Yet another copy of the Zapruder film?

[Paul Rigby]

I am interested in your thoughts on:

1. How plotters could extensively alter the Z film (and extensively is what is theorized) given that copies of the film had already been made and dispersed, Zapruder had a copy himself, and Life had the original ... and none of these copies were seized?

This isn't really a question, now is it, Barb, but rather a string of emotional assertions of orthodoxy. You regurgitate the standard chain of possession which is very obviously a retrospective fiction. Worse still, you ignore long-available and blatant evidence that, for example, Altgens's most famous photo does not match moving film shot from his right.

In fact, a very different copy of the Z film was distributed and even shown on US TV; and here it is:

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

Same despatch:

1. “Exclusive Films Show Shooting of Kennedy in Dallas,” Logansport Pharos-Tribune, (Logansport, Indiana), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 2

2. “UPI Newsfilm First On Air With Exclusive,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, (Great Bend, Kansas), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 9

3. “UPI Newsfilm Has Shooting On Film,” Humboldt Standard, (Eureka, California), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, p.2

Your guy Tink told us this was the Muchmore film, offered at least three different dates for its showing, and then turned silent when confronted by the clipping above, which Mack was said to have possessed all along but could never quite find. Really.

How did they suppress this film? They simply recalled it. Oddly, however, they manifestly didn't tell Zapruder, who didn't recognise elements of his alleged own film when confronted by it by the WC.

2. How the Zapruder film could be essentially recreated knowing it would be in conflict with other known films and photos taken by a number of people that day?

Remind me - how many photos did Moorman initially say she'd taken? Did Nix not complain of editing? And so on and so forth. You also proceed from the assumption that the creators of the second version of the Z fake did not attempt to integrate the revised version with elements of the extant film record. This assumption strikes me, all things considered, as surprisingly simplistic.

But, of course, for your point to have any validity, you would have to have undertaken a survey of the testimony and literature in search of evidence either way. Can you demonstrate that you've made any effort whatever to enquire into the matter? If so, where is it? For if you haven't made such an effort, how do you know the answer?

By the way, if you get stuck, just ask.

3. How could plotters proceed with altering the Zapruder film with any number of films and photos taken that day that remained unknown to them?"

Again, an assumption pretending to be a question. How exactly do you know that the plotters did not observe closely the relatively small number of people who lined the stretch of Elm upon which the shooting took place? Was it really impossible to monitor and interdict swiftly those observed using cameras? Your objections here are wildly over-stated.

But then one might flip the question around and enquire how was it possible that all the cameras trained on the fag end of the motorcade missed the left veer and stop, not to mention the SS run to the stationary presidential limousine?

Paul

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Nice post, Paul. Plus, as Richard Trask, PICTURES OF THE PAIN (1994), observed, FBI agents were posted at photo

processing plants around Dallas for two weeks after the assassination, taking any photos or films that came through

and leaving a card in their place, which he displays on page 590. It was a simple way to screen conflicting evidence.

I am interested in your thoughts on:

1. How plotters could extensively alter the Z film (and extensively is what is theorized) given that copies of the film had already been made and dispersed, Zapruder had a copy himself, and Life had the original ... and none of these copies were seized?

This isn't really a question, now is it, Barb, but rather a string of emotional assertions of orthodoxy. You regurgitate the standard chain of possession which is very obviously a retrospective fiction. Worse still, you ignore long-available and blatant evidence that, for example, Altgens's most famous photo does not match moving film shot from his right.

In fact, a very different copy of the Z film was distributed and even shown on US TV; and here it is:

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

Same despatch:

1. “Exclusive Films Show Shooting of Kennedy in Dallas,” Logansport Pharos-Tribune, (Logansport, Indiana), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 2

2. “UPI Newsfilm First On Air With Exclusive,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, (Great Bend, Kansas), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 9

3. “UPI Newsfilm Has Shooting On Film,” Humboldt Standard, (Eureka, California), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, p.2

Your guy Tink told us this was the Muchmore film, offered at least three different dates for its showing, and then turned silent when confronted by the clipping above, which Mack was said to have possessed all along but could never quite find. Really.

How did they suppress this film? They simply recalled it. Oddly, however, they manifestly didn't tell Zapruder, who didn't recognise elements of his alleged own film when confronted by it by the WC.

2. How the Zapruder film could be essentially recreated knowing it would be in conflict with other known films and photos taken by a number of people that day?

Remind me - how many photos did Moorman initially say she'd taken? Did Nix not complain of editing? And so on and so forth. You also proceed from the assumption that the creators of the second version of the Z fake did not attempt to integrate the revised version with elements of the extant film record. This assumption strikes me, all things considered, as surprisingly simplistic.

But, of course, for your point to have any validity, you would have to have undertaken a survey of the testimony and literature in search of evidence either way. Can you demonstrate that you've made any effort whatever to enquire into the matter? If so, where is it? For if you haven't made such an effort, how do you know the answer?

By the way, if you get stuck, just ask.

3. How could plotters proceed with altering the Zapruder film with any number of films and photos taken that day that remained unknown to them?"

Again, an assumption pretending to be a question. How exactly do you know that the plotters did not observe closely the relatively small number of people who lined the stretch of Elm upon which the shooting took place? Was it really impossible to monitor and interdict swiftly those observed using cameras? Your objections here are wildly over-stated.

But then one might flip the question around and enquire how was it possible that all the cameras trained on the fag end of the motorcade missed the left veer and stop, not to mention the SS run to the stationary presidential limousine?

Paul

[Barb Junkkarinen]

In other words, you don't have answers to the questions asked. :-)

Geez, Barb, I though you were familiarizing yourself with the issues. If you read INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, you will find that the old "chain of custody" argument that you and Tink have worn to a bare thread has been demolished by a copy having taken a detour to Kodak at Rochester, where it apparently was reworked and the new version brought to the NPIC in Washington and given to Homer McMahon. This was on Sunday, 24 November 1963, after an earlier version had been brought to the NPIC on Saturday, 23 November 1963. The Saturday version was an 8mm copy, where the NPIC had to go out and buy an 8mm projector to view it. Ben Hunter was not present on this occasion. The next day, Sunday, another version was brought which was 16mm and unsplit. Ben Hunter was there. Earlier reports about this were discussed in Doug's chapter on the NPIC in MURDER (2000), but I am willing to bet that you are no more familiar with that study than you are with his new one. I'm afraid you have some catching up to do if you want to be taken seriously in the discussions that have revolved around Doug's new five-volume book for at least a month or more. In studying the first film, McMahon noticed six to eight impacts on occupants of the limousine, which corresponds with the four that hit JFK and as many as three that hit Connally, where four plus three equals seven, a number in between six and eight, in case you didn't notice. The second appears to have been considerably revised and was used to support a three-shot scenario. You can order Vol. IV from amazon.com at very low cost (about $18 per volume). Check it out and get back.

When we discuss alteration of the Zapruder, let's keep in mind that there are simple actions that may not appear sinister in any way that affect the quality of the film. For example, as Tink explains in SSID, he was allowed to view 4x5 slides of very good quality of the Z-film, probably from a first-gen copy of the original. However, the copy of the film and slides that ended up at NARA were much less clear and probably at least a generation or two-removed from the original.

So LIFE managed to create an elite researcher in Tink, who had unlimited access to the Z-film and spent hundreds of hours pouring over clear copies of it, as opposed to everyone else who had to scavenge with *evidence* of much lower clarity.

As for your assertions about Tink and his "unlimited access" and time spent .... citations, please!

I asked you about?

Barb

Pamela gave you the citations you requested here:

(Pamela McElwain-Brown @ Jan 7 2010, 08:31 PM)

For those few on this forum for whom this is not common knowledge -- Tink's own words from SSID:

Re time spent (in NYC) with the Z-film:

"As LIFE's special consultant on the assassination, I have had unlimited access to the film and have spent literally HUNDREDS of hours examining it. (caps mine) p. 14

Re the version of the Z-film he saw at LIFE v the version he saw at NARA:

"I was certain the picture was infinitely brighter and clearer than the one I had seen only days before in the National Archives in Washington." p.8

Re the difference in quality between the LIFE 4X5 slides and the NARA 35mm slides:

"I looked at several of them [LIFE slides] and again they were unmistakably clearer than the smaller slides that the Commission had used and that I had seen at the Archives." p.9

Now, Barb, it's time for your response.

I asked for citations on the access and time spent. My response to her posting them? Thank you, Pamela.

I am still waiting for her response to the questions I asked her in my post, #8 in this thread:

"There ARE "right"questions that must be asked. And Josiah's comments raise the initial "right" questions that really must have plausible answers before one can move on to considering alteration.

I am interested in your thoughts on:

1. How plotters could extensively alter the Z film (and extensively is what is theorized) given that copies of the film had already been made and dispersed, Zapruder had a copy himself, and Life had the original ... and none of these copies were seized?

2. How the Zapruder film could be essentially recreated knowing it would be in conflict with other known films and photos taken by a number of people that day?

3. How could plotters proceed with altering the Zapruder film with any number of films and photos taken that day that remained unknown to them?"

I asked virtually the same questions of Fetzer in an earlier post, neither of them have responded. Since you are the nudger, will you be nudging them now? Thanks.

Josiah's opening post in this thread raised some important issues. Why do you think neither Pamela nor Fetzer will answer these quite obvious and reasonable questions? Maybe you would like to give them a whirl ... no other alteration believer seems to want to touch them.

Barb :-)

[Craig Lamson]

This isn't really a question, now is it, Barb, but rather a string of emotional assertions of orthodoxy. You regurgitate the standard chain of possession which is very obviously a retrospective fiction. Worse still, you ignore long-available and blatant evidence that, for example, Altgens's most famous photo does not match moving film shot from his right.

Actually Altgens DOES match moving film shot from his right. You simply don't understand field of view.....

[Jack White]

In other words, Barb has not read Horne IV...which answers her questions. :-)

In other words, you don't have answers to the questions asked. :-)

Geez, Barb, I though you were familiarizing yourself with the issues. If you read INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, you will find that the old "chain of custody" argument that you and Tink have worn to a bare thread has been demolished by a copy having taken a detour to Kodak at Rochester, where it apparently was reworked and the new version brought to the NPIC in Washington and given to Homer McMahon. This was on Sunday, 24 November 1963, after an earlier version had been brought to the NPIC on Saturday, 23 November 1963. The Saturday version was an 8mm copy, where the NPIC had to go out and buy an 8mm projector to view it. Ben Hunter was not present on this occasion. The next day, Sunday, another version was brought which was 16mm and unsplit. Ben Hunter was there. Earlier reports about this were discussed in Doug's chapter on the NPIC in MURDER (2000), but I am willing to bet that you are no more familiar with that study than you are with his new one. I'm afraid you have some catching up to do if you want to be taken seriously in the discussions that have revolved around Doug's new five-volume book for at least a month or more. In studying the first film, McMahon noticed six to eight impacts on occupants of the limousine, which corresponds with the four that hit JFK and as many as three that hit Connally, where four plus three equals seven, a number in between six and eight, in case you didn't notice. The second appears to have been considerably revised and was used to support a three-shot scenario. You can order Vol. IV from amazon.com at very low cost (about $18 per volume). Check it out and get back.

When we discuss alteration of the Zapruder, let's keep in mind that there are simple actions that may not appear sinister in any way that affect the quality of the film. For example, as Tink explains in SSID, he was allowed to view 4x5 slides of very good quality of the Z-film, probably from a first-gen copy of the original. However, the copy of the film and slides that ended up at NARA were much less clear and probably at least a generation or two-removed from the original.

So LIFE managed to create an elite researcher in Tink, who had unlimited access to the Z-film and spent hundreds of hours pouring over clear copies of it, as opposed to everyone else who had to scavenge with *evidence* of much lower clarity.

As for your assertions about Tink and his "unlimited access" and time spent .... citations, please!

I asked you about?

Barb

Pamela gave you the citations you requested here:

(Pamela McElwain-Brown @ Jan 7 2010, 08:31 PM)

For those few on this forum for whom this is not common knowledge -- Tink's own words from SSID:

Re time spent (in NYC) with the Z-film:

"As LIFE's special consultant on the assassination, I have had unlimited access to the film and have spent literally HUNDREDS of hours examining it. (caps mine) p. 14

Re the version of the Z-film he saw at LIFE v the version he saw at NARA:

"I was certain the picture was infinitely brighter and clearer than the one I had seen only days before in the National Archives in Washington." p.8

Re the difference in quality between the LIFE 4X5 slides and the NARA 35mm slides:

"I looked at several of them [LIFE slides] and again they were unmistakably clearer than the smaller slides that the Commission had used and that I had seen at the Archives." p.9

Now, Barb, it's time for your response.

I asked for citations on the access and time spent. My response to her posting them? Thank you, Pamela.

I am still waiting for her response to the questions I asked her in my post, #8 in this thread:

"There ARE "right"questions that must be asked. And Josiah's comments raise the initial "right" questions that really must have plausible answers before one can move on to considering alteration.

I am interested in your thoughts on:

1. How plotters could extensively alter the Z film (and extensively is what is theorized) given that copies of the film had already been made and dispersed, Zapruder had a copy himself, and Life had the original ... and none of these copies were seized?

2. How the Zapruder film could be essentially recreated knowing it would be in conflict with other known films and photos taken by a number of people that day?

3. How could plotters proceed with altering the Zapruder film with any number of films and photos taken that day that remained unknown to them?"

I asked virtually the same questions of Fetzer in an earlier post, neither of them have responded. Since you are the nudger, will you be nudging them now? Thanks.

Josiah's opening post in this thread raised some important issues. Why do you think neither Pamela nor Fetzer will answer these quite obvious and reasonable questions? Maybe you would like to give them a whirl ... no other alteration believer seems to want to touch them.

Barb :-)