The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Jean Ceulemans]

10 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Yes, he said the explosion he saw in 1963 was greater than the one he was shown by Horne. Well, think about it. In Horne's theory there was no explosion from the top of the head...of any kind. So how could the explosion viewed by Brugioni in 1963 be more extensive than the one in the current film--which shows the top of the head come off--and still support Horne's theory...holding that there was no explosion from the top of the head? 

If someone tells you A > B

and you believe B > C

you should not pretend A = C

Mr Speer  can you recommend some good books on the history of the Z film?  Or books that contain interesting information about it in a chapter or so.  Or essays/....  I haven´t really looked into it (other than what is mentioned sideways in other books).

There is so much out there.  Now, I don´t care if it´s by a neutral, CT- , or LN-writer, as I will read all opinions anyway.  

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

The definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film is David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003).

If you're after a detailed account of the is-it-a-fake-or-isn't-it debate, this article might be worth reading (I couldn't have put it better myself):

http://22november1963.org.uk/zapruder-film-genuine-or-fake

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Several pages ago, Roger Odisio made some claims about the chain of possession of the original Zapruder film and the three copies which were made shortly after 6pm on the day of the assassination. Roger writes:

Quote

The original film was put on a plane not long after the deal with Zapruder was struckthat Saturday.  Zapruder still had his 3 copies.

and:

Quote

We know that the CIA left Dallas with the original film they had just bought (that was the deal), not a copy, and took it to its NPIC lab.

I would be very interested to see whatever documentary evidence exists to support Roger's claims. I suspect that there isn't any, but I'd be happy to be corrected. Could Roger (or anyone else) please cite these documents, along with links to any of them that are available online?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Documentary evidence does, however, exist which contradicts Roger's claims about what happened to the original film and the three copies. Let's look at each claim:

Quote

The original film was put on a plane not long after the deal with Zapruder was struckthat Saturday.

Correct, though not in the way Roger thinks. The plane in question was heading to Life magazine's photo lab in Chicago, not the CIA's photo lab in Washington. We can be sure that the plane was heading to Chicago because the film was examined in Life's photo lab in Chicago that afternoon, and because the damage to the original film was done in Chicago that evening (see, for example, Loudon Wainwright, Life: Great American Magazine, Knopf, 1986, pp.357-376).

Quote

We know that the CIA left Dallas with the original film they had just bought

False. It wasn't the CIA who "left Dallas with the original film they had just bought", but Richard Stolley of Life magazine. Whether Stolley himself couriered the film to Chicago is unclear, but it was Stolley who bought the film (and one copy) and was responsible for sending them to his employers in Chicago. In his article for Esquire magazine ('What Happened Next', Esquire, 1 Nov 1973: https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/), Stolley wrote: "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building."

Quote

Zapruder still had his 3 copies.

False. When he sold the film to Life on the Saturday morning, Zapruder no longer possessed three copies. He and his business partner Erwin Schwartz had handed over two copies to the Secret Service in Dallas the previous evening.

We have documentary evidence for this: a hand-written memo by the Secret Service agent they dealt with, Max Phillips, dated 9.55pm. The version of the memo in Commission Document 87, page 66 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=49) is almost illegible, but there is a partial transcript of the original in David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp.27-28: "Enclosed is an 8mm movie film taken by Mr A Zapruder ... Mr Zapruder is in custody of the 'master' film ... [Zapruder gave] two prints to SAIC Sorrels, this date."

Phillips attached his memo to one of those copies, which he sent on a flight to Washington. That copy must have arrived in Washington very early on the Saturday morning, several hours before Zapruder sold the original and the remaining copy to Stolley.

So ... we have good evidence that one Zapruder film, which can only have been the original, arrived in Chicago on the Saturday afternoon, and that another Zapruder film, which can only have been the first Secret Service copy, arrived in Washington on the Saturday morning.

We also have good evidence that one Zapruder film was worked on at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington on the Saturday. Until documentary evidence is presented to support Roger's claims, the only realistic conclusion is that the film at NPIC on the Saturday was the Secret Service copy which Max Phillips sent to Washington late on the Friday evening.

Why is that copy the prime candidate for the film that was worked on at NPIC? Three reasons come to mind. Firstly, the Secret Service big-wigs must have wanted to examine the film which they had asked their colleagues in Dallas to send to them urgently. Secondly, if we assume that the Secret Service did not possess its own specialist photographic interpretation facility, it is reasonable to assume also that they would ask to borrow the services of a fellow agency. Thirdly, it was Secret Service agents who brought the film into the NPIC; Secret Service agents who examined the prints that were made; and Secret Service agents who took the film away afterwards.

One question remains. What was the film that was worked on at NPIC on the Sunday, after perhaps having been processed at the Kodak plant in Rochester, NY? This film can't have been the original, which had already been processed in Dallas and damaged in Chicago. It must have been one of the two remaining copies, or a copy of one of those two copies. The most plausible candidate is the second of the two Secret Service copies, the one which remained in Dallas overnight on the Friday.

Two FBI memos on the Saturday allow us to work out what happened to that second Secret Service copy. A memo from DeLoach to Mohr (NARA RIF 124-10012-10183) asks for a copy of the Zapruder film to be sent to FBI HQ. A memo from Shanklin to FBI HQ (NARA RIF 124-10017-10033) asks the FBI lab to make three copies of the film, "one for Bureau use and two to be returned to the Dallas office by the most expeditious means possible."

On the Saturday afternoon, the FBI borrowed the Secret Service's other copy, which had remained in Dallas, and flew it to Washington with instructions for the FBI's lab to make copies of the copy. The FBI's lab lacked the equipment to do so, but copies were made, either at the Kodak plant in Rochester on the Sunday or by an outside contractor on the Monday, or perhaps both (for a full account of the FBI's use of the remaining Secret Service first-day copy, with documentary sources cited, see Wrone, op. cit., pp.29-31). If a version of the Zapruder film was in fact processed at the Kodak plant that weekend, the only candidate for which documentary evidence exists is a copy of this Secret Service copy. The film that was examined at NPIC on the Sunday must have been either this first-day copy, or a copy of this copy.

As things stand, the existing documentary evidence suggests very strongly that the film which was at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original but the Secret Service copy which had been flown to Washington, arriving very early that morning. The existing documentary evidence also suggests that if a version of the Zapruder film was processed at Hawkeye Works, it would have been a copy of the other Secret Service copy, which was borrowed by the FBI and flown to Washington later on the Saturday.

If, as the existing documentary evidence indicates, the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

[Jean Ceulemans]

15 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film is David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003).

If you're after a detailed account of the is-it-a-fake-or-isn't-it debate, this article might be worth reading (I couldn't have put it better myself):

http://22november1963.org.uk/zapruder-film-genuine-or-fake

Thanks, looks excellent!

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

This is worth reading too:

Chris Scally, 'Zapruder Film Chronology', Dealey Plaza Echo, vol.15, no.2, pp.3-11
(https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146539#relPageId=6)

[Tom Gram]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Documentary evidence does, however, exist which contradicts Roger's claims about what happened to the original film and the three copies. Let's look at each claim:

Correct, though not in the way Roger thinks. The plane in question was heading to Life magazine's photo lab in Chicago, not the CIA's photo lab in Washington. We can be sure that the plane was heading to Chicago because the film was examined in Life's photo lab in Chicago that afternoon, and because the damage to the original film was done in Chicago that evening (see, for example, Loudon Wainwright, Life: Great American Magazine, Knopf, 1986, pp.357-376).

False. It wasn't the CIA who "left Dallas with the original film they had just bought", but Richard Stolley of Life magazine. Whether Stolley himself couriered the film to Chicago is unclear, but it was Stolley who bought the film (and one copy) and was responsible for sending them to his employers in Chicago. In his article for Esquire magazine ('What Happened Next', Esquire, 1 Nov 1973: https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/), Stolley wrote: "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building."

False. When he sold the film to Life on the Saturday morning, Zapruder no longer possessed three copies. He and his business partner Erwin Schwartz had handed over two copies to the Secret Service in Dallas the previous evening.

We have documentary evidence for this: a hand-written memo by the Secret Service agent they dealt with, Max Phillips, dated 9.55pm. The version of the memo in Commission Document 87, page 66 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=49) is almost illegible, but there is a partial transcript of the original in David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp.27-28: "Enclosed is an 8mm movie film taken by Mr A Zapruder ... Mr Zapruder is in custody of the 'master' film ... [Zapruder gave] two prints to SAIC Sorrels, this date."

Phillips attached his memo to one of those copies, which he sent on a flight to Washington. That copy must have arrived in Washington very early on the Saturday morning, several hours before Zapruder sold the original and the remaining copy to Stolley.

So ... we have good evidence that one Zapruder film, which can only have been the original, arrived in Chicago on the Saturday afternoon, and that another Zapruder film, which can only have been the first Secret Service copy, arrived in Washington on the Saturday morning.

We also have good evidence that one Zapruder film was worked on at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington on the Saturday. Until documentary evidence is presented to support Roger's claims, the only realistic conclusion is that the film at NPIC on the Saturday was the Secret Service copy which Max Phillips sent to Washington late on the Friday evening.

Why is that copy the prime candidate for the film that was worked on at NPIC? Three reasons come to mind. Firstly, the Secret Service big-wigs must have wanted to examine the film which they had asked their colleagues in Dallas to send to them urgently. Secondly, if we assume that the Secret Service did not possess its own specialist photographic interpretation facility, it is reasonable to assume also that they would ask to borrow the services of a fellow agency. Thirdly, it was Secret Service agents who brought the film into the NPIC; Secret Service agents who examined the prints that were made; and Secret Service agents who took the film away afterwards.

One question remains. What was the film that was worked on at NPIC on the Sunday, after perhaps having been processed at the Kodak plant in Rochester, NY? This film can't have been the original, which had already been processed in Dallas and damaged in Chicago. It must have been one of the two remaining copies, or a copy of one of those two copies. The most plausible candidate is the second of the two Secret Service copies, the one which remained in Dallas overnight on the Friday.

Two FBI memos on the Saturday allow us to work out what happened to that second Secret Service copy. A memo from DeLoach to Mohr (NARA RIF 124-10012-10183) asks for a copy of the Zapruder film to be sent to FBI HQ. A memo from Shanklin to FBI HQ (NARA RIF 124-10017-10033) asks the FBI lab to make three copies of the film, "one for Bureau use and two to be returned to the Dallas office by the most expeditious means possible."

On the Saturday afternoon, the FBI borrowed the Secret Service's other copy, which had remained in Dallas, and flew it to Washington with instructions for the FBI's lab to make copies of the copy. The FBI's lab lacked the equipment to do so, but copies were made, either at the Kodak plant in Rochester on the Sunday or by an outside contractor on the Monday, or perhaps both (for a full account of the FBI's use of the remaining Secret Service first-day copy, with documentary sources cited, see Wrone, op. cit., pp.29-31). If a version of the Zapruder film was in fact processed at the Kodak plant that weekend, the only candidate for which documentary evidence exists is a copy of this Secret Service copy. The film that was examined at NPIC on the Sunday must have been either this first-day copy, or a copy of this copy.

As things stand, the existing documentary evidence suggests very strongly that the film which was at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original but the Secret Service copy which had been flown to Washington, arriving very early that morning. The existing documentary evidence also suggests that if a version of the Zapruder film was processed at Hawkeye Works, it would have been a copy of the other Secret Service copy, which was borrowed by the FBI and flown to Washington later on the Saturday.

If, as the existing documentary evidence indicates, the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

Good stuff Jeremy. This is exactly what I was looking for: contemporaneous documents on the Z-film chain of custody. I will check out the book and essays too. 

I’d like to see a better copy of that Phillips memo, but this is why I asked in the first place. Like you said:

If…the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

Edited June 13 by Tom Gram

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

If, as the existing documentary evidence indicates, the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

Jeremy, thanks for the detailed summary and the references for further and I follow your logic to this point. But a quick question: can it be ruled out that alteration was done at Hawkeye on a copy, and that the broken seams or splices of the two places in the original that happened at Chicago could be replicated in the doctored Hawkeye copy, and the original and other copies never seen again, i.e. can it be excluded that all known iterations of Zapruder in the public domain stem from a doctored copy (not a doctored original)?  

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Greg Doudna writes:

Quote

can it be ruled out that alteration was done at Hawkeye on a copy, and that the broken seams or splices of the two places in the original that happened at Chicago could be replicated in the doctored Hawkeye copy, and the original and other copies never seen again

To do that, something like this sequence of events must have occurred:

1. seize the original from Life in Chicago;
2. fly it to Rochester NY;
3. examine it closely to decide which parts needed to be altered and how to do it;
4. actually perform those alterations (and how many hours would that have taken, if it was even physically possible?);
5. produce a Kodachrome version of the altered film, to stand in as the original Zapruder film;
6. create three copies of the intact altered film, with all the correct markings and the appropriate physical structure, to stand in as the three first-day copies;
7. recreate the damage which had been caused by the technician in Chicago on the Saturday evening;
8. send the altered and correctly damaged 'original' film to Chicago so that Life could make copies of the frames which were included in the next edition of the magazine, which appears to have gone to press on the Monday;
9. destroy Life's first-day copy which by this time was in Life's office in New York, and replace it with one of the fake 'first-day' copies;
10. track down the other two first-day copies, destroy them, and replace them with the remaining fake 'first-day' copies;
11. track down any other copies that had been made in the mean time from the real first-day copies, and destroy them;
12. track down all the people who had been handling and working on both the original film and the three first-day copies, and ensure their silence;
13. and probably some other close-to-impossible tasks I can't think of at the moment.

Succeeding in doing all of this, without being discovered or leaving an obvious trail of evidence, sounds somewhat unlikely, to put it mildly. I suppose it's possible in theory, in the same way that it's possible in theory for the same person to win the lottery every week for a year and then get struck by lightning every week for the next year.

Tom and Jean: another book that might contain useful information is Richard Trask's National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005. I haven't read it, but it's on my (long) list of JFK books to buy once I can find time to read them. Trask's Pictures of the Pain is a very good account of the photographic evidence in general, though it doesn't go into much detail about the Zapruder film's chain of custody.

[Jean Ceulemans]

3 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Greg Doudna writes:

To do that, something like this sequence of events must have occurred:

1. seize the original from Life in Chicago;
2. fly it to Rochester NY;
3. examine it closely to decide which parts needed to be altered and how to do it;
4. actually perform those alterations (and how many hours would that have taken, if it was even physically possible?);
5. produce a Kodachrome version of the altered film, to stand in as the original Zapruder film;
6. create three copies of the intact altered film, with all the correct markings and the appropriate physical structure, to stand in as the three first-day copies;
7. recreate the damage which had been caused by the technician in Chicago on the Saturday evening;
8. send the altered and correctly damaged 'original' film to Chicago so that Life could make copies of the frames which were included in the next edition of the magazine, which appears to have gone to press on the Monday;
9. destroy Life's first-day copy which by this time was in Life's office in New York, and replace it with one of the fake 'first-day' copies;
10. track down the other two first-day copies, destroy them, and replace them with the remaining fake 'first-day' copies;
11. track down any other copies that had been made in the mean time from the real first-day copies, and destroy them;
12. track down all the people who had been handling and working on both the original film and the three first-day copies, and ensure their silence;
13. and probably some other close-to-impossible tasks I can't think of at the moment.

Succeeding in doing all of this, without being discovered or leaving an obvious trail of evidence, sounds somewhat unlikely, to put it mildly. I suppose it's possible in theory, in the same way that it's possible in theory for the same person to win the lottery every week for a year and then get struck by lightning every week for the next year.

Tom and Jean: another book that might contain useful information is Richard Trask's National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005. I haven't read it, but it's on my (long) list of JFK books to buy once I can find time to read them. Trask's Pictures of the Pain is a very good account of the photographic evidence in general, though it doesn't go into much detail about the Zapruder film's chain of custody.

Thanks, Pictures of the pain by Trask I have.  Love that book as it is a combo of 2 of my hobbies.

[Pat Speer]

9 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Greg Doudna writes:

To do that, something like this sequence of events must have occurred:

1. seize the original from Life in Chicago;
2. fly it to Rochester NY;
3. examine it closely to decide which parts needed to be altered and how to do it;
4. actually perform those alterations (and how many hours would that have taken, if it was even physically possible?);
5. produce a Kodachrome version of the altered film, to stand in as the original Zapruder film;
6. create three copies of the intact altered film, with all the correct markings and the appropriate physical structure, to stand in as the three first-day copies;
7. recreate the damage which had been caused by the technician in Chicago on the Saturday evening;
8. send the altered and correctly damaged 'original' film to Chicago so that Life could make copies of the frames which were included in the next edition of the magazine, which appears to have gone to press on the Monday;
9. destroy Life's first-day copy which by this time was in Life's office in New York, and replace it with one of the fake 'first-day' copies;
10. track down the other two first-day copies, destroy them, and replace them with the remaining fake 'first-day' copies;
11. track down any other copies that had been made in the mean time from the real first-day copies, and destroy them;
12. track down all the people who had been handling and working on both the original film and the three first-day copies, and ensure their silence;
13. and probably some other close-to-impossible tasks I can't think of at the moment.

Succeeding in doing all of this, without being discovered or leaving an obvious trail of evidence, sounds somewhat unlikely, to put it mildly. I suppose it's possible in theory, in the same way that it's possible in theory for the same person to win the lottery every week for a year and then get struck by lightning every week for the next year.

Tom and Jean: another book that might contain useful information is Richard Trask's National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005. I haven't read it, but it's on my (long) list of JFK books to buy once I can find time to read them. Trask's Pictures of the Pain is a very good account of the photographic evidence in general, though it doesn't go into much detail about the Zapruder film's chain of custody.

Wouldn't they also need to somehow get access to Zapruder's copy?

And isn't the scenario complicated even further by the fact Life damaged the "original" and the copies remain undamaged? 

I mean, wouldn't that mean they damaged a copy, and that the current SS copy and FBI copies ere copies of that copy before it got damaged ?

The whole thing makes little sense, and never has.

If memory serves, McMahon was unclear what day he studied the film.

Well, who's to say he didn't study the film a few weeks afterwards, as a response to Life Magazine's analysis. The briefing boards make reference to Life Magazine's Dec. 6 article, correct?

(Robert Wagner addresses this possibility In his book JFK Assassinated.)

P.S. I have never spent much time on this because I was bombarded with this stuff when I first joined the Forum...by people simultaneously pushing Greer did it, the Moon Landing was fake, 9/11 was a hoax, Evolution is a hoax, etc. The only thing I spent much time on was the supposed limo stop--one of the key reasons people cited for believing the film was a fake. Well, it turned out that the vast majority of "limo stop" witnesses were motorcade witnesses who saw the motorcade come to a stop, and that another large percentage of "limo stop" witnesses were people who said it slowed. It was nonsense. 

P.P.S. I believe Zapruder's grand-daughter wrote a book on the film that focuses on the effect the film had on her family, but also gets into the history of the film. Jean may want to check that out. 

Edited June 14 by Pat Speer

[Matt Cloud]

20 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Wouldn't they also need to somehow get access to Zapruder's copy?

And isn't the scenario complicated even further by the fact Life damaged the "original" and the copies remain undamaged? 

I mean, wouldn't that mean they damaged a copy, and that the current SS copy and FBI copies ere copies of that copy before it got damaged ?

The whole thing makes little sense, and never has.

If memory serves, McMahon was unclear what day he studied the film but felt sure there was some unidentified person who was with him.

To me it's always seemed probable McMahon and Brugioni worked together on the film.

I mean, how old was Brugioni when he first came forward with this stuff? I think he was close to 80, remembering stuff from 40 years earlier. There are bound to be some inconsistencies. 

 

 

So many McMahons -- Homer, John N. -- to keep track of. 

Who from NPIC was awarded the William A. Jump Memorial Award in 1964?  (Still classified.)  (Only persons under age 37 are eligible.)

P. 5: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84-00780R001400010059-4.pdf

P. 1, para. 2: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84-00780R001400010100-7.pdf

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

P.P.S. I believe Zapruder's grand-daughter wrote a book on the film that focuses on the effect the film had on her family, but also gets into the history of the film. Jean may want to check that out. 

It's in my box of books to be disposed.

[Greg Doudna]

If Zapruder’s personal copy from the original still exists today and that copy’s creation and existence precedes the Hawkeye New York business involving another copy, then the answer to my question is “yes”, it can be excluded—would that be an accurate way of putting it Jeremy? OK. Fine by me, just wanted to know, thanks. 

[Chris Davidson]

9 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Correct, though not in the way Roger thinks. The plane in question was heading to Life magazine's photo lab in Chicago, not the CIA's photo lab in Washington. We can be sure that the plane was heading to Chicago because the film was examined in Life's photo lab in Chicago that afternoon, and because the damage to the original film was done in Chicago that evening (see, for example, Loudon Wainwright, Life: Great American Magazine, Knopf, 1986, pp.357-376).