Michael Crane Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 (edited) The film is gone so there can be no comparison. Someone made it "unavailable" just like JFK's brain. What we have left is a substitution.At the very best we have one of the 3 copies made that day that has been tampered with. Didn't Zapruder say that he captured the left turn onto Elm? *Somehow,I remember there being numbered copies of the film. Doesn't the original have number 183 or 184 somewhere,somehow on it? Edited February 13 by Michael Crane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Bojczuk Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Michael Crane writes: Quote Common sense tells you that it's gone. No, unjustified preconceptions tell you that it's gone. Common sense tells you to look at the evidence, and the evidence which I provided tells you that it still exists. If you can provide a source who (a) is at least as authoritative as Roland Zavada and Raymond Fielding, and (b) has inspected the film in the archives, and (c) can explain why Zavada and Fielding were mistaken, please go ahead. If you can't, we are obliged to believe that the Zapruder film that's in the National Archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. Quote Didn't Zapruder say that he captured the left turn onto Elm? This is like arguing with a cardboard cut-out! The claim about the left turn being deleted was dealt with in my previous comment. Perhaps Michael could explain to us why anyone would have wanted to delete that part of the Zapruder film. Paul and Denise suggested that it was because the shooting had already started at the time of the car's turn onto Elm Street. I pointed out that there is no good evidence that this happened, and plenty of good evidence that it didn't happen, such as the hundreds of witnesses who would have seen and heard it but who failed to mention it. It's a crazy suggestion; the shooting didn't in fact start until the car was some way along Elm Street. Can Michael think of a less crazy one? If not, the problem disappears: no-one deleted the car's left turn from the Zapruder film because Zapruder didn't actually film the car turning left. On the topic of crazy suggestions, I've just had another look at Paul's comment on page 3 and noticed this gem: Quote How to preserve the credibility of both the patsy-from-the-rear scenario, and the similarly pre-planned supporting film? Zapruder was part of the plot! I'd be interested to hear not only what evidence Paul has to support that claim but also how that scenario was supposed to work: The masterminds decide to get a local clothing manufacturer to film the motorcade for no obvious reason; the masterminds fail to predict that the clothing manufacturer's film would contradict their lone-nut story; the clothing manufacturer films the assassination, and his film does indeed contradict the masterminds' lone-nut story; the masterminds decide for no good reason not to cut their losses and destroy the film they had commissioned; instead, they decide to alter the film, in order to remove the incriminating parts; while altering the film to remove the incriminating parts, they forget to actually remove the incriminating parts; again they decide not to destroy the film that still undermines their story even after having been incompetently altered; instead, they allow bootleg copies of the film to be viewed by thousands of people; then they allow millions of people to view the actual film on TV; and it becomes common knowledge among the general public that the lone-nut story doesn't hold up. It doesn't look like a watertight plan to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Bojczuk Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 (edited) Sandy Larsen writes: Quote This is just more of Jeremy's signature "I wouldn't do that, therefore they wouldn't do that" logic. No, it's the sequence of events which Sandy and Roger imply actually happened. No-one would have done that. Quote It is far better to rely on all the evidence we have at hand. But that evidence doesn't amount to anything. It's just 30-year-old recollections and some trivial apparent anomalies in a home movie. If, as appears to be the case, plausible alternative explanations exist for these things, such evidence is weak. The question I asked, and which still hasn't been satisfactorily answered, is: what good reason would the masterminds have for not destroying a piece of evidence which (according to Sandy and Roger) they controlled and which seriously undermined the story they wanted the public to believe? In other words, why did they decide keep the film once they became aware that it contradicted their story? What was their thought process? Edited February 14 by Jeremy Bojczuk corrected a typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Bojczuk Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Roger Odisio writes: Quote There is a film at NARA and therefore it must be the original!!! I guess that settles it?/!! No. I explained why the film at NARA must be the original. Please read my comment again. Quote Assert the film at NARA is the original and for that "reason" conclude it hasn't been altered. No. I didn't merely assert that the film at NARA is the original. I explained why it is the original. Please read my comment again. Quote You haven't noticed this has been done by film experts in California who concluded there were clumsy alterations? Did they examine the film that is in the archives? I suspect they didn't; but if they did, what reasons did they give to show that Zavada's explanation was incorrect? Quote Your faith in Zapada to resolve all questions of authenticity is misplaced. You ignore the responses of not only Horne but others. For example, here is Jack White in 2010 at EF Jack White! He thought that the moon landings were faked, that no planes hit the World Trade Center, that Oswald and his mother were each a pair of doppelgängers, that photos of the sixth floor rifle taken from slightly different angles were actually of separate rifles, as well as all sorts of other crazy stuff. Not only was White spectacularly wrong about all of those things and no doubt much more, but he was wrong when he claimed (according to Roger's quotation): Quote All his [Zavada's] study proved that the film was shot on Kodachrome, which was not in dispute. Zavada didn't just claim that the film in the archives was authentic, he gave technical reasons which demonstrated why it was authentic. Since Roger doesn't seem to have read that part, here it is again: Copying one Kodachrome film onto a second Kodachrome film will inevitably generate defects in the copy: increased contrast, increased grain size, and colour distortion. The film in the archives contains none of these defects. It must therefore be the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera. It follows that no alterations can have been made which required the original film to be copied. See: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Jack White's objection does not overcome Zavada's claim. Until someone with adequate credentials inspects the film that's in the archives, and provides good evidence that it isn't the original, we must assume that Zavada was right. Quote I asked if you claim Brugioni was lying about what happened with the film at NPIC I've no reason to suppose that he was lying, just that his 30-year-old recollections were mistaken, as 30-year-old recollections often are. Quote Well, what did he get wrong? Anything that doesn't match what we see in the original Zapruder film that's in the archives. Zavada provides a perfectly plausible alternative explanation for what happened at NPIC. There's no need to accept Brugioni's more far-fetched version. Quote I did explain why destruction that weekend was not the best or logical choice. And I explained why destruction was the only logical choice, in the hypothetical scenario Roger describes. I dealt with Roger's original claim in my first reply. Here's Roger's claim: Quote The killers were left with only one feasible choice that weekend--alteration of the film to try to obscure what it showed so as to keep the story they were already going with from imploding. But alteration would not have been the only way "to keep the story they were already going with from imploding". Destroying the film would also do the job, and would do so with more certainty of success, no real risk of failure, and with no serious consequences. Roger didn't explain why those masterminds would have decided to alter the film instead of destroying it. He simply asserted that that's what they did, on the basis of flimsy evidence such as Brugioni's 30-year-old recollections and a bunch of trivial anomalies. Here's my question again: If, as Roger assumes, the masterminds had control of a film which seriously undermined their case; and if they were able to eliminate this evidence simply by destroying the film; and if the only consequence they would suffer by doing so was public embarrassment; and if they understood that it might not be possible to alter the film properly, and that the film would still contain evidence that undermined their case; what thought processes made them decide not to destroy the film but instead to try to alter it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: If you can provide a source who (a) is at least as authoritative as Roland Zavada and Raymond Fielding, and (b) has inspected the film in the archives, and (c) can explain why Zavada and Fielding were mistaken, please go ahead. If you can't, we are obliged to believe that the Zapruder film that's in the National Archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. Except that you'd be ignoring all the evidence we have that the film has been altered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: Quote This is just more of Jeremy's signature "I wouldn't do that, therefore they wouldn't do that" logic. 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: No, it's the sequence of events which Sandy and Roger imply actually happened. No-one would have done that. LOL! Jeremy doubling down on this only proves my point, that his signature logic is "I wouldn't do that, therefore they wouldn't do that." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: But that evidence doesn't amount to anything. It's just 30-year-old recollections and some trivial apparent anomalies in a home movie. If, as appears to be the case, plausible alternative explanations exist for these things, such evidence is weak. We have a well-demarcated black patch on the back of Kennedy's head that is too demarcated and too dark to be natural. And it just happens to be located where a bloody blowout wound should be, as seen by over 40 witnesses. In addition, we have a huge blob of what is apparently supposed to be brain tissue exploding out the right-top-anterior part of the head, a place where not a single Parkland doctor or nurse -- numbering nearly 20 -- saw any such thing. These are mere anomalies to Jeremy only because he has an irrational preconceived notion that, while the coverup artists would alter just about anything to make it look like Oswald did it, for some reason known only to him, they wouldn't touch those photographs or films. Because of this irrational belief, Jeremy has to resort to the same old "nothing here to see" arguments that WC apologists use. And thereby he has become one of the CT darlings of the LNers. 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: The question I asked, and which still hasn't been satisfactorily answered, is: what good reason would the masterminds have for not destroying a piece of evidence which (according to Sandy and Roger) they controlled and which seriously undermined the story they wanted the public to believe? I'm pretty sure Roger answered that. The answer is this: At first, when the coverup artists did the quick alterations, they hoped that that would be sufficient in convincing the public that the blowout wound was in the front and not the back of the head. They were disappointed that they couldn't remove the "back and to the left" movement. This presented them two options... either suppress the film or destroy it. Given that "accidental" destruction of the film would look exceedingly suspicious -- rather like Ruby killing Oswald looked suspicious -- they decided to suppress the film. They figured, if the film did get out some time in the future, the back-and-to-the-left motion could be explained away. Rather like Jeremy is trying to explain away the film alteration evidence. 2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: In other words, why did they decide keep the film once they became aware that it contradicted their story? What was their thought process? Answered above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Rigby Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said: Michael Crane writes: No, unjustified preconceptions tell you that it's gone. Common sense tells you to look at the evidence, and the evidence which I provided tells you that it still exists. If you can provide a source who (a) is at least as authoritative as Roland Zavada and Raymond Fielding, and (b) has inspected the film in the archives, and (c) can explain why Zavada and Fielding were mistaken, please go ahead. If you can't, we are obliged to believe that the Zapruder film that's in the National Archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. Rolly Zavada’s talents were wasted. He might more usefully have conducted a study of the film’s mysterious influence upon human memory, an effect, it should be noted, not confined to the assassination city itself. Leaving aside those scores of participants and/or eyewitnesses in Dallas who saw things unrecorded by, or very different to, the dress-maker’s remarkable camera and its even more remarkable self-healing film stock, spare a moment’s thought for the poor staff who laboured within Life magazine’s photographic department, most of whom had wandered through life, prior to November 1963, with excellent reputations for sobriety, professional competence and a basic ability to distinguish ripped film from unripped film. Then along came the dreaded Z film. From the anonymous technicians, to their bosses Richard Pollard (photographic director) and Herbert G. Orth (deputy supervisor of the magazine’s laboratory), all suffered a similar mass hallucination to the Dallasites, one which caused them to believe, on no rational basis whatever, that the same aforementioned technicians had accidentally destroyed four frames from “the original, intact, color film,” and to publicly admit such. Little did those suckers know. Good, thankfully, can still issue from mushrooms (or whatever it was preciseIy that caused this extraordinary collective imagining). I propose a memorial to the victims of ZFP (Zapruder film psychosis), possibly in the form of a giant metal replica of an optical printer bearing the inscription: Mr. Liebeler: ‘…Now, what about picture No. 210 – however – there is no No. 210 in here.’ Mr. Zapruder: ‘No.’ Mr. Liebeler: ‘How about No. 222?’* For after all, one fake film frame is ultimately of no more value than any other; and, like principles, the CIA always have others. *Richard H. Levine, Film of Kennedy Torn, ‘Life’ Says (The Baltimore Sun, Thursday, 22 December 1966, A1 & A4) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Odisio Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 1 hour ago, Paul Rigby said: Rolly Zavada’s talents were wasted. He might more usefully have conducted a study of the film’s mysterious influence upon human memory, an effect, it should be noted, not confined to the assassination city itself. Leaving aside those scores of participants and/or eyewitnesses in Dallas who saw things unrecorded by, or very different to, the dress-maker’s remarkable camera and its even more remarkable self-healing film stock, spare a moment’s thought for the poor staff who laboured within Life magazine’s photographic department, most of whom had wandered through life, prior to November 1963, with excellent reputations for sobriety, professional competence and a basic ability to distinguish ripped film from unripped film. Then along came the dreaded Z film. From the anonymous technicians, to their bosses Richard Pollard (photographic director) and Herbert G. Orth (deputy supervisor of the magazine’s laboratory), all suffered a similar mass hallucination to the Dallasites, one which caused them to believe, on no rational basis whatever, that the same aforementioned technicians had accidentally destroyed four frames from “the original, intact, color film,” and to publicly admit such. Little did those suckers know. Good, thankfully, can still issue from mushrooms (or whatever it was preciseIy that caused this extraordinary collective imagining). I propose a memorial to the victims of ZFP (Zapruder film psychosis), possibly in the form of a giant metal replica of an optical printer bearing the inscription: Mr. Liebeler: ‘…Now, what about picture No. 210 – however – there is no No. 210 in here.’ Mr. Zapruder: ‘No.’ Mr. Liebeler: ‘How about No. 222?’* For after all, one fake film frame is ultimately of no more value than any other; and, like principles, the CIA always have others. *Richard H. Levine, Film of Kennedy Torn, ‘Life’ Says (The Baltimore Sun, Thursday, 22 December 1966, A1 & A4) A couple of things I failed to mention yesterday. Not only did the CIA *not* choose to destroy the film without first trying to alter it, when the alterations failed they didn't destroy it then either. That is, they didn't destroy it in the sense of having no film (as Jeremy would have it), when the public, even the media sycophants, knew of its existence as a record of the murder. They substituted the altered film while destroying the original, but knew it could not stand on its own anymore than an actual autopsy could be allowed by Dr. Rose in Dallas. They had a better plan that didn't require destroying one of the most crucial bits of evidence in the case (they did destroy other, less critical bits). Their plan didn't require someone to destroy the film (a serious crime), or have on hand someone to blame when the destruction was discovered, as it surely would have been, even in the closed informational atmosphere they had created. I'll ask again: Jeremy how was that destruction you imagine as the best solution supposed to work? Who should have done it? Who was there to blame? The better plan was what the record shows they did. Murder Oswald to prevent having to prove he did it at trial (which they knew they couldn't do). Continue framing him with the WC. Control the flow of information spewed out by the MSM, which was then the dominant source of news. Have Life publish selected stills the next week (they can't show everything; it's too gruesome) mollifying the public and buttressing the Oswald story as much as possible. Bury the altered film from public view for what turned out to be 12 years, while most people moved on. A much wiser course, wouldn't you say? It seems to have worked pretty well, at least so far. One other thing. Hawkeye Works was not just a then secret CIA lab, of which Brugioni said "they could do anything" with films (he had visited there a couple of times). The very name, Hawkeye Works, was classified until 2010. One year after Peter Janney had interviewed Brugioni several times in 2009, and before Horne followed up the interviews in 2011. Before then, Horne had received a directive from the CIA he could not use the name of the lab in his research. It was Homer McMahon, not Brugioni, who said he was told by "SS agent Bill Smith" that the film he delivered that Sunday, from which briefing boards were to be made, came from Hawkeye Works. If work on the film was done there (which you haven't disputed as far as I can tell), who did it but the CIA? If not film alteration, what was done there? Life would show selected stills to the public Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keven Hofeling Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 (edited) On 2/12/2024 at 3:07 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said: Roger Odisio writes: Yes, the Zapruder film does expose the story as false, as I explain below. I don't think this claim stands up. Roger doesn't explain why it wasn't possible to accidentally destroy or lose the film. His reasons appear to be contained in the following paragraph: But none of this explains why Life or anyone else who had possession of the original film would not have been able to accidentally-on-purpose destroy the film. After all, films do sometimes get damaged during processing. A good example would of course be the Zapruder film itself, which did in fact suffer damage from genuinely incompetent handling by a technician. No doubt Life would have suffered public embarrassment if it had claimed that a crucial section of the film, or even the whole film, had accidentally been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, or claimed that it had lost the film in transit or allowed the film to be stolen by a souvenir hunter, or whatever other the-dog-ate-my-homework story it came up with. But that would be a small price to pay to prevent an incriminating film being seen by the general public. Alternatively, Life could have put the film in its vault, keeping it largely but not entirely out of public view for over a decade until the immediate fuss died down, which is in fact what happened. Plenty of bootlegs were in circulation after the Shaw trial, and many thousands of people saw the film, but its implications did not become widely known among the general public until millions of people saw the TV broadcast in 1975. Keeping the film largely hidden away was an effective solution to the problem of the incriminating evidence it contained. That claim only works if you take the Horne/Brugioni story seriously. But recollections three or four decades after the event are flimsy evidence, and Horne's account of anything should be taken with a large helping of salt; he's the guy who tried to derail the ARRB by promoting Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! Roland Zavada takes Horne to pieces in the following PDF, and points out that the film Brugioni dealt with was more likely to be one of the FBI copies than the original, which did indeed get sent to Chicago. Zavada makes two important points: there was insufficient time to perform the alterations in question, and the film that exists today is the actual piece of film that was in Zapruder's camera (which rules out any alterations that required the film to be copied): http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf As much as I dislike using McAdams's favourite word, this claim is a factoid that keeps cropping up and is easily disproved (I think Horne is to blame for putting this particular idea in people's heads). Even a relatively poor-quality copy of the film shows a vertical plume of brain matter for several frames after frame 313: 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 A better-quality copy may well depict the plume in further frames. Numerous other supposed anomalies have been brought up over the past 20 years or more (Conclusive proof! At last!), only to fall apart at the first hint of skeptical examination (Drat!), as Josiah Thompson recounts here: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination.html Because the original film, the one which exists today, contradicts the lone-nut theory: We see JFK and Connally reacting separately to their non-fatal wounds, as Connally himself insisted. The Zapruder film is the only item of evidence which demonstrates that these non-fatal wounds were too far apart in time to have been caused by one bullet, and too close in time to have been caused by two bullets fired from the sixth-floor rifle. The Zapruder film is the only item of evidence which allows us to calculate how much time the car took to travel along Elm Street. The film limits the amount of time available for three shots to have been fired. It is the film which makes it next to impossible for a lone nut to have loaded, aimed, and fired three shots. Without the Zapruder film, it would be possible to claim that the car's speed just happened to match however long it took for a lone, out-of-practice gunman to load his rickety old rifle, aim carefully, fire the first shot, reload, aim carefully, fire the second shot, reload, aim carefully, and fire the third shot. Three shots, comfortably spaced: the first hits JFK in the back, the second hits Connally in the back, and the third hits JFK in the head. Without the Zapruder film, there would have been no need for all those expert gunmen to try and fail to do what the lone nut is supposed to have done. Without the Zapruder film, there would have been no need to invent the ludicrous single-bullet theory. Destroy the Zapruder film before it beomes available for public inspection, and the lone-nut theory becomes plausible. It can't have been any of the supposedly altered parts which induced the gasps. By definition, altering the film would have removed evidence of conspiracy, such the hugely incriminating 'back and to the left' head movement which the forgers somehow neglected to remove. The gasps must have been at least partly due to seeing that 'back and to the left' head movement, which the audience no doubt interpreted as the result of a shot from the front. With an altered film, the only element that would have induced gasps would have been the sight of someone getting shot in the head. People have been bringing up this point for years, without explaining why the sight of a car turning left was so incriminating that it had to be removed from a home movie. I mean, cars turn left sometimes. There's really nothing remarkable about it. And there's a perfectly plausible explanation for the discrepancy in Zapruder's statement. If Zapruder recalled that he hadn't stopped filming, but the film shows that he had stopped filming, it's vastly more likely that he was mistaken than that anyone went to all the trouble of removing the car's left turn from his home movie for no obvious reason. Again, this is just one of numerous empty claims about alteration, claims for which obvious everyday explanations exist. Witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes. There are threads on this forum which discuss pretty much every supposed anomaly you can think of. Rather than go over all those claims for the umpteenth time, I'd like Roger or anyone else to deal with what appears to be the weakest part of his argument. Let's assume that the Zapruder film not only contradicted the lone-nut theory, but contained evidence so blatant that the authorities couldn't possibly explain it away. Why would the authorities not simply have destroyed the film? As I pointed out, destroying the film would have caused them embarrassment and raised suspicions of a cover-up, but it would definitively have eliminated any possible harm that the Zapruder film could have caused to their theory. Apart from the egg-on-face factor, why would they not have accidentally-on-purpose destroyed the film? Jeremy Bojczuk wrote: Quote I don't think this claim stands up. Roger doesn't explain why it wasn't possible to accidentally destroy or lose the film. His reasons appear to be contained in the following paragraph: But none of this explains why Life or anyone else who had possession of the original film would not have been able to accidentally-on-purpose destroy the film. After all, films do sometimes get damaged during processing. A good example would of course be the Zapruder film itself, which did in fact suffer damage from genuinely incompetent handling by a technician. No doubt Life would have suffered public embarrassment if it had claimed that a crucial section of the film, or even the whole film, had accidentally been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, or claimed that it had lost the film in transit or allowed the film to be stolen by a souvenir hunter, or whatever other the-dog-ate-my-homework story it came up with. But that would be a small price to pay to prevent an incriminating film being seen by the general public. Alternatively, Life could have put the film in its vault, keeping it largely but not entirely out of public view for over a decade until the immediate fuss died down, which is in fact what happened. Plenty of bootlegs were in circulation after the Shaw trial, and many thousands of people saw the film, but its implications did not become widely known among the general public until millions of people saw the TV broadcast in 1975. Keeping the film largely hidden away was an effective solution to the problem of the incriminating evidence it contained. There are some strong indications that Abraham Zapruder, at least at the very start, was a genuine free agent and honest broker. He immediately returned to his office after filming the assassination and locked the film in his safe, then refused to turn it over to the Secret Service when agents appeared and demanded it. Abraham Zapruder made it clear that he was not going to part with the film and rights associated therewith unless in the context of a financial transaction, and then accompanied the Secret Service agents to have the film developed, which other film-takers, such as Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix had failed to do. Orville Nix turned his film over to the FBI on December 1, 1963. Upon its return several days later, he was convinced that it looked different from when it was first developed. Nix believed the film had been altered. In a 1966 interview with Mark Lane, he also mentioned that some frames had been ruined. In January 1964, Nix handed over his motion picture camera to the FBI. When it was returned in June, it had been disassembled and was in pieces. The FBI apologized, fixed the camera, and provided Nix with a new one, which satisfied him. Later, Nix sold the original film to UPI for a meager $5,000 and a cowboy hat, but he was allowed to keep a copy. The original was supposed to be returned to Nix after 25 years. However, UPI kept the film inaccessible to the public and never returned it to the Nix family. In 1965, UPI took the Nix film for a special optical scan to a secretive, CIA-connected company that produced advanced reconnaissance cameras for use in spy satellites. The original Nix film has likely been destroyed, and its current location is unknown. Despite this, the Nix family continues to strive for its return, believing it may still exist. One theory suggests that in 1974, a UPI executive placed the original Nix film in a safety deposit box in a New York City bank. This is believed to be the last known location of the original film, which has not been seen since. The building housing the bank was later demolished. According to a possibly more plausible theory, the original Nix film vanished in 1978 after it was returned to UPI by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. UPI acquired the Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix films shortly after the assassination and took several actions with these important pieces of photographic evidence. They first published a book, Four Days, which included several frames from the two films in color. Three of these frames were from the Muchmore film. Additionally, they created a composite 35mm movie film from the original 8mm films, which was shown to researchers at the UPI offices in New York in 1964/65. In 1964, UPI provided copies of both the Nix and Muchmore films to the Warren Commission for analysis. It's worth noting that Mrs. Muchmore was never called before the Commission. When the Warren Commission disbanded, the Muchmore and Nix films were handed over to the National Archives in Washington under a special agreement between UPI and the Archives. According to the terms of this contract, no one was permitted to obtain copies of either film or slides of individual frames for any purpose, commercial or otherwise. Until researcher Harold Weisberg obtained written permission in 1966 from UPI, nobody was even allowed to see the Nix or Muchmore footage on file among the records of the Warren Commission in the Archives. However, since Weisberg obtained permission, the Archives have interpreted his authorization broadly, and the films can now be viewed under the supervision of the Archives' staff. The Warren Commission made very limited use of the Muchmore film, publishing just three separate frames as part of Commission Exhibit (CE) 885. Additionally, CE 902 contained the frame from the Muchmore film said by the Commission to coincide with Z313, the moment of impact of the fatal shot to JFK's head. Comparison with M42 published in CE 885 suggests that M42 is also the frame which appears in CE 902. This conclusion was first published in 1970 by Richard E. Sprague in his significant Computers and Automation article on the Photographic Evidence. The damage to the House Select Committee on Assassination's version of the Muchmore film, while very obvious, is most difficult to understand since no frames would appear to be missing or transposed. For example, to omit or transpose frames could possibly have the effect of changing the direction of the President's head movement after the fatal shot, as happened when frames of the Zapruder film were transposed in the published evidence (H18 pp.70/71). M41 contains two horizontal splice marks, one at the top of the frame and the other at the bottom. The top one is approximately three-quarters of the way down. Frame M45 is spliced in a very similar fashion. The splices in M41 and M45 cannot be so easily explained away. The efforts of researcher Chris Scalley to elicit an explanation from UPI proved to be unsuccessful. After more than three weeks had elapsed and no reply had been received, Scalley contacted the London UPI office by telephone. Not only did they claim that his letter had never reached them, but their main concern seemed to be in ascertaining where he had obtained his copy of their film. Scalley's subsequent letters to UPI's Head Office went unanswered. The afternoon of the assassination, Abraham Zapruder, accompanied by his business partner, Erwin Schwartz, and Secret Service agents, visited the Kodak Plant in Dallas to have his home movie developed (and where they viewed the film to ensure it had captured the assassination). The film, which captured family moments on one side and the Kennedy assassination on the other, was not initially divided, so that Mr. Zapruder could have three copies made at the Jamieson Film Lab. Following his return from the Jamieson Lab, all three contact prints were developed at the Kodak Plant in Dallas. After the three dupes were found satisfactory, the original 8mm film was viewed at least twice by several lab employees, Mr. Zapruder, and his attorney. Zapruder left Kodak's Dallas plant at around 9 PM and handed over two of the three "first day copies" to the Secret Service. One of these copies was sent to Secret Service Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on a commercial flight late that night. The film arrived in Washington after midnight and was delivered to the Secret Service before dawn on November 23rd. The second "same day copy" handed over to the Secret Service by Zapruder was loaned to the FBI in Dallas the next day. Afterward, the Dallas office of the FBI flew the film to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., the evening of November 23rd. After returning home with the camera-original film and one of the "first day copies," Zapruder was contacted by Richard Stolley of LIFE magazine, late that night. Zapruder agreed to meet with Stolley the next morning in his office to discuss the potential sale of the film. On the morning of November 23rd, 1963, Abraham Zapruder met with Secret Service officials and Mr. Stolley, the Pacific Coast editor of LIFE magazine, in his office. During the meeting, he projected the original film for them on his 8 mm projector. Zapruder then struck a deal with Stolley to sell the film for $50,000.00, granting LIFE worldwide print media rights to the assassination movie but not motion picture rights. Zapruder agreed in the initial contract that he would not exploit the film as a motion picture himself until Friday, November 29th. Zapruder immediately relinquished the camera-original film to LIFE and kept in his possession the one remaining "first day copy." According to the initial contract, Zapruder was to have the original film returned to him by LIFE on or about November 29th, and in exchange, he was then to give LIFE the remaining first day copy. So the question we are faced with, Mr. Bojczuk, is at what point could the film be destroyed or disappeared? Abraham Zapruder handled the situation as the shrewd businessman that he was, always maintaining control over the camera-original film, until relinquishing it to LIFE on November 23rd; and even then, retaining in his possession one of the first day copies (not to mention that the two other first day copies were in the hands of the FBI and Secret Service by that point). The Secret Service surely could have seized the film as evidence when they initially appeared at Zapruder's office to demand it after the assassination, but for whatever reason, did not do so (Perhaps due to the jurisdictional issues looming at the time?). Instead, the government was playing its CIA Operation Mockingbird cards, just much less effectively than it soon would with Orville Nix and Marie Muchmore. By Monday, November 25, 1963, Time Inc. had authorized the payment of an additional $100,000 to purchase all rights to the film as a motion picture from Zapruder, and the question is "why"? By that time the two briefing board sessions at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center ("NPIC") had taken place, as well as the intermediate sojourn of the film to the super-secret joint CIA/Kodak Hawkeyeworks plant in Rochester, New York (according to the later ARRB testimony of NPIC Photoanalyst Homer McMahon), and it appears plausible that it had been discovered by that point that there were very severe anomalies in the film that would place in question its authenticity and provenance unless it were somehow made to disappear, and the only available option for doing so was to lock it away in a safe to prevent public scrutiny. And how do we know that the camera-original Zapruder film was diverted from its trip to Chicago, where LIFE's principal printing plant was located, to NPIC? There are several lines of evidence, but in the interests of brevity, there are two in particular: First, former NPIC Photoanalyst, Dino Brugioni, reported to researchers Doug Horne and Peter Janney in 2009 that when he received the film at NPIC the evening of November 23rd it was in the custody of a Secret Service agent who told Brugioni it was the "original;" second, the film was in 8mm format, which is the format of the camera-original -- wherein the first day copies were in 16mm format -- and Brugioni was certain of this because he had to get a local merchant out of bed to sell him an 8mm projector because NPIC was not equipped with one; and finally, if the camera-original Zapruder film had arrived at the LIFE printing plant in Chicago by the deadline for the 11-29-1963 edition, it would have been populated with crisp, clear, colorful stills from the Zapruder film rather than the grainy black and white stills that obviously came from a "dirty-dupe" rather than the camera-original. All subsequent LIFE issues with Zapruder film stills would be crisp, clear and colorful -- only the 11-29-1963 issue would have grainy black and white stills. Edited February 14 by Keven Hofeling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keven Hofeling Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said: A couple of things I failed to mention yesterday. Not only did the CIA *not* choose to destroy the film without first trying to alter it, when the alterations failed they didn't destroy it then either. That is, they didn't destroy it in the sense of having no film (as Jeremy would have it), when the public, even the media sycophants, knew of its existence as a record of the murder. They substituted the altered film while destroying the original, but knew it could not stand on its own anymore than an actual autopsy could be allowed by Dr. Rose in Dallas. They had a better plan that didn't require destroying one of the most crucial bits of evidence in the case (they did destroy other, less critical bits). Their plan didn't require someone to destroy the film (a serious crime), or have on hand someone to blame when the destruction was discovered, as it surely would have been, even in the closed informational atmosphere they had created. I'll ask again: Jeremy how was that destruction you imagine as the best solution supposed to work? Who should have done it? Who was there to blame? The better plan was what the record shows they did. Murder Oswald to prevent having to prove he did it at trial (which they knew they couldn't do). Continue framing him with the WC. Control the flow of information spewed out by the MSM, which was then the dominant source of news. Have Life publish selected stills the next week (they can't show everything; it's too gruesome) mollifying the public and buttressing the Oswald story as much as possible. Bury the altered film from public view for what turned out to be 12 years, while most people moved on. A much wiser course, wouldn't you say? It seems to have worked pretty well, at least so far. One other thing. Hawkeye Works was not just a then secret CIA lab, of which Brugioni said "they could do anything" with films (he had visited there a couple of times). The very name, Hawkeye Works, was classified until 2010. One year after Peter Janney had interviewed Brugioni several times in 2009, and before Horne followed up the interviews in 2011. Before then, Horne had received a directive from the CIA he could not use the name of the lab in his research. It was Homer McMahon, not Brugioni, who said he was told by "SS agent Bill Smith" that the film he delivered that Sunday, from which briefing boards were to be made, came from Hawkeye Works. If work on the film was done there (which you haven't disputed as far as I can tell), who did it but the CIA? If not film alteration, what was done there? Life would show selected stills to the public Roger Odisio wrote: Quote One other thing. Hawkeye Works was not just a then secret CIA lab, of which Brugioni said "they could do anything" with films (he had visited there a couple of times). The very name, Hawkeye Works, was classified until 2010. One year after Peter Janney had interviewed Brugioni several times in 2009, and before Horne followed up the interviews in 2011. Before then, Horne had received a directive from the CIA he could not use the name of the lab in his research. The CIA directive concerned the ARRB interview of NPIC Photoanalyst Homer McMahon who had mentioned "Hawkeyeworks" during the interview: EXCERPTS FROM HOMER MCMAHON INTERVIEW REGARDING THE ZAPRUDER FILM BEING AT HAWKEYEWORKS IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK Homer A. McMahon (Former CIA/NPIC Employee) conducted on July 14, 1997 at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. Interviewers: Douglas P. Horne and T. Jeremy Gunn "...McMahon (9:55): OK. But the best that I remember, of how I came to work on this project---and, of course, we all heard of, of, you know, that motorcade, where Kennedy got killed, and I think we shut up shop and went home---af---after that. And it was within the next two days, a chap was introduced to me---and I was sworn to his secrecy, it had nothing to do with the Agency’s secrecy and, and he was, to the best of my knowledge, introduced as “Bill Smith.” - 4 - Horne: “Bill Smith” of---what? McMahon: Of [the] Secret Service, he was an agent. And he had, he had gotten a roll of film directly from the person that had photographed it, who called the Secret Service and told them that he thought he had that on film---and he shot it with a little ‘Brownie,’ ah, double 8 [camera]. And he took it, took it to Rochester, and---we had a division up there, I won’t go into that--- but they processed the film---it was Ek---it was Kodachrome (I think, I or II, the daylight version, whichever it was), and it was double 8 [film]. And, after he got it processed, they told him there that we were probably the only place that had the equipment that could do what he wanted to, ah, take every frame on there--- [chuckling]---of the entire event, and, and make, ah, the best possible quality reproduction. Horne: When you say, “They told him,” who do you mean, ah---? McMahon (12:04): Well---ah---heh, heh---well, Eastman Kodak had, had contracts with the U.S. government, and if you want to know, you can go through the CIA, they’ll tell you [unclear]. OK, but he, he got the film processed, and he brought it to us, and he, and three other people, ah, timed the film, for the---through observation you could tell where the gunshots actually caused the hits and the slumps. We didn’t know anything about any audio---ah, it was just visual. And we timed it and determined, where the, the time between the, ah---physically timed it, with a stopwatch---ah, where the gunshot “hits” hit. And we, we, we, we went from, I think, maybe two 7 frames before the first hit, and then we hit every single frame--- through, and we only, he only counted three hits, possibly four--- ah, couldn’t tell, I think, when, when Connally got hit. It was obvious when, when he [JFK] got hit the first time, and then the second time, as his head [was] going off into the angle, up, and---..." "... Horne: That’s all we are trying to do, for the record, is to clarify that when you said that statement, were you referring to this particular film, or other jobs? McMahon: OK, I---this---I had---I had other clearances; ah, but, but none of these clearances that were given to me under the CIA or other clearances that I held for other government agencies, this was under strictly, a---I was told that none of this could be divulged to anyone (that we had it, that we did it), and I know that it was being used for a briefing, but I don’t know who they briefed on it. My only guess---[was] that we normally briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the National Reconnaissance Committee; and the President of the United States, from the work that I did. And I didn’t do any of the analysis; I just did the color part that was used in the briefing boards and the teleprompters and that kind of work. And it was also distributed under different Top Secret classifications, to the Community, go ahead---..." "...Horne (18:19): OK. Would you allow me to, ah, test your recollection on something, the firmness of it? Ah, you, you said a moment ago that you thought this was, ah, within two days of the assassination. Ah, is there any particular reason why you associate it as being that close to the assassination, any particular other events, or--- McMahon: I think, I think I was told---that this---to get the film from the individual; take it and get it processed; come back---was, was, a couple of days---I’m not sure. I’m not---I don’t know [if I can] recall that. Horne: Do you recall whether this work that you did was before the funeral, or after the funeral, of the President? [Transcriber’s note: President Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22nd, 1963; and his funeral was on Monday, November 25th, 1963.] McMahon (18:56): I’m pretty sure it was before...." "...Horne (28:23): How certain are you that Mr. Smith said he went down to pick up the film from the person who took it, and then took it to Rochester? Are you--- McMahon: I know he took it to Rochester. I’m not certain other than I think he said that---that it--- that he got it from the original person himself, but I’m not positive. I, I am positive that he said that he took it to Rochester---hand-carried it, got it processed, and then they guided him back to us to do the--- Horne: So--- McMahon: Rochester wasn’t set up to do what we were set up to do. Horne: In the sense that you had the big enlarger and they did not? Is that what--- McMahon: We had a complete ‘world beyond’ facility--- Horne: OK..." "...Horne (42:08): Before we move along, and before I show you the notes that the Archives has---ah, let, let me revisit with you, ah, what exactly did Mr. Smith say in regard to secrecy or nondisclosure, ah, regarding this event, can you tell me that story again? McMahon: I know that, that my immediate supervisor was not allowed in the room---that it was so sensitive, and he had all the tickets---and he was not allowed in the room. It was strictly on a “need to-know” 19 [basis], do the job, and get it out, and no one knew about it, to my knowledge. No record--- Gunn: [Interrupting] Just---just so the record’s clear, when you say “all the tickets,” you mean all the security clearances that he had? He had a lot of security clearances? McMahon: He had clearance, ah, equal to or [the] same as I had, but he was not allowed---it was not, it was not the CIA, or---a---I held other clearances: Atomic Energy, ah, National Security Agency, and, and it was not under any of these. Gunn: Was there any other compartment, or was it just with a name, such as, ah--- McMahon: I---There was no code name on it that I know of, and if there was, I couldn’t tell you anyway [chuckling]. Horne (43:48): Did, did Mr. Smith ever say to you, ah, “This is classified at a certain level”--- - 12 - McMahon: Yes. He said it is definitely classified on a “need-to know;” and he didn’t give me anything other than it was---that I was sworn to secrecy, and I had---I don’t know whether I had to sign the document, I don’t recall that. But I do know that it could not be divulged. Horne: Did he give you a level of classification, like Confidential or Secret--- McMahon: I have no---no, it did not have---he said it was above Top Secret---..." "...Gunn: OK, what Bill Smith said about what he already knew about the film and what it showed? McMahon (47:17): It---you didn’t---you, you didn’t---after it was processed, at Eastman Kodak; and it wasn’t in---it was not in the Kod[ak] factory---it was at “Hawkeyeworks.” Horne: Pardon me? 21 McMahon (47:30): There, there was another Top Secret lab---..." "...Gunn (3:18): OK, and, ah, what did, ah, Mr. Smith say had happened to the film prior to the time that he brought it, in terms of processing, where it had been, and how it had been processed. McMahon (3:33): OK, because of expedite and the, the expedite part, is, is in---they wanted to find out what happened, and they had, they had film, that was generously turned into them by a very patriotic person, and [they were] told that he would give it to them, because they--- it might help in the investigation. That---this is what, what he was told---what I was told---and that it was of the utmost urgency. So he hand-carried it through; and flew to Rochester; and got it processed at the---the processing division there, and they were made aware that he was coming. Ah, and did it immediately for him, and I also think they made duplications of that, which I was told, and then he came back [to Washington D.C.], because they told him they couldn’t do what he wanted to get done, and that NPIC could do it. And it fell in our laps, and we did it. Gunn (4:55): What---when you said, “They couldn’t get done what needed to be done,” did you mean the enlargements, or was there some other---? McMahon: They, they didn’t have a, a laboratory that, that could do the quality of work that he- 14 -wanted. He wanted maximum sharpness, the most “seeability” that, that he could get of the imagery, and that we were set up to do: and we were well beyond the state-of the- art in, in the quality that was turned out. Gunn: For the film of the, the assassination, was it your understanding that anything more had been done to it other than developing the original film and making some prints of the original film? 23 McMahon: The prints, the prints were duplications of the original--- Gunn: Film. McMahon: Yeah. Gunn: Had anything else been done to the film, besides--- McMahon: No, no one else had gotten it---to my knowledge. Horne (5:52): Was it your understanding that Mr. Smith had come directly to Washington from Rochester? McMahon: Yeah---mmm-hmmm, yes. He’d gotten off the airplane and came from National Airport directly to, to our building. Gunn (6:06): Just so we’re, we’re clear on something---it was our understanding that the film had been processed by Kodak; ah, when you said it was done in Rochester, it---was that an inference that you drew, when they said it had been processed by Kodak, or did the---did he mention Rochester? McMahon: Ah, you’re, you’re getting on classified grounds here, ah, that I can’t answer that question. I know, but I can’t talk to you about that. There was another Top Secret lab, that the government--- you--- Gunn: Ah, if you’re uncomfortable talking about it, we, we can stop that here, so that---that’s fine. But this is something that would---that is important for us to be able to do, so we can go, ah, back to the Agency, and talk to them, so [unclear]--- McMahon: No, you can do that back through the Agency, and I know that hasn’t been down graded, to, to---public domain. [Transcriber’s note: McMahon was referring here to the code-name “Hawkeyeworks,” for the Top Secret lab at Rochester.] Gunn: Ah--- Horne (7:12): I think there’s a way to rephrase the question, so that it’s ah, not a classified---so that you don’t perceive a classified intent. I, I think the way to rephrase the question might be, did Mr. Smith say, ah, “This was developed at Kodak?” or did he say, “This was developed at Rochester?”24 McMahon: Again, again, I know where it was done; I know who did it. And I’m not going to answer[chuckling]--- Horne: Is there any chance that, ah, where it was done was at a Kodak lab in Dallas? That’s another way of raising this question. McMahon: To my knowledge, no--- McMahon (8:08): When you’re in bed with the Yellow God [Transcriber’s note: the primary color in the Kodak logo is yellow]---we had their top scientists and photochemists and optical people working in the ‘world beyond; ’we had their people---I shouldn’t even talk about it, I’m sorry. And there was a definite link, on the- 15 -national level, where we had “the best there was” working with us. Gunn (9:01): Would it be fair to say that there was, ah, another facility--- McMahon: Yes. Gunn: ---where [it was] your understanding that this was processed--- McMahon: Yes. Gunn: ---and that that facility was mentioned to you by name, so that you knew--- McMahon: Yes. Gunn: ---where it was--- McMahon: Yes. Gunn: [Is] That fair [garbled] to say--- McMahon: Yes. Gunn: OK, but in terms of the name of it we don’t need that, but just--- there, but, there was reference made to a particular place--- McMahon: But, I don’t know if there was any downgrading [of the classification level of that facility’s code name, “Hawkeyeworks”]. “National Photographic Interpretation Center” was Top Secret--- you could not say it. You could say “NPIC,” and that was Secret. Horne: I see. That’s--- 25 McMahon: And my cover was that “I worked for the CIA”---I did not work for NPIC. And the military that worked there, worked for the military---whether it was Navy, Army, Air Force, or whatever--- they did not work for [unclear]...." [Transcriber’s note: subsequent, extended interviews---in 2009 and 2011---of Dino Brugioni, NPIC’s Chief Information Officer, by researchers Peter Janney and Douglas Horne, established that Mr. Brugioni presided over an entirely different “Zapruder film briefing board event” at NPIC the night before Mr. McMahon did. The product created at Mr. Brugioni’s event was entirely different, and the attendees present were entirely different, as was the format of the film delivered for the making of selective enlargements. Furthermore, Mr. Brugioni, whose event commenced the night before McMahon’s, on Saturday night, 11/23/63, was the Duty Officer of record at NPIC the entire weekend following President Kennedy’s assassination: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, as well as on Monday (which became a national holiday because of President 39 Kennedy’s funeral). Mr. Brugioni did not participate in the second NPIC event, which commenced on Sunday night (i.e., the McMahon event), and as Duty Officer, he did not call anyone into work at NPIC on Sunday night, - 24 - 11/24/63. The McMahon event--- the second NPIC event that weekend---took place without the NPIC Duty Officer of record (Mr. Brugioni) being informed, or involved, in any way; we now know that the NPIC Duty Officer (Brugioni) was completely bypassed by those who arranged and conducted the McMahon event, and a completely different NPIC work crew was assembled the second time around (that is, Mr. McMahon and Mr. Hunter, and Navy Captain Sands, in lieu of Mr. Brugioni’s team from the night before). All of these things were unknown by the ARRB staff, and by Mr. McMahon, in July of 1997 when this interview was conducted. Similarly, Mr. Brugioni was not aware, until 2009 (when he was interviewed by Peter Janney), that there had been a second “Zapruder film briefing board event” at NPIC that weekend, following his own event. The “Brugioni event” at NPIC is discussed at length in Volume IV of the transcriber’s book, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, on pages 1230-1239, and 1323-1334. This interview transcript can only be properly appreciated when one knows its true historical context; we now know that there were two compartmentalized operations involving the Zapruder film at the CIA’s NPIC the weekend of the assassination, and that the McMahon event was the second of these two operations.] https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf And the following is the ARRB Memo Doug Horne wrote in response to the CIA directive regarding "Hawkeyeworks." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Crane Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keven Hofeling Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Odisio Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 2 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said: Jeremy Bojczuk wrote: There are some strong indications that Abraham Zapruder, at least at the very start, was a genuine free agent and honest broker. He immediately returned to his office after filming the assassination and locked the film in his safe, then refused to turn it over to the Secret Service when agents appeared and demanded it. Abraham Zapruder made it clear that he was not going to part with the film and rights associated therewith unless in the context of a financial transaction, and then accompanied the Secret Service agents to have the film developed, which other film-takers, such as Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix had failed to do. Orville Nix turned his film over to the FBI on December 1, 1963. Upon its return several days later, he was convinced that it looked different from when it was first developed. Nix believed the film had been altered. In a 1966 interview with Mark Lane, he also mentioned that some frames had been ruined. In January 1964, Nix handed over his motion picture camera to the FBI. When it was returned in June, it had been disassembled and was in pieces. The FBI apologized, fixed the camera, and provided Nix with a new one, which satisfied him. Later, Nix sold the original film to UPI for a meager $5,000 and a cowboy hat, but he was allowed to keep a copy. The original was supposed to be returned to Nix after 25 years. However, UPI kept the film inaccessible to the public and never returned it to the Nix family. In 1965, UPI took the Nix film for a special optical scan to a secretive, CIA-connected company that produced advanced reconnaissance cameras for use in spy satellites. The original Nix film has likely been destroyed, and its current location is unknown. Despite this, the Nix family continues to strive for its return, believing it may still exist. One theory suggests that in 1974, a UPI executive placed the original Nix film in a safety deposit box in a New York City bank. This is believed to be the last known location of the original film, which has not been seen since. The building housing the bank was later demolished. According to a possibly more plausible theory, the original Nix film vanished in 1978 after it was returned to UPI by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. UPI acquired the Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix films shortly after the assassination and took several actions with these important pieces of photographic evidence. They first published a book, Four Days, which included several frames from the two films in color. Three of these frames were from the Muchmore film. Additionally, they created a composite 35mm movie film from the original 8mm films, which was shown to researchers at the UPI offices in New York in 1964/65. In 1964, UPI provided copies of both the Nix and Muchmore films to the Warren Commission for analysis. It's worth noting that Mrs. Muchmore was never called before the Commission. When the Warren Commission disbanded, the Muchmore and Nix films were handed over to the National Archives in Washington under a special agreement between UPI and the Archives. According to the terms of this contract, no one was permitted to obtain copies of either film or slides of individual frames for any purpose, commercial or otherwise. Until researcher Harold Weisberg obtained written permission in 1966 from UPI, nobody was even allowed to see the Nix or Muchmore footage on file among the records of the Warren Commission in the Archives. However, since Weisberg obtained permission, the Archives have interpreted his authorization broadly, and the films can now be viewed under the supervision of the Archives' staff. The Warren Commission made very limited use of the Muchmore film, publishing just three separate frames as part of Commission Exhibit (CE) 885. Additionally, CE 902 contained the frame from the Muchmore film said by the Commission to coincide with Z313, the moment of impact of the fatal shot to JFK's head. Comparison with M42 published in CE 885 suggests that M42 is also the frame which appears in CE 902. This conclusion was first published in 1970 by Richard E. Sprague in his significant Computers and Automation article on the Photographic Evidence. The damage to the House Select Committee on Assassination's version of the Muchmore film, while very obvious, is most difficult to understand since no frames would appear to be missing or transposed. For example, to omit or transpose frames could possibly have the effect of changing the direction of the President's head movement after the fatal shot, as happened when frames of the Zapruder film were transposed in the published evidence (H18 pp.70/71). M41 contains two horizontal splice marks, one at the top of the frame and the other at the bottom. The top one is approximately three-quarters of the way down. Frame M45 is spliced in a very similar fashion. The splices in M41 and M45 cannot be so easily explained away. The efforts of researcher Chris Scalley to elicit an explanation from UPI proved to be unsuccessful. After more than three weeks had elapsed and no reply had been received, Scalley contacted the London UPI office by telephone. Not only did they claim that his letter had never reached them, but their main concern seemed to be in ascertaining where he had obtained his copy of their film. Scalley's subsequent letters to UPI's Head Office went unanswered. The afternoon of the assassination, Abraham Zapruder, accompanied by his business partner, Erwin Schwartz, and Secret Service agents, visited the Kodak Plant in Dallas to have his home movie developed (and where they viewed the film to ensure it had captured the assassination). The film, which captured family moments on one side and the Kennedy assassination on the other, was not initially divided, so that Mr. Zapruder could have three copies made at the Jamieson Film Lab. Following his return from the Jamieson Lab, all three contact prints were developed at the Kodak Plant in Dallas. After the three dupes were found satisfactory, the original 8mm film was viewed at least twice by several lab employees, Mr. Zapruder, and his attorney. Zapruder left Kodak's Dallas plant at around 9 PM and handed over two of the three "first day copies" to the Secret Service. One of these copies was sent to Secret Service Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on a commercial flight late that night. The film arrived in Washington after midnight and was delivered to the Secret Service before dawn on November 23rd. The second "same day copy" handed over to the Secret Service by Zapruder was loaned to the FBI in Dallas the next day. Afterward, the Dallas office of the FBI flew the film to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., the evening of November 23rd. After returning home with the camera-original film and one of the "first day copies," Zapruder was contacted by Richard Stolley of LIFE magazine, late that night. Zapruder agreed to meet with Stolley the next morning in his office to discuss the potential sale of the film. On the morning of November 23rd, 1963, Abraham Zapruder met with Secret Service officials and Mr. Stolley, the Pacific Coast editor of LIFE magazine, in his office. During the meeting, he projected the original film for them on his 8 mm projector. Zapruder then struck a deal with Stolley to sell the film for $50,000.00, granting LIFE worldwide print media rights to the assassination movie but not motion picture rights. Zapruder agreed in the initial contract that he would not exploit the film as a motion picture himself until Friday, November 29th. Zapruder immediately relinquished the camera-original film to LIFE and kept in his possession the one remaining "first day copy." According to the initial contract, Zapruder was to have the original film returned to him by LIFE on or about November 29th, and in exchange, he was then to give LIFE the remaining first day copy. So the question we are faced with, Mr. Bojczuk, is at what point could the film be destroyed or disappeared? Abraham Zapruder handled the situation as the shrewd businessman that he was, always maintaining control over the camera-original film, until relinquishing it to LIFE on November 23rd; and even then, retaining in his possession one of the first day copies (not to mention that the two other first day copies were in the hands of the FBI and Secret Service by that point). The Secret Service surely could have seized the film as evidence when they initially appeared at Zapruder's office to demand it after the assassination, but for whatever reason, did not do so (Perhaps due to the jurisdictional issues looming at the time?). Instead, the government was playing its CIA Operation Mockingbird cards, just much less effectively than it soon would with Orville Nix and Marie Muchmore. By Monday, November 25, 1963, Time Inc. had authorized the payment of an additional $100,000 to purchase all rights to the film as a motion picture from Zapruder, and the question is "why"? By that time the two briefing board sessions at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center ("NPIC") had taken place, as well as the intermediate sojourn of the film to the super-secret joint CIA/Kodak Hawkeyeworks plant in Rochester, New York (according to the later ARRB testimony of NPIC Photoanalyst Homer McMahon), and it appears plausible that it had been discovered by that point that there were very severe anomalies in the film that would place in question its authenticity and provenance unless it were somehow made to disappear, and the only available option for doing so was to lock it away in a safe to prevent public scrutiny. And how do we know that the camera-original Zapruder film was diverted from its trip to Chicago, where LIFE's principal printing plant was located, to NPIC? There are several lines of evidence, but in the interests of brevity, there are two in particular: First, former NPIC Photoanalyst, Dino Brugioni, reported to researchers Doug Horne and Peter Janney in 2009 that when he received the film at NPIC the evening of November 23rd it was in the custody of a Secret Service agent who told Brugioni it was the "original;" second, the film was in 8mm format, which is the format of the camera-original -- wherein the first day copies were in 16mm format -- and Brugioni was certain of this because he had to get a local merchant out of bed to sell him an 8mm projector because NPIC was not equipped with one; and finally, if the camera-original Zapruder film had arrived at the LIFE printing plant in Chicago by the deadline for the 11-29-1963 edition, it would have been populated with crisp, clear, colorful stills from the Zapruder film rather than the grainy black and white stills that obviously came from a "dirty-dupe" rather than the camera-original. All subsequent LIFE issues with Zapruder film stills would be crisp, clear and colorful -- only the 11-29-1963 issue would have grainy black and white stills. Thank you, Kevin, for that thorough recounting of what happened to the camera original Zapruder film that weekend. Since Life had the camera original once Zapruder relinquished it the day after the murder, your question for our friend Jeremy--when could it have been destroyed, instead of altered--is a good one. We know the opportunity to alter it at Hawkeye Works already existed when it was sent there from NPIC early Sunday, the next day. Why would they have destroyed the film instead of first trying to alter it is a question that hangs in the air without a reasonable answer. The film's existence was already well known and would become more so in the next few days when Life began publishing frames from it. Despite Jeremy's claims that destroying the film would have ended it as a problem for their Oswald story, It would have been monumentally stupid to do so. They chose better alternatives. Your question is also useful supplement to the ones I asked--who could have destroyed it and who would have been blamed had they done so, when the destruction came to light as it surely would have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keven Hofeling Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 On 2/12/2024 at 3:07 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said: Roger Odisio writes: Yes, the Zapruder film does expose the story as false, as I explain below. I don't think this claim stands up. Roger doesn't explain why it wasn't possible to accidentally destroy or lose the film. His reasons appear to be contained in the following paragraph: But none of this explains why Life or anyone else who had possession of the original film would not have been able to accidentally-on-purpose destroy the film. After all, films do sometimes get damaged during processing. A good example would of course be the Zapruder film itself, which did in fact suffer damage from genuinely incompetent handling by a technician. No doubt Life would have suffered public embarrassment if it had claimed that a crucial section of the film, or even the whole film, had accidentally been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, or claimed that it had lost the film in transit or allowed the film to be stolen by a souvenir hunter, or whatever other the-dog-ate-my-homework story it came up with. But that would be a small price to pay to prevent an incriminating film being seen by the general public. Alternatively, Life could have put the film in its vault, keeping it largely but not entirely out of public view for over a decade until the immediate fuss died down, which is in fact what happened. Plenty of bootlegs were in circulation after the Shaw trial, and many thousands of people saw the film, but its implications did not become widely known among the general public until millions of people saw the TV broadcast in 1975. Keeping the film largely hidden away was an effective solution to the problem of the incriminating evidence it contained. That claim only works if you take the Horne/Brugioni story seriously. But recollections three or four decades after the event are flimsy evidence, and Horne's account of anything should be taken with a large helping of salt; he's the guy who tried to derail the ARRB by promoting Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! Roland Zavada takes Horne to pieces in the following PDF, and points out that the film Brugioni dealt with was more likely to be one of the FBI copies than the original, which did indeed get sent to Chicago. Zavada makes two important points: there was insufficient time to perform the alterations in question, and the film that exists today is the actual piece of film that was in Zapruder's camera (which rules out any alterations that required the film to be copied): http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Jeremy Bojczuk wrote: Quote Quote Instead Life immediately sent it to the NPIC, the CIA film lab in DC where key frames were enlarged and placed on briefing boards That claim only works if you take the Horne/Brugioni story seriously. But recollections three or four decades after the event are flimsy evidence, and Horne's account of anything should be taken with a large helping of salt; he's the guy who tried to derail the ARRB by promoting Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! Roland Zavada takes Horne to pieces in the following PDF, and points out that the film Brugioni dealt with was more likely to be one of the FBI copies than the original, which did indeed get sent to Chicago. Zavada makes two important points: there was insufficient time to perform the alterations in question, and the film that exists today is the actual piece of film that was in Zapruder's camera (which rules out any alterations that required the film to be copied): http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf "That claim only works if you take the Horne/Brugioni story seriously. But recollections three or four decades after the event are flimsy evidence..." A recollection of working on briefing boards for the upper echelon of the United States Government made from a film of the assassination of President Kennedy the very next day by the highly credible and legendary Dino Brugioni is "flimsy evidence" solely on the basis that Brugioni recounted it to Peter Janney and Doug Horne forty-six years later? Both of my parents remember exactly what they were doing during the weekend of the assassination, and if they had been directly involved in some way with a film of the assassination itself, I can assure you without stretching the truth or the imagination that they would remember that particularly well. In Brugioni's case, he was working on the camera-original film taken of the assassination the day after the assassination, and he had had profound emotional reactions to the content of the film. Eyewitness testimony has long been regarded as an essential piece of evidence in legal proceedings. However, witness claims are often disparaged as unreliable, and as such, their validity is often questioned in court. However, recent research has shown that, under certain circumstances, eyewitness testimony can be highly reliable. Elizabeth Loftus, an expert in eyewitness testimony, has reported that there are factors that tend to increase and decrease the reliability of eyewitness testimony. In her 1971 study, Loftus identified the factors that tend to degrade witness accuracy. She found that, when test subjects were asked about “salient” details of a complex and novel film clip scene they were shown, their accuracy rate was high: 78% to 98%. Even when a detail was not considered salient, as judged by the witnesses themselves, they were still accurate 60% of the time. Loftus has also identified the factors that tend to degrade witness accuracy. These factors include poor lighting, a short duration of the event, a long duration between the event and when a witness is questioned about it, the unimportance of the event to the witness, the perceived threat of violence during the event, witness stress or drug/alcohol influence, and the absence of specialized training on the witness’s part. In her 1996 book, "Eyewitness Testimony," Loftus argues that eyewitness testimony can be highly reliable when these factors are taken into account. Loftus, in collaboration with her colleagues, conducted a study in 1992, titled "Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and Criminal, Second Edition," where they found that witnesses were very reliable when these factors were absent. This suggests that, in cases where the conditions are right, eyewitness testimony can be a valuable source of evidence in legal proceedings. The following is a brief video of Dino Brugioni describing the reasons that he believes he was viewing the camera-original Zapruder film during the very early morning hours of 11/24/1963. I'd like to suggest that you view it and evaluate Mr. Brugioni's credibility just as you would if you were a member of a jury evaluating his claims. And be sure to note Brugioni's description of having to wake a local merchant to procure an 8mm film projector to watch the film, keeping in mind that only the camera-original Zapruder film was in 8mm format, while the first day copies were in 16mm, and would not have required that he obtain an 8mm projector because NPIC had 16mm projectors. "...and Horne's account of anything should be taken with a large helping of salt; he's the guy who tried to derail the ARRB by promoting Lifton's body-alteration nonsense!..." Your disparagement of Doug Horne and David Lifton appears to me to betray that you harbor certain biases against their work, yet I seriously doubt that you would be able to substantiate your claims that Horne "tried to derail the ARRB" by promoting Lifton's work, or that Lifton's body-alteration hypothesis was "nonsense." A more objective interpretation might hold that Doug Horne made monumental contributions to our understanding of the medical evidence and Zapruder film provenance while he was with the ARRB, and that neither Horne nor Lifton advanced claims related to the potential alteration of the body of President Kennedy without having a great deal of significant evidence to back them up. Horne's recognition of David Lifton's rigorous scholarship does not translate to attempts "to derail the ARRB," and that Lifton's findings were controversial and unorthodox does not translate to his work being tantamount to "nonsense." If you disagree, please provide justifications for your views based on substantive evidence rather than emotional knee-jerk reactions in order that we may engage in a meaningful dialogue instead of flinging biased diatribes about. Roland Zavada takes Horne to pieces in the following PDF, and points out that the film Brugioni dealt with was more likely to be one of the FBI copies than the original, which did indeed get sent to Chicago. Zavada makes two important points: there was insufficient time to perform the alterations in question, and the film that exists today is the actual piece of film that was in Zapruder's camera (which rules out any alterations that required the film to be copied): http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf You've provided your personal interpretation of the effect of Rollie Zavada's May 26, 2010 Open Letter Response to Doug Horne’s Chapter 14, as well as a link to that letter, but you either don't know about or have omitted mention of Doug Horne's May 29, 2010 Reply entitled "The Empire Strikes Back." This too seems indicative of a very pronounced bias on your part. So as it would appear that Horne's response handily demolishes Zavada's sophistry, I provide same as follows in order that you may avail yourself accordingly.... THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK insidethearrb May 29th, 2010 My long chapter on the history of the Zapruder film, and the evidence for its apparent alteration (in order to hide the fact that President Kennedy was killed by multiple shooters in a crossfire, as he was driven into an expertly arranged ambush on Elm Street, on November 22, 1963), is Chapter 14 of my five-volume book, "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board," and appears in Volume IV of that work, which can be purchased at Amazon.com (keywords "Horne JFK"). In Chapter 14 I take to task many of the conclusions reached by retired Kodak employee Roland J. ("Rollie") Zavada, who was rehired as a consultant by Kodak to perform pro bono work for the ARRB during 1997 and 1998. That work included a limited authenticity study, of which I am quite critical in my Chapter 14. I just received from Rollie himself a 33-page rebuttal to my Zapruder film chapter, in which he takes exception to many of my criticisms, arguments, and assertions. In his cover letter, dated May 26, 2010, Rollie states that he has mailed copies of his 33-page report to many of those mentioned in Chapter 14, which surely must include Josiah Thompson, David Wrone, and Gary Mack. With the sure knowledge that his rebuttal will soon appear on the internet in various venues, I hereby offer my own comments on his paper. Rollie's need to defend himself is not an unexpected development, and came as no surprise. What does surprise me is that it is so weakly argued, and incomplete. Much of his paper consists of hairsplitting, in a feeble attempt to defend the flawed methodology he employed in the report he delivered at the eleventh hour to the ARRB in late September of 1998. Most of it appears to be a grandfatherly scolding, in which Rollie says, essentially---I am paraphrasing here---"You must trust me, I know more than you, and the technology did not exist to successfully alter the Zapruder film without detection, and create an undetectable forgery or facsimile of it or any other 8 mm films in 1963; and even if the film was altered, it would have required a lot of equipment and a lot of personnel." Experienced film editor David Healy presented a stimulating and convincing lecture at Duluth in 2003 proving that the technology did exist in 1963 to alter 8 mm motion picture films by removing frames, and altering image content; and Professor Raymond Fielding, who discussed in depth the commonly used Hollywood techniques of traveling mattes and aerial imaging in his seminal 1965 film textbook on special visual effects in cinematography, have both provided evidence that the Zapruder film could have been altered in 1963 using existing technology. The only question remains, would such alteration have been undetectable, or would the alteration have left detectable artifacts? This question will be addressed in detail below, near the end of this essay. In his rebuttal, Rollie presents a list of equipment that he believes would have been essential to alter the Zapruder film at the Hawkeyeworks facility in Rochester, N.Y.---and then implies that no such equipment was present at the facility because of his belief that its sole purpose was in support of the "Corona" spy satellite program. But this is disingenuous. My September FOIA request filed with the CIA, asking for a list of equipment installed at Hawkeyeworks in November of 1963, is as yet unanswered. The CIA has already told me, in writing, that it refuses to search for the information I requested in "operational records," and is currently apparently stonewalling, trying to give the appearance of cooperation, while in effect doing nothing to answer my request. Rollie's claim that Hawkeyeworks at Rochester was supporting the "Corona" satellite surveillance program is a truthful one, but I suspect that it is only part of the story. I do not believe that "Corona" activity was the only activity supported by that highly classified joint CIA-Kodak film lab in Rochester. Why do I say this? Because Dino Brugioni, the former Chief Information Officer at NPIC in Washington, D.C. (a co-founder of NPIC, and the right-hand man of its first Director, Arthur Lundahl), told researcher Peter Janney in 2009 that at Hawkeyeworks, "they could do ANYTHING" with motion pictures. Dino should have known---for he had visited the place personally on more than one occasion, and knew the CIA official who ran the place. There is nothing Rollie Zavada can say that can refute Dino Brugioni's personal and professional knowledge of what Hawkeyeworks was capable of, for as Rollie said to me in his 33-page rebuttal: "I was not aware of any government activities conducted at the Hawkeye Plant during the time of my Zapruder film study or prior." Well then---Dino Brugioni visited the facility, and Rollie clearly didn't, so whatever Dino Brugioni was personally aware of trumps any later speculation of Rollie Zavada's that the facility was solely dedicated to "Corona." Rollie also wrote the following to me: "In recent discussions with principles [sic] in the Corona Project, none are aware of a motion picture film entering the lab; further, it was reported to me that the Corona Project lab had no motion picture or color film processing capability." This is nothing but an attempt by a Kodak surrogate to issue a statement that sounds like a denial---but which really denies nothing. All Rollie has said here is that (based solely on his discourse with the limited number of persons he spoke to about "Corona") the Zapruder film did not enter the "Corona" lab---he does NOT say it did not enter the Hawkeyeworks facility. Remember, Secret Service agent "Bill Smith," who delivered a 16 mm wide unslit double-8 mm format Zapruder film to Homer McMahon at NPIC on Sunday night, November 24th, told McMahon that it had been DEVELOPED AT HAWKEYEWORKS IN ROCHESTER, AND THAT HE HAD COURIERED THE FILM TO NPIC IN WASHINGTON D.C. FROM HAWKEYEWORKS. Rollie's attempt to define Hawkeyeworks as solely a "Corona" facility is nothing, in my view, but a modified, limited hangout, to use the expressive language of the Watergate era. It is exactly what I would expect the CIA (or Kodak, the prime contractor which ran the facility for the Agency) to say, in an attempt to confuse readers and fuzz-up the issues here. In an attempt to fuzz-up the Hawkeyeworks issue by identifying that classified lab solely with the "Corona" project, Rollie speculated in his report that "Corona" may have been the codeword that the CIA demanded the ARRB delete from its interview reports with NPIC officials, and from the interview audiotape released to the public. I will state unequivocally now that "Corona" was NOT, repeat NOT, the code word that the CIA wanted expunged from our public records of the interviews we conducted with NPIC employees. The word they wanted expunged was "Hawkeyeworks," NOT "CORONA." At the time of our interviews of NPIC employees in 1997, "Corona" was no longer a classified code-word, and in fact an exhibit was already on display at the Air and Space Museum which told the public all about "Corona," by name, and in great detail. This is a pretty lame attempt by Rollie to confuse the issue of the full range of activities that Hawkeyeworks was capable of tackling, and it won't fly. Sadly, Rollie Zavada expects us to believe that neither Dino Brugioni (the NPIC's Chief of Information), nor Homer McMahon (the Head of NPIC's Color Lab), was capable of distinguishing the difference between an original 8 mm film, and a copy. He suggests that both Brugioni (who said he handled a slit, 8 mm original Zapruder film on Saturday night, Nov. 23rd), and McMahon (who had delivered to him an unslit, 16 mm wide double 8 film on Sunday night, Nov. 24th, and was told it was an original) were mistaken---and that instead of handling originals, they handled first generation copies. No doubt this dismissive opinion of Zavada's will make Josiah Thompson, David Wrone, and Gary Mack happy, but it is not a persuasive way of addressing the serious import of the NPIC evidence of the film's interrupted chain-of-custody, and of its likely alteration. (If this sounds too much like "inside baseball" to the uninformed reader, I will simply say you must read Chapter 14 of my book, and then Rollie's rebuttal, if you wish to make sense of this journal entry. There is no way around this.) Besides, if Rollie's explanation is correct, then why were two different teams of NPIC officials assembled on two successive nights, to make two entirely different sets of briefing boards, showing what the Zapruder film depicted, and then forbidden to talk about it to anyone? Rollie doesn't address this, because there is no benign answer to this question. The real answer is that the two sets of briefing boards prepared on two successive nights at NPIC were the products of two compartmentalized operations, because briefing boards were being made from two different versions of the Zapruder film: the unaltered original on Saturday night, and the altered (sanitized) film on Sunday night. THE MOST IMPORTANT STATEMENT in Rollie's paper is this: "The medium is the message." Rollie contends throughout his paper that the Zapruder film could not have been altered using 1963 technology without creating detectable artifacts of forgery. He even quotes Professor Raymond Fielding as saying: "...In my judgment there is no way in which manipulation of these images could have been achieved satisfactorily in 1963 with the technology then available; if such an attempt at image manipulation of the footage had occurred in 1963 the results could not possibly have survived professional scrutiny...". I couldn't agree more. And there IS EVIDENCE of film alteration in the image content of the extant Zapruder film, as I discussed in some detail in the Epilogue to Chapter 14, titled "The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood." The best images we have today of the film have NOT WITHSTOOD PROFESSIONAL SCRUTINY. I even published a black and white image of the most egregious example of this alteration (frame 317) in Volume I of my book. This, I believe, is why Rollie Zavada did NOT discuss the most important section of my chapter---namely, the fact that numerous Hollywood motion picture film experts have developed a strong consensus that the Zapruder film exhibits artifacts which are not like anything they have seen exposed inside a camera when shooting the natural world, and that the film is an altered film. He didn't discuss this important new development in Zapruder film research because he could not refute it. So he just pretended it did not exist. But the problem does exist, and members of the public can see this for themselves by asking for access to the large format (4 X 5 inch) MPI transparencies (made in 1997 from the original film), and the large format (4 X 5 inch) LIFE magazine transparencies (made in 1963 by LIFE) that are held by the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. If you go to the Sixth Floor Museum's website, you can complete a form electronically and request to see these transparencies during a personal visit; all that is required is the money to make a trip to Dallas. (See the frame numbers cited below.) At this point in time---these are the updated figures reflecting the current state of play---over 30 experts in the motion picture industry in Hollywood have examined the 35 mm dupe negative of the extant Zapruder film being studied by the informal, ad hoc "Hollywood research group," and all of them have expressed serious disquiet about the blacked-out areas on the back of JFK's head---specifically in frames 313, 317, 321, 323, and 329---stating that they have never seen apparent artifacts like these filmed in nature, and that they strongly suggest artificiality, or tampering. Six of these people have flatly stated that the film has been altered, and that the blacked-out areas on the back of JFK's head are all the proof they need. Those who have viewed the film in Hollywood are either editors, restoration experts, or colorists. Even the somewhat degraded black and white images of frame 317 that I published in Volume I of my book are pretty damning; the jet-black trapezoid with the remarkably straight edges on the back of JFK's head in frame 317 just happens to be located exactly where the medical staff at Parkland hospital says there was an exit wound---evidence of a shot from the front. (In my view, it was a crude and blatant attempt to hide the true exit wound---from a frontal shot, not from a shot fired from behind, in the Book Depository---from the public.) When the high definition digital scans of the 35 mm dupe negative are seen on an HD color monitor---and not in a degraded black and white illustration printed on non-glossy paper---they are truly stunning. Eventually, they will be publicly released, but the timing and venue for that release is under the control of the Hollywood research group, and their research is continuing at the present time. Meanwhile, as I stated above, the public can request in-person viewings of the large format transparencies---made directly from the extant film---on the Sixth Floor Museum's website. Let us also not forget that the late Dr. Roderick Ryan, a former Kodak employee who was Los Angeles/Hollywood based for much of his career, told author Noel Twyman during the 1990s that the large head wound seen in frames 335 and 337 on JFK's skull was, in his opinion, a painting, i.e., artwork. (No such wound was seen at Parkland hospital, either.) Now, Dr. Ryan worked for Kodak also---which is just one more reminder that experts disagree, and that we need not trust what Rollie Zavada says just because he was a Kodak employee. My basic point about Rollie Zavada in Chapter 14 remains unchanged: he never worked in the Hollywood motion picture visual effects industry, and therefore is not qualified to state definitively that the Zapruder film could not have been convincingly altered. His current position is that it could not have been altered without leaving evidence of alteration---artifacts---that would have given the game away. And yet this is precisely what today's pre-eminent Hollywood film restoration experts and colorists and editors see when they examine the 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film: ARTIFACTS THAT INDICATE ALTERATION. In my opinion, this is why the Zapruder film was purchased lock, stock, and barrel by LIFE magazine in 1963, and then suppressed as a motion picture for 12 years. (LIFE showed the extant film---portrayed as the original---to the Warren Commission on one occasion in February of 1964, and the Commission staffers saw it on a shaky, flexible movie screen without the benefit of the frame by frame, high resolution examination made possible by today's digital scanning technology. LIFE never once licensed it commercially for use as a motion picture, and only published selected frames when it was deemed desirable.) The versions seen today in most documentaries are dark versions that come from less-than-desirable substandard "bootleg" film elements. The MPI video sold in 1998 suffers from aspect ratio problems, and the images of the back of the head are unusually dark since MPI altered the contrast of the images it marketed. But the large-format MPI transparencies at the Sixth Floor Museum, when viewed in person, clearly reveal the artifacts that I discuss here. I believe in the primacy of empirical evidence. The best empirical evidence available today---the 35 mm dupe negative being studied in Hollywood, the MPI large format transparencies owned by the Sixth Floor Museum, and the extant film itself (in cold storage at the National Archives II facility in College Park, Maryland)---bears evidence that the film was indeed altered. The medium is INDEED the message---but Rollie Zavada does not want to discuss the evidence of alteration (artifacts) that exist in the extant film today. Instead, he wants us to trust him when he says that the Zapruder film was not altered, without discussing the blatant evidence we now have that it WAS altered. The small comfort that people like Josiah Thompson, David Wrone, Gary Mack, and John McAdams will derive from Rollie Zavada's rebuttal of Chapter 14 of my book will be short-lived, and their crowing will only persuade the limited audience which has not read my book, and those who have not yet seen the evidence of alteration in high definition: frames 313, 317, 321, 323, and 329. The medium IS the message, and the day will soon come when frame 317 of the Zapruder film will be a major icon of American history, representative of the deceit, lies, and falsehoods sold to us for almost 50 years now about one of the most shameful events in American history. END https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/4900.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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