 1961, Koop left the Washington bureau to become head of CBS, Inc.’s Government Relations Department — a position he held until his retirement on March 31st, 1972. Koop, who worked as a deputy in the Censorship Office in World War II, continued to deal with the CIA in his new position, according to CBS sources.

[Paul Rigby]

Dan Rather's known televised descriptions of the first version of the Zapruder film

A) First description of the Zapruder film:

From 7 mins 12 secs until 13 mins 11 secs within the following segment of CBS’ coverage of the funeral, 25 November 1963, between 1600hrs and 1631hrs EST:

http://youtu.be/BGl0ddD7kF4

1. We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination and the shooting of Texas Governor John Connally.

2. Here is what the motion picture shows.

3. The automobile, the black Lincoln convertible, with the top down - carrying, in the front seat, two secret service agents; in the middle, or jump seat, the Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy – made a turn off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street.

4. This was a left turn and was made right in front of the building from which the assassin’s bullet was fired.

5. After making the turn, and going about 35 yards from the corner of the building – six stories up in which the assassin had a window open – and keep in mind here that President Kennedy and Governor Connally are seated on, both on the same side of the car, on the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally are on the side of the car away from the assassin.

6. About 35 yards from the base of the building, President Kennedy, in the film, put his hand up to the right side of his face, the side facing the assassin.

7. He seemingly wanted to brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow.

8. Mrs. Kennedy at this moment was looking away, or looking straight ahead.

9. She was not looking at her husband.

10. At that moment, when the President had his right hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurched just a bit forward.

11. It was obvious that the shot had hit him.

12. Mrs. Kennedy was not looking at him, nor did she appear to know at that instant that her husband had been hit.

13. Governor Connally, in the seat immediately in front of the President, apparently either heard the shot or sensed that something was wrong because, Governor Connally, with his coat open, his button was undone, turned in this manner (turns back to his right with right arm extended), his hand outstretched, back toward the President; and the Governor had a look on his face that would indicate he perhaps was saying “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or “Can I help?” or something.

14. But as Governor Connally was turned this way, his white shirt front exposed well to the view of the assassin, the Governor was obviously hit by a bullet, and he fell over to the side.

15. Governor Connally’s wife, immediately, seemingly instantaneously, placed herself over her husband in a protective position, it appeared; and as Governor Connally fell back, President Kennedy was still leaned over.

16. At that moment another bullet obviously hit the head of the President.

17. The President’s head went forward, violently, in this manner (gestures).

18. Mrs. Kennedy, at that instant, seemed to be looking right-square at her husband.

19. She stood up.

20. The President slumped over to the side and, I believe, brushed against Mrs. Kennedy’s dress.

21. Mrs. Kennedy immediately turned and flung herself on the trunk of the automobile, face-down on the trunk, almost on all-fours.

22. The First Lady appeared to be either frantically trying to get the secret service man who was riding on the bumper of the car - the single secret service man riding on that bumper - to come into the car or to tell him what had happened; or perhaps, from the picture, it appeared she might have been trying to get out of the car some way.

23. The car never stopped.

24. The secret service man in the front seat had a telephone in his hand.

25. The car…its acceleration increased rapidly and it disappeared under an underpass.

26. Three shots - the first one hitting President Kennedy, the second one hitting Governor Connally, the third one hitting the President – consume, possibly, five seconds.

27. Not much more than that, if any.

28. That is the scene shown in about twenty seconds of film that the FBI has in its possession.

29. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who was in a very advantageous position, and who had his camera trained on the President’s car from the time it made the turn in front of the assassin until it disappeared on its way to the hospital.

30. This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

Second description of the Zapruder film:

From 21 mins 51 secs until 27 mins 07 secs within the following segment of CBS’ coverage of the funeral, 25 November 1963, between 1600hrs and 1631hrs EST:

http://youtu.be/BGl0ddD7kF4

1. We have just returned from seeing a complete motion picture of the moments immediately preceding, and the moments of, President Kennedy’s assassination.

2. The motion picture shows the limousine carrying, in the front seat, two secret service men; in the middle, or jump seat, Governor and Mrs. Connally; and, in the rear seat, President and Mrs. Kennedy; a single secret service man standing on the back bumper; the top of the black Lincoln convertible down.

3. The car made a turn, a left turn, off of Houston Street, on to Elm Street, on the fringe of Dallas’ down-town area; that turn made directly below the sixth floor window from which the assassin’s bullets came.

4. After the left turn was completed, the automobile, with only one car in front of it - a secret service car immediately in front – the President’s car proceeded about 35 yards from the base of the building in which the assassin was.

5. President Kennedy and Governor Connally were seated on the same side of the open car, the side facing the building: Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally on the side of the car opposite the assassin.

6. President Kennedy is clearly shown to put his right hand up to the side of his face as if to either brush back his hair, or perhaps rub his eyebrow.

7. Mrs. Kennedy at that instant is looking away, and is not looking at the President.

8. At almost that instant, when the President has his hand up to this side of his face (gestures), he lurches forward something in this manner (gestures): The first shot had hit him.

9. Mrs. Kennedy appeared not to notice.

10. Governor Connally, in the seat right in front of the President – by the way, the Governor had his suit coat open, his suit was not buttoned – perhaps either heard the shot or somehow he knew something was wrong because the picture shows just after that first shot hit the President, the Governor turned in something this manner, with his right arm stretched back toward the President, as if to say “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” or say something.

11. It exposed the entire white front shirt of the Governor to the full view of the assassin’s window; and as the Governor was in this position, and President Kennedy behind him was slumped slightly over, a shot clearly hit the front of Governor Connally; and the Governor fell back over towards his wife.

12. Mrs. Connally immediately put herself over her husband in a protective position, and as she did so, in the back seat, this time with Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes apparently right on her husband, the second shot – the third shot in all – the second shot hit the President’s head.

13. His head went forward, in a violent motion, pushing it down like this (leans forward, lowering his head as he does so).

14. Mrs. Kennedy was on her feet immediately.

15. The President fell over in this direction (leans to his left).

16. It appeared his head probably brushed or hit against Mrs. Kennedy’s legs.

17. The First Lady almost immediately tried to crawl on – did crawl on - to the trunk of the car, face-down, her whole body almost was on that trunk, in something of an all-fours position.

18. She appeared to be either trying to desperately get the attention of the secret service man on the back bumper, or perhaps she was stretching out toward him to grab him to try get him in.

19. Perhaps even trying to get herself out of the car.

20. The car was moving all the time, the car never stopped.

21. The secret service man on the back bumper leaned way over and put his hands on Mrs. Kennedy’s shoulders – she appeared to be in some danger of falling or rolling off that trunk lid.

22. He pushed her back into the back seat of the car.

23. In the front seat, a secret service man with a phone in his hand.

24. The car speeded up and sped away. It never stopped, the car never paused.

25. That’s what the film of the assassination showed.

26. The film was taken by an amateur photographer who had placed himself in an advantageous position: eight millimeter color film.

27. This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

C)Third description of the Zapruder film

Broadcast at 2026hrs, EST, duration approximately 3 mins 26 secs.*

http://youtu.be/kiSoxFHyjGY

Transcript of third description on line: http://www.etcfilmunit.com/Cronkite.html

I-Accuse.com

1. The films we saw were taken by an amateur photographer, who had a particularly good vantage point, just past the building from which the fatal shot was fired.

2. The films show President Kennedy's open, black limousine, making a left turn, off Houston Street on to Elm Street on the fringe of downtown Dallas, a left turn made just below the window in which the assassin was waiting.

3. About 35 yards past the very base of the building, just below the window, President Kennedy could be seen to, to put his right hand up to the side of his head to, either brush back his hair or perhaps rub his eyebrow.

4. President Kennedy was sitting on the same side of the car as the building from which the shot came.

5. Mrs. Kennedy was by his side.

6. In the jump seat in front of him, Mrs. Connally, and Governor Connally, Governor Connally on the same side of the car as the president.

7. And in the front seat, two Secret Service men.

8. Just as the president put that right hand up to the side of his head, he, you could see him, lurch forward.

9. The first shot had hit him.

10. Mrs. Kennedy was looking in another direction, and apparently didn't see, or sense that first shot, or didn't hear it.

11. But Governor Connally, in the seat in front, appeared to have heard it, or at least sensed that something was wrong.

12. The Governor's coat was open.

13. He, he reached back in this fashion, exposing his white shirt front to the assassin’s window, reached back as if to, to offer aid or ask the president something.

14. At that moment, a shot clearly hit the governor, in the front, and he fell back in his seat.

15. Mrs. Connally immediately threw herself over him in a protective position.

16. In the next instant, with this time Mrs. Kennedy apparently looking on, a second shot, the third total shot, hit the president's head.

17. He, his head can be seen to move violently forward.

18. And, Mrs. Kennedy stood up immediately; the president leaned over her way.

19. It appeared that he might have brushed her legs.

20. Mrs. Kennedy then, literall,y went on the top of the trunk, of the Lincoln car, put practically her whole body on the trunk.

21. It, it appeared she might have been on all fours, there, reaching out for the Secret Service man, the lone Secret Service man who was riding on the bumper of the car, the back bumper on Mrs. Kennedy's side.

22. The Secret Service man leaned forward and put his hands on Mrs. Kennedy's shoulder to push her back into the car.

23. She was in some danger, it appeared, of rolling off or falling off.

24. And when we described this before, there was some question about what we meant by Mrs. Kennedy being on the trunk of the car.

25. Only she knows, but it appeared that she was trying desperately to, to get the Secret Service man's attention or perhaps to help pull him into the car.

26. The car never stopped, it never paused.

27. In the front seat, a Secret Service man was, was on the telephone.

28. The car picked up speed, and disappeared beneath an underpass.

29. This is Dan Rather in Dallas.

*Ken Rheberg: “Dan Rather described the Zapruder film THREE separate times on CBS-TV Monday 11/25/63. The final report was televised at approximately 8:26PM EST.”

Source: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12216&p=262821

Post #249, 17 November 2012, within the thread: Was Muchmore's film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on November 26, 1963?

[Paul Rigby]

Someone called Hans Trayne has obligingly (?) posted to his Youtube channel the three versions, stripped of extraneous preamble and correctly timed*, complete with the texts I posted above:

First version:

Published on Mar 28, 2014

On 25 Nov 1963, CBS news broadcast 3 different reports from Dan Rather in Dallas describing what he had seen when he viewed the Zapruder film. This 1st report was broadcast at 4:07 PM EST. Each report differs in details of scenes Mr. Rather saw that do not match the officially released Zapruder film authorized by the Zapruder heirs in 1998 on 'Image Of An Assassination'. Global visuals analysts now believe Mr. Rather was describing a film that was subsequently falsified by government operatives at a secret film lab before the public 1st viewed it on TV in1975.

Second version:

Published on Mar 28, 2014

On 25 Nov 1963, CBS news broadcast 3 different reports from Dan Rather in Dallas describing what he had seen when he viewed the Zapruder film. This 2nd report was broadcast at 4:21 PM EST. Each report differs in details of scenes Mr. Rather saw that do not match the officially released Zapruder film authorized by the Zapruder heirs in 1998 on 'Image Of An Assassination'. Global visuals analysts now believe Mr. Rather was describing a film that was subsequently falsified by government operatives at a secret film lab before the public 1st viewed it on TV in 1975.

Third version:

Published on Mar 28, 2014

On 25 Nov 1963, CBS news broadcast 3 different reports from Dan Rather in Dallas describing what he had seen when he viewed the Zapruder film. This 3rd report was broadcast at 6:30 PM EST*. The description of Jackie Kennedy trying to exit the limo has been dropped in this report. Scenes described differ from what is seen when the film was officially released by Zapruder's heirs in 1998 on 'Image Of An Assassination'. Global visuals analysts now believe Mr. Rather was describing a film that was subsequently falsified by government operatives at a secret film lab before the public 1st viewed it on TV in1975.

Trayne’s “channel” is to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/trayne59

* For reasons unspecified, Trayne follows Gary Mack in timing the third description to 6:30pm, EST, rather than Ken Rheberg, who offered 8:26PM, EST.

Gary Mack, “The $8,000,000 Man,” The Continuing Enquiry, 22 August 1980, (Vol 5, No 1), 3: 6:30 PM, EST: http://digitalcollec...o-jones/id/1181

Ken Rheberg: “Dan Rather described the Zapruder film THREE separate times on CBS-TV Monday 11/25/63. The final report was televised at approximately 8:26PM, EST.”

Source: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/in...12216&p=262821

Post #249, 17 November 2012, within the thread: Was Muchmore's film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on November 26, 1963?

[Ken Rheberg]

Trayne refers to Rather's third Zapruder film summary broadcast time of 6:30 PM EST as "debatable". Good for him. That time was off by almost two hours.

[Paul Rigby]

Third version:

Published on Mar 28, 2014

On 25 Nov 1963, CBS news broadcast 3 different reports from Dan Rather in Dallas describing what he had seen when he viewed the Zapruder film. This 3rd report was broadcast at 6:30 PM EST*. The description of Jackie Kennedy trying to exit the limo has been dropped in this report. Scenes described differ from what is seen when the film was officially released by Zapruder's heirs in 1998 on 'Image Of An Assassination'. Global visuals analysts now believe Mr. Rather was describing a film that was subsequently falsified by government operatives at a secret film lab before the public 1st viewed it on TV in1975.

Trayne’s “channel” is to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/trayne59

* For reasons unspecified, Trayne follows Gary Mack in timing the third description to 6:30pm, EST, rather than Ken Rheberg, who offered 8:26PM, EST.

Gary Mack, “The $8,000,000 Man,” The Continuing Enquiry, 22 August 1980, (Vol 5, No 1), 3: 6:30 PM, EST: http://digitalcollec...o-jones/id/1181

Ken Rheberg: “Dan Rather described the Zapruder film THREE separate times on CBS-TV Monday 11/25/63. The final report was televised at approximately 8:26PM, EST.”

Source: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/in...12216&p=262821

Post #249, 17 November 2012, within the thread: Was Muchmore's film shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on November 26, 1963?

The third known television description offered by Rather contains, at least in the version above, three Altgens photographs, numbered, by conventional reckoning, 4, 6, & 7. It would be useful to have confirmed that the three did indeed appear in the course of the original broadcast. If so, we are confronted by a puzzle: the sequence in which they were deployed.

In order of taking, they should have appeared as I have listed above, as Rather's description was essentially chronological. But they do not. Altgens 6 was shown first, at 16/17 seconds; Altgens 4 at 53/54 seconds; and Altgens 7 at 2 minutes 43 seconds. Both Altgens 4 & 7 match the narrative and illustrate it: the former shows Kennedy and his wife as Rather describes the location of the President and his wife (C4/5); while the latter visually reinforces Rather's description of "the lone Secret Service man who was riding on the bumper of the car, the back bumper on Mrs. Kennedy's side" (C21). So far, so unobjectionable. But now consider the deployment of Altgens 6.

The narrative which precedes and occurs during Altgens 6 runs as follows: "The films show President Kennedy's open, black limousine, making a left turn, off Houston Street on to Elm Street on the fringe of downtown Dallas, a left turn made just below the window in which the assassin was waiting" (C2). And the photograph, Altgens 6? Kennedy reacting on Elm, well past the left turn from Houston, to the impact of the first bullet in his throat. Why was Altgens 6, then, inserted earlier than it should have been?

The answer almost certainly lies not in the absence of stills of the turn from Houston onto Elm - after all, plenty of other elements of Rather's narrative went unsupported by photographs - but in the determination of the plotters to sell us, however crassly, an explanation of how Kennedy managed to be shot from the front, from behind. The use of Altgens 6 within the third of Rather's known televised descriptions, assuming it was, would thus seem to be a precursor of the print campaign to achieve that important obfuscation, and a harbinger of the suppression of the first version of the Zapruder film. Or as I put it some years ago:

Why was it necessary to suppress the first version of the Zapruder film on November 25/26, and revise it? One key element of any answer lies with the Parkland press conference. The insistence of Perry and Clark that Kennedy was shot from the front threw a significant spanner in the works. How to preserve the credibility of both the patsy-from-the-rear scenario, and the similarly pre-planned supporting film?

The solution was to suppress the film-as-film, hastily edit it, and meanwhile bring the public round by degree through the medium of the written word. Here’s the latter process in action.

Note how in example 1, the first shot, which does not impact, is fired while the presidential limousine is on Houston:

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

“…The known facts about the bullets, and the position of the assassin, suggested that he started shooting as the President’s car was coming toward him, swung his rifle in an arc of almost 180 degrees and fired at least twice more.

A rifle like the one that killed President Kennedy might be able to fire three shots in two seconds, a gun expert indicated after tests.

A strip of color movie film taken by a Dallas clothing manufacturer with an 8-mm camera tends to support this sequence of events.

The film covers about a 15-second period. As the President’s car come abreast of the photographer, the President was struck in the front of the neck.”

In this second example, the first shot, which now does impact, occurs as the turn is made from Houston onto Elm:

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

“Chicago, Nov. 27 – With the aid of movies taken by an amateur, it is possible to reconstruct to some extent the horrifying moments in the assassination of President Kennedy.

As the fateful car rounded the turn and moved into the curving parkway, the President rolled his head to the right, smiling and waving.

At that instant, about 12:30 p.m., the sniper, peering through a four-power telescope sight, fired his cheap rifle.”

The 6.5 mm bullet – about .25 caliber – pierced the President’s neck just below the Adam’s apple. It took a downward course.”

And here’s the process completed in example 3, with the presidential limousine now “50 yards past Oswald” on Elm:

Paul Mandel, “End to Nagging Rumors: The Six Critical Seconds,” Life, 6 December 1963:

“The doctor said one bullet passed from back to front on the right side of the President’s head. But the other, the doctor reported, entered the President’s throat from the front and then lodged in his body.

Since by this time the limousine was 50 yards past Oswald and the President’s back was turned almost directly to the sniper, it has been hard to understand how the bullet could enter the front of his throat. Hence the recurring guess that there was a second sniper somewhere else. But the 8mm film shows the President turning his body far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is exposed–toward the sniper’s nest–just before he clutches it,”

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/mandel.htm

The film-as-film could not be shown while the above process of fraudulent harmonisation - of medical testimony and the lone-assassin-from-the-rear – was undertaken. More, it was predicated on the removal of the left turn from Houston onto Elm. Showing of that turn would have furnished visual-pictorial refutation of the entire elaborate deceit.

Just how imperative it was for the plotters and their heirs on the Warren Commission to withdraw the first version of the Z fake – thus making comparison impossible for the general public and posterity - is made abundantly clear in the following piece:

Joseph A. Loftus, “Kennedy Slaying Is Reconstructed,” NYT, 6 December 1963, p.18:

Dallas, Dec. 5 – Thirteen days after the assassination of President Kennedy, Federal investigators were still reconstructing the crime on film today…

An open car with a man and a woman in the back seat simulated again and again today the ride of the President and Mrs. Kennedy on Nov. 22. A motion picture camera in the sixth-floor window…recorded these trips…

Each simulation differed slightly, either in the speed of the car or the gestures of the occupants or in some other detail. On one trip both occupants of the back seat waved. On another the man turned to the right and, moments later, slumped in his seat; then the car’s speed picked up…

One question was how the President could have received a bullet in the front of the throat from a rifle in the Texas School Book Depository Building after his car had passed the building and was turning a gentle curve away from it. One explanation from a competent source was that the President had turned to his right to wave and was struck at that moment.