Doug Horne`s Volume 2 Inside The ARRB

[Michael Crane]

I was fortunate to find my volumes of Doug`s books that I had stored for quite a long period of time.I had only read one volume (5) & then I recently started reading volume two.I noticed that on page 287 of volume two that,Joe O`Donnell mentions that he was asked to show Jackie the Zapruder film.And after that,Jackie had commented that she don`t ever want to see that again.He goes on to say that he removed about 10 feet of the Zapruder film (namely the halo of debris)

He states that it was a 16mm that he removed it from.So,I`m wondering what copy it was that he showed Jackie & where is it at this time?

Would anybody like to comment about any portion that I just mentioned?

Here we have someone that actually admitted to altering a Zapruder film.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Michael Crane

[Micah Mileto]

Joe O'Donnell had dementia at this time. 

[Michael Crane]

It seems that you are correct Micah.Your response made me research the claim further.I was able to locate the following on the web.

“Mr. O’Donnell further volunteered that he was asked to show Jacqueline Kennedy the Zapruder film in a private screening with a few weeks of the assassination; his recollection of the timing was uncertain. He said no one was present except Jacqueline Kennedy and him, and that the screening was held at the USIA [United States Information Agency] screening room at the USIA building at 1776 Pennsylvania Avenue. He said that when he asked her why she tried to escape from the limousine, she told him she was not trying to escape, but rather was trying to pick up pieces of the President’s head from the top of the car’s trunk lid, so that his head could be put back together. He said that following her viewing of the head shot sequence in the film, Jacqueline Kennedy told him in a very forceful way, ‘I don’t ever want to see that again,’ which he said that he interpreted as an order to alter the film so as to remove the offending images of the head shot – namely, a halo of debris around the President’s head. He told us he knows it was wrong, but he removed about 10 feet of film from the Zapruder film. After Mr. O’Donnell was asked what format the film was, he stated it was 16mm film; when asked if he was sure that it was 16mm film, he said that yes, it was 16mm film. When asked to estimate how many frames he removed, he simply repeated that he removed ‘about 10 feet of film.’ He said he has not seen the Zapruder film since that time. When he was asked whether he altered a copy of the film or the original, he said, ‘I had the original.’ “[Call Report, Joe O’Donnell, Telephone Interview by Jeremy Gunn, 02/28/97, p.2]

Edited November 16, 2017 by Michael Crane

[Michael Crane]

In a September 15, 2007, New York Times article written by Michael Wilson, Mr. O’Donnell’s family said “his claims to fame – made in television, newspaper and radio interviews, as well as on his own amateurish Web site – were not out of greed or fraud, but the confused statements of an ailing man in his last years. The only thing stolen, his widow and one of his sons said, was the soundness of his memory. While he was not formally diagnosed with a mental illness, he clearly became senile, his family said.”