the logic of Zapruder film alteration

[Sandy Larsen]

3 minutes ago, Chris Bristow said:

The only complication I see is the switching out of Zapruder's copy. I think the story is that Life mag traded a 1st generation copy for his original on that weekend. If the limo stop was taken out the night of the assassination then Zapruder was given that altered copy. If they took out the Limo stop much later, they would have had to covertly switch out Zapruder's first generation copy given to him on that weekend. Breaking into his home is definitely something the C.I.A would be capable of.

 

Yeah, the CIA could have broken into Zapruder's home. But if I were in charge of the CIA at the time, I would have had one of my agents simply ask Zapruder if the CIA could borrow his copy for a day. Especially if I had money to put up as collateral. And then I would return a copy of the altered film. (That is to say, the film that had been altered a second time.)

 

[Chris Bristow]

3 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Thank you, Chris. I get a "playback error," but Willis #5 makes sense as the original having shown "a train."

Ok. If you copy the following,   "JFK assassination two different Dealey plaza interviews with witness Linda Willis" 
and paste it into the Youtube search box, it should be the 1st video that comes. It is 29:24 min long with the Willis 5 comment at 25:30.

[Chris Bristow]

7 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yeah, the CIA could have broken into Zapruder's home. But if I were in charge of the CIA at the time, I would have had one of my agents simply ask Zapruder if the CIA could borrow his copy for a day. Especially if I had money to put up as collateral. And then I would return a copy of the altered film. (That is to say, the film that had been altered a second time.)

 

Yes that would be a simpler way to do it and they could provide plausible reason for wanting to see his copy. Although Zapruder died in 1970 so maybe they would have approached the family.

[Karl Kinaski]

IMO all you have to know about the tampering with the Z-film is in this interview with Doug Horne.

 

To understand that the JFKA misinfo squad is well and alive watch this short cut where somebody took a little piece out of the Douglas Horn video above and turned it against him screaming: DINO BRUGIONI INVALIDATES DOUG HORNE'S ZAPRUDER FILM ALTERATION CLAIM ...

One comment to this cheap attempt of misinfo reads, quote:

 

Quote

 

@rogergriffin9893

vor 5 Monaten

Why are you altering the actual interview? And why am I having trouble finding it on YouTube all of a sudden?

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20 by Karl Kinaski

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

First of all, apologies for dumping several days' worth of posts on you all at once. A certain trigger-happy moderator sent me to the sin bin again, for four days this time.

During my absence, Roger Odisio wrote:

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When I asked how your scenario was supposed to work, I of course meant as the best way for them to get away with the murder.

I'd answered that already, several times. But I'll try again. Let's accept for the purpose of this discussion Roger's premise that the people who were behind the assassination:

• had control of the Zapruder film;
• and wanted the public to think that the assassination was the work of a lone nut, so that the Bad Guys would get away with the murder.

Of course, both of these premises are speculative, but let's go with them for the time being. How would the Bad Guys solve the problem of a home movie which undermined their preferred lone-nut scenario and prevented them getting away with the murder?

The answer is obvious: destroy the film! As I've tried to explain, this solution would be easy to do and it would be foolproof, eliminating the problem completely. The only downside was that it would generate public suspicion of a cover-up. Against this, altering the film:

• would be difficult and time-consuming;
• might not eliminate the problem at all if it was not possible to remove every incriminating feature;
• and would cause severe additional problems if the altered film was contradicted by other films and photographs, many of which were not known about until long after the alterations were supposed to have taken place.

There's no contest, is there?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger continues:

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we know the film was sent to Hawkeye Works early Sunday morning

and

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We know from both Brugioni and Homer McMahon the film was sent to HW that weekend.  If the purpose was not alteration why was it sent there and then returned to NPIC the next day?

and

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the film was sent to the NPIC lab used by the intelligence services

No, we don't know that, as I've tried to explain several times now! That is one possible interpretation of someone's recollections from several decades later. The other possible interpretation, supported by much stronger evidence than flimsy decades-old recollections, is that it was two copies, not one original, that were worked on that weekend. In reality, the original film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, not to NPIC.

Here, since Roger still doesn't seem to have read it, is Zavada's account which includes his reasons for claiming that the films are likely to have been copies and not the original:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

I assume Roger understands that once you let go of the unfounded assumption that someone's 30- or 40-year-old recollections cannot possibly be mistaken, the whole film-fakery scenario unravels. If the original film was not sent to NPIC, no coherent argument for alteration exists.

Roger must surely accept that 30- or 40-year-old recollections can very easily be mistaken. Let go, Roger! You can do it!

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The decision to destroy rather than to first try to alter the film had to have been made that weekend.

I can't argue with that hypothetical scenario, except that it still relies on two assumptions, namely that the Bad Guys:

• had control of the film;
• and wanted everyone to think that a lone nut assassinated JFK.

But it is quite conceivable that:

• whoever was behind the assassination might not have had control of the Zapruder film, let alone all the other home movies and photographs;
• whether they controlled the images or not, they might not have cared in the slightest that evidence of conspiracy existed;
• indeed, evidence of conspiracy might have been just what they wanted the public to be aware of (if, for example, they wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which is not an unreasonable assumption, given that the eventual patsy had prima facie connections with both regimes).

In which case, two conclusions follow:

• If the Bad Guys didn't control the film, altering the film would not have been possible.
• If the Bad Guys were happy with the public knowing that the assassination was a conspiracy, the Bad Guys wouldn't even have wanted to alter the film.

But that's a separate topic.

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You claim they passed on that chance, without explaining why the film was sent there in the first place or what they did do at HW

If the original film wasn't sent there in the first place, there's nothing to explain. For the umpteenth time, please read the PDF I've just linked to. Or read David Wrone's book, details of which I'll provide later.

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They could have destroyed the film instead, you say, and blamed it on some anonymous technician ... So far we know Brugioni, McMahon and his crew, and, I say, someone at HW were the the persons who worked on the film that weekend.  Which one do you mean?  Or does the use of anonymous shield you from answering that question?

Again, Roger is getting worked up about a problem that vanishes if the original film wasn't sent to NPIC. In that case, there would have been no need to publicly name any individual at any top-secret photo lab. Let go of those flimsy recollections, Roger!

In reality, the film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, where a technician damaged it. If the Bad Guys really had wanted to destroy the film, they could surely have explained its destruction using a scenario along the lines of what really happened:

"Sorry, people, but the film was sent to [insert name of location; e.g. Life's photo lab in Chicago], where a technician accidentally damaged it so badly that none of the frames showing JFK getting shot were usable. But we've managed to salvage the pictures of Zapruder's grandkids!"

Or they could have put forward any other semi-plausible excuse they could think of. Not only would destroying the film have been a trivial thing to do, but explaining its destruction would have been no big deal either.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger writes:

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you must ignore everything Person A says because he once said X

The point I was making was not that because Horne and White made ludicrous claims elsewhere, their Zapruder film claims should be ignored. My point was that because they made ludicrous claims elsewhere, their Zapruder film claims should not be accepted uncritically, as Roger seems to have done.

One of these characters is notorious for actively promoting Lifton's body-alteration scenario, and the other character is notorious for actively promoting the faked moon landings scenario. Both scenarios are very far-fetched, and would sound laughable to any reasonable person, as would the Zapruder film-faking scenario ("So the Zapruder film was altered specifically in order to remove evidence of conspiracy, but the people who altered it didn't bother to actually remove the evidence of conspiracy? Huh? You're pulling my leg, right?").

The faked moon landings scenario is particularly relevant here, since it shares a common methodology with claims about film-fakery. Namely, the spot-the-anomaly game. The flag is moving, but there's no atmosphere on the moon, so it must be a fake! The driver's head turns much too fast, so it must be a fake! We can't see the stars, so it must be a fake! That spectator is eight feet tall, so it must be a fake! I've spotted an anomaly, so it must be a fake!

It really isn't good enough just to spot an anomaly and stop there. If you're claiming that an apparent anomaly is the result of altering the Zapruder film (or an Apollo photograph), you also need to demonstrate the plausibility of the sort of alteration that would produce that apparent anomaly. And if you're claiming that there are multiple anomalies in the film, you need to come up with a coherent system of alteration that would be consistent with all of those anomalies.

But that almost never happens. The Zapruder film version of the spot-the-anomaly game has been going on since the 1990s, maybe even since the 80s, and hardly any of the players even try to come up with a plausible account of how all these anomalies could have been generated.

This is partly because there's no agreed list of anomalies. While one person claims that anomalies A and B exist, another person claims that anomaly A exists while anomaly B doesn't exist (and that anomalies C and D also exist).

It would help if each person who enjoys playing the spot-the-anomaly game would give us a list of his or her preferred anomalies and, more importantly, describe the alteration process that would have given rise to every single one of them. Those lists would be entertaining to read!

As we've seen with the two anomalies Roger provided (The car's left turn is missing! The vertical plume of brain matter is only visible in frame 313!), most or all of the supposed anomalies that have been put forward over the last three decades or more fall into two categories:

• they possess straightforward explanations that the spot-the-anomaly players would have worked out for themselves if only they had applied some critical thinking;
• or the claim simply isn't true to begin with, as in the case of Roger's claim about the invisible vertical plume which turned out to be entirely visible, but only to those of us blessed with the magical ability to actually check the evidence for ourselves.

It's just a game. It demeans a serious historical event, and it allows supporters of the lone-nut theory to claim that not only the anomaly-spotters but also rational critics of the lone-nut theory are no different from moon-landings deniers.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

The spot-the-anomaly game just doesn't stop! Almost as soon as you've debunked one claim, someone else repeats it. Sometimes, the same person even repeats a claim that has just been debunked. On page 7, Keven Hofeling repeats a claim that he must know has already been debunked at least twice:

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Visible in the extant "original" Zapruder film is only a fine red mist suspended in the air for 1/18 of one second (frame Z-313 only)

Keven must know that this is nonsense, because I debunked it on page three of this thread in reply to Roger, and on a different thread in reply to Keven himself when he made the very same claim only a month ago. Why did he repeat a claim he knows to be factually incorrect?

In case anyone is thinking of repeating the same nonsense yet again, here are some links to frames 314, 315 and 316, all of which show the "fine red mist suspended in the air" which Keven claims doesn't exist:

• Frame 314: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z314.jpg
• Frame 315: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z315.jpg
• Frame 316: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z316.jpg

Pro-alteration folks: please bookmark those links, if only to save yourselves future embarrassment!

My earlier reply to Keven, in which I debunked  this claim, also provides an explanation for one of his other claims, the absence of horizontal debris in the Zapruder film.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger admits:

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I am not going to waste my time responding to your ridiculously slanted accounting of the alternatives facing the killers.

Sandy, too, waves the white flag:

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I refuse to answer it again.

Let's look at Roger's account of the alternatives:

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First, these are the actual alternatives.  Faced with the difference between what the Zapruder showed compared to the Oswald story, should the killers have (1) first tried to alter Zapruder and *if that failed* bury the film while the MSM controlled information about the murder until the Oswald story has taken hold or (2) destroyed the film that weekend before too much was learned about it, since the destruction was final and easily explained away.

Answer: option (2), obviously!

The only change Roger has made to his argument is that the Bad Guys would not have destroyed the film "before too much was learned about it".

This makes no difference to Roger's argument. The Bad Guys would have had to examine the film closely before deciding whether or not it could be altered. They would have learned as much about it as there was to learn, before starting work on any alterations (or destroying it, as the case may be).

At that point, they would have needed to decide what to do. One option was so obvious that it must have occurred to them: destroy the film. The question remains: when they weighed up the pros and cons, why did they decide not to take the simplest, foolproof option? What would their reasoning have been for not taking the simplest, foolproof option? The many advantages of destroying it were unchanged, and the many disadvantages of altering it (and then hoping it might be possible to bury it) were unchanged.

Merely supplying an account, as Roger does, of what the Bad Guys' decision might have been (let's alter the film, and if that doesn't work we can hide it afterwards and hope it doesn't come to light) isn't good enough. This doesn't explain why they would have chosen that option when they would have been aware of a more plausible alternative. Faced with two choices, what reasoning did they use in order to come to the decision Roger claims they came to?

I'm not aware of any reasoning process that would convince them to alter the film when they had the option of destroying it. Apparently Roger and Sandy can't think of one either.

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They rejected destruction in favor of trying alteration, with the knowledge that if that failed they could still try to bury the film from public view as long as possible until things blew over.

Yes, but why would they have "rejected destruction in favor of trying alteration"? What was their reasoning? Roger still doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. Here is the rest of that paragraph, which presumably contains the justification for not destroying the film:

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Destroying the film would eliminate that option, and as we have seen hiding information is one thing the planners were are adept at.  Life was fronting for the planners; they knew Life would do what they wanted.

But none of that tells us what the Bad Guys' reasoning would have been. Eliminating the option of hiding the film is indeed what destroying the film would have done. It's one of the advantages of destruction over alteration. It would eliminate the risk of the film ever coming to light and revealing evidence of conspiracy which existed nowhere else, an event which we know actually happened. What reasoning would the Bad Guys have used when making that bizarre decision? Roger still doesn't tell us.

Roger then deals with what might have happened once his hypothetical Bad Guys' incompetent alteration had taken place:

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Here was a second decision point for the planners ... They could scrap the alteration idea as a failure and simply destroy the film ... Once again they rejected the idea to destroy the film altogether.

Again, why would they have "rejected the idea to destroy the film altogether"? What was the reasoning they would have used when deciding between the two options? Yet again, Roger doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. That's because it's a decision no-one in their right mind would have made. There was no reasoning that would have led them to make that decision.

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By counterposing only alteration with destruction you distort the options.  Burying the film from public view, as we know happened, was an option to folloow alteration if that failed.  But obviously not if the film was destroyed instead.

This back-up plan (hiding the film in Life's vault while making numerous copies of it) was not a realistic option. The Bad Guys must have known that the copies would circulate and that the film would come to light before too long.

We can be sure that copies would have circulated and that the film would have come to light before too long, because that is what happened in reality. Second- and third-generation copies proliferated within days of the assassination; bootlegs were floating around even before the Shaw trial; and the detailed content of the film became public knowledge only 12 years after the assassination.

The Bad Guys surely would have known that it was not possible to bury the film from public view permanently while allowing numerous copies of it to be made. The possibility of hiding the film as a last resort would not have made the option of altering it any more credible.

The only options facing the Bad Guys in Roger's hypothetical scenario would have been:

• destroy the film straight away, or
• try to alter it, and if that failed to eliminate evidence of conspiracy, destroy the incompetently altered film.

Then there's the matter of the three first-day copies. Were they altered? The Bad Guys obviously couldn't allow three films to exist in a form which would blatantly contradict their altered 'original' film.*

Roger and Sandy appear to accept that the problem with the original Zapruder film also applies in the case of the three first-day copies, as Michael was helpful enough to point out. The Bad Guys would have had to deal with the fact that their lone-nut story was undermined not only by the original film but also by three good copies of the film (and by all the copies that were made from these copies within the first few days). All the disadvantages of altering the original were multiplied in the case of the three (or more) copies.

It is so blindingly obvious that destroying the first-day copies would have been preferable to trying to alter them that Roger and Sandy haven't even attempted to claim that the Bad Guys would have decided to alter them. And if you're claiming that the Bad Guys would have decided to destroy the copies, why would those Bad Guys not have applied the same reasoning to the original film?

* Of course, how blatant the contradictions would have been depends on the alterations that are claimed to have been made. As we have seen, no-one appears to agree on exactly which alterations were supposedly made. Nevertheless, most of the claimed alterations would be obvious when compared to an unaltered first-day copy.

There's also a chance, of course, that the alterations would also be obvious when compared to any other home movie or photograph which came to light in the days, weeks, or years after the assassination, another weakness with the alteration hypothesis which hasn't been addressed.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

For a comprehensive account of what actually happened to the film and its various copies, please see David Wrone, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, especially pages 20-74.

The existence of three first-day copies, one of which is in the national archives and presumably available for inspection, seems to be the final nail in the alteration argument:

• If these copies were made from the original Zapruder film on the afternoon of the assassination, as solid documentary evidence confirms, the 'original' film at NARA must indeed be the original and not an altered copy, unless the hypothetical Bad Guys were stupid enough to allow the three first-day copies, which would clearly contradict their altered film, to remain at large.
• If, on the other hand, the copies that exist today were made from an altered Zapruder film, they cannot be the actual first-day copies that were made from the original Zapruder film, because the actual first-day copies were made on the afternoon of the assassination, before any alteration to the original film could have taken place.
• And if anyone is claiming that the copies which exist today were made from an altered Zapruder film, that person needs to explain what happened to the actual first-day copies, and provide documentary evidence which contradicts the existing documentary evidence relating to the history and ownership of the first-day copies (see Wrone's book for details).
• If anyone is claiming that the actual first-day copies were destroyed rather than altered, that person needs to explain why the original film was not also destroyed rather than altered. In other words, why did the reasoning which applied to the copies not also apply to the original film?
• If, on the other hand, anyone is claiming that the actual first-day copies were altered rather than destroyed, that person needs to explain the reasoning behind that crazy-sounding decision. In other words, why go to the trouble of altering four films, and hoping that the four altered films would end up looking identical, when the simpler, quicker, safer and foolproof option of destroying them was available?

Once you accept that the first-day copies provide further authentication of the film that is in the archives:

• you can discard the NPIC event, since we know on other grounds that it almost certainly didn't involve the original film;
• and you can of course also discard any of the flimsy anomalies whose existence has not yet been confirmed by expert examination of the film that's in the archives (which, as far as I can tell, is every single one of them).

Once you've done all of that, there's nothing left. It's now safe to use the Zapruder film to undermine the lone-nut theory!

[Keven Hofeling]

5 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

The only complication I see is the switching out of Zapruder's copy. I think the story is that Life mag traded a 1st generation copy for his original on that weekend. If the limo stop was taken out the night of the assassination then Zapruder was given that altered copy. If they took out the Limo stop much later, they would have had to covertly switch out Zapruder's first generation copy given to him on that weekend. Breaking into his home is definitely something the C.I.A would be capable of.

Chris, you are reciting a variation of the first contract  (for $50,000.00) between LIFE and Abraham Zapruder of Saturday, November 23, 1963, which provided that while the camera-original Zapruder film was in Chicago, Zapruder would retain in his possession the one remaining one day copy, and then LIFE was to return the camera-original to Zapruder on or about November 29, 1963 in exchange for the first day copy.

_________

"...Saturday, November 23^rd:

"...[Abraham Zapruder] then struck a deal with Richard Stolley, selling to LIFE, for $50,000.00, worldwide print media rights to the assassination movie (but not motion picture rights).  Zapruder agreed in this initial contract that he would not exploit the film as a motion picture, himself, until Friday, November 29^th.  Zapruder immediately relinquished the camera-original film to LIFE for a six day period, and kept in his possession the one remaining “same day copy.”  By the terms of this initial contract with LIFE, Zapruder was to have the original film returned to him by LIFE on or about November 29^th, and in exchange he was then to give LIFE the remaining first day copy.[10]

Richard Stolley immediately put the film on a commercial flight bound for Chicago, where LIFE’s principal printing plant was located.[11]  The presses for the November 29^th edition had been stopped on Friday, the day of the assassination, and the plan was to make major use of the imagery from Zapruder’s film as the issue was reconfigured...."

[10] Horne, 2009, p. 1200.

[11] Trask, 2005, p. 131; and Wrone, 2003, p. 34-35.

https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

_________

But then on Sunday evening, November 24, 1963, presumably after CIA/LIFE had discovered it could not sufficiently sanitize the film to render it suitable for widespread public consumption, Richard Stolley, on behalf of LIFE, contacted Abraham Zapruder to set up a meeting for the next day to negotiate the acquisition of additional rights to the film; and the following day LIFE negotiated the second contract (for $150,000.00) by which LIFE obtained all rights to the camera-original film, including all copies of the film.

_________

"...Sunday, November 24^th:  On Sunday evening, Richard Stolley, on behalf of LIFE, approached Abraham Zapruder on the phone and requested that they meet to negotiate LIFE’s acquisition of additional rights to the film.  “Something” had happened that caused the magazine to seek all rights to the film, including motion picture rights, and outright ownership of both the original film, and all copies.  These additional rights would prove extremely expensive to Time, Inc., LIFE magazine’s parent company.

Monday, November 25^th:  After the conclusion of President Kennedy’s funeral on Monday—the funeral ended at about 2 PM Dallas time (CST), with Air Force One flying over the gravesite at 2:54 PM EST, and with the former First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, lighting the eternal flame at 3:13 PM EST—Stolley, Zapruder, and his attorney for this purpose, Sam Passman, met to renegotiate the sale contract for the film.  Earlier that day, LIFE’s publisher, C.D. Jackson, had relayed to Stolley the formal approval of the Board of Time, Inc. for him to renegotiate the contract.[14]

For a renegotiated total price of $150,000.00 ($100,000.00 more than the original contract signed on Saturday), Time, Inc. now gained all rights to the Zapruder film’s imagery (domestic and foreign; and newsreel, television, and motion picture); and permanent ownership of the original and all three copies of the “8 mm color films,” thus erasing any doubt that the original and the copies had been slit to 8 mm on Friday.  In addition, the new contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would pay to Zapruder an amount equal to one half of all gross receipts for use of the film, above and beyond the new $150,000.00 sale price.   (The contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would also own the two “first-day copies” that Zapruder had loaned to the Secret Service, once they were returned; they never were returned.)[15]..."

[14] Wrone, 2003, p. 34-37.

[15] Horne, 2009, p. 1200-1201.

https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

_________

AND CONCERNING THE QUESTION OF WHEN THE ALTERATIONS TO THE FILM WERE MADE... 

_________

"...Tuesday, November 26^th:  The first newsstand copies of the November 29^th issue of LIFE began to trickle out; the issue displayed a total of 31 fuzzy, poor resolution, black-and-white images of blowups from individual frames of the film.[16]  Twenty-eight of them were quite small; two were medium sized; and one was a large format reproduction. What is hard to understand, in retrospect, is why LIFE magazine published such muddy, indistinct images of a film that its parent company, Time Inc., had spent an additional $100,000.00 to repurchase....

"...We know that the alteration at “Hawkeyeworks” was finished sometime before the middle of the evening on Sunday, November 24^th.  We know that because the altered film, now in 16 mm wide, “double 8” format again, arrived at NPIC Sunday night, after dark.  We even know that “dupes” of the film were made at “Hawkeyeworks,” according to Bill Smith.[24]

And there is strong evidence that such dupes—or at least one such dupe—known in the trade as “dirty dupes,” were run off as black and white copies at “Hawkeyeworks,” and then rushed to Chicago Sunday night so that the magazine could begin its layout for the revised November 29^th issue.  Three such “dirty dupes”—all unslit, 16 mm wide, “double 8” versions of the Zapruder film—surfaced in January of 2000 when the LMH Co. materials were physically transferred to the Sixth Floor Museum, in Dallas.  They are all black and white products (as are the 31 poor quality blowup prints of the Zapruder film published in the November 29^th issue of LIFE).  As noted by author Richard Trask, one of them, a “reversal black-and-white positive,” does contain markings that “…appear to be markings used to determine selected images for inclusion in LIFE magazine.”[25]

Unfortunately, both Roland Zavada and Richard Trask (who has endorsed Zavada’s view) have gotten carried away by the discovery of these three black-and-white “dirty dupes,” and have drawn entirely the wrong conclusion from these materials discovered about twelve-and-one-half years ago.  They have both concluded that the camera-original Zapruder film was not slit after all, at the Kodak Plant in Dallas, the day of the assassination.  This absurd conclusion flies in the face of the expert testimony collected by Zavada himself in 1997 and 1998 as he repeatedly interviewed and corresponded with the surviving managers and technicians who worked at the Kodak Plant in Dallas on the day of JFK’s assassination; flies in the face of the manuscript written by Mr. Phil Chamberlain (the Production Supervisor of the Kodak Plant in Dallas) in the late 1970s; and flies in the face of the many witnesses who saw Mr. Zapruder project his 8 mm camera-original film, using an 8 mm projector, on Saturday, November 23^rd. [26]

I have an alternative, and more reasonable, explanation for the origin of these “dirty dupes”—one more in line with Occam’s Razor, and which respects expert eyewitness testimony (instead of disrespecting it). I believe that at least one of the three unslit “double 8” Zapruder film “dirty dupes” found at the Sixth Floor Museum in January of 2000, among the donated materials from the LMH Co. (that once belonged to LIFE magazine), was run off in a contact printer at “Hawkeyeworks” on Sunday evening after the alteration of the Zapruder film was completed.  It was then, I believe, rushed to Chicago from Rochester so that LIFE magazine, now behind schedule, could get going on its layout for the delayed November 29^th issue.  Arrival of just one “dirty dupe” at the Donnelly printing plant on Sunday night would have provided the imagery necessary for the first mail-out issues of the magazine to be ready for mailing Monday afternoon, November 25^th, and would also have been consistent with the first newsstand issues hitting the shelves on Tuesday, November 26^th, as reported by Trask.  In his 2005 book, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Trask writes (on p. 117): “The cardboard container associated with the 16 mm films included a printed address reading ‘Allied Film Laboratory, 306 W. Jackson, Chicago 6, Illinois.’” In my view, this might merely indicate that one “dirty dupe” was received from “Hawkeyeworks,” and that the lab in question ran off two more copies of the first “dirty dupe” after it arrived in Chicago Sunday night.  Or it might indicate nothing at all related to the provenance of the dupes.  Even if the box does indicate a connection between Allied Film Laboratory and the dupes, the presence of the box alone does not indicate that all three of the dupes were run off in Chicago, nor does it tell us that they were copied from the camera-original film.

As Trask himself says, Kodak lab personnel interviewed in “recent years” (presumably he means the 1980s through 2005, when his own book was published) “…seem to recall that in 1963 all four films were slit into 16 mm format.”   Yes, that’s what they have recalled, because that is what happened—all four films (the camera-original, and the three first-day copies) were all slit down to 8 mm on Friday night in Dallas, after the three copies were developed, and before Zapruder departed the Kodak Plant.  There is no serious or believable reason to doubt their consistent recollections.

In conclusion, a highly significant fact about the November 29^th issue of LIFE, and the four briefing board panels at NARA, that even many “alterationists” have not dealt with adequately, is that the frames in that early issue of LIFE that depict JFK’s head wound appear to show the same head wound seen in the extant film today.  [This makes perfect sense to me; no cabal at “Hawkeyeworks” in charge of altering the film to hide evidence of shots from the front would have dared to allow LIFE to have a print of the movie before the film was altered.]  My main point here, though, is that the prints posted on the four briefing board panels at the Archives (from the McMahon event) are also consistent with the frames published in LIFE on November 29^th, and have frame numbers assigned to them in the NPIC working notes that are consistent with the frame numbers used today in association with those same frames in the extant film.  About five or six of the frame numbers denoted in the NPIC notes (which describe the photos mounted on the four briefing board panels) are off by one frame (denoting human fallibility—obvious counting errors attributable to fatigue, or haste that night), but the frame numbers and images associated with the briefing boards are consistent with the extant film today.  That is to say, there are no major deviations, or patterns in the frame numbering indicating that the film McMahon worked with was structured differently than the one we know today. The obvious implication of these facts discussed above is that at least the major alterations to the Zapruder film (such as frame excisions and deletions, and alterations of the head wound images) were completed by Sunday night, 11/24/63—and that perhaps all of the alterations were completed by Sunday night, when the film left “Hawkeyeworks,” on its way to NPIC in Washington, D. C...."

[16] Trask, 2005, p. 154-155.

[24] ARRB interview of Homer A. McMahon conducted on July 14, 1997 by Douglas Horne.

[25] Trask, 2005, p. 118.

[26] Trask, 2005, p. 117-119; and Horne, 2009, p. 1277-1281.

https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

 

Edited February 20 by Keven Hofeling

[Keven Hofeling]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger admits:

Sandy, too, waves the white flag:

Let's look at Roger's account of the alternatives:

Answer: option (2), obviously!

The only change Roger has made to his argument is that the Bad Guys would not have destroyed the film "before too much was learned about it".

This makes no difference to Roger's argument. The Bad Guys would have had to examine the film closely before deciding whether or not it could be altered. They would have learned as much about it as there was to learn, before starting work on any alterations (or destroying it, as the case may be).

At that point, they would have needed to decide what to do. One option was so obvious that it must have occurred to them: destroy the film. The question remains: when they weighed up the pros and cons, why did they decide not to take the simplest, foolproof option? What would their reasoning have been for not taking the simplest, foolproof option? The many advantages of destroying it were unchanged, and the many disadvantages of altering it (and then hoping it might be possible to bury it) were unchanged.

Merely supplying an account, as Roger does, of what the Bad Guys' decision might have been (let's alter the film, and if that doesn't work we can hide it afterwards and hope it doesn't come to light) isn't good enough. This doesn't explain why they would have chosen that option when they would have been aware of a more plausible alternative. Faced with two choices, what reasoning did they use in order to come to the decision Roger claims they came to?

I'm not aware of any reasoning process that would convince them to alter the film when they had the option of destroying it. Apparently Roger and Sandy can't think of one either.

Yes, but why would they have "rejected destruction in favor of trying alteration"? What was their reasoning? Roger still doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. Here is the rest of that paragraph, which presumably contains the justification for not destroying the film:

But none of that tells us what the Bad Guys' reasoning would have been. Eliminating the option of hiding the film is indeed what destroying the film would have done. It's one of the advantages of destruction over alteration. It would eliminate the risk of the film ever coming to light and revealing evidence of conspiracy which existed nowhere else, an event which we know actually happened. What reasoning would the Bad Guys have used when making that bizarre decision? Roger still doesn't tell us.

Roger then deals with what might have happened once his hypothetical Bad Guys' incompetent alteration had taken place:

Again, why would they have "rejected the idea to destroy the film altogether"? What was the reasoning they would have used when deciding between the two options? Yet again, Roger doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. That's because it's a decision no-one in their right mind would have made. There was no reasoning that would have led them to make that decision.

This back-up plan (hiding the film in Life's vault while making numerous copies of it) was not a realistic option. The Bad Guys must have known that the copies would circulate and that the film would come to light before too long.

We can be sure that copies would have circulated and that the film would have come to light before too long, because that is what happened in reality. Second- and third-generation copies proliferated within days of the assassination; bootlegs were floating around even before the Shaw trial; and the detailed content of the film became public knowledge only 12 years after the assassination.

The Bad Guys surely would have known that it was not possible to bury the film from public view permanently while allowing numerous copies of it to be made. The possibility of hiding the film as a last resort would not have made the option of altering it any more credible.

The only options facing the Bad Guys in Roger's hypothetical scenario would have been:

• destroy the film straight away, or
• try to alter it, and if that failed to eliminate evidence of conspiracy, destroy the incompetently altered film.

Then there's the matter of the three first-day copies. Were they altered? The Bad Guys obviously couldn't allow three films to exist in a form which would blatantly contradict their altered 'original' film.*

Roger and Sandy appear to accept that the problem with the original Zapruder film also applies in the case of the three first-day copies, as Michael was helpful enough to point out. The Bad Guys would have had to deal with the fact that their lone-nut story was undermined not only by the original film but also by three good copies of the film (and by all the copies that were made from these copies within the first few days). All the disadvantages of altering the original were multiplied in the case of the three (or more) copies.

It is so blindingly obvious that destroying the first-day copies would have been preferable to trying to alter them that Roger and Sandy haven't even attempted to claim that the Bad Guys would have decided to alter them. And if you're claiming that the Bad Guys would have decided to destroy the copies, why would those Bad Guys not have applied the same reasoning to the original film?

* Of course, how blatant the contradictions would have been depends on the alterations that are claimed to have been made. As we have seen, no-one appears to agree on exactly which alterations were supposedly made. Nevertheless, most of the claimed alterations would be obvious when compared to an unaltered first-day copy.

There's also a chance, of course, that the alterations would also be obvious when compared to any other home movie or photograph which came to light in the days, weeks, or years after the assassination, another weakness with the alteration hypothesis which hasn't been addressed.

The rhetorical games you are playing using the question "why didn't the bad guys just destroy the film" are equally applicable to the back-of-the-head autopsy photographs which depict the back of JFK's head as being intact despite the reports of 50+ witnesses (most of them medical and law enforcement professionals) that there was a large avulsive wound in the occipital-parietal region on the right side of the back of his head.

 

Doug Horne while working with the ARRB collected evidence indicating that up to eighteen autopsy photographs are missing from the extant collection at the National Archives today.

So what was the reasoning of the conspirators in deciding not to destroy the back-of-the-head autopsy photographs?

As with the extant Zapruder film, the conspirators DID decide to destroy the original back-of-the-head autopsy photographs by switching the originals out with altered versions of the same, and in both situations, the government has suffered much grief with the controversy that has ensued.

And as for your repeated questioning of the "reasoning" of the conspirators for not just making the films and photographs simply disappear, and not falsifying copies, we simply don't have access to those particular memos if any such memos actually exist, but we do have abundant evidence that the falsifications of the photographic evidence were made, and that the decisions of the conspirators to advance altered copies instead of simply destroying the originals, have turned out to be successful strategies overall.

Dr. David Mantik wrote:

 

⁠ "...While at the National Archives, I performed stereo viewing of the autopsy photographs [8]. This is possible because each view is represented by two separate photographs, taken close together in time and space. Such a pair is what makes stereo viewing possible. I performed this procedure for the original generation of photographs (4” x 5” transparencies), for the color prints, and also for the black and white copies. I did this for many of the distinct views in the collection. But the bottom line is this: the only abnormal site was the back of the head—it always yielded a 2D image, as if each eye had viewed precisely the same image. Of course, that would have been expected if someone (illicitly in a dark room) had inserted the same image into that anatomic site for each member of the photographic pair. I discussed this issue with Robert Groden, who served as the photographic consultant for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) during 1976-1979. He concurred with my observations, i.e., only the back of the head looked abnormal during his stereo viewing for the HSCA.

 

⁠ Although the large posterior hole is often cited as evidence for a frontal shot, a second issue, perhaps equally as important, should not be overlooked: the severe discrepancy between the photographs and the witnesses—all by itself— strongly suggests manipulation of this photograph. In other words, whoever altered this photograph likely recognized that the large posterior defect loudly proclaimed a frontal shot, so much so in fact, that it became critical to cover that hole.

 

⁠ Pathologist J. Boswell (many decades later) speculated that the scalp had merely been stretched so as to cover the hole. In fact, to have done so, and to have succeeded so seamlessly, would have defeated the sole purpose of the photographs, which presumably was to capture reality. If ever a photograph existed of this large defect, then that one has disappeared.

 

⁠ Some witnesses do recall seeing such a photograph immediately after the autopsy, and we know (from the autopsy photographer himself) that other autopsy photographs have disappeared. Furthermore, we know from Boswell’s sketch on a skull model, that the bone under this apparently intact scalp was in fact missing [9]. So which is more decisive: missing scalp—or missing bone?

 

Some have argued that the Parkland physicians have authenticated this photograph, and that we should therefore accept its authenticity. However, what they said was more like this: If the scalp had been stretched in this fashion, then they could not take issue with that photograph. Absent such a peculiar maneuver, however, they were dubious. Their doubt was further accentuated in a very recent documentary: “The Parkland Doctors” [10] (THIS WAS RETITLED TO "WHAT THE DOCTORS SAW," AND WAS RECENTLY RELEASED BY PARAMOUNT +).

 

⁠ Seven Parkland physicians met to discuss their recollections. They were profoundly troubled by autopsy images of the posterior scalp. To describe these images, they readily used words like “manipulated” and “altered.”..."

 

⁠ 'JFK AASSASSINATION PARADOXES: A PRIMER FOR BEGINNERS' Journal of Health Science & Education | David W. Mantik, MD https://escires.com/articles/Health-1-126.pdf⁠

Mantik DW (2018) JFK Assassination Paradoxes: A Primer for Beginners. J Health Sci Educ 2: 126.

 

Edited February 20 by Keven Hofeling

[Keven Hofeling]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger continues:

and

and

No, we don't know that, as I've tried to explain several times now! That is one possible interpretation of someone's recollections from several decades later. The other possible interpretation, supported by much stronger evidence than flimsy decades-old recollections, is that it was two copies, not one original, that were worked on that weekend. In reality, the original film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, not to NPIC.

Here, since Roger still doesn't seem to have read it, is Zavada's account which includes his reasons for claiming that the films are likely to have been copies and not the original:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

I assume Roger understands that once you let go of the unfounded assumption that someone's 30- or 40-year-old recollections cannot possibly be mistaken, the whole film-fakery scenario unravels. If the original film was not sent to NPIC, no coherent argument for alteration exists.

Roger must surely accept that 30- or 40-year-old recollections can very easily be mistaken. Let go, Roger! You can do it!

I can't argue with that hypothetical scenario, except that it still relies on two assumptions, namely that the Bad Guys:

• had control of the film;
• and wanted everyone to think that a lone nut assassinated JFK.

But it is quite conceivable that:

• whoever was behind the assassination might not have had control of the Zapruder film, let alone all the other home movies and photographs;
• whether they controlled the images or not, they might not have cared in the slightest that evidence of conspiracy existed;
• indeed, evidence of conspiracy might have been just what they wanted the public to be aware of (if, for example, they wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which is not an unreasonable assumption, given that the eventual patsy had prima facie connections with both regimes).

In which case, two conclusions follow:

• If the Bad Guys didn't control the film, altering the film would not have been possible.
• If the Bad Guys were happy with the public knowing that the assassination was a conspiracy, the Bad Guys wouldn't even have wanted to alter the film.

But that's a separate topic.

If the original film wasn't sent there in the first place, there's nothing to explain. For the umpteenth time, please read the PDF I've just linked to. Or read David Wrone's book, details of which I'll provide later.

Again, Roger is getting worked up about a problem that vanishes if the original film wasn't sent to NPIC. In that case, there would have been no need to publicly name any individual at any top-secret photo lab. Let go of those flimsy recollections, Roger!

In reality, the film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, where a technician damaged it. If the Bad Guys really had wanted to destroy the film, they could surely have explained its destruction using a scenario along the lines of what really happened:

"Sorry, people, but the film was sent to [insert name of location; e.g. Life's photo lab in Chicago], where a technician accidentally damaged it so badly that none of the frames showing JFK getting shot were usable. But we've managed to salvage the pictures of Zapruder's grandkids!"

Or they could have put forward any other semi-plausible excuse they could think of. Not only would destroying the film have been a trivial thing to do, but explaining its destruction would have been no big deal either.

How do we know that Dino Brugioni had the camera-original Zapruder film at NPIC on Saturday evening, November 23, 1963? Because the Secret Service told Brugioni it was the camera original, and maintained security around it at NPIC consistent with it being the original.

More importantly, the film the Secret Service handed over to Brugioni was in 8mm format (with imagery around the sprocket holes), and as Brugioni explains in the video excerpt from his interview below, he had to wake a local merchant to procure an 8mm projector for NPIC to facilitate the work:

 

Your incessant reliance on the argument that Dino Brugioni's memory of the event is unreliable is reminiscent of Pat Speer's argument that 25+ Parkland Hospital medical professionals all confused the top of JFK's head with the back of JFK's head when reporting the large avulsive wound on the right side of the occipital-parietal region of the back of JFK's head, but at least Speer makes some effort to justify his silly conclusion.

You, on the other hand, just repeat your contention about Brugioni's memory like a mantra, refusing to make any effort at all to justify it.

So I repeat: If Brugioni did not have the camera-original Zapruder film at NPIC the evening of 11/24/1963, then why did he have to wake up a local merchant that night to purchase an 8mm projector?

Edited February 20 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Sandy, too, waves the white flag:

Quote

I refuse to answer it again.

 

Kindly remove the above statements from your post. They are an intentional misrepresentation of what I said.

I said I wouldn't answer your question again because it had already been answered multiple times, including by me. Not because I was admitting defeat to your silly arguments.

You will be given double penalty points if you don't remove it from your post.

 

[Karl Kinaski]

  Since Brugioni received an 8mm film it hardly could have been the original which was a 16mm double Film ... so somebody worked on that film and slit it prior Brugioni received it  Maybe he received half of  the 16mm original ... or a copy. (The original could have been duplicated at TIME Chicago). The crux is: the film Brugioni received was unaltered whether it was a copy or not ... why? There was no time to tamper with it.