The Zapruder Film Provenance

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Not to draw away from the "Tink & Jerry Show", isn't the count off? The original negative is 1st generation and the first print is 2nd. A negative from the first print is 3rd and a print from that is 4th. The one that Sydney obtained is a negative from the 4th, which the National Archives calls "the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film". Maybe I've missed it, but are you two slyly insinuating that the Archives doesn't know what it is doing? And I've noticed some cute remarks from Jerry about how, no matter how strong the proof, I -- Jim Fetzer -- am not going to have a moment where I concede, "Wow! I had it wrong!" The burden of proof, however, is on the other side, given the massive available evidence that the film is a fake. You should know better, Jerry. I expect this kind of nonsense from Tink.

So, if it's not too much to ask, Jerry, where, in particular, have you dealt with the multiple lines of reasoning that have established that the film is a fabrication? Because unless you have dealt with them, there is no foundation for your snide remarks about those of us who have exposed the deception. Indeed, since there is no reasonable alternative explanation to the hypothesis that the film is a fabrication -- and see the Prologue to HOAX (2003) and John P. Costella's introductory tutorial at http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/ for more -- the hypothesis that the film is a fabrication has actually been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If Jerry wants to dispute that, let him study the evidence I have identified here, which he may or may not have read, namely:

(1) Mary and Jean had stepped into the street to take Mary's famous polaroid (http://www.jfkresearch.com/Moorman/);

(2) Chaney motored forward (http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jim_fetz_080205_new_proof_of_jfk_fil.htm);

(3) the "blob" (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Zapruder-JFK-Film-Impeache-by-Jim-Fetzer-090324-48.html); and,

(4) direct observation of fakery reported by Doug Horne, INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, pages 1352 to 1363.

Of course, the film does not show Mary and Jean in the street, but the evidence -- including especially their own repeated and consistent reports -- substantiates it. For Gary Mack's role in suppressing and distorting Mary's ability to speak the truth as she lived it, read the Appendix from "Pig on a Leash", where David Lifton summarizes Gary Mack's behavior. And of course the film does not show Officer James Chaney motoring forward, but we have confirming evidence from multiple sources, including:

* James Chaney (motorcycle patrolman on right rear of the Presidential limousine): “I went ahead of the President’s car to inform Chief Curry that the President had been hit. And then he instructed us over the air to take him to Parkland Hospital and that Parkland was standing by.”

* Bobby Hargis (motorcycle patrolman on left rear of the Presidential limousine): “The motorcycle officer on the right side of the car was Jim Chaney. He immediately went forward and announced to the Chief that the President had been shot.”

* Winston Lawson (Secret Service Agent in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine): “A motorcycle escort officer pulled along side our Lead Car and said the President had been shot. Chief Curry gave a signal over the radio for police to converge on the area of the incident.”

* Forrest Sorrels (Secret Service Agent in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine): “A motorcycle patrolman pulled up alongside of the car and Chief Curry yelled, ‘Is anybody hurt?’, to which the officer responded in the affirmative.”

* Chief Jesse Curry (in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine): “. . . about this time a motorcycle officer, I believe it was Officer Chaney, rode up beside us and I asked if something happened back there and he said, ‘Yes,’ and I said ‘Has somebody been shot?” And he said, ‘I think so.’”

And, of course, as I assume that Jerry must know, the Zapruder film shows a bulging out of brains to the right front -- called the "blob" -- which extends from frame 313 to around frame 340 But the medical evidence, including the McClelland diagram in Tink's book on page 107 and the testimony by Officer Hargis, which he quotes on page 100, indicate that the blow out was to the left and rear. Does that cause you any concern that the medical evidence contradicts what is seen in the film? And, by the way, if you look at frame 374, you can actually see the massive defect at the back of his head and the skull flap extending from his cranium. Even if we leave Mary and Jean as "frozen turkeys" on the grass, the gross inconsistency between the medical evidence and the film demonstrates by itself that the film has been falsified.

Moreover, as Doug Horne explains on page 1352, he made preliminary contact by email with Sydney Wilkinson, an accomplished professional in film and video post-production in Hollywood, who had decades of experience dealing with editors, experts in film restoration, and film studio executives. Through her, he arranged to have a 6k (6,000 pixels per frame) version of the Zapruder film viewed by Ned Price, an accomplished film restoration specialist with 24 years experience restoring films from 1919 to the present, Paul Rutan, Jr., the President and CEO of a Hollywood film restoration company, and an independent film editor with about three decades of practical experience, whom he does not name. As Doug reports on page 1361, when they viewed frames 313 through 323, Price, who is the head of a restoration at a major Hollywood film studio, said, "Oh, that's horrible, that's just terrible! That's such a bad fake." And Rutan observed, "We are not looking at opticals: we are looking at artwork", meaning that they were looking at effects that were actually painted onto the original film frames. This is a simple and obvious proof involving direct perception.

What they discovered was that the massive blow-out to the back of the head (which you can see for yourself in frame 374) had been painted over in black and that the "blob" and the blood spray had been painted in. They therefore agreed with Roderick Ryan, who told Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), the same thing, which you can read for yourself on pages 159 and 160. Ryan, by the way, received the Academy Award for his important contributions to special-effects cinematography in 2000. While Doug says this is not yet "scientific proof" of alteration, he was mistaken in saying that. Observation, measurement, and experiment are fundamental to scientific inquiries. By creating a 6k version of the film and inviting experts to observe it, he was conducting an experiment with trained observers and soliciting their professional judgment. By comparing those frames with frame 374, for example, the deception is apparent based upon comparisons of the frames themselves. And the experiment has been replicated, where now at least eight Hollywood experts concur.

Since Doug has also established that two versions of the fim were brought to the NPIC on successive evenings -- the first on Saturday, 23 November 1963, which was an 8mm version, where they actually had to go out and buy an 8mm film projector in order to view it; the second, on Sunday, 24 November 1063. which was an unslit 16mm version, the custodian of which said had been brought from Kodak's Headquarters in Rochester, NY -- nothing remains of the chain of custody argument, which even Bill Kelly should be able to grasp. When Homer McMahon studied the first film, he concluded that there had been between six and eight impacts on occupants of the limo from at least three directions, which accords well with four to JFK and as many as three to Connally, since four plus three equals seven, a number between six and eight. But after the second film was produced, the official account became three hits from above and behind, where Homer's work was discarded. You can read about this in INSIDE THE AARB or in the second of his chapters in MURDER (2000), which is entitled "Interviews with Former NIPC Employees: The Zapruder Film in November 1963".

The current state of research leaves no latitude for fatuous claims about an unbroken chain of custody, which is even more indefensible today than it has been in the past. We are dealing with history, not fantasy, and if "Tink & Jerry" want to indulge in fantasies, they should find a forum that is more tolerant of fairy tales.

Hello Tink!

Yes, every generation adds grain and contrast to the image and the Zapruder film was high contrast to begin with by the nature of the film itself. It will be interesting to see what the Hollywood group has to say about the contrast issue because I suspect that's why they believe that the back of the President's head has been pasted over - it looks like a featureless black patch by this generation. The real question is what does the original look like under high magnification and proper illumination.

If they can't get to the original, I think the 4x5s that MPI took for the DVD project would be a much better copy than what they're working with now or the Life 4x5s might even be better. So maybe we should try to get Gary Mack together with Doug Horne and see what they can work out. At the least, short of examining the original, everyone who knows what they're doing is going to want to check the Hollywood group findings against the earlier and better 4x5s.

Best to you Tink - glad to see you posting again.

Jerry

Hi Bill and Jerry,

"Counting the extant film as zero, she had obtained a fifth generation copy (as explained earlier in this chapter). If she had requested a projection print (i.e., a positive) she would have purchased a fourth generation copy; but the preferred medium for studying film characteristics in Hollywood is a motion picture negative, so she settled for a dupe negative of a fourth generation projection print.."

Wow! A fifth generation copy! Isn't the image quite degraded as one goes from copy to copy of copy to copy of copy of copy to copy of copy of copy of copy? Aren't better copies than this available from other sources... for example, the DVD made by the Zapruder family a few years ago. I can understand why one would want to use a copy certified as a copy by NARA. But a 5th generation copy? Some time ago people were looking at Z film copies of copies and coming up with a chrome revolver in Bill Greer's hand.

Josiah Thompson

Edited January 10, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Jack White]

See my posting in another thread explaining common misconceptions about GENERATIONS of

transparency film.

If you do not find it, I will copy it and repost it in this thread.

Jack

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Thanks, Jack. But I am puzzled that Tink is suggesting what the National Archives provides as

"the Forensic copy" of the Zapruder film is not suitable for forensic purposes. I want to know

why the National Archives would offer a forensic copy that is not suitable for forensic purposes.

Regardless of the generational count, what "Tink & Jerry" are saying doesn't make any sense.

See my posting in another thread explaining common misconceptions about GENERATIONS of

transparency film.

If you do not find it, I will copy it and repost it in this thread.

Jack

[Jack White]

Thanks, Jack. But I am puzzled that Tink is suggesting what the National Archives provides as

"the Forensic copy" of the Zapruder film is not suitable for forensic purposes. I want to know

why the National Archives would offer a forensic copy that is not suitable for forensic purposes.

Regardless of the generational count, what "Tink & Jerry" are saying doesn't make any sense.

See my posting in another thread explaining common misconceptions about GENERATIONS of

transparency film.

If you do not find it, I will copy it and repost it in this thread.

Jack

Jim...I agree with you that any copy labeled by National Archives as FORENSIC COPY is the best possible

copy, regardless of GENERATION.

While on that subject again, I should add one more important consideration:

SECOND GENERATION (or third, etc.) does NOT MEAN INFERIOR.

It is possible, IN FACT USUAL among photographers, that following generations may be SUPERIOR

to the first generation! For instance, I can shoot a negative (first generation) that is imperfect...BUT I CAN

PRODUCE FROM THAT IMPERFECT NEGATIVE a PERFECT PRINT (second generation).

Among means of doing this on the second generation print are:

1. exposure control

2. contrast control

3. dodging

4. burning in

5. selective focus

6. perspective correction

7. filters

etc,etc,etc. ALL RESULTING IN A SUPERIOR SECOND GENERATION!

If you ever read books about the great photographer Ansel Adams, you often will find pages of

explanation about how his negatives were exposed, and even greater illustrations of precise

instructions for dodging, burning in, etc. to achieve a perfect print FAR SUPERIOR TO HIS NEGATIVE.

Jack

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Thanks, Jack. I appreciate this. I thought there was something funny about the "Tink & Jerry" show--and I was right!

Thanks, Jack. But I am puzzled that Tink is suggesting what the National Archives provides as

"the Forensic copy" of the Zapruder film is not suitable for forensic purposes. I want to know

why the National Archives would offer a forensic copy that is not suitable for forensic purposes.

Regardless of the generational count, what "Tink & Jerry" are saying doesn't make any sense.

See my posting in another thread explaining common misconceptions about GENERATIONS of

transparency film.

If you do not find it, I will copy it and repost it in this thread.

Jack

Jim...I agree with you that any copy labeled by National Archives as FORENSIC COPY is the best possible

copy, regardless of GENERATION.

While on that subject again, I should add one more important consideration:

SECOND GENERATION (or third, etc.) does NOT MEAN INFERIOR.

It is possible, IN FACT USUAL among photographers, that following generations may be SUPERIOR

to the first generation! For instance, I can shoot a negative (first generation) that is imperfect...BUT I CAN

PRODUCE FROM THAT IMPERFECT NEGATIVE a PERFECT PRINT (second generation).

Among means of doing this on the second generation print are:

1. exposure control

2. contrast control

3. dodging

4. burning in

5. selective focus

6. perspective correction

7. filters

etc,etc,etc. ALL RESULTING IN A SUPERIOR SECOND GENERATION!

If you ever read books about the great photographer Ansel Adams, you often will find pages of

explanation about how his negatives were exposed, and even greater illustrations of precise

instructions for dodging, burning in, etc. to achieve a perfect print FAR SUPERIOR TO HIS NEGATIVE.

Jack

Edited January 10, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[William Kelly]

"The research community, I argued, should get the records first, and debate what the data meant after we got the records." – Doug Horne (Page 1365, Chapter 14, Volume IV, Inside the Assassinations Records Review Board – IARRB, 2009)

In comments to reviews of his book at Amazon.com, Douglas P. Horne says:

"…Although I did not set out to write a book about the Zapruder film, during my final year of writing it became a subject of intense focus for me, and the evidence I found of its alteration was astonishingly persuasive. I write about new evidence of the Zapruder film's alteration not yet presented elsewhere, so I encourage everyone who has not read Chapter 14 yet to keep an open mind and decide what to believe about the film's authenticity themselves, AFTER READING IT, and not to defer to the opinions of others. For decades I believed the film was authentic, because it was the natural assumption to make. Now, I am convinced it could not possibly be. I kept an open mind and went where the evidence took me on this issue, just as I did with the medical evidence."

Chapter 14: The Zapruder Film Mystery

"No one would greet with equanimity being told that his approach to researching a subject has been incorrect—based on a false foundation—and that his life's work has essentially been a waste of time. This characterizes all fields of scientific and historical research, and explains the virulent passions aroused within academia whenever a new paradigm is introduced which calls into question the accepted research methodology for a given discipline. The more central the subject matter, the more those emotions are on display whenever the fundamental bases for a given approach are challenged. Thomas Kuhn's seminal 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, readily reveals this,…"

"In late September of 1998, when the authenticity study was completed, I was simply grateful that Kodak had agreed to perform this task for the ARRB, and that we had been successful in getting them to do it on a pro bono basis. Physically and intellectually exhausted at the end of my frenetic three-year ARRB experience, I placed my copy of the report on the shelf, and didn't even begin to study it in any detail until May of 1999.2 What I began to find then, and continue to find today, is evidence within the report itself that casts doubt upon the film's authenticity…

P. 1186

"At one time in 1998, as the report was nearing completion, and as I was receiving frequent status reports from Rollie about his progress, he almost had me convinced that it was authentic. But since I began to study his report in detail in May of 1999, I have modified my position and now firmly suspect the extant film in the National Archives is a forgery, created from the true original in a sophisticated CIA photo lab at the Kodak main industrial plant in Rochester, New York. That's right: I just said that I believe that the presumed 'original' of the Zapruder film in the National Archives today was not exposed inside Abe Zapruder's Bell and Howell movie camera, but rather was created in a photo lab run for the CIA by Kodak, at its main industrial site and corporate headquarters, in Rochester, New York (using Abe Zapruder's camera-original film, of course, as the baseline). Astronomer Carl Sagan once said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Fair enough. I intend to provide that evidence in this chapter. Before I proceed I wish to make one thing perfectly clear: during the period

1996-1998, I had the highest respect and admiration for Rollie Zavada, and I did not believe, at that time, that he was part of any attempt by Kodak to 'cover up the truth.' The Rollie Zavada with whom I worked so closely for over two years, from 1996-1998, was in my judgment at that time a man of sterling integrity, and an honest actor in all respects. We just happened to disagree about whether or not the Zapruder film was likely authentic, I reasoned, because each of us honestly and independently imbued selected aspects of the evidence with differing levels of importance."

P 1188

[/size]

"While I believe the film certainly does indicate that shots were fired from in front of, as well as from behind the limousine—and thus proves conspiracy—I believe that it cannot

be used as a 'time clock' of the assassination, and that because of its alteration, it is worthless in this regard, and will lead anyone who attempts to use it as a 'time clock' to formulate invalid conclusions. Before I begin to present my case for these assertions, it is necessary to review the film's provenance prior to 1997.

P 1194

"The Bell and Howell camera shot what was called 'double 8' film: each roll consisted of 25 feet of useable film that was 16 mm wide, with approximately 4 extra feet of 'leader' on each end, for a total of about 33 feet of 16 mm wide, double perforated film (i.e., with sprocket holes on both sides of the 16 mm film strip) on the spool. As a new reel of film was exposed in the camera, only one half of its width (8 mm wide), known as the "A" side of the reel, was exposed to images coming through the lens. When each 25-foot (actually, 33-foot) reel of film had been completely exposed on one side, the camera operator would open up the camera, move the full take-up reel at the bottom of the magazine to the upper position where the supply reel had been, and place the now-empty original supply reel where the take up reel had been at the bottom of the film magazine. Once this was done, and the film had been manually re-threaded in the camera, the camera operator was ready to expose another 25 feet of useable film, called the

"B" side of the 16 mm wide reel of film. After each roll of double 8 film was completely exposed on both A and B sides, it was developed while still a 16 mm wide double perforated reel of film. After developing, the 16 mm wide reel of film contained two adjacent 8 mm wide image strips going in opposite directions; this necessitated slitting the 16 mm wide film down the center of the entire reel, and then joining together the two 8 mm wide film strips (sides A and with a physical splice. The result was a developed home movie product that consisted of 50 feet of useable film, with varying amounts of leader attached at the heads and tails ends, and with perforations on only one side—the left-hand side (when the image is viewed correctly). The finished product was now only

8 mm wide, and was a 'single perf' film that could only be played in an 8 mm movie projector."

P 1195

"Zapruder had already exposed a home movie of family scenes on side A of his reel of film, and had flipped the full takeup reel over and placed it in the supply position in the film magazine prior to the motorcade, so that he could expose side B when President Kennedy's motorcade passed by on Elm Street. Prior to filming the motorcade on side B, he exposed about 177 frames of test footage [about 60 frames of a close-up of a green chair, and about 117 frames of people—apparently Marilyn Sitzman and the Hesters—near the white cement pergola west of the Book Depository], to ensure his film was threaded properly and that his camera was operating as it should be…."

P 1196

Without prejudice regarding whether the film in the Archives is authentic or not, it can be described as follows: the assassination portion of the Zapruder film in the Archives is now 480 frames in length (6 frames of the extant film—155-156, and 208-211—were damaged and removed by LIFE, but are still present on the two Secret Service copies); it is about 26 and one half seconds in duration when played at 18.3 frames per second; and the image content is only about 6 feet, 3 inches in length...

"…Since they knew that the Jamieson lab's contact printers could only accommodate 16 mm film, Kodak initially did not slit Zapruder's 16 mm wide, 'double 8' film down the center to create an 8 mm wide home movie, as they normally would have. His camera original film, as developed, was 16 mm wide, and had image strips on both sides (his home movie and the assassination sequence from Dealey Plaza), running in opposite directions."

"Following their return to the Kodak lab at about 8 PM, the three Kodachrome IIA contact prints were developed by the Kodak staff and the 'first day copies' were then slit lengthwise, down the middle of the entire length of each film, per normal practice, and reassembled as 8 mm 'single perf' movies (presumably with the home movie shot on side A first, followed by the assassination film shot on side that could only be viewed in normal circumstances thereafter on an 8 mm home movie projector. The assassination film—either the slit original, or one of the 'first day copies'—was then viewed at the Kodak plant in its 8 mm configuration,,,"

"Whether the original film was slit or unslit on the day of the assassination, the record shows that it was retained throughout Friday night and into Saturday morning by Abraham Zapruder, along with one of the 'first day copies.' The only Zapruder film to leave Dallas on November 22, 1963 was the 'first day copy' that agent Max Phillips put on an airplane to Washington, D.C."

P 1199

"The official record shows that Zapruder went home late Friday night with his original film and with one of the three 'first day copies'—the other two 'first day copies' had been loaned to the Secret Service. Zapruder would never see them again."

P 1200

"Trask writes that the original was sent to LIFE's Chicago printing plant in preparation for the publication of still frames (the black-and-white images) in LIFE's November 29th issue, and Trask implies, but does not specifically state, that this occurred on Saturday. Although Richard Stolley told Esquire magazine in 1973 that the sole remaining first day copy went to LIFE's New York office on Saturday, Trask notes that this cannot be true because the film was viewed by various persons in Dallas throughout the weekend, and by others (including CBS news reporter Dan Rather) on Monday, November 25th. The only film in Dallas available to be viewed on Sunday and Monday — since the Secret Service had two copies and LIFE reportedly had the original—was the third of the three 'first day copies'made by Zapruder, thus proving that it did not go to New York on

Saturday as Stolley incorrectly recalled in 1973. The transfer of the original to the LIFE publishing plant in Chicago, which Trask assumes occurred on Saturday (simply because of the language in the Saturday contract and because Stolley shipped it to Chicago on Saturday), is by no means certain,…"

1201

"Richard Stolley approached Abe Zapruder Sunday night about renegotiating the contract signed on Saturday, in order to give LIFE full rights, rather than the limited print rights

negotiated on Saturday—and that on Monday morning, LIFE publisher C. D. Jackson called Stolley and formalized what had been set in motion the night before, giving him official permission to acquire all rights to the film,…"

P 1202

"Six pages of photocopied notes related to the Zapruder film which had been retained

by the NPIC since 1963. [There are five sheets of paper that constitute the notes; one

sheet had information on both sides, yielding six pages of photocopied notes.] The undated notes, in retrospect, describe three different activities conducted at different

times within NPIC by different groups of people, but this was not understood at the

time by the Rockefeller Commission and indeed, was not understood by the JFK

research community until 1998 when the ARRB's office files were released. One

activity was the creation of enlargements—color prints—from individual frames of

the Zapruder film, which were subsequently used in the creation of briefing board

panels. A second activity was the creation of the briefing board panels themselves,

which may have been done immediately after the enlargements were made, but in any

case were created by different persons from the photographers who enlarged the

Zapruder frames. [Three of the six pages of notes refer to the photographic work,

and the organization and content of the briefing board panels.] We now know that

photographic specialists enlarged frames from the Zapruder film by first making

greatly magnified internegatives, and then by making individual color prints from

each internegative; graphics specialists then created three briefing board sets, of four

panels each, using the photos. The third activity was a shot and timing analysis of

the image content contained in the Zapruder frames, which uses identical language

found in a shot and timing analysis published in the aforementioned article by Paul

Mandel on page 52F in the December 6, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine."

P. 1207

"On April 2, 1997, the ARRB conducted a Public Hearing at the old Archives building on the National Mall in order to "...seek public comment and advice on what should be done with the camera original motion picture film of the assassination that was taken by Abraham Zapruder on November 22, 1963." The issue facing the Review Board was whether the Zapruder film was an 'assassination record' under the JFK Act that should be placed into the JFK Records Collection at the National Archives, and whether it should be considered U.S. government property, rather than the property of private citizens…."

…The Public Hearing was aired on C-SPAN television and makes for interesting viewing;"

P 1214

A MAJOR CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY DISCREPANCY

"Until 1997, there were no discrepancies in the film's chain-of-custody that seriously challenged the belief that the film in the National Archives was the same film described in the affidavit trail from the Kodak and Jamieson film labs in Dallas. There was one possible problem: that was the mention in the Rockefeller Commission's 9 page 1978 FOIA release (CIA Document 1641-450) that someone at NPIC had shot internegatives, conducted a print test, and made three copies. Although provocative and worthy of further attention and investigation, the meaning of this single, undated page out of the 9 total pages of released working notes from NPIC was both unclear, and as it turned out, misleading.

"However, in 1997, and again in 2009, very strong evidence was uncovered indicating that while the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) never did replicate or copy the Zapruder film as a motion picture, that it did briefly possess the film, and perform two compartmentalized operations the very weekend of the assassination, in which two separate and distinct briefing board products were created for different customers within the U.S. government. Furthermore, the information obtained in 1997 (by the ARRB) was that the film brought to NPIC for analysis at the second of these two events that weekend did not come from Dallas (where the original film had been developed on Friday, November 22 ) but i nd nstead came from a CIA film lab at the Kodak main industrial facility in Rochester, New York, whose very existence was highly classified not only in 1963, but in 1997 as well."

P 1220

"The ARRB's Public Hearing on the Zapruder film that C-SPAN televised on April 2, 1997 was seen by a former NPIC employee named Morgan Bennett Hunter (hereafter referred to as "Ben"), who was still employed by the CIA in 1997 in another capacity. His wife, who was also CIA, relayed to the CIA's Historical Review Group (HRG) that her husband had been involved in events related to the Zapruder film at NPIC the weekend of the assassination, as well as the name of her husband's supervisor at that event, Mr. Homer A. McMahon. HRG (represented by Mr. Barry Harrelson) then

dutifully informed the ARRB staff that the HRG was aware of two witnesses to the handling of the film at NPIC the weekend of the assassination, and provided both of their names to us. In relatively short order, the CIA cleared both men to talk to us."

P 1221

Both men recalled that they were called in to work at NPIC the weekend of the assassination "a couple of days" or so after the assassination, but before the President's funeral, and that they worked throughout the night into the next morning to complete their assigned work on a home movie taken of the assassination (which no one called "the Zapruder film" at the time, but which they both subsequently identified as that when they saw the surviving briefing board panels in 1997). The essentials of the event they both described are summarized below:

• McMahon was the Head of the NPIC Color Lab in 1963, and Ben Hunter, his

assistant that night, was a relatively new CIA employee who had just left active duty

as an enlisted man with the U.S. Air Force at Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska (SAC

headquarters). Hunter began working with NPIC on December 17, 1962, and helped

NPIC relocate from the Steuart Motors building (a Ford dealership used for cover)

in downtown Washington into its new quarters in building 213 at the Navy Yard in

Washington D.C. on January 1, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy apparently had an old

warehouse converted into NPIC's new, more secure location inside the Navy Yard

following a 90-day crash renovation and conversion, following the Cuban Missile

Crisis in 1962. In 1997, building 213 was still a nondescript-looking building with

its windows bricked up, located across the street from the Navy Yard 'Metro' (i.e.,

subway) station in southeast D.C., and it was still dedicated to photography, except

that in 1997 it was the home of NIMA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

In 1963, McMahon stressed, the existence of the NPIC was so sensitive that he was

not allowed to tell anyone that he worked at NPIC—in fact, he was required to use

the CIA as his cover. While the CIA paid his salary, he was secretly an NPIC

employee, working for a subdivision of the Agency whose existence was still secret"

P 1222

"McMahon made clear that the reason he was so certain about the location where the

film was developed was because the Secret Service agent used the in-house code

name for a state-of-the-art CIA-funded Kodak photo lab at Rochester when he

described where the film had been developed. The code word had only one possible

meaning, and that meaning precisely identified that site as the CIA lab at Kodak's

industrial facility in Rochester, New York. [When the CIA's HRG found out that

McMahon had used the still-current code name for the facility in Rochester, they

demanded that the ARRB excise the code name of the CIA's Kodak-manned

Rochester photo lab from the audiotape that was to be released to the public, which

I dutifully did. Any researcher who listens to the Archives recording of the July 14,

1997 interview will not hear the name of the facility on that tape, for this reason.

However, there is also an unredacted tape in the JFK Records Collection—the

original—which does contain Homer McMahon's coded reference to the CIA's

Kodak-run lab in Rochester.]…"

"Homer McMahon consistently claimed that he had enlarged individual frames from

the original film, and that he recalled it was a 16 mm wide unslit double 8 home

movie. During the first McMahon interview, he stated he was "sure we had the

original film," because "we had to flip it over to see the image on the other side in

the correct orientation." McMahon confirmed this recollection of an unslit double

8 home movie with opposing image strips during his in-person interview which was

tape recorded on July 14, 1997…."

"…Although McMahon personally thought he saw JFK reacting to 6 to 8 shots fired from at least three directions, he said that the Secret Service agent arrived with his mind made up that only three shots had been fired, and that they all came from the Texas School Book Depository, behind the limousine.

P 1224

"Both McMahon and Hunter said they had never seen the 3 legal-sized yellow pages

of notes related to the shot and timing analysis before. There was only one piece of

paper among the original notes which contained the handwriting of either man—a

half-sized sheet of yellow paper—the piece of paper upon which the handwritten

entries "shoot internegs, proc and dry, print test, make three prints," and "process and

dry prints" are annotated, along with the respective times required for each step.

McMahon recognized some of this handwriting as his own, and some of it as

Hunter's. On the reverse side of this sheet of paper is a handwritten organization

chart of the briefing board panels, and Hunter recognized two entries on this page as

being written in his own hand."

"Analysis: First of all, we can now state with certainty that NPIC never copied the Zapruder film as a motion picture, even though for years the NPIC notes had mislead some researchers into believing that it had. However, Homer McMahon's rock-solid certainty that the film brought to him was an original, unslit 16 mm wide, double 8 movie—and that it came from a classified CIA photo lab run by Kodak at Rochester—implies that McMahon and Hunter were not working with the true camera-original film developed in Dallas, but were instead working with a re-created, altered film masquerading as 'the original.'…

";;;If McMahon was correct that he had viewed an original, 16 mm wide, unslit double 8 movie film the weekend of the assassination, and if it was really developed in Rochester at a CIA lab run by Kodak (as he was unambiguously told it was), then the extant film in the Archives is not a camera original film, but a simulated 'original' created with an optical printer at the CIA's secret film lab in Rochester."

"During the period January 30-June 27, 2009, an extremely curious and energetic researcher, Peter Janney of Beverly, Massachusetts, after being alerted by Gerald McKnight (author of Breach of Trust) to the lead in Wrone's book, contacted Dino Brugioni and interviewed him on seven (7) separate occasions,"

";;;Dino Brugioni was the Chief of the NPIC Information Branch, and worked directly for the Director of NPIC, Arthur Lundahl, from 1954 until Lundahl retired in 1973. Arthur Lundahl, as Dino Brugioni explained to Peter Janney, was the western world's foremost

photoanalyst during those two decades. And anytime that Mr. Lundahl needed a briefing board prepared, it was Dino Brugioni, working with NPIC's photo-interpreters and graphics department, who oversaw its preparation, and the preparation of the associated notes that Lundahl would use to brief Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, for example. Dino Brugioni was so closely involved with the briefing boards prepared for President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis that he was able to author an excellent and captivating book about the role of NPIC in that crucial Cold War episode, called

Eyeball to Eyeball. Dino Brugioni, therefore, is the ultimate, insider source for what was going on at NPIC during the 1950s and 1960s. He possesses unimpeachable credentials."

"…the event he participated in actually commenced on Saturday evening, November 23rd (rather than Sunday, November 24th, as he had incorrectly estimated for David Wrone in 2003); that it involved the original 8 mm film—not a copy—and that it did not involve either Homer McMahon, or Ben Hunter, or Captain Sands, but an entirely different cast of characters. Furthermore, Dino examined photographs Peter Janney had made at Archives II of the 4 surviving briefing board panels made from the photos developed by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and Brugioni stated categorically that the four panels in flat # 90A in the JFK Records Collection are not the briefing boards he produced while on duty at NPIC;

P 1230

"…The event began about 10 PM in the evening, when Dino personally met two Secret

Service agents at the entrance to the NPIC, and ended at about 6 or 7 AM the next morning when Brugioni's boss, Art Lundahl (the Director of NPIC), arrived and the briefing boards which Brugioni and the NPIC staff had created were presented to Lundahl, along with the briefing notes Brugioni had prepared. Lundahl then took both sets of briefing boards to the office of CIA Director John McCone,…along with the briefing notes Brugioni had prepared for him; briefed the DCI; and then returned to NPIC later Sunday morning, November 24th, and thanked everyone for their efforts the previous night, telling them that his briefing of McCone had gone well.

P. 1231

"Dino said that Captain Pierre Sands, 15 U.S. Navy, was the Deputy Director of NPIC,

which Peter Janney subsequently confirmed on the internet. Sands' one-page bio states that Pierre N. Sands was born on April 16, 1921, and died on May 26, 2004. He served in the Navy from May 1939-June 1973, and was placed in charge of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Photographic Center after serving at NPIC. His biography on the internet identifies him as a member of the Presidential briefing staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis."

P 1232

"I'm almost sure there were images between the sprocket holes." During a follow-on interview when Janney tested Dino's firmness of opinion about whether the film was the original or not, Brugioni said definitively: "I'm sure it was."

"..,He also said that the Secret Service was vitally interested in timing how many seconds occurred between various frames, and that Ralph Pearse informed them, to their surprise and dismay, that this would be a useless procedure because the Bell and Howell movie camera (that they told him had taken the movie) was a spring-wound camera, with a constantly varying operating speed, and that while he could certainly time the number of seconds between various frames if they so desired, that in his view it was an unscientific and useless procedure which would provide bad data, and lead to false conclusions, or words to that effect. Nevertheless, at the request of the two Secret Service agents, Ralph

Pearse dutifully used a stopwatch to time the number of seconds between various frames of interest to their Secret Service customers. Dino Brugioni said that he placed a strong caveat about the limited, or suspect, usefulness of this timing data in the briefing notes he prepared for Art Lundahl. Brugioni's most vivid recollection of the Zapruder film was "...of JFK's brains flying through the air."

P 1233

"The obvious implications of the two NPIC Zapruder film events prior to the President's funeral are noted below, in what I shall call a working hypothesis, explaining what I believe likely transpired with the Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination:

• First, the camera original Zapruder film really was slit in Dallas at the Kodak

processing plant after the three 'first day copies' were developed the evening of the

assassination, just as the Kodak employees told Rollie Zavada when he interviewed

them for his authenticity study. On Saturday morning, November 23rd, after the Secret

Service in Washington, D.C. viewed the first day copy (that had been placed on a

commercial airplane in Dallas and sent to Washington, D.C. by Max Phillips late on

Friday evening), they no doubt realized an immediate need for the original film, so that

briefing boards could be made from the clearest possible image frames. [No one would

send a copy of an 8 mm film to NPIC to make briefing boards from—one would obtain

and send the original film.]

• Second, Richard Stolley's recollection that the original film went to LIFE's printing

plant in Chicago on Saturday, November 23rd, for immediate processing, obviously

requires reexamination ….

Third, the Secret Service and the CIA, obviously working together on the project, must

have rushed the 8 mm camera original film from Washington, D.C. to the "Hawkeye

Plant" in Rochester by air, immediately after Bill Banfield's photo technicians had run

off the last enlargement prints for the McCone briefing boards, just prior to dawn on

Sunday morning. The CIA's Kodak-staffed lab in Rochester would have had most of

the day (probably about 9 or 10 hours), using an optical printer such as the Oxberry

commonly used by Hollywood's special effects wizards, to remove whatever was

objectionable in the film—most likely, the car stop seen by over 50 witnesses in Dealey

Plaza, and the exit debris which would inevitably have been seen in the film leaving the

rear of President Kennedy's head—and to add to the film whatever was desired, such as

a large, painted-on exit wound generally consistent with the enlarged, altered head

wound depicted in the autopsy photos which were developed the day before on Saturday,

November 23rd by Robert Knudsen at NPC Anacostia. Captain Sands, a Naval Officer

who was the Deputy Director at NPIC, was apparently instrumental to those altering the

film in setting up a compartmentalized operation at NPIC, in which workers who had

not participated in the events which commenced Saturday night (with the unaltered, true

camera original film) would be used to create briefing boards from the now-sanitized,

altered film. The delivery of an unslit, 16 mm wide double 8 film to Homer McMahon,

well after dark on Sunday night, is proof that he received an alteration, and not the same

film processed the night before (which was a slit 8 mm film). Furthermore, if the film

worked on by McMahon and Hunter had been the same film worked on the night before,

there would have been no need for a compartmentalized operation, and the same duty

crew that worked on Saturday night could have been called in again. The fact that the

same work crew was not used on Sunday night reveals that a covert operation was afoot.

• Fourth, the three black-and-white, 16 mm unslit versions of the Zapruder film

discovered in 2000 after the LMH Company's film holdings were transferred to the

Sixth Floor Museum, and which both David Wrone and Richard Trask have written

about in their books on the Zapruder film, were almost certainly made from the altered

film after it was manufactured at the "Hawkeye Plant" in Rochester."

Fifth, three newly minted 'first generation' copies must have been struck from the new

'original' in Rochester before the altered 'original' was flown to Washington, D.C.

Sunday evening for the preparation of the sanitized briefing boards at NPIC. Quite

simply stated, if you are going to alter the original film, you have to manufacture altered

copies as well. [We shall examine the qualities of the three extant 'first generation'

copies later in this chapter to see whether this part of the hypothesis holds up.]

• Sixth, switches obviously must have been made, as soon as possible, with all three 'first

day copies' (which had been made on Friday in Dallas). The FBI, as well, must have

been complicit in this early switchout, since it supposedly made all of its subsequent

second generation copies from the 'first day copy' loaned to it by the Secret Service on

Saturday, November 23rd. Although the FBI may have viewed a first day copy of the

true original film following its arrival in Washington, all second generation FBI copies

in existence today would have been struck after the first day copy was switched out with

its replacement. A Secret Service 'first generation' copy was returned to Dallas by the

FBI on Tuesday, November 26th,"

Seventh, it is highly likely—a virtual certainty, in my view—that the additional sum of

$ 100,000.00 that LIFE agreed to pay to Abraham Zapruder on Monday, November 25th

in a new contract was in reality "hush money,"

Eighth, and finally, only so much in a film can be altered—there are also things that

cannot be altered. It is my belief that the most damaging information in the film to the

lone assassin hypothesis—the brief car stop on Elm Street in which the President was

clearly killed by a crossfire, by multiple hits to the head from both the front and the rear,

and the frames of exit debris leaving the rear of his skull—were removed at Rochester

when the new 'master' was created. In addition, wounds were painted onto his head

with special effects work which somewhat (but not precisely) resembled the damage

recorded in the autopsy photos after the clandestine surgery at Bethesda Naval hospital.

P 1242

Because the infamous 'headsnap' back-and-to-the-left could not be removed from the film, the film had to be suppressed as a motion picture, and not shown to the public.

P 124

"In his 2003 article about the Zapruder film titled: "Pig On A Leash," David Lifton

had called the CIA's lab in Rochester "Hawkeyeworks." I am prohibited from directly releasing the term provided to me in 1997 by Homer McMahon, so instead I have used both of these descriptors—obtained from open sources—interchangeably in this chapter.

We know that the lab definitely existed in 1963, for Homer McMahon—the former Head of the Color Lab at NPIC—told me about the lab in 1997, and Dino Brugioni confirmed its existence, and its ability to handle the processing of motion picture film, repeatedly in 2009 during his seven interviews with Peter Janney. The name for the facility was still so sensitive in 1997 that the CIA's Historical Review Group had demanded that the ARRB redact from our interview tape the codename used by Homer McMahon during his July 1997 ARRB interview (but not the fact that the facility had existed in 1963). The "Hawkeye Plant" is of great interest, the reader will recall, because Homer McMahon

of NPIC told the ARRB staff that the Zapruder film he handled the weekend of the assassination was delivered to him from that location, where its courier, Secret Service agent "Bill Smith," told him it had been developed. Since overwhelming evidence exists that the out-of-camera Zapruder film was developed in Dallas on November 22, 1963—and not in Rochester, New York on November 24, 1963—the clear implication of the Homer McMahon testimony (at the present time) is that an altered Zapruder film may have been created at "Hawkeyeworks." The upper management of the ARRB

was loathe to inquire with either the CIA or Kodak about the facility…"

p 1364

"…In April of 2009. Finally, six months after its preparation began, the AARC's FOIA was mailed.) It, too, requests any and all records pertaining to: (1) the creation of all briefing boards at NPIC the weekend of the assassination; (2) the briefing on the Zapruder film given by NPIC Director Arthur Lundahl to DCI John McCone on November 24, 1963; (3) the processing and/or alteration of the Zapruder film at "Hawkeyeworks" the weekend of the assassination (if such activity occurred); (4) work done on any and all assassination films by the Federal government outside the city of Dallas, Texas after the assassination of President Kennedy; and (5) those portions of the NPIC history written by Dino Brugioni…"

P 1377

Edited January 11, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or why did that happen, twice?

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

[Will Emaus]

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or why did that happen, twice?

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

In this clip of CBS' Four Days in November below, Dan Rather describes at 5:25, CBS having had the film briefly at the time, but could not broadcast it for legal reasons. Assuming that would have been on Monday the 25th and the "legal reasons" would have been Zapruder's contract with Life...

I know that Rather viewing on Monday is taken as proof that Zapruder kept the 4th copy until Monday afternoon, but another question given that Horne sites Stolley having met with Zapruder again on Sunday night the 24th is whether Stolley could have brought an original (A-1) or the 4th copy (B-1) with him to let Zapruder show and view before taking the film(s) for good on Monday.

Edited January 12, 2010 by Will Emaus

[Pamela Brown]

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

Fair enough, Bill. Perhaps answers to these questions will provide a level field for further discussion. It would be helpful also if posters would reference just which version or generation of the Z-film they are referencing in their discussion.

Answers should also give everyone an indication of whether there has been a massive shell game going on or not.

[Josiah Thompson]

Interesting point. I thought Dick Stolley just phoned Zapruder on Sunday night but did not meet with him. I'll try to check on it. Stolley has an "oral history" on file at the Sixth Floor Museum. If Stolley got both the original and a copy on Saturday morning (in contradiction to what the Saturday morning receipt says), it seems unlikely that Stolley would simply hold onto the copy through Sunday night. LIFE people in both Chicago and New York would be clamoring to see what Stolley had reeled in.

My understanding is that Stolley was with Zapruder on Monday when Dan Rather was given the opportunity to see the film in the office of Zapruder's lawyer. I don't think CBS ever "had the film."

Josiah Thompson

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or why did that happen, twice?

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

In this clip of CBS' Four Days in November below, Dan Rather describes at 5:25, CBS having had the film briefly at the time, but could not broadcast it for legal reasons. Assuming that would have been on Monday the 25th and the "legal reasons" would have been Zapruder's contract with Life...

I know that Rather viewing on Monday is taken as proof that Zapruder kept the 4th copy until Monday afternoon, but another question given that Horne sites Stolley having met with Zapruder again on Sunday night the 24th is whether Stolley could have brought an original or the 4th copy with him to let Zapruder show and view before taking the film(s) for good on Monday.

[Jack White]

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or why did that happen, twice?

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

Bill...those are good questions FOR STARTERS. There are many others. For instance, you refer to B-1, B-2, and B-3...but there is ONE MISSING

IN THAT SEQUENCE, according to the Kodak numbering sequence.

Jack

[Josiah Thompson]

These are good, serious practical questions. On the basis of such questions, one could lay out a program of investigation. I'm going to try and answer your questions, Bill, as well as I can. My answers are in boldface:

quote name='William Kelly' date='Jan 12 2010, 10:45 AM' post='178647']

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

I'm not sure that any of this is correct. I believe Zapruder either bought or was given his Bell and Howell camera. He or the family may have had the projector for some time.

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

Dick Stolley took possession of the original on Saturday morning. Stolley said it was "couriered" to Chicago. I don't know if Stolley drove to Love Field and put it on an airplane. He might have asked Patsy Swank, his stringer in Dallas who found Zapruder for him, to do that. Or he might have done it through a courier service. I just don't know. Max Phillips took possession of two secret service copies Friday night and executed a receipt. I believe Phillips has even testified about this. Others might know. Stolley has spoken often about this and executed an oral history for the Sixth Floor Museum. What has never been looked into is what happened to the original after it reached Roy Rowan and the LIFE team at Donnelly Printing. We know LIFE used a Chicago photo lab to make black and white dupes for their use as they were assembling the next issue. Those dupes still exist and are in the Sixth Floor Museum.

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

Yes. No one has ever looked into the path the film took in Chicago. It would be very interesting to interview the people who actually worked with it in Chicago. What they did with it? When it was copied into dupe black and white? Etc. There is a whole field of investigation here that has never been touched. Somebody ought to do it.

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

Good question! I don't know the answer.

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

LIFE purchased only print rights on Saturday morning. See above where I explain that the original was flown to the Donnelly Printing Company in Chicago. Roy Rowan was there on a crash basis putting together the next week's issue.

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or

why did that happen, twice?

My understanding is that this happened in Chicago when they were rushing to put out the next week's issue. The film broke and some idiot lost a couple frames and then spliced it.

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

Yes, the socalled "missing frames" are in the copies. When a controversy developed in 1966 concerning the missing frames, LIFE used their copy to produce frames 208-211 and released those frames to news organizations and to me. I published them.

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

No. They're missing.

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

Not that I know of. The Secret Service used their copies to crank out additional copies for other agencies and themselves. Herb Orth took the original to Washington in early 1964 at the request of the Warren Commission but he would have left LIFE's other copy in New York. Hence, I don't think the original and the three copies ever were in the same place and the same time after two copies left Zapruder's possession and were give to Max Phillips on the night of the 22nd.

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

Not that I know of. I'll let folks who know more about photography speak to this question.

[Jack White]

HORNE IV answers some of these questions.

Jack

[William Kelly]

HORNE IV answers some of these questions.

Jack

Yes Jack, I guess I'll have to go back like Deano and re-read Chapter 14 again.

Also, if TT will ask Gary Mack if there is a transcript of the Stolley oral history at Sixth Floor, that would help.

BK

[William Kelly]

These are good, serious practical questions. On the basis of such questions, one could lay out a program of investigation. I'm going to try and answer your questions, Bill, as well as I can. My answers are in boldface:

quote name='William Kelly' date='Jan 12 2010, 10:45 AM' post='178647']

10 Z-Film Questions that can and should be answered that have nothing to do with its content.

1) Who suggested to Abe Zapruder that he should do something he’s never done before and buy an 8mm home movie projector and film the president? Why did he do it?

I'm not sure that any of this is correct. I believe Zapruder either bought or was given his Bell and Howell camera. He or the family may have had the projector for some time.

2) After the film was developed at Kodak and three copies made at Jameson, where did they go? The A-1 Original stayed with Zapruder; B-1 Copy went to Life; B-2 Copy and B-3 Copy went to Secret Service. Who at Life and Who at SS physically took possession of the copies and where did they go with them? The SS agent should have filed a report on this. Is there such a report?

Dick Stolley took possession of the original on Saturday morning. Stolley said it was "couriered" to Chicago. I don't know if Stolley drove to Love Field and put it on an airplane. He might have asked Patsy Swank, his stringer in Dallas who found Zapruder for him, to do that. Or he might have done it through a courier service. I just don't know. Max Phillips took possession of two secret service copies Friday night and executed a receipt. I believe Phillips has even testified about this. Others might know. Stolley has spoken often about this and executed an oral history for the Sixth Floor Museum. What has never been looked into is what happened to the original after it reached Roy Rowan and the LIFE team at Donnelly Printing. We know LIFE used a Chicago photo lab to make black and white dupes for their use as they were assembling the next issue. Those dupes still exist and are in the Sixth Floor Museum.

3) If the Provenance – Chain of Custody was not broken, then we should be able to connect the dots and follow the film to where we know it was – Life Chicago; NPIC DC. Which copies went where, and who took them there?

Yes. No one has ever looked into the path the film took in Chicago. It would be very interesting to interview the people who actually worked with it in Chicago. What they did with it? When it was copied into dupe black and white? Etc. There is a whole field of investigation here that has never been touched. Somebody ought to do it.

4) If one set of still photos from the Z-film frames were used to make briefing boards with Dino Brugioni, and that set used to brief CIA director McCone, who was briefed with the other boards and who did the briefing?

Good question! I don't know the answer.

5) After Life purchased all the rights (on Saturday?) and obtained the A-1 Original, what did they do with it?

LIFE purchased only print rights on Saturday morning. See above where I explain that the original was flown to the Donnelly Printing Company in Chicago. Roy Rowan was there on a crash basis putting together the next week's issue.

6) How did the original get the two splices in it, who did it and how or

why did that happen, twice?

My understanding is that this happened in Chicago when they were rushing to put out the next week's issue. The film broke and some idiot lost a couple frames and then spliced it.

7) If there are frames missing from the original because of the splices, are the missing frames in the B-1,2,3 copies?

Yes, the socalled "missing frames" are in the copies. When a controversy developed in 1966 concerning the missing frames, LIFE used their copy to produce frames 208-211 and released those frames to news organizations and to me. I published them.

8) If the frames missing from the A-1 Original are in the copies, then the intersprocket images in the original frames are still missing? Or were they picked up from the editing room floor and are still in existence?

No. They're missing.

9) Was there ever a point after Life took possession of the A-1 Original when all four of the films came together again at the same place?

Not that I know of. The Secret Service used their copies to crank out additional copies for other agencies and themselves. Herb Orth took the original to Washington in early 1964 at the request of the Warren Commission but he would have left LIFE's other copy in New York. Hence, I don't think the original and the three copies ever were in the same place and the same time after two copies left Zapruder's possession and were give to Max Phillips on the night of the 22nd.

10) If the Original A-1 Z-film was put through an optical printer and tampered with then the film in optical printer would now be at the NARA A-2, and since it wasn’t filmed with Zapruder’s camera, but the optical printer’s camera, it should be compared with the two other films known to have been filmed in Zapruder’s camera and differences should be apparent, just as each gun barrel makes different marks on a bullet and each manual typewriter exhibits unique traits. Has this comparison been made? If not, why not?

Not that I know of. I'll let folks who know more about photography speak to this question.