What prevented Dulles & Angleton from destroying the Zapruder film?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Rigby writes:

Quote

I’m prepared to delete this reply just as soon as you’ve read post twelve in this thread.

Post twelve doesn't answer my question. It just lists a handful of trivial anomalies: witness recollections that are inconsistent ("The presidential limousine in the left lane of Elm Street") with what we see in the photographic record. So what?

Knowing what we know about the fallibility of human memory, why should we believe these people? What about the far greater number of witnesses who didn't report what these witnesses reported, and whose silence on the matter implies that the car's incriminating swerve into the left-hand lane didn't actually happen? Why shouldn't we believe them instead?

Paul's comment illustrates the problem with amateurish anomaly-spotting. If you look at a handful of anomalies in isolation, you might notice a sinister pattern. Some of the shadows of Armstrong and Aldrin on the 'moon' look wrong! There aren't any stars in the sky! The flag looks like it's fluttering in a breeze! That means the moon landings were faked!(*) But when you look at the rest of the relevant evidence, the paranoid mystery vanishes and sanity is restored.

Let's look at the rest of the relevant evidence. What do other home movies and photographs show? Do they show the presidential car pulling over to the left-hand curb at around the time of the fatal shot, as Paul imagines?

Sadly for Paul, they do not. They are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film:

The Muchmore film clearly shows the car in the middle lane before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. You can see the lane markings, and you can see the two police motorcyclists riding in the lane to the left of the car.

The Nix film, taken from a less helpful angle, doesn't show the lane markings, but it does show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Bronson film also doesn't show the lane markings, but it does ... wait for it ...  show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Moorman photograph was taken too close to the car for the lane markings to be visible, but it does show one police motorcyclist (and part of the second bike) very clearly riding to the left of the car immediately after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Altgens 7 photograph (actually the sixth one he took, but occupying frame number 7 on the negative) shows the presidential car a few seconds after the fatal shot. Clint Hill is clinging onto the rear of the car, and Jackie Kennedy is climbing out of her seat. You can see the lane markings clearly. The car is in the middle lane, and has in fact moved not left but right. Its rear right-hand tyre is touching the marking on the road that separates the middle and right-hand lanes.

I'll repeat that last item of information in case Paul was unable to process it: the Altgens 7 photograph absolutely contradicts Paul's claim that the presidential car moved into the left-hand lane immediately after the fatal shot.(**)

All of the above sources, as well as the Altgens 6 and Willis 5 photos (and probably others, but like Paul I can't be bothered to check), also show the car in the middle lane as it approaches the point of the fatal shot. You will not be surprised to learn that the Zapruder film does so too.

I'm not aware of any photograph or home movie that shows the presidential car pulling to the left-hand curb, as Paul would have us believe. Can Paul provide us with any images which support his claim? If he can't find any, what does that tell him?

What it tells me is that Paul didn't perform even basic checks on his fallible eye-witnesses, by looking at the rest of the photographic evidence and finding out how much of it contradicts his claim (quite a lot) and how much of it supports his claim (nothing, apparently). He found some anomalies, and that was good enough for him.

Paul's witnesses aren't looking too convincing now, are they? On one side, we have a handful of fallible eye-witnesses. On the other we have three home movies and two still photographs, plus the Zapruder film. Which group should we believe? Difficult choice, isn't it?

Paul now has a problem. Because he claimed that the Zapruder film was altered to conceal the car's move to the left-hand curb, he must also claim that the Muchmore film was altered, and that the Nix film was altered, and that the Bronson film was altered, and that the Altgens 7 photo was altered, and that the Moorman photo was altered. Presumably, Paul agrees with John Butler's recent claim that "all or nearly all of the media record in Dealey Plaza has been altered".

Does Paul believe that all the home movies and photographs I've mentioned were altered? If he doesn't, how can he claim that the Zapruder film's depiction of the car in the middle lane is not a true representation of reality?

Everyone makes mistakes. Would Paul now be good enough to admit that he was mistaken in trusting the evidence of a handful of fallible eye-witnesses over that of several photographs and home movies?

Once he's done that, perhaps Paul would also be good enough to explain in plain English exactly how his game of spot-the-anomaly answers the question of mine that he has been avoiding:

If the conspirators wanted to conceal the incriminating evidence contained in the Zapruder film, why would they go to all the trouble of altering it, while leaving in it plenty of incriminating evidence, rather than simply making the film vanish?

---

(*) If Paul wants to apply his spot-the-anomaly method to the photographic evidence of the moon landings, he should prepare for disappointment. The moon landings, like the Zapruder film, weren't faked. Plenty of apparent anomalies have been pointed out in the Apollo photographs, but they all have common-sense explanations, just like the anomalous eye-witness accounts which Paul pounced on unthinkingly.

Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest and most prominent 'Zapruder film is a fake' merchants, the late Jack White, also believed that the moon landings were faked (oh, and that Oswald was faked, and that Oswald's mother was faked, and that the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center were faked), all arrived at by using Paul's spot-the-anomaly research method. Paul Rigby is following a fine tradition. More here:

• http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5911-jack-whites-aulis-apollo-hoax-investigation-a-rebuttal/
• http://www.clavius.org/jackwhite.html

(**) The Altgens 7 photograph is on page 316 of Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, an excellent book which Paul may want to consult before unthinkingly putting his trust in any other fallible eye-witnesses whose statements contradict the photographic evidence.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

On Mr Butler's second point, if the Zapruder film "had to conform to" the lone-nut theory, why does it not do so? Why does it contain so much evidence that contradicts the lone-nut theory? If anyone did alter the film to make it fit the lone-nut theory, they didn't do a very good job, did they?

It does to us, but, did it to most people upon it’s release? They had no internet/youtube, You’d have only likely seen a quick clip on TV.
Also they weren’t working digitally with Adobe Premiere Pro, Da Vinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro. There would have been creative limitations on what could and couldn’t be done in the required timeframe. Editing would have been limited, particularly as you needed to show a version of the film that roughly depicted when Abraham Zapruder started recording and finished recording (ie the whole time the limousine was in his view). If you showed an abbreviated sequence it may have caused suspicion. 
 

If we reverse this scenario and say you organised the killing of JFK and had control over the cover up, how would you have handled the the existence of the Z film and when would you have released it, if at all?

[Paul Rigby]

Any plot, no matter how small or uncomplicated, to kill a sitting President necessarily entails risk, the size of which self-evidently rises or falls based on such factors as, to name but three, location, timing and method. No plot poses greater challenges, in an era of mass camera and vehicular ownership, than one in which the deed is to be committed in a public space lacking minimal access control points.  

In making this choice, the three great risks to any plot – detection (of one or more element of the plot), prevention (the negation of the whole endeavour), and exposure (actual assassin and masterminds) – rise to their maximum. Yet this is precisely the choice made by the men who removed JFK. That decision, in and of itself, bespeaks of an astonishing confidence. 

In so choosing, all the usual types of pre-assassination risk reduction – compartmentalization, the use of cut-outs, distractions, and so on - had necessarily to reckon, to an unprecedented degree, with two necessities.  

First, witness minimization. And this is exactly what we find, from the timely misidentification of the presidential route on the front page of the Dallas Morning News’ assassination day edition, to the location of the assassination site, at the motorcade’s end (with the added bonus of the reduced witness perspective afforded by a sharp decline).     

Second, post-assassination information management.  Here, we have been asked to believe, for the better part of 60 years, that the plotters had planned for the written word – think Hal Hendrix hitting the phones to brief fellow-hacks on the afternoon of November 22 – but had nothing whatever in place for the control of visual information. That veteran intelligence men with vast experience of controlling overseas coup narratives – in Iran, for example, where it was done largely through the Associated Press – either ignored or seriously underestimated, in their pre-coup planning, the potential threat of the photograph and the film. More, that when they belatedly woke up to that threat, the best they could come up with was to prevail upon the Lucepress, not to destroy it, but merely to furnish cover for the Zapruder film’s suppression. 

Is that really plausible?

[Paul Rigby]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Paul Rigby writes:

Post twelve doesn't answer my question. It just lists a handful of trivial anomalies: witness recollections that are inconsistent ("The presidential limousine in the left lane of Elm Street") with what we see in the photographic record. So what?

Knowing what we know about the fallibility of human memory, why should we believe these people? What about the far greater number of witnesses who didn't report what these witnesses reported, and whose silence on the matter implies that the car's incriminating swerve into the left-hand lane didn't actually happen? Why shouldn't we believe them instead?

Paul's comment illustrates the problem with amateurish anomaly-spotting. If you look at a handful of anomalies in isolation, you might notice a sinister pattern. Some of the shadows of Armstrong and Aldrin on the 'moon' look wrong! There aren't any stars in the sky! The flag looks like it's fluttering in a breeze! That means the moon landings were faked!(*) But when you look at the rest of the relevant evidence, the paranoid mystery vanishes and sanity is restored.

Let's look at the rest of the relevant evidence. What do other home movies and photographs show? Do they show the presidential car pulling over to the left-hand curb at around the time of the fatal shot, as Paul imagines?

Sadly for Paul, they do not. They are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film:

The Muchmore film clearly shows the car in the middle lane before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. You can see the lane markings, and you can see the two police motorcyclists riding in the lane to the left of the car.

The Nix film, taken from a less helpful angle, doesn't show the lane markings, but it does show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Bronson film also doesn't show the lane markings, but it does ... wait for it ...  show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Moorman photograph was taken too close to the car for the lane markings to be visible, but it does show one police motorcyclist (and part of the second bike) very clearly riding to the left of the car immediately after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does.

The Altgens 7 photograph (actually the sixth one he took, but occupying frame number 7 on the negative) shows the presidential car a few seconds after the fatal shot. Clint Hill is clinging onto the rear of the car, and Jackie Kennedy is climbing out of her seat. You can see the lane markings clearly. The car is in the middle lane, and has in fact moved not left but right. Its rear right-hand tyre is touching the marking on the road that separates the middle and right-hand lanes.

I'll repeat that last item of information in case Paul was unable to process it: the Altgens 7 photograph absolutely contradicts Paul's claim that the presidential car moved into the left-hand lane immediately after the fatal shot.(**)

All of the above sources, as well as the Altgens 6 and Willis 5 photos (and probably others, but like Paul I can't be bothered to check), also show the car in the middle lane as it approaches the point of the fatal shot. You will not be surprised to learn that the Zapruder film does so too.

I'm not aware of any photograph or home movie that shows the presidential car pulling to the left-hand curb, as Paul would have us believe. Can Paul provide us with any images which support his claim? If he can't find any, what does that tell him?

What it tells me is that Paul didn't perform even basic checks on his fallible eye-witnesses, by looking at the rest of the photographic evidence and finding out how much of it contradicts his claim (quite a lot) and how much of it supports his claim (nothing, apparently). He found some anomalies, and that was good enough for him.

Paul's witnesses aren't looking too convincing now, are they? On one side, we have a handful of fallible eye-witnesses. On the other we have three home movies and two still photographs, plus the Zapruder film. Which group should we believe? Difficult choice, isn't it?

Paul now has a problem. Because he claimed that the Zapruder film was altered to conceal the car's move to the left-hand curb, he must also claim that the Muchmore film was altered, and that the Nix film was altered, and that the Bronson film was altered, and that the Altgens 7 photo was altered, and that the Moorman photo was altered. Presumably, Paul agrees with John Butler's recent claim that "all or nearly all of the media record in Dealey Plaza has been altered".

Does Paul believe that all the home movies and photographs I've mentioned were altered? If he doesn't, how can he claim that the Zapruder film's depiction of the car in the middle lane is not a true representation of reality?

Everyone makes mistakes. Would Paul now be good enough to admit that he was mistaken in trusting the evidence of a handful of fallible eye-witnesses over that of several photographs and home movies?

Once he's done that, perhaps Paul would also be good enough to explain in plain English exactly how his game of spot-the-anomaly answers the question of mine that he has been avoiding:

If the conspirators wanted to conceal the incriminating evidence contained in the Zapruder film, why would they go to all the trouble of altering it, while leaving in it plenty of incriminating evidence, rather than simply making the film vanish?

---

(*) If Paul wants to apply his spot-the-anomaly method to the photographic evidence of the moon landings, he should prepare for disappointment. The moon landings, like the Zapruder film, weren't faked. Plenty of apparent anomalies have been pointed out in the Apollo photographs, but they all have common-sense explanations, just like the anomalous eye-witness accounts which Paul pounced on unthinkingly.

Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest and most prominent 'Zapruder film is a fake' merchants, the late Jack White, also believed that the moon landings were faked (oh, and that Oswald was faked, and that Oswald's mother was faked, and that the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center were faked), all arrived at by using Paul's spot-the-anomaly research method. Paul Rigby is following a fine tradition. More here:

• http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5911-jack-whites-aulis-apollo-hoax-investigation-a-rebuttal/
• http://www.clavius.org/jackwhite.html

(**) The Altgens 7 photograph is on page 316 of Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, an excellent book which Paul may want to consult before unthinkingly putting his trust in any other fallible eye-witnesses whose statements contradict the photographic evidence.

Strawmen, guilt-by-association, more obsessing about the moon, the apparent disavowal of the rich history of film fakery, not to mention the rules governing physical evidence in court - oh, and the usual failure of elementary logic - all topped off by the abolition of the eyewitness in the practice of justice and law enforcement. Not bad for one post, Mr Flywheel. 

Now if the Z fake - and all its buttressing fake films - were genuine, we would expect to find all the closest eyewitnesses identified and questioned in a fair and proper manner. We would, wouldn't we? But because it is a fake, and the Warren Commission lawyers (Specter in particular) knew it was back in '64, the motorcyle escort closest to presidential limousine couldn't be called; and others attesting to the limo halt had to be led somewhat less than subtly. Sylvia Meagher captured this well back in 1967:

Apparently the witnesses were mistaken in remembering that the car stopped; motion pictures, according to the Commission, contradicted them. Yet it seems clear from the way counsel led witnesses that the Commission had considerable resistance to inferences which might be drawn from evidence that the car had stopped at the first shot. “Stopped” was transformed into “seemed to stop” and then “into slowed down.” Such leading of witnesses, which would have been challenged in a courtroom, was facilitated by the Commission’s closed hearings… 

The films of the assassination have not been released for public showing, although it is possible to see the most important one, the Zapruder film…at the National Archives. That film does not seem to support the witnesses who said that the car stopped dead. This being so, it is baffling that counsel conducted the questioning somewhat improperly and why the Report presents this evidence with some lack of impartiality… 

Sylvia Meagher. Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities & The Report (NY: Vintage Books, June 1992 reprint), pp.4-5

PS The attempt to use still photos to buttress claims about the fake films is really quite funny. Keep going with that one.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

 

If we reverse this scenario and say you organised the killing of JFK and had control over the cover up, how would you have handled the the existence of the Z film and when would you have released it, if at all?

This is what I asked you, Paul.

1 hour ago, Paul Rigby said:

Any plot, no matter how small or uncomplicated, to kill a sitting President necessarily entails risk, the size of which self-evidently rises or falls based on such factors as, to name but three, location, timing and method. No plot poses greater challenges, in an era of mass camera and vehicular ownership, than one in which the deed is to be committed in a public space lacking minimal access control points.  

In making this choice, the three great risks to any plot – detection (of one or more element of the plot), prevention (the negation of the whole endeavour), and exposure (actual assassin and masterminds) – rise to their maximum. Yet this is precisely the choice made by the men who removed JFK. That decision, in and of itself, bespeaks of an astonishing confidence. 

In so choosing, all the usual types of pre-assassination risk reduction – compartmentalization, the use of cut-outs, distractions, and so on - had necessarily to reckon, to an unprecedented degree, with two necessities.  

First, witness minimization. And this is exactly what we find, from the timely misidentification of the presidential route on the front page of the Dallas Morning News’ assassination day edition, to the location of the assassination site, at the motorcade’s end (with the added bonus of the reduced witness perspective afforded by a sharp decline).     

Second, post-assassination information management.  Here, we have been asked to believe, for the better part of 60 years, that the plotters had planned for the written word – think Hal Hendrix hitting the phones to brief fellow-hacks on the afternoon of November 22 – but had nothing whatever in place for the control of visual information. That veteran intelligence men with vast experience of controlling overseas coup narratives – in Iran, for example, where it was done largely through the Associated Press – either ignored or seriously underestimated, in their pre-coup planning, the potential threat of the photograph and the film. More, that when they belatedly woke up to that threat, the best they could come up with was to prevail upon the Lucepress, not to destroy it, but merely to furnish cover for the Zapruder film’s suppression. 

Is that really plausible?

To assess what is plausible, you can only do so with the context of the possible alternatives in mind. I believe it’s the Nix film that shows the stop from the reverse angle, do you destroy/lose that one too? What do the public conclude? There probably was enough fishy stuff going on without saying you have lost the most important video in history at the time. 
The first time I watched the Z film I thought he was shot from the front but, I  have hunted. I would guess a lot of the public haven’t, and they watch the Z film and come to all sorts of conclusions about Jackie, the follow up car, shots from behind and above. You are right about something, they had a ton of confidence and who wouldn’t with the media on board, and with a narrative about a communist gunman at the height of American paranoia about the red menace. 
 

it is far from clear and by the time we realised it was too late, too much water under the bridge. 

[Paul Rigby]

A brief sketch of what Team Dulles-Angleton would need to have done:

Fixed upon the location & nature of the event

Settled upon the murder method

Established the desired narrative

Checked the feasibility of using film to achieve or reinforce the desired narrative

Ensured, particularly if niche, the requisite level of photographic-technical expertise

Storyboarded, in Hitchcockian detail, the assassination sequence, with variants

Despatched photogrammetrists to the assassination scene to obtain measurements, angles etc

Amassed and/or procured a library of film footage of Dealey Plaza at the right time of year and in a variety of weather conditions for that time

Flooded the assassination scene with camera-armed assets to maximise potentially usable photos and film 

Note that standard Secret Service practices furnished excellent cover for a number of the above-list. Though little publicized, by 1963 the SS routinely used photography when reconnoitring sites of future Presidential visits; and planted cameramen along routes during presidential parades, both domestically and abroad. (To give you some idea of how long the practice had been established, Scotland Yard undertook a thorough photographic survey of the White House and its environs before an anticipated British VIP visit in the late 1930s.) Thus key elements of the pre-assassination planning could be, and doubtless were, legitimately disguised as pure routine.

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, Paul Rigby said:

A brief sketch of what Team Dulles-Angleton would need to have done:

Fixed upon the location & nature of the event

Settled upon the murder method

Established the desired narrative

Checked the feasibility of using film to achieve or reinforce the desired narrative

Ensured, particularly if niche, the requisite level of photographic-technical expertise

Storyboarded, in Hitchcockian detail, the assassination sequence, with variants

Despatched photogrammetrists to the assassination scene to obtain measurements, angles etc

Amassed and/or procured a library of film footage of Dealey Plaza at the right time of year and in a variety of weather conditions for that time

Flooded the assassination scene with camera-armed assets to maximise potentially usable photos and film 

Note that standard Secret Service practices furnished excellent cover for a number of the above-list. Though little publicized, by 1963 the SS routinely used photography when reconnoitring sites of future Presidential visits; and planted cameramen along routes during presidential parades, both domestically and abroad. (To give you some idea of how long the practice had been established, Scotland Yard undertook a thorough photographic survey of the White House and its environs before an anticipated British VIP visit in the late 1930s.) Thus key elements of the pre-assassination planning could be, and doubtless were, legitimately disguised as pure routine.

Thanks. Some interesting ideas here, Paul. Are you one of those who subscribes to the idea that Zapruder was put there to film this, as opposed to going of his own free will? 
 

Another thing that occurred me is; didn’t they change the motorcade route quite late on? In which case would SS men be asking why we are photographing a route we aren’t taking? 
 

I think both of the above then expand the list of people who may have wind of the conspiracy. Some here think it was a handful or so that were in on the actual killing but, I think you’d need many many more as all those taking sensational images and seeing things with their own eyes would also be material witnesses. You’d need all of them to keep quiet. 
 

Another issue is the possibility that JFK may not visit Texas or Dallas at all. Which means you need to do the same in Miami, Chicago etc etc with the same level of planning. 
 

Editing video myself with modern software, it has come on so much in the last 20 years. I think you might be surprised by the limitations of editing in 1963. Evidence of that is watching motion pictures from that era and all of the glitches and mistakes in the Z film we are watching, IMHO. 
 

Is your scenario over elaborate when trying to keep the number of conspirators down? It’s easy for us to think all this up after the fact with all of the analysis and evidence but, it’s another thing entirely to have the vision to think of everything in advance and to second guess the outcomes and variables. That might take a team of thinkers in itself to execute that well, which adds to the numbers of conspirators, it becomes a huge project.

I wonder if some of the still classified papers being held are relating to a plot to kill Castro with a very similar assassin setup that killed JFK. A cross triangulation and a fall guy. 
Are there any other foreign assassinations that mirror this by the military/CIA ? 

[Paul Rigby]

Chris,

1) Yes

2) SOP - according to Newton T Fisher, a senior policeman from the city, even the DPD "had prepared two or three possible routes so as not to be wholly unprepared."

Tea on the table.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Chris Barnard asks:

Quote

If we reverse this scenario and say you organised the killing of JFK and had control over the cover up, how would you have handled the the existence of the Z film and when would you have released it, if at all?

There are some assumptions built into that question! Why assume that the people who organised the assassination were also in control of the cover-up? Why assume that the cover-up was centrally controlled at all, and that anything more than an occasional nudge in the right direction was required, if that? Why assume that anyone who had any connection with the assassination was bothered about what the Zapruder film and the rest of the photographic evidence might contain? There's no overwhelming evidence for any of these things, so taking them for granted is a mistake.

A lot of the activity that our more imaginative brethren attribute to conspiracy was just the normal self-preserving behaviour of institutions:

• The Dallas police were notorious for fitting people up, and could be relied on to construct whatever evidence might be needed to incriminate Oswald after the assassination (incriminating him before the assassination is a different matter).
• The political institutions could be relied on to sweep things under the carpet.
• Media institutions could be relied on not to rock the boat too much (by buying the Zapruder film, for example, and keeping it away from the general public until the immediate fuss had died down).
• Any links, even arm's-length ones, that Oswald might have had to the FBI, CIA, or similar institutions, would have prompted those institutions to do their part in keeping things quiet.

Top-down diktats may have happened but were not required.

We need to do away with the common assumption (at least, it's common on this forum, less so on forums with a lower tolerance for unnecessarily complicated explanations) that everything that happened was part of some all-encompassing conspiracy, with all the details worked out in advance and performed by a cast of thousands, satisfying though that idea might be to some people.

As for handling the incriminating evidence contained in the Zapruder film, that would depend on whether the people behind the assassination were concerned about what was in it. That in turn would require the lone-gunman explanation to have been part of the original plan (another widely held assumption that lacks strong evidence to support it). Because the film contains so much evidence pointing to the existence of more than one gunman, it's safe to conclude that:

(a) the lone-gunman explanation was not part of the original plan; or
(b) the people who organised the assassination did not have the power to alter or destroy the film; or
(c) both of these.

I'd probably go for option (a), but I wouldn't entirely rule out option (c).

If I, as temporary ruler of the world in 1963, had been in control of the plot and the cover-up, and if I had wanted to make sure that as few people as possible ever suspected that the assassination was a political act, I would have made the Zapruder film disappear, because that's the only way to make sure that the film would never reveal my dastardly plan.

I wouldn't alter the film, because there would be no way for me to guarantee that some other film or photograph wouldn't come to light in the future, containing obvious discrepancies and proving that the film had been altered.

I certainly wouldn't do what some people on this thread seem to think happened: half-heartedly alter the film, leaving plenty of incriminating evidence in it, because that incriminating evidence too would generate suspicion, as indeed it has done.

If, on the other hand, I as Chief Conspirator was only concerned with bumping off Kennedy and saving my own skin, and if I thought that political and institutional loyalties would be sufficient to prevent a serious investigation into the crime, there wouldn't be any need for me to waste my time trying to alter or destroy the film.

As it turned out, political and institutional loyalties were sufficient to prevent a serious investigation into the crime, and the incriminating evidence within the film didn't end up identifying whoever was behind the assassination.

Failure to alter or destroy the Zapruder film would have resulted in exactly what has in fact happened. Not everything is a conspiracy!

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Rigby writes:

Quote

post-assassination information management.  Here, we have been asked to believe, for the better part of 60 years, that the plotters ... had nothing whatever in place for the control of visual information.

Why should the plotters have wanted to control the images of the assassination? Why should we assume that they could have done much about the photographic record even if they wanted to?

Paul may find the notion of all-powerful overlords and a vast conspiracy psychologically satisfying. But the photographic evidence shows that this can't have happened.

It's obvious that the plotters (whoever they were) had next to no control, if any, over the visual record. There is all sorts of incriminating evidence in the photographs and home movies, most famously of course the 'back and to the left' head movement which the Zapruder film depicts very clearly.

If the plotters had "control of visual information", why does all this incriminating evidence exist? Why did they fake the Zapruder film while not bothering to remove the 'back and to the left' bit?

One point I made in my post at the top of this page is that if the Zapruder film is a fake, all the other home movies and still photographs which are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film, must also be fakes:

Quote

Paul now has a problem. Because he claimed that the Zapruder film was altered to conceal the car's move to the left-hand curb, he must also claim that the Muchmore film was altered, and that the Nix film was altered, and that the Bronson film was altered, and that the Altgens 7 photo was altered, and that the Moorman photo was altered. Presumably, Paul agrees with John Butler's recent claim that "all or nearly all of the media record in Dealey Plaza has been altered".

How does Paul get around this problem? If he claims that the other films are genuine, his argument (that the car moved into the left-hand lane) collapses. But if he claims that the other films are fakes, he would be shown to be stark raving living in cloud-cuckoo land somewhat misguided.

He writes:

Quote

the Z fake - and all its buttressing fake films

Paul Rigby really does believe that they're all fakes!

At least he's consistent. If your analysis is based on identifying anomalies and ignoring common-sense explanations for those anomalies, you will end up claiming that all the photographic evidence has been altered.

Readers might be tempted to laugh at Paul, and move on. This 'everything is a fake' craziness might look like harmless eccentricity, but it has the potential to be very damaging to the public perception of the JFK assassination, as this post points out:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2399-a-dialogue-between-angleton-and-machiavelli-on-the-grassy-knoll#36396

If the public can be persuaded that all lone-nut critics are crackpots, we're in trouble.

[Paul Rigby]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Paul Rigby writes:

Why should the plotters have wanted to control the images of the assassination? Why should we assume that they could have done much about the photographic record even if they wanted to?

Paul may find the notion of all-powerful overlords and a vast conspiracy psychologically satisfying. But the photographic evidence shows that this can't have happened.

It's obvious that the plotters (whoever they were) had next to no control, if any, over the visual record. There is all sorts of incriminating evidence in the photographs and home movies, most famously of course the 'back and to the left' head movement which the Zapruder film depicts very clearly.

If the plotters had "control of visual information", why does all this incriminating evidence exist? Why did they fake the Zapruder film while not bothering to remove the 'back and to the left' bit?

One point I made in my post at the top of this page is that if the Zapruder film is a fake, all the other home movies and still photographs which are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film, must also be fakes:

How does Paul get around this problem? If he claims that the other films are genuine, his argument (that the car moved into the left-hand lane) collapses. But if he claims that the other films are fakes, he would be shown to be stark raving living in cloud-cuckoo land somewhat misguided.

He writes:

Paul Rigby really does believe that they're all fakes!

At least he's consistent. If your analysis is based on identifying anomalies and ignoring common-sense explanations for those anomalies, you will end up claiming that all the photographic evidence has been altered.

Readers might be tempted to laugh at Paul, and move on. This 'everything is a fake' craziness might look like harmless eccentricity, but it has the potential to be very damaging to the public perception of the JFK assassination, as this post points out:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2399-a-dialogue-between-angleton-and-machiavelli-on-the-grassy-knoll#36396

If the public can be persuaded that all lone-nut critics are crackpots, we're in trouble.

But Jeremy, where’s the usual lunar stuff? Most disappointing.

There can be no doubt, though, that you stand upon the firmest of foundations. Indeed, on nothing less than the shoulders of a titan, the very photo-expert colossus who enabled Geraldo Rivera’s ABC-TV late-night “Good Night America” on 6 March 1975, and the man who is, unquestionably, the world’s leading Dealey Plaza mendicant. I refer, of course, to O J Groden, the man who single-handedly put the “ex” back into expert . It beggars belief, frankly, that anyone would want to take issue with such a pioneer.

You should really try this for size. I have a sneaking feeling it will fit.

[Paul Rigby]

While Jeremy Bojczuk breaks in his all-new, O J Groden-approved footwear, it is time for the rest of us to take one small step for research, one giant leap out of group-think.

In 1964, the task of the Warren Commission lawyers was to support the revised Z fake, first, by excluding those whose recall was deemed too dangerous and/or those whose profession and proximity (motorcycle outriders) conferred added, and decidedly unwelcome, authority to their observations; and then by browbeating the carefully willowed few in an attempt to make their testimony either conform, or merely pose no threat, to the fraudulent film. Subsequent defenders of the Z fake laboured under no such encumbrance, and the message could therefore be delivered much more simply: human memory fallible, film inerrant. But is this true? Is there a germane example that can be tested to see if this proposition is as reliable as it sounds, if only to some? There is.

Consider the periodic recrudescence of claims, many following the alleged debut* of the Z fake on Geraldo Rivera’s ABC-TV’s late-night “Good Night America” on 6 March 1975, that the film was first shown in the days following JFK’s assassination. To venture in to print, online or in hard copy, with such a supposedly defective memory was to suffer, post-1975, the condescension of an outraged orthodoxy. The latter held that this was impossible: the Z film rights had been bought by Time-Life on Monday, 25 November 1963, and the film thereafter suppressed, supposedly on the grounds of taste. A film of the assassination had been shown within that rough timeframe, though, but it was Marie Muchmore’s, not Zapruder’s.

What general impression did this film leave and how did it impact upon viewers? The best description of both was provided by Rick Friedman, in a piece for Editor & Publisher, which likely went to print on 26 or 27 November, for an edition dated 30 November 1963. According to Friedman, many viewers considered the assassination sequence they had just viewed as “too gruesome,” and had responded accordingly, with “at least one television station… besieged with protests after it had shown scenes of the President’s motorcade at the moment of the shooting.”

For comparison purposes, here are the only two known contenders for the identity of that film. I have labelled them in accordance with current orthodoxy:

 Gruesome

Notgruesome

Very obviously, the two are labelled the wrong way round. The Zapruder film is gruesome, the Muchmore not.  

In 2007, a New York-based contributor to an online forum discussion recalled seeing, just before or after JFK’s funeral, a film of the assassination playing “over and over.” She was right, as a 26 November 1963 article, describing the first showing in the country of the film on WNEW-TV (at the unearthly time of 0046hrs), confirmed: “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.” Strike 2 for human memory. 

On the same day, Tuesday, 26 November, the Milwaukee Journal named the film as Zapruder’s, adding this piece of confirmatory detail: “Mrs. Kennedy then jumps up and crawls across the back deck of the limousine, apparently seeking the aid of a secret service man who has been trotting behind the slowly moving vehicle. He jumps onto the car and shoves Mrs. Kennedy back into the seat. Then he orders the driver to speed to the hospital where the president died.” The film attributed to Muchmore, even the pre-splice black and white version, has never extended this far (though perhaps we ought to give the CIA a bit more time). 

One man in no doubt that Zapruder’s film (version 1) had been shown on US television – certainly by Metromedia’s stations, including the aforementioned WNEW & Los Angeles’ KTLA – was none other than Mark Lane. In the course of penning his lawyer’s brief for Oswald, printed in December 1963 by the National Guardian, but commenced on Tuesday, 26 November – he observed that a “motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show exactly the same situation.” 

The orthodox history the Zapruder film is bunk. And it is time for Jeremy to pass me an enormous slice of mooncake. 

 *At least two non-national TV showings preceded the television “debut”: at 5pm news feature on 14 February 1969, by KTLA-TV in Los Angeles; and in the late hours by WSNS-TV, Ch 44, Chicago, in 1970. The film was given to director Howie Samuelsohn by Penn Jones and later aired in syndication to Philadelphia, Detroit, Kansas City and St. Louis

 

 

 

[David Andrews]

Hope not OT: In the Muchmore film, @0:39, you can see for a second that the SS car behind LBJ's on Houston has it's rear door open before the JFK limo makes the turn onto Elm.  Perhaps other people have known this, but I hadn't.  Makes the background doings in Altgens 6 seem less urgent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqSEDtDk8gA&t=55s

[Mark Tyler]

4 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Hope not OT: In the Muchmore film, @0:39, you can see for a second that the SS car behind LBJ's on Houston has it's rear door open before the JFK limo makes the turn onto Elm.  Perhaps other people have known this, but I hadn't.  Makes the background doings in Altgens 6 seem less urgent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqSEDtDk8gA&t=55s

The back door was apparently open throughout the motorcade.  In this Stoughton photo from Main Street you can see it open again:

[David G. Healy]

9 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

While Jeremy Bojczuk breaks in his all-new, O J Groden-approved footwear, it is time for the rest of us to take one small step for research, one giant leap out of group-think.

In 1964, the task of the Warren Commission lawyers was to support the revised Z fake, first, by excluding those whose recall was deemed too dangerous and/or those whose profession and proximity (motorcycle outriders) conferred added, and decidedly unwelcome, authority to their observations; and then by browbeating the carefully willowed few in an attempt to make their testimony either conform, or merely pose no threat, to the fraudulent film. Subsequent defenders of the Z fake laboured under no such encumbrance, and the message could therefore be delivered much more simply: human memory fallible, film inerrant. But is this true? Is there a germane example that can be tested to see if this proposition is as reliable as it sounds, if only to some? There is.

Consider the periodic recrudescence of claims, many following the alleged debut* of the Z fake on Geraldo Rivera’s ABC-TV’s late-night “Good Night America” on 6 March 1975, that the film was first shown in the days following JFK’s assassination. To venture in to print, online or in hard copy, with such a supposedly defective memory was to suffer, post-1975, the condescension of an outraged orthodoxy. The latter held that this was impossible: the Z film rights had been bought by Time-Life on Monday, 25 November 1963, and the film thereafter suppressed, supposedly on the grounds of taste. A film of the assassination had been shown within that rough timeframe, though, but it was Marie Muchmore’s, not Zapruder’s.

What general impression did this film leave and how did it impact upon viewers? The best description of both was provided by Rick Friedman, in a piece for Editor & Publisher, which likely went to print on 26 or 27 November, for an edition dated 30 November 1963. According to Friedman, many viewers considered the assassination sequence they had just viewed as “too gruesome,” and had responded accordingly, with “at least one television station… besieged with protests after it had shown scenes of the President’s motorcade at the moment of the shooting.”

For comparison purposes, here are the only two known contenders for the identity of that film. I have labelled them in accordance with current orthodoxy:

 Gruesome

Notgruesome

Very obviously, the two are labelled the wrong way round. The Zapruder film is gruesome, the Muchmore not.  

In 2007, a New York-based contributor to an online forum discussion recalled seeing, just before or after JFK’s funeral, a film of the assassination playing “over and over.” She was right, as a 26 November 1963 article, describing the first showing in the country of the film on WNEW-TV (at the unearthly time of 0046hrs), confirmed: “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.” Strike 2 for human memory. 

On the same day, Tuesday, 26 November, the Milwaukee Journal named the film as Zapruder’s, adding this piece of confirmatory detail: “Mrs. Kennedy then jumps up and crawls across the back deck of the limousine, apparently seeking the aid of a secret service man who has been trotting behind the slowly moving vehicle. He jumps onto the car and shoves Mrs. Kennedy back into the seat. Then he orders the driver to speed to the hospital where the president died.” The film attributed to Muchmore, even the pre-splice black and white version, has never extended this far (though perhaps we ought to give the CIA a bit more time). 

One man in no doubt that Zapruder’s film (version 1) had been shown on US television – certainly by Metromedia’s stations, including the aforementioned WNEW & Los Angeles’ KTLA – was none other than Mark Lane. In the course of penning his lawyer’s brief for Oswald, printed in December 1963 by the National Guardian, but commenced on Tuesday, 26 November – he observed that a “motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show exactly the same situation.” 

The orthodox history the Zapruder film is bunk. And it is time for Jeremy to pass me an enormous slice of mooncake. 

 *At least two non-national TV showings preceded the television “debut”: at 5pm news feature on 14 February 1969, by KTLA-TV in Los Angeles; and in the late hours by WSNS-TV, Ch 44, Chicago, in 1970. The film was given to director Howie Samuelsohn by Penn Jones and later aired in syndication to Philadelphia, Detroit, Kansas City and St. Louis

 

 

 

thank you -- very nice, Paul...