the logic of Zapruder film alteration

[Paul Bacon]

 Keven Hofeling,

I was convinced by Doug Horne's analysis of the Two NPIC Events years ago.  I knew he also suggests that the Z Film was shot at 48 fps.

I wonder what your thoughts might be regarding the idea that Dino Brugioni, seeing the "original", watched the film that night in slow motion along with crystal clear images that resulted from the aperature settings of the camera being much faster?

It's no wonder it made such an impact on Dino.

[Roger Odisio]

13 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yes, I know Johnson killed the plan to blame it on on Cuba. I've never said otherwise.

The difference between your view and mine is that you believe Johnson killed the commie angle before it was even implemented, and I believe that Johnson killed it after it was implemented. The evidence proves that it wasn't killed before it was implemented. That's the reason I pointed out that it was still being implemented even after the Warren Report was published, and that Angleton and Phillips were still pushing it for years. Allen Dulles was behind the plan too... I didn't mention him only because there is no evidence that he was still pushing the commie angle after the Johnson Administration decided not to act on it.

 

I didn't say when Johnson killed the plan to blame the murder on Castro.  I said the important planners had to know Johnson was never going to risk a war with the SU right at the beginning of his presidency.  It's clear Johnson made that known soon after the murder.  How he handled the problem (it was a problem for him) before the murder, i.e, to what extent, if any, he made his intentions known to others, was a matter of strategy for Johnson. What were the anti Castro zealots going to do, murder him too?

It's also not clear that those for whom going after Castro and the SU was a main reason to murder Kennedy would have listened to Johnson anyway, no matter what he said before the murder.  That the desire to get rid of Castro didn't go away simply because Johnson did not use the murder as an excuse, proves nothing.  Whether pushed by Angleton, Phillips or anyone else. 

In your previous message you characterized Allen Dulles as part of a rogue CIA faction.  That's a use of the word rogue of which I am unfamiliar.  Dulles was never rogue.  He still ran important aspects of the agency from his home in Georgetown after Kennedy fired him.  He was still viewed as the "old man", i.e., the leader of the main staff.  He took over the CIA's hideaway in Virginia that weekend to help orchestrate the cover up.  When Johnson was looking for someone to put on the WC to keep the CIA out of the investigation he of course chose Dulles.

McCone replaced him but he was kept out of the loop of the important stuff.  He spent 2 hours with Bobby the afternoon of the murder (because Kennedy immediately suspected the CIA) and probably the main thing Kennedy learned was how out of touch McCone was with the CIA's activities that could have led to the murder of his brother.

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I said the important planners had to know Johnson was never going to risk a war with the SU right at the beginning of his presidency.

 

If that is true, then why did the CIA plotters (Dulles, Angleton, Phillips) nevertheless design and fully implement the commie angle?

Perhaps what they were aiming for was an invasion of Cuba, not a war with the Soviet Union.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

In your previous message you characterized Allen Dulles as part of a rogue CIA faction.  That's a use of the word rogue of which I am unfamiliar.  Dulles was never rogue.

 

Not just Allen Dulles, but the whole group of CIA plotters planning the assassination of JFK. The group was rogue. See adjective #3.

rogue

 (rōg)

n.

1. An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.

2. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp.

3. A wandering beggar; a vagrant.

4. A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd.

5. An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.

adj.

1. Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant.

2. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: rogue tornado.

3. Operating outside normal or desirable controls.

 

American Heritage Dictionary

 

[Roger Odisio]

24 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

If that is true, then why did the CIA plotters (Dulles, Angleton, Phillips) nevertheless design and fully implement the commie angle?

Perhaps what they were aiming for was an invasion of Cuba, not a war with the Soviet Union.

RO:  Fully implemented?  When did they invade Cuba?  The WR went with Oswald as a LN, motive unclear.  An invasion of Cubs almost certainly meant a war with the SU.  As I recall the missiles they snuck into Cuba in '62 had nuclear warheads, which didn't come to light until the '80s. The SU was serious about defending Castro.

 

Not just Allen Dulles, but the whole group of CIA plotters planning the assassination of JFK. The group was rogue. See adjective #3.

rogue

 (rōg)

n.

1. An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.

2. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp.

3. A wandering beggar; a vagrant.

4. A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd.

5. An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.

adj.

1. Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant.

2. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: rogue tornado.

3. Operating outside normal or desirable controls.

 

American Heritage Dictionary

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

13 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

RO:  Fully implemented?  When did they invade Cuba? 

 

The CIA plotters goal wasn't to invade Cuba. It was to create a pretext for an invasion of Cuba.

The CIA plotters' plan to do that was fully implemented.

 

13 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

The WR went with Oswald as a LN, motive unclear.  An invasion of Cubs almost certainly meant a war with the SU. 

 

I disagree.

 

13 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

As I recall the missiles they snuck into Cuba in '62 had nuclear warheads, which didn't come to light until the '80s.

 

Right. So Johnson had no reason to think a nuclear strike from Cuba was possible.

 

[Roger Odisio]

9 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The CIA plotters goal wasn't to invade Cuba. It was to create a pretext for an invasion of Cuba.

The CIA plotters' plan to do that was fully implemented.

RO:  So the CIA plotters did not intend to invade Cuba after killing Kennedy, they just wanted to create a pretext to do so. What was the purpose of the pretext if not to act on it?  

Not only does that make no sense, we know there were actual factions that did want to use the murder as a pretext (an excuse) to take out Castro. The military, some in the CIA, the Cubans, anticommunist right wingers, etc.  They didn't get their way; Johnson said no.  Their plan was not implemented.

SL:  Right. So Johnson had no reason to think a nuclear strike from Cuba was possible.

RO:  The nukes were going to come from the SU, Sandy.

 

 

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 2/20/2024 at 4:12 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

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.

Re: "difficult and time-consuming"--Doug Horne quoted the Hollywood experts as saying it was "an overnight job."

Re: "might not eliminate the problem at all if it was not possible to remove every incriminating feature"--incriminating features like "back, and to the left" head snap, impossibly fast head turns, other impossibly fast movements, John Costella's proofs, etc., etc., etc.

Re: "severe additional problems if the altered film was contradicted by other films and photographs"--except that the SS was busy collecting other films & photographs immediately after the assassination, e.g., the Willis slides that Linda Willis described (at least #5) as having been "physically altered" because "something showed in (it) that the Secret Service did not want known." My guess is that what the SS "did not want known" was Hickey with the AR-15. 

On 2/20/2024 at 7:42 AM, Karl Kinaski said:

  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. 

The 16mm original was copied and slit down the middle to create an 8mm film with sprockets on only one side, immediately after the assassination. This fact was how Horne knew that the Monday NPIC film was fake masquerading as an original, because the Monday NPIC film had not yet been slit when it arrived at NPIC.

[Sandy Larsen]

Roger,

You're making too big a deal about my use of the word "implemented." My point in using the word was to say that the CIA fully completed their job, which was to create a pretext. (As well as to kill Kennedy, of course.) Obviously they couldn't have done any more than that. Only President Johnson had the power to act on that or not.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

RO:  So the CIA plotters did not intend to invade Cuba after killing Kennedy, ...

 

It was the CIA's goal to create a pretext for invading Cuba. They had no power to invade Cuba themselves.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

...they just wanted to create a pretext to do so. What was the purpose of the pretext if not to act on it?  

 

They hoped President Johnson would act on it.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

...we know there were actual factions that did want to use the murder as a pretext (an excuse) to take out Castro. The military, some in the CIA, the Cubans, anticommunist right wingers, etc.

 

Exactly! And the CIA plotters obliged to the extent they could. By creating a pretext that Johnson could act on if he so chose.

There is no question about this... the evidence proves it.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

RO: They didn't get their way; Johnson said no.  Their plan was not implemented.

 

The plan to create the pretext WAS implemented. Johnson chose not to act on it.

 

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

SL:  [Johnson didn't know there were nuclear weapons in Cuba at the time.] So Johnson had no reason to think a nuclear strike from Cuba was possible.

RO:  The nukes were going to come from the SU, Sandy.

Hey, you're the one who pointed out that Cuba had nuclear weapons -- a fact that was discovered in the ~1980s -- and therefore Johnson wouldn't invade Cuba for fear of those nukes. All I did was point out that Johnson didn't know about those nukes at the time.

Anyway, I disagree that Johnson would have been afraid of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union being triggered by an invasion of Cuba.

 

[Karl Kinaski]

The anti-Castro Cubans involved in the JFKA were fooled: They all thought killing Kennedy would lead to a Cuban war. Instead the Vietnam war was staged. 

[Roger Odisio]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Roger,

Hey, you're the one who pointed out that Cuba had nuclear weapons -- a fact that was discovered in the ~1980s -- and therefore Johnson wouldn't invade Cuba for fear of those nukes. All I did was point out that Johnson didn't know about those nukes at the time.

RO: We didn't find out that the missiles the SU slipped into Cuba in 1962 had nuclear warheads until the 80's but, you say, Johnson wouldn't invade Cuba because of them. Because of the nuclear warheads he didn't know about.  The nukes that, in any case, were removed from Cuba after the missile crises, before he became president.

Putting those missiles in Cuba in '62 was clear evidence that Krushchev was serious about defending Castro.  Johnson would not, and did not, invade Cuba because of the nukes the SU had.  

 

 

 

[Chris Davidson]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:51 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I wish that those who post clues to Z-film alteration would have done so (and will do so) in a dedicated thread. So that this thread would have stayed on topic.

-------------------------------------------

 

 

 

[Keven Hofeling]

On 2/21/2024 at 3:39 AM, Paul Bacon said:

 Keven Hofeling,

I was convinced by Doug Horne's analysis of the Two NPIC Events years ago.  I knew he also suggests that the Z Film was shot at 48 fps.

I wonder what your thoughts might be regarding the idea that Dino Brugioni, seeing the "original", watched the film that night in slow motion along with crystal clear images that resulted from the aperature settings of the camera being much faster?

It's no wonder it made such an impact on Dino.

I think it is extremely interesting, and that if Brugioni had a camera-original Zapruder film shot at 48 fps, that what you've described is exactly what happened.

For anyone that missed it earlier in this thread, Doug Horne sets forth in the following the reasons why he believes that is in fact exactly what happened...

___________

The "Car Stop" Missing From the Extant Zapruder Film'

By Douglas Horne | INSIDETHEARRB | November 20th, 2023, 10:54 | https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/21299.html

 

Dr. David Mantik and I collaborated on a recent lecture on November 16, 2023, at the "JFK at 60" academic conference at Duquesne University's Cyril Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, in Pittsburgh. The title of Dr. Mantik's lecture was "A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ZAPRUDER FILM: THE CASE FOR ALTERATION." Dr. David Mantik presented at the podium, and we displayed crucial interviews with three professional film experts in support of the conclusion that the film has been altered, primarily to: (1) obscure and cover up the large occipital-parietal exit wound in the right rear of JFK's head; (2) optically excise much of the exit debris flying through the air that would have blatantly revealed multiple head shots from different directions; and (3) remove the brief and sudden stop of JFK's limousine, lasting between .5 and 1.5 seconds---which we are absolutely convinced has been optically excised from the film. All of the Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses closest to the limousine with the best ability to judge whether it truly stopped or not agreed that it HAD BRIEFLY STOPPED: Bill Newman (in numerous personal interviews over the years), Jean Hill and Hugh Betzner (in Sheriff's Affidavits executed on 11/22/63), and the four motorcycle policemen directly escorting the vehicle (in an unpublished but typewritten draft newspaper article by a local Dallas reporter, recounting an interview Bobby W. Hargis gave the weekend of the assassination; and in numerous telephone interviews with the motorcycle escorts, recorded on audio circa 1971---well documented by researcher Larry Rivera).

To emphasize the "reality" of the car stop issue, Dr. Mantik and I played the CAR STOP AUDIO of both Walter Cronkite of CBS, and Bob Clark of ABC, telling American television viewers on the day of the assassination, that the limousine had suddenly stopped during the shooting. Cronkite said the limousine "stopped momentarily," and Bob Clark (who was actually in the motorcade, in an open camera car a short distance behind JFK's limousine), said about the limousine: "this car came to an immediate stop."

On the following day at this conference, November 17, 2023, Robert Groden presented (by Zoom) on the reasons he still believes the Zapruder film is an authentic, unaltered film. Most of his comments were the usual ones he began espousing in 2018 in Dallas and in a researcher PODCAST that year on Midnight Writer News. Most of his objections to the alteration hypothesis have been more than adequately addressed by Dr. Mantik and me. The one comment he made on November 17th at the Duquesne conference that merits a direct response is when he said: "IF THE LIMOUSINE STOPPED ON ELM STREET, WHERE IS THE JUMP CUT ONE WOULD EXPECT TO SEE IN THE FILM?"

IT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG POSTING TO RESPOND TO THIS QUESTION, AND TO EXPLAIN HOW A VERY BRIEF CAR STOP COULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED, WITHOUT CREATING A 'JUMP CUT' IN THE FILM.

I provided the answer to this concern of Robert Groden's in the year 2009, in volume IV of my 5-volume memoir, Inside the ARRB, in chapter 14, on page 1335. Because my Zapruder film chapter was 192 pages long---almost book length---this entry near the end of the chapter may have been missed by some people...or even intentionally ignored, because it was "inconvenient."

So let me restate the hypothesis here, and then I will share with you two strongly supporting opinions, that both lend serious weight to my explanation for why optically removing the "car stop" would NOT have created a jump cut in the film as we know it today.

IN SHORT: I believe that Zapruder shot the entire sequence involving the limousine at 48 frames per second (using the "slow motion" operating switch on his camera), instead of at the normal "run" speed, which was supposed to have been set at 16 frames per second at the factory. He had plenty of film to do this! The entire extant Zapruder film as we know it today is only about 6 feet, 3 inches long. The "B" side of his double-8 movie film provided him with 25 feet of film with which to record the motorcade sequence, so there was plenty of film available to do this if he had wished. Shooting the motorcade sequence at three times the normal frame rate (48 fps instead of 16 fps) would have allowed those altering the film at the Kodak "Haweyeworks" research and development laboratory in Rochester, N.Y. plenty of latitude to remove a very brief car stop without a jump cut. The altered film was created in an aerial optical printer, which was probably an Oxberry brand optical printer with an animation stand installed in the middle of it. As the process camera rephotographed the original film, frame by frame, to create a new film "masquerading as the camera original," step printing would have removed approximately two thirds of the "slow motion" frames (which were shot very fast, at 48 fps), to create a new (altered) film which would play back at something approximating "normal" speed (16 fps) on a standard projector. So, there would have been plenty of film available to eliminate the abrupt but very brief car stop during the editing process at Hawkeyeworks on Sunday, November 24, 1963. Plenty of film to eliminate any possibility of a "jump cut" in the new film masquerading as a camera original.

The result of this handiwork at Hawkeyeworks? The car noticeably slows, but does not stop, in the Zapruder film we have been watching since 1975. Working with three times the normal number of frames permitted the editors at Kodak headquarters to avoid a "jump cut!"

Two film experts have provided corroborating evidence for this, as explained below:

(1) First, in the 18 minute-long preview for the forthcoming Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead film ALTERATION, shown at two JFK conferences in Dallas in 2018, a noted film restoration expert, Ned Price, made an important observation which supports my contention that the motorcade sequence involving the limousine (but not the sequence showing only motorcycle cops prior to the appearance of the limousine) was filmed at a frame rate designed to create "slow motion" during playback on a projector, i.e., when the 48 frames per second of exposed film was played back at the projector's standard speed of only 16 fps, which matches the normal "run" speed. First, understand that Ned Price was the Head of Film Restoration at Warner Bros. studios for many years, a man who had 27 years of experience in film preservation and restoration at the time he was interviewed. He knows film as only a Hollywood professional can. He stated in the preview for ALTERATION that when comparing the first 132 frames of the extant Zapruder film (nothing but the motorcycle advance escort), with all of the frames containing the limousine (which appear beginning at frame 133), THERE IS A MARKED DENSITY CHANGE between those two segments. As he put it, the shadows on the backs of all the Elm Street spectators were much darker, and more "contrasty," in the frames after 132, when the limousine suddenly appears (in a massive jump cut). Ned Price said that this kind of change does NOT occur naturally inside a camera, and is likely a strong indicator that all of the limousine frames in the Zapruder film are of a subsequent generation. This is 100% consistent with my hypothesis that Zapruder actually shot his limousine sequence at 48 fps, and that approximately two thirds of those frames were subsequently optically removed (in an aerial optical printer) during the editing process, creating a new film (A SUBSEQUENT GENERATION) in the process---a subsequent generation that shows more contrast, or greater density.

(2) Second, during the "JFK at 60" conference at Duquesne, there was a cinematographer who was filming conference events. One of those assisting her was her former film professor at college, in film school. He told me that she had been "his brightest student," which is why he was helping her to film interviews of conference speakers and participants. This film professor told me that he was amazed, even troubled, by the fact that so many of the frames in the extant Zapruder film were so sharp, and so clear---he didn't understand why they weren't as blurry as most film he had seen shot in 8 mm home movies with the relatively slow frame rate of 16 fps. When I explained to him that I believed the film was actually shot with the "slow motion" switch activated, at 48 fps, he had an "epiphany" before my very eyes! He slapped his forehead, and said, "Of course, that is why the frames in the Zapruder film, even of a moving car, were so preternaturally sharp, instead of being softer and more blurred," as he would have expected. This was what attorneys would call an "excited oral utterance," of great import in eyewitness testimony. This "epiphany" he had before my eyes, where "the light bulb came on on," was highly significant to me, because the appearance of the Zapruder film today supports my contention that it was actually filmed at three times the normal frame rate, creating MUCH SHARPER INDIVIDUAL FRAMES than would have been created at the 16 fps frame rate (the normal run speed). Those 48 frames filmed each second would have been much sharper than the normal 16 frames filmed per second at the normal "run" speed, because they would all have had a much shorter exposure time. Less exposure time equals less blur, and yields a sharper image. [At 16 fps, the shutter speed in Zapruder's camera would have been 1/32 of a second, and at 48 fps, the shutter speed would have been 1/92 of a second, yielding a much sharper image, particularly in the background objects filmed by a camera panning from left to right.] The film professor indicated an intent to purchase a Bell and Howell 414 PD camera, examine its shutter mechanism, and conduct film tests, in the future. During our discussion he looked up the Zapruder camera (the Bell and Howell 414 PD) online, using his cell phone, and saw a great photo of the operating switch and its four choices: "animation, stop, run, and slow motion." I explained that the only thing Zapruder would have had to do when filming the limousine sequence was to increase the downward pressure of his index finger, moving the switch from "run" to "slow motion." The camera's light meter would have adjusted the exposure (the f-stop) automatically, to match the higher frame rate.

SO THAT"S IT, MY FRIENDS. NOW YOU KNOW WHY THERE IS NOT A JUMP CUT IN THE EXTANT ZAPRUDER FILM, EVEN THOUGH A BRIEF CAR STOP WAS REMOVED. The editors at Hawkeyeworks had three times the normal number of frames to work with, and could optically erase a brief car stop through step printing in the optical printer, and make it look like the car just slowed down slightly, instead. We therefore should have faith in what Walter Cronkite and Bob Clark told us on national TV the day of the assassination, and have faith in the 60-plus eyewitnesses who remember the limousine stopping during the assassination of JFK.

A closing thought: a close friend of mine, who has studied the case for years (and who teaches 3 courses on the assassination to retired adults), has always been fascinated by the fact that two noteworthy persons who saw the unaltered Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination---Dan Rather of CBS, and Cartha DeLoach of the FBI---both emphatically stated that JFK's head went violently FORWARD in the Zapruder film that they watched. Of course, we certainly don't see this in the film today. My friend has suggested that if the driver "stood on the brakes," resulting in a rapid deceleration and brief car stop, this alone could have caused JFK's head (and upper body) to go "violently forward" (as Dan Rather put it), simply because the car stopped, but his body didn't! Thus, their observations do not mean that either Dan Rather or Cartha DeLoach were lying (why would they?), but rather, that when the car stop---evidence of either Secret Service incompetence or malfeasance at the time of the head shots---was removed from the film, it was in connection with removing all evidence that the driver's actions had been improper and contributed to JFK's death. The forward motion of JFK's head when the car suddenly braked, at a time when his body was probably limp and without any neuromuscular control, had to be optically excised because it was evidence that the driver hit the brakes during the shooting. It certainly makes sense to me. END

 

[Keven Hofeling]

@Sandy Larsen @Roger Odisio

There has been some discussion in this thread about the extent of LBJ's involvement in the initial assassination plot, and I've just come across a very recent podcast interview of researcher John Newman which I believe may shed some light on this question.

The entire 3+ hour interview is well worth watching, but I have narrowed it down to about 30 minutes which offers some highly pertinent information concerning the issue.

The primary topic of the excerpt is the July 1961 SIOP (Strategic Integrated Operational Plan for Nuclear Warfare) briefing given by the Joint Chiefs to President Kennedy concerning the plan for a massive nuclear attack on the USSR and China to be implemented in the fall of 1963. LBJ was present for the briefing, and seems to have had an understanding of how determined the Generals were to implement the plan, so much so that in Air Force One on the way to Andrews AFB from Dallas on 11/22/1963, while staring out of a plane window, LBJ asked "Are the missiles flying yet?"

I've cued the video in advance for you to begin at 52:29, and you should listen until 1:23:44 to get to the point where LBJ asks the question:

https://youtu.be/fMpZI-VKIPU?si=26WbBgIIlLcZR07e&t=3149

 

I've been interested in the details of this SIOP briefing for years, and the information about it Newman presents in the video is the best I have seen so far...

____________

"...On the other hand, the fact of a meeting, and Kennedy's personal reaction to it, has been reported. The President was displeased. But no account yet published has told what he was displeased about.

 

For example, Arthur Schlesinger's Robert Kennedy and His Times gives this account:

 

"...Kennedy received the Net Evaluation, an annual doomsday briefing analyzing the chances of nuclear war. An Air Force General presented it, said Roswell Gilpatric, the deputy secretary of defense, "as though it were for a kindergarten class.. Finally Kennedy got up and walked right out in the middle of it, and that was the end of it. We never had another one." (p. 483)

 

McGeorge Bundy evidently refers to the same meeting in this passage:

 

"In the summer of 1961 [Kennedy] went through a formal briefing on the net assessment of a general nuclear war between the two superpowers, and he expressed his own reaction to Dean Rusk as they walked from the cabinet room to the Oval Office for a private meeting on other subjects: "And we call ourselves the human race." (p. 354)

 

(Dean Rusk's memoirs repeat Kennedy's remark, though they place the meeting "shortly after our assuming office." Richard Reeves, for his part, does not mention the July meeting, and attributes Kennedy's remark to a later briefing in September, 1961.)

 

Numerous other apparent accounts of the meeting exist, though they do not refer to it by name or date. All agree on Kennedy's reaction. But none reveal what was actually discussed. Theodore Sorenson's Kennedy, published only four years later, presents an understandably benign version:

 

"That briefing confirmed, however, the harsh facts [Kennedy] already knew: (1) that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States could 'win' a nuclear war in any rational sense of the word; (2) that, except to deter an all-out Soviet attack, our threat of 'massive retaliation' to every Communist move was no longer credible, now that it invited our own destruction; and (3) that a policy of 'pre-emptive first strike' or 'preventive war' was no longer open to either side, inasmuch as even a surprise missile attack would trigger, before those missiles reached their targets, a devastating retaliation that neither country could risk or accept." (p. 513)....

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Did_the_US_Military_Plan_a_Nuclear_First_Strike_for_1963.html

 

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

We didn't find out that the missiles the SU slipped into Cuba in 1962 had nuclear warheads until the 80's but, you say, Johnson wouldn't invade Cuba because of them.

 

I never said that. You did. Or at least you implied it in this post, where you said:

An invasion of Cuba almost certainly meant a war with the SU.  [Which is something you had already emphasized Johnson did not want.]

As I recall the missiles they snuck into Cuba in '62 had nuclear warheads, which didn't come to light until the '80s. The SU was serious about defending Castro.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

On 2/11/2024 at 12:51 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

I wish that those who post clues to Z-film alteration would have done so (and will do so) in a dedicated thread. So that this thread would have stayed on topic.

Expand  

 

 

Chris,

This thread belongs to Roger Odisio. He has the right to go off-topic if he wants. And as long as he is conversing with me off-topic, I have that right as well.