the logic of Zapruder film alteration

[Michael Crane]

18 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?

Because it was common knowledge that 3 copies were made.

Life Magazine) Hey,we lost the original during a move.

Congressional Oversight) Ok,how about them 3 copies?

[Denise Hazelwood]

19 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

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.

Some of the evidence supporting this early first (frontal) shot:

1. See Pierce Allman interview at approximately 3:18 (he is standing at the spot where he moved to, not the spot he was originally as the thumbnail title image shows) "Then they turned the corner, and boom!" (he gestures to show the limo's position). Also in the CBS interview at 1:10. This position would still have given a frontal shot from the TSBD sixth floor window, per https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0452b.htm

 2. Altgens 6 photograph: Kennedy is already in the "chest grab" decorticate posture position, with Jackie's hands on his arm. Altgens said in his CBS interview that the WC "fixed" his photo at 2 1/2 seconds after the first shot. Immediately behind the JFK limo is the Secret Service follow-up car, followed by the VP limo, followed by the VP follow-up car, which is still in the process of turning. 2 1/2 seconds would have been enough time for the limo to travel the few car lengths from the Pierce Allman position to the Altgens 6 position. (2 1/2 seconds, by the way, nicely aligns with the acoustical evidence.)

3. Ruby Henderson was standing at the corner in front of the Dal-Tex building. She saw what she first thought was "paper" and later realized "must have been flesh" fly out of the car with the first shot. In order for her to see that, there couldn't have been any vehicles blocking her way. 

4. Note Zapruder's statements about filming the turn and his apparent confusion when asked to "authenticate" his filmduring his WC testimony:

Mr. Zapruder. ... I started shooting-when the motorcade started coming in, I believe I started and \T-anted to get it coming in from Houston Street.

Mr. LIEBELER. Tell us n-hat happened as you took the.% pictures.
Mr. ZAPRUDER. Well, as the car came in line almost-I believe it was almost in line...

...

 

Mr. Liebeler. ...One thing I would like you to do now-we have a series-a little book here that is Commis- sion Exhibit No. 885 and it consists of a number of frames from motion pictures and I want to show you certain numbers of them which are important to our work and ask you if those look like they were taken from your film and if in fact you could recognize it as you look through this book that these are individual frame-by-frame pictures of the pictures that you took.

Mr. ZApRUDER. Yes, they %areframe by frame and they weren’t very clear, for the simple reason that on the telephoto lens it’s good to take stills-when you move-did you ever have binoculars and every time you move everything is exaggerated in the move-that’s one reason why they are kind of blurred-the

movement. Now, you want me to identify whether these are my pictures? 

Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, specifically, I first call your attention to No. 185. This is No. 185 on the back of it and will you look at the whole book and identify it if you can and tell us that those are the pictures that-that those appear to be the pictures or copies of the pictures that you took from your motion picture camera?

Mr. ZAPRUDER. Well, I would say this, they look like--if they were taken from the film I had--these are the ones . I mean, I don't know how to express myself.

 Mr. LIEBELEB. Well, they were.
Mr. ZAPRUDER.

Ultimately, it is Wesley Liebeler who authenticates the Zapruder Film, not Zapruder himself. I believe that Zapruder finally caught onto his film having been altered, and went along with it, because he had shown his film to SS, FBI, etc. and I believe by that time was aware of the SS AR-15 accident. He was certainly willing to dissemble about how much money he gave to J.D. Tippit's widow from the sale of his film, so there was a willingness to be deceitful o his part.

5. Dr. John Costella's numerous "proofs" of Z-film forgery. Go to https://johncostella.com/jfk/intro/. Additionally, I offer more "subjective" evidence, such as the lamp post that appears to jump from the near side of the street to the far side, and back again, or Clint Hill disappearing for a single frame. Check out my article at https://www.a-benign-conspiracy.com/zapruder-film-alteration.html

6. Doug Horne's "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film's Alteration" at https://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/05/douglas-p-horne/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-filmsalteration/

 

Pierce Allman and Ruby Henderson provide evidence of the early first shot. The other items listed point to the film's alteration, specifically to hide this early first shot (most SS agents except Hickey were too hung-over to react) and the subsequent AR-15 "slam-fire" accident. 

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger Odisio writes:

Quote

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?

Destroying a short reel of 16mm (double-eight) film doesn't sound like a particularly difficult thing to do. I suppose you could wrap it in old newspaper and put it in a bin, and it would end up in landfill, where it would rot. You could cut it into tiny pieces and put the pieces into several bins. You could burn it. You could wrap it around a brick and drop it in the ocean. You could dissolve it in acid. I'm sure you can think of numerous ways to dispose of a troublesome reel of 16mm film.

As for who would take the blame, just pick on some anonymous lab technician. After all, in reality the original Zapruder film was damaged by an anonymous lab technician in Chicago, so the claim would be plausible.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Michael Crane writes:

Quote

Because it was common knowledge that 3 copies were made.

I think the claim under discussion is that the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made before the original film was copied.

But we have good documentary evidence that three copies were in fact made on the afternoon of the assassination, more than 24 hours before any alterations are claimed to have been performed. How do we reconcile the existence of these copies with the claim that the original film wasn't altered until a day or two later? Is the claim now that the copies were altered too? If so, when and where did this happen? Please provide all the evidence you have that alterations have been made to the first-day copies that are in existence today.

If, as I suspect, there is no evidence that the existing copies have been altered, the claim now must be that the masterminds didn't alter the first-day copies but instead destroyed them, with new copies being made from the altered original some time later. Of course, in this case the masterminds would have made the correct decision: it would be far easier, safer, and more foolproof to destroy the first-day copies than alter them.

In which case, the argument returns to bite these claimants on their rear ends. Since it would have been easier to destroy the copies than alter them, why would it not also have been easier to destroy the original than alter it?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

In response to my question about why the supposed masterminds would have decided to alter the film rather than simply destroying it, Sandy writes:

Quote

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.

That doesn't answer the question, which was about the masterminds' reasoning which supposedly led them to choose alteration over destruction.

Why was it that "the coverup artists did the quick alterations" when they had the opportunity to destroy the film? There was no need to alter it and "hope that that would be sufficient in convincing the public" of anything. Destroying the film was easier, quicker and certain to succeed in eliminating the evidence they wanted to hide; no "hoping" was required. The only negative consequence would have been public embarrassment.

What was the reasoning which supposedly produced a bizarre decision instead of a rational one?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

It's all about the thought processes of those hypothetical masterminds. Let's compare the reasoning for each potential course of action:

Alter the film:

1. We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut.
2. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie.
3. We could achieve this aim by altering the film to remove or doctor the parts which contradict our lone-nut story.
4. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of altering the film.
5. The first advantage of altering the film: if we do it properly, the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this particular home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story.
6. The second advantage of altering the film: er ... there isn't one.
7. The first negative consequence of altering the film: it may not be possible to alter the film satisfactorily, in which case it will continue to contain evidence that contradicts our lone-nut story, such as the 'back and to the left' head movement, the speed of the car along Elm Street, and the reactions of JFK and Connally, each of which would reveal our dastardly plan; and we would have wasted a lot of time and effort.
8. The second negative consequence of altering the film: some necessary alterations may be physically impossible to achieve; we are in 1963, remember.
9. The third negative consequence of altering the film: it will be a time-consuming thing to do.
10. The fourth negative consequence of altering the film: before we even start work on altering the film, we would have to sit down and decide which parts need to be altered, and how to perform those alterations.
11. The fifth negative consequence of altering the film: before or after we sit down and decide which bits need to be altered and how to perform those alterations, we would have to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country.
12. The sixth negative consequence of altering the film: numerous other home movies or photographs were taken in Dealey Plaza, any number of which might contradict any of the alterations we make to the film, thereby exposing our dastardly plan, with serious repercussions for us, unless we track down those home movies and photographs and alter the ones that contradict our first round of alterations.
13. The seventh negative consequence of altering the film: if another home movie or photograph that we don't know about now comes along in the future and turns out to contradict any of the the first round of alterations we make in the film or the second round of alterations we make to the other films and photos that we already know about, our dastardly plan will be exposed, with serious repercussions for us, and we won't be able to do anything about it.
14. The eighth negative consequence of altering the film: doing so will involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and numerous people, which would create a risk of someone giving the game away in the future.
15. The ninth negative consequence of altering the film: tracking down and altering other home movies and photographs will also involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and many more people, which would increase the risk of someone giving the game away in the future.
16. Let's alter the film!

Destroy the film:

1. We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut.
2. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie.
3. We could achieve this aim by destroying the film.
4. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of destroying the film.
5. The first advantage of destroying the film: the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story.
6. The second advantage of destroying the film: it's very easy to do.
7. The third advantage of destroying the film: it's very quick to do; we wouldn't need to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country.
8. The fourth advantage of destroying the film: there is no chance at all that our destruction of the film will be exposed by any other home movies or photographs which exist now or which come to light in the future.
9. The fifth advantage of destroying the film: it could be done by one person, keeping to a minimum the chance that anyone might give the game away in the future.
10. The first negative consequence of destroying the film: we will get some serious egg on our faces from people who suspect that we are participating in a cover-up.
11. The second negative consequence of destroying the film: er ... there isn't one.
12. Let's destroy the film!

Remember: if the masterminds gave any thought to either altering or destroying the film, they must have worked out the implications of each course of action, and they would have come up with some reasoning along these lines.

Now, which of these scenarios is the more plausible?

[Paul Bacon]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I think the claim under discussion is that the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made before the original film was copied.

This is not the claim.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Bacon writes:

Quote

This ["the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made before the original film was copied"] is not the claim.

Paul Rigby implies that it was, when he mentioned "the patsy-from-the-rear scenario, and the similarly pre-planned supporting film". If the masterminds had recruited Abraham Zapruder into their plot, they would have known that his film would contain evidence which undermined the lone-nut story.

But even if the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made after copies had been made from the original, the problem remains. What happened to the first-day copies? Were they altered along with the original film, or were they destroyed?

What decision would the masterminds have taken regarding the first-day copies? More importantly, what was the reasoning behind that decision?

Those masterminds were left with the same easy choice:

1. Should we go to a lot of trouble to alter three more films, with the risk that those films will retain evidence of conspiracy?
2. Or should we take the simpler, quicker, safer and foolproof option of destroying them and making replacement copies later?

They would have chosen the second option, wouldn't they? And if they took the easier option for the first-day copies, why would they not have made the same decision about the original film?

[Roger Odisio]

7 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger Odisio writes:

Destroying a short reel of 16mm (double-eight) film doesn't sound like a particularly difficult thing to do. I suppose you could wrap it in old newspaper and put it in a bin, and it would end up in landfill, where it would rot. You could cut it into tiny pieces and put the pieces into several bins. You could burn it. You could wrap it around a brick and drop it in the ocean. You could dissolve it in acid. I'm sure you can think of numerous ways to dispose of a troublesome reel of 16mm film.

As for who would take the blame, just pick on some anonymous lab technician. After all, in reality the original Zapruder film was damaged by an anonymous lab technician in Chicago, so the claim would be plausible.

You (deliberately) misunderstand my question. When I asked how your scenario was supposed to work, I of course meant as the best way for them to get away with the murder.  That's what we're talking about. Your diversion into answering how would it physically work is a weak ploy.

The decision to destroy rather than to first try to alter the film had to have been made that weekend.  Zapruder had explained his film on national TV the day of the murder.  Life bought limited rights to publish key frames in a few days. CBS also bid on those rights and Dan Rather had seen the film. The JFKA was no ordinary murder.  The sense of anticipation about what the film showed was growing.

Most importantly, we know the film was sent to Hawkeye Works early Sunday morning, after Brugioni's boards had clearly shown the extent to which the film deviated from their Oswald story. That was the place to alter the film and their best opportunity to do so.  That was the latest time when the decision of whether to alter the film had to be made.   

You claim they passed on that chance, without explaining why the film was sent there in the first place or what they did do at HW, and that's the best evidence that the film was not altered. They could have destroyed the film instead, you say, and blamed it on some anonymous technician when people began questioning what happened to the film.

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

 

 

[Roger Odisio]

8 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I think the claim under discussion is that the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made before the original film was copied.

RO:  You are mistaken. In another note, I have explained why the decision to alter the film had to be made that weekend.  But not before 3 copies of the original were made.

Kevin's note explains the chronology of the film clearly.  Three copies of the Zapruder film were made the day of the murder.  Zapruder initially kept the original and one copy.  The other two went to the SS and FBI.  On Saturday Zapruder gave the original to Life and kept a copy after the initial negotiations with them, with the expectation that Life would return the original to him in exchange for his copy a few days later. 

Life, fronting for the CIA, then diverted the film, first to the NIPC to make briefing boards, and then to the CIA's secret Hawkeye Works lab to try to eliminate or at least fudge the incriminating details it showed. The original film was destroyed in that process of course, but not as in your scenario.  It was replaced by the altered version.  Brugioni's briefing boards made from the original were also later destroyed. Replaced by the second set of boards made the next day by a different crew, and now residing in NARA.

The latter part of the deal was scuttled after the attempt to alter the film failed. Life went back to Zapruder that weekend paid him an additional $100,000 (added to the original $50,000) in exchange for full rights to the film. Life then buried the film from public view for what turned out to be almost 12 years. When a bootleg version was shown on TV, Life's job of hiding the film was done. They gave the film back to Zapruder soon after for $1, further evidence, if you need it, of what Life's role was in the whole process.

 

 

[Roger Odisio]

15 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Jeremy Bojczuk wrote:

"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

 

I had read Horne's response to Zavada, but couldn't find it when I looked the other day.  I settled for including Jack White's concise summery of the disagreement.  I don't know Jack White.

In part I quoted him to see if Jeremy would respond with a personal attack rather than addressing what he said, as he had done with Horne, e. g.,-- you must ignore everything Person A says because he once said X, which I think is wrong. I was not disappointed.

This kind of response is insidious to reasoned discussion, and too common around here.   

[Michael Crane]

I must say that thanks to this thread,I have once again gained some knowledge.

I myself am curious of the copies that the CIA & the Secret Service have not given back.

They could have made 20 copies & practiced tampering what ever way they chose to.

[Roger Odisio]

10 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

It's all about the thought processes of those hypothetical masterminds. Let's compare the reasoning for each potential course of action:

Alter the film:

1. We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut.
2. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie.
3. We could achieve this aim by altering the film to remove or doctor the parts which contradict our lone-nut story.
4. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of altering the film.
5. The first advantage of altering the film: if we do it properly, the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this particular home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story.
6. The second advantage of altering the film: er ... there isn't one.
7. The first negative consequence of altering the film: it may not be possible to alter the film satisfactorily, in which case it will continue to contain evidence that contradicts our lone-nut story, such as the 'back and to the left' head movement, the speed of the car along Elm Street, and the reactions of JFK and Connally, each of which would reveal our dastardly plan; and we would have wasted a lot of time and effort.
8. The second negative consequence of altering the film: some necessary alterations may be physically impossible to achieve; we are in 1963, remember.
9. The third negative consequence of altering the film: it will be a time-consuming thing to do.
10. The fourth negative consequence of altering the film: before we even start work on altering the film, we would have to sit down and decide which parts need to be altered, and how to perform those alterations.
11. The fifth negative consequence of altering the film: before or after we sit down and decide which bits need to be altered and how to perform those alterations, we would have to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country.
12. The sixth negative consequence of altering the film: numerous other home movies or photographs were taken in Dealey Plaza, any number of which might contradict any of the alterations we make to the film, thereby exposing our dastardly plan, with serious repercussions for us, unless we track down those home movies and photographs and alter the ones that contradict our first round of alterations.
13. The seventh negative consequence of altering the film: if another home movie or photograph that we don't know about now comes along in the future and turns out to contradict any of the the first round of alterations we make in the film or the second round of alterations we make to the other films and photos that we already know about, our dastardly plan will be exposed, with serious repercussions for us, and we won't be able to do anything about it.
14. The eighth negative consequence of altering the film: doing so will involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and numerous people, which would create a risk of someone giving the game away in the future.
15. The ninth negative consequence of altering the film: tracking down and altering other home movies and photographs will also involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and many more people, which would increase the risk of someone giving the game away in the future.
16. Let's alter the film!

Destroy the film:

1. We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut.
2. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie.
3. We could achieve this aim by destroying the film.
4. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of destroying the film.
5. The first advantage of destroying the film: the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story.
6. The second advantage of destroying the film: it's very easy to do.
7. The third advantage of destroying the film: it's very quick to do; we wouldn't need to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country.
8. The fourth advantage of destroying the film: there is no chance at all that our destruction of the film will be exposed by any other home movies or photographs which exist now or which come to light in the future.
9. The fifth advantage of destroying the film: it could be done by one person, keeping to a minimum the chance that anyone might give the game away in the future.
10. The first negative consequence of destroying the film: we will get some serious egg on our faces from people who suspect that we are participating in a cover-up.
11. The second negative consequence of destroying the film: er ... there isn't one.
12. Let's destroy the film!

Remember: if the masterminds gave any thought to either altering or destroying the film, they must have worked out the implications of each course of action, and they would have come up with some reasoning along these lines.

Now, which of these scenarios is the more plausible?

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

First, these are the actual alternatives.  Faced with the difference between what the Zapruder showed compared to the Oswald story, should the killers have (1) first tried to alter Zapruder and *if that failed* bury the film while the MSM controlled information about the murder until the Oswald story has taken hold or (2) destroyed the film that weekend before too much was learned about it, since the destruction was final and easily explained away. By counterposing only alteration with destruction you distort the options.  Burying the film from public view, as we know happened, was an option to folloow alteration if that failed.  But obviously not if the film was destroyed instead.

I asked what you thought happened at Hawkeye Works, if not film alteration, a question you have studiously avoided.  But admittedly there is no answer to that. There are no records of what happened at that secret facility.

But there are ways to get at that information based on things we do know. We know from both Brugioni and Homer McMahon the film was sent to HW that weekend.  If the purpose was not alteration why was it sent there and then returned to NPIC the next day?  If the film was returned from HW unaltered, why was a second set of briefing boards done? If there was some benign reason for that--if the boards were made from the same film--why were Brugioni's boards later destroyed so the only that second set remained.  Brugioni was not only a renowned photo expert but he was the duty officer at NPIC that weekend. Why was he not told about the second set of boards until the subject was broached to him in 2009?

I should point out that I started this thread in order to assess whether altering the film made logical sense in light of what we now know.  In addition, there have been many discussions of specific film alterations that are also important.  Imo, some of them further verify that changes were made in the film.

[Michael Crane]

Relax Roger,

It's SOP to send films to the most secret facility known to man when you need to add a little brightness.

 

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

22 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

 

 

Three important things I get from this interview are these:

1. There were no images between the sprocket holes.
   
   The extant Z film DOES have inter-sprocket images, which suggests that further, more involved alterations were done at a later date.
   
   While this would explain the miscellaneous anomalies we see in the extant film (for example, people on the grass exhibiting motion blur whereas their shadows don't -- an apparent impossibility), it begs the question then why the back-and-to-the-left movement wasn't removed.
    
2. There was a highly noticeable piece of the head flying up.
   
   No such piece can be seen on the extant film.
    
3. The time between frames on that camera would have increased as the spring wound mechanism slowed down over time.
   
   This means that there can be no meaningful timing comparisons between the three extant films, as anti-alterations say should be done.