A Problem with "Prayer Man"

[Gerry Down]

11 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

The plotters and those handling the cover-up on their behalf were very concerned about those films and photos. That is why, as now know, they diverted the Zapruder film to the CIA-contracted Kodak Hawkeye photo lab in Rochester, NY, and then to the CIA's NPIC in DC. That is why the Zapruder film was suppressed for 12 ears (even in its altered state, it was unacceptable). That is why some photographic evidence disappeared or was deliberately damaged. That is why the NPIC briefing boards on the Zapruder film vanished.

But the cover-up operation could not suppress or damage every photo and film. The plotters and their cover-up people, for example, were not powerful enough to keep ABC from airing the Zapruder film in 1975. 

 

I wonder what the CIAs explanation was for ever having the Zapruder film at their facility. Surely it was the FBIs case, not the CIAs.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy Larsen writes:

Quote

The lone-gunman explanation was merely a part of the coverup, not the plot.

Sandy and I are of one mind!

Many conspiracy theorists jump to the conclusion that everything that happened, both during and after the shooting, had been carefully planned in advance, and that those who instigated the assassination had the power to carry out those plans after the assassination.

But we know that the plotters, whoever they were, either didn't have the power to control the photographic record or simply were not concerned about what it might show (or both). If, as appears to be the case, more than one gunman was involved, there was always a chance that some bystander would capture images which demonstrated that more than one gunman was involved. The plotters, whoever they were, clearly were not bothered by the possibility that the shooting could be demonstrated to be a conspiracy. They may in fact have preferred the assassination to be seen as a conspiracy.

We also know that the lone-gunman explanation was put forward and promoted in the early stages by political apparatchiks for political reasons. That explanation was later promoted by the media for the same basic reason: to maintain public trust in established political institutions. There's no need to assume that insiders such as Nicholas Katzenbach or Earl Warren, or entities such as CBS or the New York Times which heavily promoted the Warren Report, had any connection at all to whoever instigated the assassination.

It really is time for people to look at the assassination story in a more nuanced way, by making a distinction between the plot and the cover-up. This may even help us to discover precisely who might have been behind the shooting.

[Larry Hancock]

You both have my vote....

 

[Allen Lowe]

6 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Sandy Larsen writes:

Sandy and I are of one mind!

Many conspiracy theorists jump to the conclusion that everything that happened, both during and after the shooting, had been carefully planned in advance, and that those who instigated the assassination had the power to carry out those plans after the assassination.

But we know that the plotters, whoever they were, either didn't have the power to control the photographic record or simply were not concerned about what it might show (or both). If, as appears to be the case, more than one gunman was involved, there was always a chance that some bystander would capture images which demonstrated that more than one gunman was involved. The plotters, whoever they were, clearly were not bothered by the possibility that the shooting could be demonstrated to be a conspiracy. They may in fact have preferred the assassination to be seen as a conspiracy.

We also know that the lone-gunman explanation was put forward and promoted in the early stages by political apparatchiks for political reasons. That explanation was later promoted by the media for the same basic reason: to maintain public trust in established political institutions. There's no need to assume that insiders such as Nicholas Katzenbach or Earl Warren, or entities such as CBS or the New York Times which heavily promoted the Warren Report, had any connection at all to whoever instigated the assassination.

It really is time for people to look at the assassination story in a more nuanced way, by making a distinction between the plot and the cover-up. This may even help us to discover precisely who might have been behind the shooting.

I understand and appreciate your points, but do you really think the plotters had no thoughts as to what would happen in the aftermath, no plans for handling conspiracy allegations? One thing that I think is important to realize is how different the world was in 1963, just in terms of cameras and photographs - it wasn't like today when everybody who could breathe was documenting anything that moved; as we see, even the extant photographic record is vague, blurred, messy. I think the plotters knew how difficult it would be for anyone to produce a blatant document of third-party assassins; and I doubt anyone even thought about acoustical proof. And the real truth is that, without Zapruder and his film, we would be absolutely nowhere today.

[Paul Rigby]

 A recent example of how eyewitness film footage to a shooting’s immediate aftermath was edited to protect one element of the British deep state’s deadliest resources (in this instance, the Metropolitan Police’s CO19 armed unit) - and officialdom pretended not to notice:

 

 

Examination of Witness B’s tampered mobile phone footage – the edit is calculated to have been at least 4 seconds - begins at 14 mins 55 seconds:

https://youtu.be/9_xzmOpGypY?t=895

Orville Nix’s unqualified endorsement of the copy of the film returned to him:

I love the idea the plotters were not interested in controlling photographic imagery of the assassination. Has anyone told them?

Henry Dashiell Burroughs, AP B&W still photographer, rode in Camera Car #2 in motorcade:

10/14/98 letter to Vince Palamara---"I was a member of the White House pool aboard Air Force One when we arrived with JFK in Dallas on that fateful day. We, the pool, were dismayed to find our pool car shoved back to about #11 position in the motorcade. We protested, but it was too late.”

https://www.whokilledjfk.net/motorcade_occupants.htm

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58524123/henry-dashiell-burroughs

 

[John Cotter]

4 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

 A recent example of how eyewitness film footage to a shooting’s immediate aftermath was edited to protect one element of the British deep state’s deadliest resources (in this instance, the Metropolitan Police’s CO19 armed unit) - and officialdom pretended not to notice:

 

 

Examination of Witness B’s tampered mobile phone footage – the edit is calculated to have been at least 4 seconds - begins at 14 mins 55 seconds:

https://youtu.be/9_xzmOpGypY?t=895

Orville Nix’s unqualified endorsement of the copy of the film returned to him:

I love the idea the plotters were not interested in controlling photographic imagery of the assassination. Has anyone told them?

Henry Dashiell Burroughs, AP B&W still photographer, rode in Camera Car #2 in motorcade:

10/14/98 letter to Vince Palamara---"I was a member of the White House pool aboard Air Force One when we arrived with JFK in Dallas on that fateful day. We, the pool, were dismayed to find our pool car shoved back to about #11 position in the motorcade. We protested, but it was too late.”

https://www.whokilledjfk.net/motorcade_occupants.htm

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58524123/henry-dashiell-burroughs

 

Appalling vistas that self-styled infallible pontificators, like Lord Denning, refuse to see.

Edited July 7, 2023 by John Cotter

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Allen Lowe writes:

Quote

do you really think the plotters had no thoughts as to what would happen in the aftermath, no plans for handling conspiracy allegations?

Well, that depends on who the plotters were! And on what their ultimate intention was in killing JFK.

If we assume that the plotters wanted the assassination to look like the act of a lone gunman, they took a lot of risks by not controlling the photographic evidence. Certainly there was no guarantee that any spectators would capture images that provided good evidence of more than one assassin. But, with hundreds of spectators likely to be in the area, many dozens of whom could be expected to make an effort to bring their cameras with them, the plotters must have known that there was an appreciable chance that their 'lone gunman' plot would be exposed.

If, on the other hand, we assume that the plotters were happy for the assassination to look like a conspiracy, perhaps in order to place the blame on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, they went about things in the right way. Should any spectators happen to capture images that suggested a conspiracy, so much the better.

Perhaps the plotters were confident about how officialdom would react to any evidence of an external or domestic conspiracy: by suppressing such evidence and imposing a lone-gunman explanation for public consumption. In this case, the plotters wouldn't need to handle any conspiracy allegations themselves; officialdom, motivated by its own reasons, would sort out that problem for them.

If the intention was to make it look as though the Cuban or Soviet regimes were behind the assassination, the plotters may have done this for two very different reasons: to provoke a military attack, or to provoke an internal cover-up. The former would require the assassination to be officially interpreted as a conspiracy; the latter, as the act of a lone gunman. In the event, the threat of a military attack was the motivation for imposing the lone-gunman interpretation. Maybe the plotters intended this to happen; maybe they didn't.

Perhaps the plotters simply weren't concerned about whether the assassination was viewed after the event as a conspiracy or the act of a lone gunman, as long as JFK was eliminated and their gunmen got away undetected.

I don't know which, if any, of these scenarios is accurate. But I think it's a mistake to assume that the way things played out necessarily matched the intentions of the plotters. It's certainly a mistake to assume, as many people seem to do, that those who instigated the assassination also controlled the cover-up.

[John Cotter]

8 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Allen Lowe writes:

Well, that depends on who the plotters were! And on what their ultimate intention was in killing JFK.

If we assume that the plotters wanted the assassination to look like the act of a lone gunman, they took a lot of risks by not controlling the photographic evidence. Certainly there was no guarantee that any spectators would capture images that provided good evidence of more than one assassin. But, with hundreds of spectators likely to be in the area, many dozens of whom could be expected to make an effort to bring their cameras with them, the plotters must have known that there was an appreciable chance that their 'lone gunman' plot would be exposed.

If, on the other hand, we assume that the plotters were happy for the assassination to look like a conspiracy, perhaps in order to place the blame on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, they went about things in the right way. Should any spectators happen to capture images that suggested a conspiracy, so much the better.

Perhaps the plotters were confident about how officialdom would react to any evidence of an external or domestic conspiracy: by suppressing such evidence and imposing a lone-gunman explanation for public consumption. In this case, the plotters wouldn't need to handle any conspiracy allegations themselves; officialdom, motivated by its own reasons, would sort out that problem for them.

If the intention was to make it look as though the Cuban or Soviet regimes were behind the assassination, the plotters may have done this for two very different reasons: to provoke a military attack, or to provoke an internal cover-up. The former would require the assassination to be officially interpreted as a conspiracy; the latter, as the act of a lone gunman. In the event, the threat of a military attack was the motivation for imposing the lone-gunman interpretation. Maybe the plotters intended this to happen; maybe they didn't.

Perhaps the plotters simply weren't concerned about whether the assassination was viewed after the event as a conspiracy or the act of a lone gunman, as long as JFK was eliminated and their gunmen got away undetected.

I don't know which, if any, of these scenarios is accurate. But I think it's a mistake to assume that the way things played out necessarily matched the intentions of the plotters. It's certainly a mistake to assume, as many people seem to do, that those who instigated the assassination also controlled the cover-up.

“Certainly”? Have you got inside information which underpins your purported certainty?

I previously refuted your suggestion that LHO hadn’t been marked out as a patsy before the assassination by reference to the “sheep dipping” of him as described by James Douglass and others. On that occasion you were caught out contradicting yourself.

The accumulation of evidence clearly shows that the purpose of the sheep dipping was to paint LHO as a shooter in Dealey Plaza, the amphitheatre which facilitated the triangulated crossfire that would minimize JFK's chances of getting out of there alive.

Now you’re back pontificating about what you claim to know, when in fact you don’t know it –unless of course you do have inside information which you’re not sharing, the implications of which I need not elaborate.

The fragmentation and atomising of the evidence by you and lone nutters (it’s not at all clear that you’re not one of those) reduces the JFKA to a “blind men and the elephant” exercise in which debates about pieces of evidence in isolation from other pieces and their holistic implications can be pursued ad infinitum leading nowhere.

In view of this kind of chronic disruption, it’s no wonder JFKA internet forums have achieved practically nothing during the decades of their existence. It’s now perfectly clear that the only possibility of any resolution of the case would be the election of RFK Jr as US president.

Edited July 8, 2023 by John Cotter

[Roger Odisio]

On 7/6/2023 at 4:39 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Quote

Why do you suppose they weren't very concerned about what those films and photos might show?

If by 'they' you mean whoever instigated the assassination, the implication is that whatever the photographic record might show, that was fine by them. If it showed evidence of more than one gunman, they would have been happy for the shooting to be viewed as a conspiracy.

There were hundreds of people in Dealey Plaza, any number of whom could have captured any aspect of the shooting on film. Clearly the lone-gunman explanation was not baked into the plot.

If by 'they' you mean the law enforcement agencies who were responsible for investigating the crime, the implication is that they were not motivated by any preconceived interpretation of the assassination, at least in the early stages while dozens of members of the public with cameras were leaving Dealey Plaza and dispersing all over the country and abroad.

I apologize for the lateness of my response.  My friend Sandy banned me from posting here for the last two days.  I have some disagreements with some of your points, Jeremy.

 By "they" I mean, those who planned and carried out the murder *and* the coverup to conceal their identity. They were one interconnected and coordinated group, had to be, imo, which is not to say there weren't factions wanting different things within the group that had to be resolved at some point.  A central tenet is they would not have attempted to kill a popular figure like JFK, overturn the '60 election, and seize control of US foreign policy, without a feasible murder plan *and* coverup in place to get away with it. This wasn't like killing Lamumba.  The JFKA was the lynchpin of their rise to, and consolidation of power, that set in motion a series of political murders the rest of the decade and beyond. Their lives and reputations were on the line if they failed. That doesn't mean the plan remained without adjustments throughout the process.

There is no way they would have just hired shooters and snuck them out of Dallas afterward, without also having a plan to blame the murder on someone else.  Free to concentrate on the the story of hired killers without the Oswald story to divert them, even the somnambulant, compliant media might have poked holes in that story.  The extra risk of that path was real. There was no reason to take it.  By killing Oswald, they were confident they could control the flow of information to focus on Oswald as the murderer, away from themselves.  It was an essential element in the plan. It has worked. 

 

Let me flesh that out a bit.  I agree with Salandria, when 25 years ago he said (paraphrasing), we know JFK was killed by the upper echelons of his own government.  That leads directly to Allen Dulles, his security state cohorts, and the wealthy interests he had served all his life.  At the time of the murder he was still running the essential elements of the CIA from his home in Georgetown despite being fired by Kennedy a couple of years earlier.  He spent the weekend of the murder at the secure CIA hideaway in Virginia he had built for himself.   Dulles died a little over 5 years later.  Kennedy had stood in the way of everything he had been trying to achieve.

 

It was important of course that the next president be willing to go along.  LBJ was. He wanted to be president as much Dulles wanted JFK out of the way. You've probably listened to the tape where journalist Joe Alsop (I think it was) convinces a reluctant LBJ to appoint a commission of great Americans to investigate the murder so people would be reassured they got the full story of what happened?  Pure LBJ hokum.  He knew before the shots were fired that something like the Warren Commission was an essential element of the coverup in selling the Oswald-did-it story.  And miraculously, LBJ appointed Dulles to the WC as the only member without a day job, allowing him to effectively run the body day to day, particularly keeping it away from any information about the CIA.

 

In short, I don't think the murder happens without the leadership of Dulles and LBJ and their coordinated efforts.  Particularly Dulles. I can't conceive of the murder happening without the approval of "the old man" at the CIA.

 

The first job of the killers was not convincing the public.  That came later.  It was intimidating official Washington to go along with JFK's removal.  To not ask questions because there were some they couldn't answer.  The first step in that process was the message from the White House situation room to the plane that afternoon coming back from Dallas with some Kennedy loyalists on board.  We have caught the murder and he acted alone, it said..  Translation:  no matter what you may have thought you saw in Dallas (and some aides had a good view of the murder scene), don't interfere.  Intimidating Washington was a job made for Dulles and LBJ.

 

They intimidated and silenced opposition on the Left as well.  Chomsky, Zinn, IF Stone all said they didn't care who killed JFK.  A structural analysis of the problems was needed, not a focus on individuals. There was no important difference between JFK and LBJ.  Imagine that in hindsight.

On 7/6/2023 at 4:39 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The reason for shutting up Oswald might have been to prevent him spilling the beans about what he knew about the assassination, assuming that he knew anything. But we don't need to assume that. He may have been murdered simply to prevent the flimsy case against him being exposed during a trial. The latter would apply even if Oswald had known absolutely nothing about the assassination in advance.

I think it's clearly the latter. The plan was compartmentalized.  If Oswald knew anything (and I don't know if he did), he clearly could not have implicated the planners at the top, which is what those people cared about  They knew of course that they had no case against him. He didn't do it.  They couldn't let him contradict their story, which is why they had to kill him before he could talk to a lawyer.

On 7/6/2023 at 4:39 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Widespread confiscation of films would indeed have looked heavy-handed. The important thing to remember is that it didn't actually happen.

Widespread confiscation, yes, but they did grab some of the essential films that had captured the murder and surrounding vicinity.  Zapruder was hidden from the populace for 12 years until shown on TV. The original Nix has still not been returned to the family. And the NBC accomplice has hidden the camera original of Darnell and Wiegman ever since the murder.

 

 

[Charles Blackmon]

Nothing to back this up but it seems very likely that the killers took a one-way flight to their demise. Otherwise we would have heard death-bed confessions.

[Steve Thomas]

I think the people who planned JFK's assassination wanted there to be evidence of a conspiracy.

How else are you going to blame Cuba or Russia or whomever?

I think Johnson had it right, when he said 20 million people could die (or whatever it was he did say).

The people who came after did what they could to try and blame it on a lone nut. Somebody with "mental health" issues.

Isn't that what we're still doing?

Steve Thomas

[Allen Lowe]

On 7/1/2023 at 7:56 PM, Roger Odisio said:

LS:  The "problem" with Prayer Man remains, how can he be an effective patsy if he's filmed standing outside the building at the time of the shots?

To try to answer your question, begin with the fact that Oswald wasn't one of the shooters. The killers certainly used one or more trained assassins, not him.  He wasn't on the sixth floor.  He was somewhere else.  Even though the story they had prepared was Oswald shooting from the 6th floor window.  So where was he?  Or better, if you were running the show what would you want to do with him?

The last thing you would want is for Oswald to figure out, or even sense, that he was being set up to take the rap.  He would run and the whole project probably would collapse.

So you do nothing with him.  You let him go through his day as usual.

You confiscate cameras, the media tells the public only what you tell them to say (classic example from Lifton--the next day a Dallas paper reports JFK died in the 6ht floor operating room at Parkland--which was the original plan before they changed it on the fly.   No one corrected the story for  the stenographers). You begin an intimidation of witnesses on a massive scale.  You quickly grab Oswald after the murder--you know where to find him--and ask for his alibi so you can begin destroying it. You claim you didn't record or take notes at Oswald's interrogation, and order anyone who did take notes to destroy them.  Hosty disobeys because he wants to write a book.  His notes end up at NARA, but it takes until 6years ago before anyone really focuses on them and Oswald's alibi. 

And most important you have a plan to kill Oswald quickly--before he can talk to a lawyer--so he can't defend himself. The original plan doesn't work so you have to bring in Ruby to do an emergency job.

Somethings go wrong of course.  What bad luck to have Oswald filmed on the steps around the time of the murder.  But you have NBC to protect you.

The killers conclude that all of this is preferable to avoid tipping off Oswald. They are right.

 

• •  

Posted July 1

On 7/1/2023 at 3:02 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

@Jeremy Bojczuk

Thanks for your concise (and respectful) response that argues Oswald could not have been in the sniper's nest. Although I take issue with some of the bullet points you include,  I'm not here to debate the question of who didn't kill the president, a.k.a. Oswald other than his role as the perfect "patsy".

You explain, persuasively, The problem is that a "peer reviewed report" cannot be made because the copies of the Darnell and Wiegman films that are in public circulation are insufficiently clear, being several generations removed from the originals, which prompts the question: why, when I have repeatedly laid out the complications of securing a final report on authenticity of the Lafitte datebook, are we met with semi-derision from many Kennedy assassination researchers — most recently Greg Parker himself?

The "problem" with Prayer Man remains, how can he be an effective patsy if he's filmed standing outside the building at the time of the shots?

Expand  

"LS:  The "problem" with Prayer Man remains, how can he be an effective patsy if he's filmed standing outside the building at the time of the shots"

think of what you are saying - t here it is 60 years later and it worked - he is considered, by many if not most, to have been the killer. And by the official record. It worked - it worked - so where's the problem?

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Allen Lowe said:

• •  

 

Posted July 1

"LS:  The "problem" with Prayer Man remains, how can he be an effective patsy if he's filmed standing outside the building at the time of the shots"

think of what you are saying - t here it is 60 years later and it worked - he is considered, by many if not most, to have been the killer. And by the official record. It worked - it worked - so where's the problem?

@Roger Odisio

The last thing you would want is for Oswald to figure out, or even sense, that he was being set up to take the rap.  He would run and the whole project probably would collapse.

You have absolutely no way of knowing whether Oswald was oblivious to being set up as the patsy.

There is however at least one incident that, if verified, serves as proof that he became alarmed and reached out to his caretaker or the FBI, perhaps one and the same.  We're awaiting confirmation; if it holds up, it will corroborate what Lafitte wrote on October 5, Oswald — (issue!) check with caretaker ..., and Lafitte's November 2 entry, Runner Runner [FBI] w/T. 4 P.M.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Roger Odisio

The last thing you would want is for Oswald to figure out, or even sense, that he was being set up to take the rap.  He would run and the whole project probably would collapse.

You have absolutely no way of knowing whether Oswald was oblivious to being set up as the patsy.

There is however at least one incident that, if verified, serves as proof that he became alarmed and reached out to the FBI.  We're awaiting confirmation; if it holds up, it will corroborate what Lafitte wrote on October 5, Oswald — (issue!) check with caretaker ..., and Lafitte's November 2 entry, Runner Runner [FBI] w/T. 4 P.M.

@Allen Lowe think of what you are saying - t here it is 60 years later and it worked - he is considered, by many if not most, to have been the killer. And by the official record. It worked - it worked - so where's the problem?

I don't understand what you are saying, let alone asking.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Again, you make some good points, Roger.

Quote

There is no way they would have just hired shooters and snuck them out of Dallas afterward, without also having a plan to blame the murder on someone else.

True. It's clear that Oswald had been implicated in advance, and that Oswald's apparent ownership of the rifle, combined with his apparent links to the Soviet and Cuban regimes, implicated those regimes in the assassination, before the event.

To go back to the topic of this thread, the question that interests me is: if evidence turns up which undeniably places Oswald on the TSBD steps when he is claimed to have been on the sixth floor (i.e. the originals or early copies of the Darnell and Wiegman films), what conclusions should we draw about the conspiracy and the cover-up?

Thre's one obvious conclusion: it would confirm that, as Steve points out, "the people who planned JFK's assassination wanted there to be evidence of a conspiracy." We know that the lone-gunman explanation was imposed after the event by political insiders, who had obvious political reasons for doing so. I can't disprove Roger's claim that Johnson helped matters along because he was involved in the plot, but I think the simpler explanation is sufficient: political insiders did it for simple political reasons. I'm not sure why the conspirators would have wanted the event to be seen as a conspiracy if they also had the power and desire to impose the lone-gunman explanation on it.

A second conclusion is that all of the inconclusive pre-assassination evidence which implicated Oswald as a shooter, should be dismissed. Sightings of Oswald at a rifle range, for example, would have been honest cases of mistaken identity, and not deliberate impersonation (let alone deliberate impersonation by long-term doppelgangers with 13-inch heads). Here, too, the simplest explanation is sufficient.

Quote

they did grab some of the essential films that had captured the murder and surrounding vicinity.  Zapruder was hidden from the populace for 12 years until shown on TV. The original Nix has still not been returned to the family. And the NBC accomplice has hidden the camera original of Darnell and Wiegman ever since the murder.

The fact that there was no co-ordinated confiscation of films and photographs suggests that the treatment of the Zapruder, Nix, Darnell and Wiegman films was not the result of careful pre-assassination planning. I'm not sure that anyone in a position of influence at NBC was aware back in 1963 that a couple of their news films might contain a few frames of Oswald on the steps. The topic didn't even become prominent in assassination circles until about ten years ago. Bureaucratic inertia might be sufficient to explain NBC's actions, or lack of actions.

The Zapruder film was surely kept largely (but not entirely) out of public view because of the 'back and to the left' head snap which undermined the official lone-gunman explanation. If any conspirators had access to the film and wanted to suppress what it contained, all they needed to do was accidentally lose or destroy it before any copies were made. Insofar as the film was suppressed, the standard political reason applies: to minimise public distrust of established institutions. There is no need to assume that this was done by anyone connected to the assassination, let alone that the film's suppression was integral to the planning of the assassination.

Incidentally, David Wrone's excellent book The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) points out that the suppression of the film was nowhere near as complete as is often assumed. Numerous bootleg copies were in circulation for years before the film was shown on TV. There were thousands of showings of these bootlegs, at some of which more bootlegs were distributed. As Wrone points out (on page 60):

Quote

Although public showings of the bootleg Zapruder film could take place in such diverse places as the living rooms of the wealthy, the back rooms of taverns, or the meetings of small social clubs, the most typical one was in colleges across the nation. A typical showing of the film in a college lecture hall would occur before an audience of two or three hundred students, a scattering of local people (conservatives and liberals), and representatives of the press.

... The film would be the highlight of the evening, the central point in the speaker's argument, and at the end the audience would usually be silent, sensing the profound seriousness of the problem. The lights would go on, and questions would be taken, often for as long as the speaker's formal presentation. After the speech, various books on the subject of the assassination and copies of the film and slides were often sold.