The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Chris Davidson]

Recognize the conflation:

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

This was pointed out to me as well--that the strong likelihood is that McMahon and Hunter studied the film a few weeks after Brugioni. I had said something about the possibility they'd worked together but someone reminded me that some of the briefing boards make reference to the 12-6 Life Mag article which was nowhere near completion on 11-24. 

So McMahon and Hunter worked on the film separately from and a later date than Brugioni. 

It doesn't rule out that the film was altered. It just cuts into the timeline holding that it was altered overnight between two viewings of the film at NPIC. 

McMahon also confirmed in his first ARRB call that his team prepared notes of the analysis. In the deposition transcript Kevin linked, McMahon is shown the NPIC working papers, and confirms they are the notes prepared by his team, even identifying some of his own handwriting. 

McMahon was also not at all firm on the date. He said he thought it was 1-2 days after the assassination, but when pressed on that by Horne he seemed very uncertain. He also said he was “pretty sure” it occurred before the funeral. 

The problem is this. Horne and Gunn did not ask the obvious question. After McMahon verified the working papers he was not confronted with the fact that the papers were clearly prepared after Dec. ‘6th. The word “Life” appears only once in the transcript. 

It seems pretty clear then, IMO, that McMahon simply misremembered the date he worked on the film. 

Another thing I noticed is that McMahon said he did not prepare the actual briefing boards, and that they were put together by another group in NPIC from his team’s enlargements. Do we have any information on that? 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

McMahon also confirmed in his first ARRB call that his team prepared notes of the analysis. In the deposition transcript Kevin linked, McMahon is shown the NPIC working papers, and confirms they are the notes prepared by his team, even identifying some of his own handwriting. 

McMahon was also not at all firm on the date. He said he thought it was 1-2 days after the assassination, but when pressed on that by Horne he seemed very uncertain. He also said he was “pretty sure” it occurred before the funeral. 

The problem is this. Horne and Gunn did not ask the obvious question. After McMahon verified the working papers he was not confronted with the fact that the papers were clearly prepared after Dec. ‘6th. The word “Life” appears only once in the transcript. 

It seems pretty clear then, IMO, that McMahon simply misremembered the date he worked on the film. 

Another thing I noticed is that McMahon said he did not prepare the actual briefing boards, and that they were put together by another group in NPIC from his team’s enlargements. Do we have any information on that? 

My impression is that the briefing boards and notes may not have been created by the same hand. IOW, it seems possible Brugioni created the briefing boards, but Hunter and McMahon wrote the notes a few weeks later. 

Is that your impression as well?

Edited June 16 by Pat Speer

[Roger Odisio]

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

McMahon also confirmed in his first ARRB call that his team prepared notes of the analysis. In the deposition transcript Kevin linked, McMahon is shown the NPIC working papers, and confirms they are the notes prepared by his team, even identifying some of his own handwriting. 

McMahon was also not at all firm on the date. He said he thought it was 1-2 days after the assassination, but when pressed on that by Horne he seemed very uncertain. He also said he was “pretty sure” it occurred before the funeral. 

The problem is this. Horne and Gunn did not ask the obvious question. After McMahon verified the working papers he was not confronted with the fact that the papers were clearly prepared after Dec. ‘6th. The word “Life” appears only once in the transcript. 

It seems pretty clear then, IMO, that McMahon simply misremembered the date he worked on the film. 

Another thing I noticed is that McMahon said he did not prepare the actual briefing boards, and that they were put together by another group in NPIC from his team’s enlargements. Do we have any information on that? 

This is not entirely accurate, Tom.

Here is a link to Bill Kelly's thread on EF in 2010 discussing McMahon's 1997 ARRB interview.  

It contains the transcripts of the interview.  The thread contains a lot of useful information.

Towards the end of his interview McMahon is shown the extant briefing boards he worked on.  He had left NPIC that Sunday night before the boards were finished. He says some of the prints he had made were missing on that board and there were prints on it he didn't make. The total number of prints on the board was different than what he did.

Someone had worked on it sometime after he left Sunday night.The time frame for all of this is less cramped than first thought.  It's not clear.

There is little doubt as to when McMahon did the work. Initially unclear, he settles on Sunday night because he remembers it was before Kennedy's funeral on Monday. That's an obvious benchmark anyone would have little trouble remembering.  That's the point about the question of when, not something to be dismissed with "he also said".

At that point neither Horne nor McMahon knew that Brugioni had done boards the night before from what is purported to be the same unaltered film. That is the real unanswered question: why did he think he was asked to do a second set under the circumstances? It's likely, however, he wouldn't have known the answer.  He didn't have a need to know.  Things were compartmentalized by those running the coverup.

I've asked you and Jeremy that question more than once, however,  without an answer.  

Btw, Tom, should I forget about getting a response from you to the answers I gave to the questions you posed to me a couple of days ago? 

 

 

 

   

[Roger Odisio]

11 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

My impression is that the briefing boards and notes may not have been created by the same hand. IOW, it seems possible Brugioni created the briefing boards, but Hunter and McMahon wrote the notes a few weeks later. 

Is that your impression as well?

I'm not Tom, but that's not possible, Pat.  There were separate and different notes prepared by Brugioni and by McMahhon and unknown others, for each set of boards. The notes to the second set survive.  Brugioni remembered to Horne the specifics of the notes he did that were destroyed with his boards about a decade after he wrote them.

Can we get rid of the claim that McMahon did anything with the boards two weeks after he said he worked on them?

[Roger Odisio]

10 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To paraphrase Roger Odisio's comment: there's no documentary evidence for any of this, but I'm going to keep believing it anyway.

 

JB:  To paraphrase Roger Odisio's comment: there's no documentary evidence for any of this, but I'm going to keep believing it anyway.

 

RO:  Why would you distort what I'm saying so blatantly? I'm saying there is no documentary evidence of CIA involvement because of course there wouldn't be for reasons you should already grasp about the agency. Only a fool would expect the CIA to have documented what they did.  But, I'm saying, we can figure out what happened from what we do know.

 

JB:  Roger's many unsupported assumptions, one in particular interests me. It's that whoever was behind the assassination:

 

1. did the job properly by using more than one gunman firing from more than one location;
2. and wanted the public to believe that the assassination was committed by a lone assassin;
3. and had control of the Zapruder film;
4. and decided to conceal evidence of more than one gunman by altering the Zapruder film.

RO: Wow! you got that right.  But then what follows your acceptance of #1 is a tortured attempt to claim what we know and can deduce about the others, particularly #2, is somehow unclear, a mystery.

 

JB:  Claim no.2 in particular is puzzling. It's clear that bureaucrats in Washington, for straightforward institutional reasons, wanted the public to believe that only one gunman was involved. But why assume that the conspirators would want this? After all, if the conspirators wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which seems plausible to many people, given the history of the chosen patsy, wouldn't evidence of multiple gunmen be exactly what they wanted the public to see?

 

RO:  Classic misdirection.  You ask why the killers would want the public to believe Oswald, a lone assassin did it, when the murder was actually a multi-shooter crossfire, (exactly the killers' dilemma).  As if the answer isn't obvious!!  They needed a story to cover up what they did and blame someone else.  They wanted to get away with the murder. They chose Oswald as the patsy. You know all of this.

 

Instead you segue into a discussion of other assassin stories the conspirators  *didn't* use. In order to claim evidence about those stories would fit the multiple shooter scenario that actually happened!  Apparently, you did this you say, because those stories "seem plausible to many people"!!  See, no dilemma to explain!  What ??!!  That's why you turned to the Cubans and Russians as possible perps?? While  ignoring the killers' dilemma you yourself so accurately describe, and their choice of Oswald as the patsy?

 

That dilemma led the killers quickly to a series of actions we know about, starting that weekend, trying to solve their problems.  Killing Oswald before he could talk to a lawyer. Establishing an official commission that could be relied on to find Oswald guilty since there would be no trial.  Snatching the body from Parkland so the autopsy can be controlled in DC. 

 

And, yes, what to do about the Z film that the world was finding out captured the kill shots in the murder. This one was just as vital as the other three, and the reasons for it just as clear.

 

All of your false claims that you know the original film went directly to Chicago once the deal with Zapruder was struck, and your diversions into which copy went where, can't absolve you from answering basic questions, including ones I have asked you, about what happened at the two CIA labs and why. No matter how much you try to keep avoiding them.

[Tom Gram]

19 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Btw, Tom, should I forget about getting a response from you to the answers I gave to the questions you posed to me a couple of days ago? 

Right now I’m just trying to get my head around all the evidence surrounding this episode. I actually just noticed that you replied to my previous comment yesterday evening. I will go back and write a better reply to that when I get a chance. 

The key points I mentioned earlier today, that you did not address above, are: 1) McMahon confirmed in his testimony that his team at NPIC performed the shot timing analysis; and 2) he confirmed that the handwritten NPIC papers turned over to ROCKCOM are his team’s working notes on that analysis. 

He was also not at all certain on the date he worked on the film. Here is McMahon when pressed on the date by Horne: 

DH: Would you allow me to test your recollection on something else? You said it was within two days of the assassination. Is there any particular reason why you associated it with other events within a few days?

HM: I think I was told that to get the film from the individual, to get it processed, and get it back, it was a couple of days. I'm not sure.

DH: Do you recall whether this work that you did was before the funeral or after the funeral of the president?

HM: I'm pretty sure it was before.

Considering McMahon’s admitted memory issues, you have to admit this isn’t exactly rock solid. 

What is solid is that the shot timing analysis was performed after 12/6/63. Well, how do we explain that? McMahon testified that his team did the shot timing analysis and prepared the notes. He even identified some of his own handwriting. He also confirmed what one of Kevin’s prior comments - not Kevin’s words, a quote from someone criticizing David Wrone - tried to dispute: that the timing analysis and enlargements were part of a single event at NPIC. 

One (highly) plausible explanation is that McMahon misremembered the date he worked on the film. There is no argument that he did something with the “boards two weeks after he said he worked on them”. The argument is that he worked on the Z-film only once, after the Life magazine article, and misremembered the date 30+ years later. That is not an argument we can just “get rid of”.

There is some ambiguity, mostly due to McMahon’s questionable memory, but there appears to be a very strong case that McMahon worked on the film 2 weeks after the assassination. I see no good reason to reject McMahon’s recollections on the timing analysis and notes in favor of his much less certain recollections on the specific date. 

It is incredible that Horne and Gunn did not press McMahon on the Life article. Horne even mentioned the “Life” notation on the notes in the interview, so why did he fail to ask such an obvious and important question?

Horne had written multiple memos on the Life issue prior to the McMahon interview. McMahon was also shown the physical notes by Horne and Gunn. Pointing out the Life article could have even refreshed McMahon’s memory a bit. I’ll reserve judgement until I read and reread all available material on McMahon, cause I might have just missed it, but if the Life article was really never mentioned at all I’ll be very surprised. That kind of omission I’d expect from David Belin, not the ARRB. 

McMahon also stated that the he did not prepare and never saw the actual briefing boards. In his first phone call he said he assumed they were prepared by a different group at NPIC. Well could that have been Brugioni? That’s why I asked if we have any information on who prepared the actual boards from McMahon’s prints. If it was not McMahon’s team, who was it? 

I have no problem believing that Brugioni worked on a separate set of briefing boards, but I’d like to see all the relevant documents and testimony before jumping to any conclusions. 

Edited June 17 by Tom Gram

[Tom Gram]

18 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

My impression is that the briefing boards and notes may not have been created by the same hand. IOW, it seems possible Brugioni created the briefing boards, but Hunter and McMahon wrote the notes a few weeks later. 

Is that your impression as well?

Almost. McMahon said he created the enlargement prints for the briefing boards and the timing analysis notes, but did not prepare or even see the boards themselves. He assumed that was done by a different group in NPIC. 

If McMahon’s team prepared the notes, as both he and I think Hunter testified to, It seems likely that they misremembered the date they worked on the film, since the notes were clearly prepared after Dec. 6th. 

I still need to go over Hunter’s statements, but if McMahon’s team didn’t prepare the actual briefing boards, who did? Well, Brugioni remembered making actual briefing boards, so he seems like a reasonable candidate, right? 

The problem is that Brugioni told Horne his boards were destroyed in the 70s, and claimed, like Hunter and McMahon, that he worked on the film the weekend of the assassination. However, the 45 year old memories of a nonagenarian are not exactly conclusive as a sole source, so I’m not convinced he’s totally credible. 

I think it’s possible there was only one analysis of the Z-film at NPIC, with McMahon and co. doing the prints and timing analysis and Brugioni preparing the actual briefing boards, all after Dec. 6th. I also think it’s possible there really were two sets of briefing boards, but I’m not totally convinced either way. I’m trying to keep an open mind about it until I get a chance to review everything. 

 

Edited June 17 by Tom Gram

[Tom Gram]

On 6/16/2024 at 12:44 PM, Roger Odisio said:

This is not entirely accurate, Tom.

Here is a link to Bill Kelly's thread on EF in 2010 discussing McMahon's 1997 ARRB interview.  

It contains the transcripts of the interview.  The thread contains a lot of useful information.

Towards the end of his interview McMahon is shown the extant briefing boards he worked on.  He had left NPIC that Sunday night before the boards were finished. He says some of the prints he had made were missing on that board and there were prints on it he didn't make. The total number of prints on the board was different than what he did.

Someone had worked on it sometime after he left Sunday night.The time frame for all of this is less cramped than first thought.  It's not clear.

There is little doubt as to when McMahon did the work. Initially unclear, he settles on Sunday night because he remembers it was before Kennedy's funeral on Monday. That's an obvious benchmark anyone would have little trouble remembering.  That's the point about the question of when, not something to be dismissed with "he also said".

At that point neither Horne nor McMahon knew that Brugioni had done boards the night before from what is purported to be the same unaltered film. That is the real unanswered question: why did he think he was asked to do a second set under the circumstances? It's likely, however, he wouldn't have known the answer.  He didn't have a need to know.  Things were compartmentalized by those running the coverup.

I've asked you and Jeremy that question more than once, however,  without an answer.  

Btw, Tom, should I forget about getting a response from you to the answers I gave to the questions you posed to me a couple of days ago? 

 

 

 

   

I reviewed Hunter’s interview summary report and went back through McMahon’s testimony and would like to amend my previous comments a bit. 

Hunter did not recall taking part in a shot timing analysis or preparing most of the notes. However, he did identify his handwriting on one of the sheets listing frames to be used for the briefing boards. The selected frames on that page are clearly tied to the shot timing analysis, and there are even timing calculations on that page:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=9

McMahon was unsure about his handwriting on some of the pages too. However, he also identified his handwriting on a page containing shot timing calculations, and, most importantly, he remembered physically timing the shots with a stopwatch. 

HM: Well. (Ha, ha,)…Well, Eastman Kodak had contracts with the US government, and if you want to know, you can go to the CIA and they will tell you who told him, but he got the film processed, and he brought it to us, and he and three other people timed the film, for through observation you can tell where the gunshots actually caused the hits and slumps. We didn't know anything about any audio, it was just visual, and we timed it, and determined the time - physically timed it with a stop watch, where the gunshots hits hit. And we went from I think maybe two frames before the first hit and then we hit every single frame thru….He only counted three hits, possibly four. I couldn't tell I think, when Connally got hit. It was obvious when he got hit the first time, and then the second time he got hit, going off into an angle up, and…..

McMahon’s next statement muddies the waters a bit: 

DH: Could I break in and ask you a question? When you say he and three others timed the film, does this mean that you people viewed it as a motion picture? 

HM: Yes, we were in a briefing room, with a camera and a large screen - you said I could use Ben Hunter's name? I worked with Ben Hunter, Ben Hunter I think he was a GS 7 and he was working with me as a trainee at the time in the color lab, and Bill Smith, ah,….excuse me, there were three of us, including myself (ha, ha), that's it. To the best of my knowledge. 

Ok, so McMahon said “he (Bill Smith) brought it to us, and he and three other people timed the film”, then totally contradicted himself by saying he and Smith were two of the three “other” people. I’d have to hear the tape, but could the (ha, ha) indicate that McMahon was withholding information, like he had done in his previous phone call regarding active CIA employees? 

If that’s the case, who were these “three other people”? Sure enough, Hunter mentioned three possible candidates: 

He said that to him, the kind of analysis represented by the NPIC notes looked like it may have been done by mensuration experts at NPIC…he would think that candidates for this type of analysis would be either Todd Augustine, Alan Gill, or Steve Clark. 

Were these people ever contacted? 

McMahon also made an interesting comment when asked about a notation on one of the analysis pages: 

DH: The next page which is not McMahon’s handwriting, is a page which, in the upper the right hand corner, reads: "Questions from the 8mm film: how do they know the exact frames of first and second shot?" 

HM: Okay, we didn't have……we were told what they thought they were, and this is what we concluded they were, and this is what we set the photography to….that's the best I can do…. 

Well, the “they” in this case is Life Magazine. Considering all the above, it seems (very) likely that McMahon’s team did the timing analysis and Hunter just forgot or was in a different room while McMahon, “Smith” and the three “other people” timed the shots. 

This also bears on the date issue, but Hunter prefaced his interview by saying his memory on the NPIC event was “extremely fuzzy”, and said “repeatedly” that McMahon’s memory on the event would likely be much better than his. 

So my impressions are still the same. It seems likely that McMahon and Hunter studied the film after the Life magazine article and misremembered the date 30+ years later. 

Also of note is that Hunter said he did not take part in the preparation of the actual briefing boards, and said he would not be surprised if someone else in NPIC did. McMahon said pretty much the exact same thing, so who prepared the briefing boards from their prints? 

 

Edited June 18 by Tom Gram

[Keven Hofeling]

On 6/15/2024 at 7:31 PM, Tom Gram said:

Apparently there is documentary evidence relating to the NPIC Z-film analysis. Here is Doug Horne in a memo to Jeremy Gunn in 1995, stating: 

Page 9 of the NPIC analysis has a data column titled Life Magazine, and in the data column the following phrases appear in quotation marks when describing frames in which shots occur: “74 frames later” and “48 frames after that”. This wording, which appears in quotes on the CIA document, is identical in wording which appears on page 52F of the December 6, 1963 issue of Life magazine in Paul Mandel’s article about the assassination, strongly suggesting (but not proving) that NPIC did its analysis after December 6, 1963. 

The next paragraph relates a quote from I think Richard Trask that mentions documents obtained on the NPIC analysis in the 70s, and it includes this: 

…though the released documents are inconclusive as to when the examination took place other than in late 1963, internal evidence does point to it being performed after November 29 and probably before mid-December. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=201295#relPageId=2

What internal evidence? 

Here’s Horne again stating that the NPIC analysis occurred after 12/6/63, this time in a letter to the CIA. He even requests NPIC personnel rosters only from December. 

 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=162795

So if I’m reading this right, Doug Horne himself found a direct quote from a 12/6/63 article on the Z-film in a document prepared during the NPIC’s analysis, and naturally concluded that the analysis occurred after that date. 

It looks like there’s a bit of ambiguity, but this seems like much better evidence than the recollections of a nonagenarian and an admitted alcoholic with memory issues. Here’s the NPIC document itself, with the “Life magazine” data column and direct quotes cited by Horne: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31994#relPageId=7

The last page even states “based on 18 FPS as reported by Life magazine”, and repeats the two direct quotes. 

Again, I’m not an expert on this topic. What evidence is there that NPIC studied the Z-film on the weekend of the assassination? Unless I’m missing something here, which is quite possible, we appear to have actual evidence that the analysis occurred much later. 

Mr. Gram, you seem to be placing an enormous amount of emphasis on Doug Horne's speculation about the significance of the sheet of timing analysis data that appears to rely upon the 12/6/1963 LIFE article of Paul Mandel that was turned over to the Rockefeller Commission by the CIA in 1975, characterizing it as "documentary evidence" cited by "Doug Horne, himself" that the second NPIC briefing board session could not have taken place until after Paul Mandel's article was published by LIFE on 12/6/1963.

The speculation of Doug Horne you are relying upon was made in memos written by Horne prior to the ARRB's discovery of the NPIC employees who conducted the second briefing board session, Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and the subsequent interviews of the two men which resulted in Horne reassessing and amending his earlier speculation because both McMahon and Hunter attested that the NPIC briefing board session had taken place the weekend of the assassination prior to the funeral of the President AND both men, after having been shown the timing analysis in question, had specifically disclaimed producing it, and stated they had never seen it before.

The timing analysis in question is as follows:

And as Doug Horne would point out again in 2009, on page 1208 of his Inside the Records Review Board, the significance of the timing analysis in relation to the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article is as follows:

But the problem with using the above as "documentary evidence" that the second briefing board session at NPIC did not take place until after 12/6/1963 is that when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize that particular sheet of timing analysis data:

From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter:

      -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original]

From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon:

   Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A.
   NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him.  [Emphasis not in original]

 

Below, please find the original ARRB Meeting Reports for Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, containing the above referenced passages (and with indications highlighted that they were working with what they believed to be the camera-original Zapruder film under the supervision of the Secret Service during the weekend of the assassination at NPIC):

 

Edited June 18 by Keven Hofeling

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger Odisio writes:

Quote

All of your false claims that you know the original film went directly to Chicago once the deal with Zapruder was struck, and your diversions into which copy went where, can't absolve you from answering basic questions, including ones I have asked you, about what happened at the two CIA labs and why. No matter how much you try to keep avoiding them.

Nothing much "happened at the two CIA labs". Some people turned up, looked at one of the first-day copies of the Zapruder film, and went home again. No big deal.

It's possible, as Tom Gram points out, that nothing at all "happened at the two CIA labs" on the weekend of the assassination, and that the examination of a copy of the Zapruder film occurred in December.

The only evidence we have that the original film didn't go to Chicago is Brugioni's claim, more than 30 years after the event, that the film he thought he worked with on the Saturday was the original. As I have pointed out, we have documentary evidence which suggests that Brugioni was mistaken, and that, if he worked on a film at all on the Saturday, that film was actually the Secret Service's slit 8mm first-day copy that was flown to Washington overnight on the Friday.

Thanks to Tom's research, there is now no good reason to suppose that anyone worked on any version of the Zapruder film (the original, a first-day copy, or a fake) at NPIC on the Sunday. In the absence of any positive evidence that the original went anywhere other than Chicago on the weekend of the assassination, there is no good reason to believe that the original film was altered that weekend, whether at Hawkeye Works, the NPIC, a Hollywood studio, or anywhere else.

And if the film wasn't altered that weekend, it can't realistically have been altered at all. Second- and third-generation copies began to appear shortly afterwards, all of which would have had to be rounded up and replaced without leaving a trace, a highly impractical scenario for which there is no credible evidence.

Quote

You ask why the killers would want the public to believe Oswald, a lone assassin did it, when the murder was actually a multi-shooter crossfire, (exactly the killers' dilemma).  As if the answer isn't obvious!!  They needed a story to cover up what they did and blame someone else.  They wanted to get away with the murder. They chose Oswald as the patsy.

Yes, I understand all of that. The point I was making was that the assumptions behind Roger's claim don't seem to add up. One of Roger's assumptions is inconsistent with another of Roger's assumptions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the claim seems to be that the same people ("the CIA", however that term is defined):

• carried out the assassination using more than one gunman;
• wanted the public to believe that the assassination was actually the work of a lone gunman;
• chose Oswald in advance as the lone-gunman patsy;
• seized the Zapruder film;
• and altered the Zapruder film to remove evidence of more than one gunman.
• (And failed to remove such evidence, but we'll leave that for now).

The question I asked was: Why does Roger assume that the conspirators wanted the public to believe that the assassination was carried out by a lone gunman? Roger's answer: "They needed a story to cover up what they did and blame someone else."

OK, but simply by choosing Oswald as the patsy, they possessed a ready-made story "to cover up what they did and blame someone else." Oswald's apparent sympathies with the Cuban and Soviet regimes inevitably generated suspicion that Oswald was acting on behalf of one or both of those regimes, either alone or with others.

There was no need to seize the Zapruder film and try (unsuccessfully) to remove evidence of more than one gunman. In fact, doing so would have been counter-productive. If the Zapruder film contained evidence that more than one gunman was involved, suspicion of a communist conspiracy would have been strengthened. The more evidence of multiple gunmen, the better, from the point of view of Roger's culprits. An unaltered Zapruder film would have done exactly what Roger claims "the CIA" wanted: put the blame on someone else. 

There would have been even less need to alter the film if you believe that Oswald's very public pro-Castro activities in New Orleans, and his supposed visits to the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic compounds in Mexico City, were staged in order to portray him as a communist sympathiser. I don't know whether or not Roger believes that these incidents were staged, but it isn't an unreasonable belief, considering the plentiful evidence of Oswald's links to anti-communist activists in New Orleans, in particular Guy Banister.

Roger's culprits must have been aware before the assassination of Oswald's public persona as a pro-communist sympathiser, and they must have known that these sympathies would become public knowledge after the assassination. Their only plausible reason for choosing Oswald in advance as a patsy was to implicate the Cuban and Soviet regimes in the assassination. And if, after the assassination, he could be seen to have been working with associates, those associates can only have been part of a communist-inspired conspiracy. The stronger the evidence for multiple gunmen, the stronger the evidence for a communist-inspired conspiracy, which is the only reason for choosing Oswald as a patsy in the first place.

If Roger's culprits really wanted a patsy who could be framed as a lone gunman, why choose one with all of Oswald's ideological baggage? Why not choose, say, Buell Wesley Frazier? He was already working at the book depository before Oswald was (maybe) parachuted in, he had legitimate access to the sixth floor, he owned a rifle, he was just as disposable as Oswald, and there was no danger that he would generate immediate suspicion that he was working on behalf of anyone else. Someone like Frazier would have been an ideal lone-gunman patsy. Or how about one of the African American warehouse workers? With no ties to foreign powers, there would be no suspicion of conspiracy. In 1960s Texas, the chance that he'd survive long enough to make his case in a courtroom must have been pretty small. If a lone-nut patsy was required, there were plenty of better candidates than Oswald.

Roger's "the CIA" could:

• choose Oswald as a patsy (in order to implicate the Cuban or Soviet regimes);
• or decide to alter the Zapruder film to remove evidence that more than one gunman was involved.

But they wouldn't realistically have done both, as Roger implies. Choosing Oswald as the patsy would have negated the need to alter any of the photographic evidence.

(Sorry for going off-topic with this, but I just wanted to clarify my objection to Roger's assumptions. Anyway, back to the NPIC storm in a teacup ... )

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the claim seems to be that the same people ("the CIA", however that term is defined):

• carried out the assassination using more than one gunman;
• wanted the public to believe that the assassination was actually the work of a lone gunman;
• chose Oswald in advance as the lone-gunman patsy;
• seized the Zapruder film;
• and altered the Zapruder film to remove evidence of more than one gunman.
• (And failed to remove such evidence, but we'll leave that for now).

The question I asked was: Why does Roger assume that the conspirators wanted the public to believe that the assassination was carried out by a lone gunman? Roger's answer: "They needed a story to cover up what they did and blame someone else."

 

Peter Dale Scott's "Phase 1 / Phase 2" theory explains the need for the above actions.

According to PDS, the CIA plotters used the Mexico City trip to make it appear that Oswald had contracted with the Cubans and Russians to kill Kennedy. One witness said he saw Oswald paid $6500 in the Cuban Consulate for the hit. Of course, that was just one of the fake statements paid for by the CIA to incriminate both Oswald and the Cubans/Russians. PDS calls this Phase 1 of the plot, its purpose being to create a pretext for war with either Cuba or Russia.

The CIA also created an alternative scenario where Oswald acted on his own and had nothing to do with Cuba and Russia. PDS calls this Phase 2. The purpose of Phase 2 was to provide a ready-made suspect just in case something went wrong with Phase 1. For example, in case the new president LBJ wasn't interested in invading Cuba or a first nuclear strike on Russia -- the two things the JCS wanted BTW.

Something did go wrong and Phase 2 was scrapped. Phase 1 kicked in and gave the Feds a culprit... Lee Harvey Oswald. Phase 1 did its job and kept the Feds from investigating any further, which could have otherwise led to their discovering the CIA was behind the assassination.

Having explained Phase 1 / Phase 2 ...

It was essential that the CIA plotters make Phase 2 a viable solution to the crime, just in case that route prevailed. The "best evidence" needed to support a lone gunman culprit, and so that evidence needed to be controlled by the CIA. Which is why the CIA controlled the autopsy, the autopsy photos, and any film that had a great view of the head shots... which was the Z film.

Both the Z film and the autopsy were altered right away in order to move the wound from off the back of the head. The autopsy photos were altered later on. (No rush was necessary for them.) Unfortunately for the CIA plotters and fortunately for us, alterations to the autopsy and autopsy photos don't match those on the Z film. If you watch the Z film carefully, you will see that a huge chunk of Kennedy's head centered on his right temple were blasted away.

Compare that to the autopsy photos that have the temple intact. And compare to the autopsy, which has the blowout wound further to the back, above the right ear.

Then, of course, is the fact that nearly every witness to the gaping wound (about 45 of them) said that it was on the back of the head. And none of them saw the damage depicted on the Z film.

 

Edited June 18 by Sandy Larsen

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Mr. Gram, you seem to be placing an enormous amount of emphasis on Doug Horne's speculation about the significance of the sheet of timing analysis data that appears to rely upon the 12/6/1963 LIFE article of Paul Mandel that was turned over to the Rockefeller Commission by the CIA in 1975, characterizing it as "documentary evidence" cited by "Doug Horne, himself" that the second NPIC briefing board session could not have taken place until after Paul Mandel's article was published by LIFE on 12/6/1963.

The speculation of Doug Horne you are relying upon was made in memos written by Horne prior to the ARRB's discovery of the NPIC employees who conducted the second briefing board session, Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and the subsequent interviews of the two men which resulted in Horne reassessing and amending his earlier speculation because both McMahon and Hunter attested that the NPIC briefing board session had taken place the weekend of the assassination prior to the funeral of the President AND both men, after having been shown the timing analysis in question, had specifically disclaimed producing it, and stated they had never seen it before.

The timing analysis in question is as follows:

And as Doug Horne would point out again in 2009, on page 1208 of his Inside the Records Review Board, the significance of the timing analysis in relation to the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article is as follows:

But the problem with using the above as "documentary evidence" that the second briefing board session at NPIC did not take place until after 12/6/1963 is that when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize that particular sheet of timing analysis data:

From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter:

      -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original]

From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon:

   Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A.
   NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him.  [Emphasis not in original]

 

Below, please find the original ARRB Meeting Reports for Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, containing the above referenced passages (and with indications highlighted that they were working with what they believed to be the camera-original Zapruder film under the supervision of the Secret Service during the weekend of the assassination at NPIC):

 

See my last comment to Roger. You’re leaving out the not insignificant detail that McMahon remembered physically doing a timing analysis of the shots. 

He said the analysis was done in a briefing room, originally with “Bill Smith”, himself and “three other people”, then changed the three “other” people to just himself, Smith, and Hunter. 

Hunter did not remember doing a timing analysis himself, but he did mention three NPIC employees who might have done that sort of thing. Were those people ever contacted by the ARRB?

McMahon and Hunter both identified their handwriting on pages containing shot timing calculations.

McMahon said the notes were prepared in the briefing room, but didn’t recognize one of the pages that mentioned 18 frames per second. He then said it “might have been 18 frames per second, or it “might have been a further analysis”. He wasn’t sure, which is understandable considering this was over 30 years later. When pressed by Gunn on whether he thought there was a further analysis, he said the notes overall “conform to my best recollection of what we wrote on”, referring to the yellow legal pad. 

Hunter said his memory of the entire event was “extremely fuzzy” and stressed “repeatedly” that McMahon’s memory would likely be much better than his. 

When pressed on the date of the event, McMahon thought it was the weekend of the assassination, but was not at all certain about it. McMahon also admitted he was a recovering addict and alcoholic, and said his memory was not reliable at all. He straight up said “I’m not a competent witness”. I did get the impression he was exaggerating a bit, but surely his memory of events three decades earlier was far from perfect. 

I’m not saying there isn’t ambiguity here, but there is a significant, non-zero probability that McMahon and Hunter worked on the film after the Life magazine article, and misremembered the date over 30 years later. Not recognizing a few pages of notes is irrelevant with that kind of time gap, especially since there was a SS agent and possibly others involved in the timing analysis.

I’ve read both summary reports. McMahon’s actual transcript, which you provided, reveals a lot of relevant information that was not reported by Horne in the summary. Do we have a transcript of Hunter’s actual interview? 

Edited June 18 by Tom Gram

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Both the Z film and the autopsy were altered right away in order to move the wound from off the back of the head.

What kind of idiotic conspirators would spend months on a plot only to have to then ALTER most if not all of the primary evidence resulting from the crime? Plus, as Jeremy, Tom and others in this thread have shown, the Zapruder film was most definitely NOT "altered right away."

[Sandy Larsen]

57 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

What kind of idiotic conspirators would spend months on a plot only to have to then ALTER most if not all of the primary evidence resulting from the crime?

 

I''ll tell you what kind. The kind who don't want to be investigated by the FBI for the assassination. I don't know how you can not understand that.

 

57 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Plus, as Jeremy, Tom and others in this thread have shown, the Zapruder film was most definitely NOT "altered right away."

 

They haven't shown that. The second NPIC team may have had a copy of the Z film twice, the first time to make the briefing boards, and the second time to do the timing analysis.