The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Greg Doudna]

Thanks Jeremy, also Tom, I'm satisfied re your explanation of the Melanson 1984 argument (of the possibility that the Secret Service took the original, not a copy, from Zapruder, the evening of Nov 22) as not being convincing. I can add one more point on that from my own further reflection.

Melanson saw (a) motive--due to the importance of a film of the actual assassination, Secret Service for its CIA lab analysis would want the original, not simply a less-ideal copy for technical analysis, and (b) the analogy of the Secret Service taking the body of JFK by force over the objections of coroner Rose at Parkland, as how the Secret Service might override any objection Zapruder might raise to giving up his original.

But "b" fails as I see it, as the analogy not holding. At Parkland, I believe the Secret Service had the backing of the new President himself, LBJ, to take the body. And the Texas state law consideration aside, the "owner" of the body, if anyone, would be Jacqueline, and according to the accounts, Jackie wasn't leaving Parkland without it, which was the justification LBJ gave for ordering the Secret Service to take the body. So the only thing at issue there from the Secret Service's point of view was a clash of conflicting orders or claims--LBJ orders on the one hand, Rose asserting a Texas state law on the other. The Secret Service carried out LBJ's orders. 

As for Zapruder's film, Zapruder was formidable, a savvy successful businessman, with lawyers, and the property was clearly, unambiguously, his. Without a court order, the Secret Service had no right to take it, and if they did could be sued big-time. Meaning, it is not reasonable Secret Service would take the original by force from Zapruder without authorization coming from the top, and a mere head of the Secret Service order would also not be high enough but would have to come from LBJ, and there is no evidence of that. At the ground level, if Secret Service had sought the original (no evidence it did, but if so), Zapruder would 100 percent be predicted to say nor or resist. If Secret Service persisted, there would either be exposure by Zapruder that that happened and legal consequences from his side, or else a secret covert payoff or deal for his silence (also no evidence).

But this is all a nonstarter in terms of motive, because the obvious motive for requesting the copy was to examine it for what it showed--to see what happened--including the timing and the shots analysis. And that could be done from a copy. There was no advance motive to plan to alter a film before having seen it (I think before having seen it, not sure of that detail, of if it had been viewed, not examined in detail closely by expert analysis). 

Therefore the story hangs together of a request to borrow a copy, which was then studied and analyzed for interpretation of its content, and the original remained with Zapruder as was 100 percent his legal property, and no evidence otherwise. 

And without either access to the original or a theory of a later substitution of the original, the case becomes more difficult to make for means and opportunity for successful alteration to have been done, though my narrow question here concerns solely the issue of the whereabouts of the original.

That Zapruder retained the original the weekend of the assassination seems to stand, as best as I can see.

[Chris Davidson]

3 hours ago, Chris Scally said:

Chris,

There are NO frames used by Itek which are missing from every Nix version in existence today.

Prior to the Itek Study in 1967, there was no official frame count for the Nix film, and rather than counting the actual frames and assigning "proper" frame numbers to each one, Itek chose to use the alphanumeric system you cited. (Why Itek did not do a proper frame count is unknown - perhaps they were told not to do so, perhaps they simply didn't bother to do so - we just don't know!)

Years later, Richard Trask ("Pictures of the Pain") calculated that Nix exposed 122 frames during the shooting sequence on Elm Street; Dale Myers "Epipolar Geometric Analysis of Amateur Films Related to Acoustics Evidence in the John F. Kennedy Assassination" also calculated that Nix shot 122 frames during the same sequence, while my own manual count of the frames in the film suggest that Nix shot 123 frames (Nix frames 189-311 inclusive) during the same period. The difference of 1 frame is immaterial.

It was not until one of the HSCA contractors who examined the Nix film used the Itek 1967 numbering system again in 1978 that it was possible to establish what the Itek system actually meant. From a careful study of HSCA internal documents, I have been able to calculate that the Itek numbering system was as follows:

Nix 191 = A; Nix 192 = A1; Nix 193 = A2 … Nix 199 = A8; Nix 200 = B1; Nix 201 = B2; Nix 202 = B3; Nix 203 = B4 … Nix 207 = B8; Nix 208 = B9; Nix 209 = C; Nix 210 = C1; Nix 211 = C2 (the head shot); Nix 212 = C3 … Nix 218 = C9; Nix 219 = D; Nix 220 = D1; Nix 221 = D2, and so on.

So, while Trask, Myers and I differ in respect of what Nix frame equates to Z-291 (the Zapruder frame corresponding to the first Nix frame showing the limo on Elm Street), all three are in general agreement regarding the number of frames (122 or 123) shot on Elm Street, and it has now been possible to confirm that Itek's Nix frame C2 equates to Zapruder 313, then the suggestion that the Nix frames used by Itek are missing from all versions of the Nix film currently in existence is incorrect. The frames are not missing - it is simply a fact that Itek (and fortunately, as it happens, a HSCA contractor also) used a non-conventional system of numbering the frames.  

Let me guess, Gerald Ford the advisor to the HSCA was responsible for telling Itek not to use the standard frame count.

There are a number of clues to what this is all about.

First the speed difference in a four frame span between two sets of four frame spans.

 

 

[Chris Davidson]

Next is the distance difference:

[Jonathan Cohen]

Neither of those things lend credence to the Nix film having been altered.

[Chris Davidson]

Add to it the Shaneyfelt 10" vertical adjustment which should have indicated a distance traveled on CE884(z161-166) of 15.25ft instead of .9ft:

 

[Chris Davidson]

Apply the Shaneyfelt vertical 10" adjustment to the z313 survey and what we get is the Itek affirmation of approx 3ft short of extant z313.

[Denise Hazelwood]

7 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Here is the CIA memo Melanson used with the “late 1963” quote. It mentions that the SS “brought a copy of the Zapruder film to Director McCone”…etc. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=105096#relPageId=4

That same document, if you scroll through it (e.g., pp. 16-17) shows Z190 as the “throat” shot. In the extant film, Z190 is very blurry. But if you look at the frames before and after, there seems to be very little difference. Both before and after there’s no sense of JFK’s tie, and his shirt looks extraordinarily white. 

I don’t know what version of the film they were looking at, but it wasn’t the extant version.

Edited June 24 by Denise Hazelwood
No sense OF JFK’s tie, as in, it doesn’t appear. Sorry for the autocorrect typo.

[Chris Scally]

Chris Davidson:

Sorry, but I have absolutely no intention of playing the math game that you have engaged in for a long time, involving the limo speed, FBI agent Shaneyfelt's calculations of limo location, etc. 

I answered your question about the supposed "missing" Itek frames in the Nix film, and believe that no further discussion is needed. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

12 minutes ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

I don’t know what version of the film they were looking at, but it wasn’t the extant version.

The extant version is the only version of the film that has ever existed, especially considering the frames damaged by Life exist in un-damaged form on other copies.

[Chris Davidson]

30 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Apply the Shaneyfelt vertical 10" adjustment to the z313 survey and what we get is the Itek affirmation of approx 3ft short of extant z313.

Then refer back to the early SS survey of Dec5, 1963 where it was determined JFK was shot, plotted at street elevation 418.35.

Later moved to 418.48 by the WC.

Creating a distance difference of 2.379ft.

We now have a distance difference of approx 2.379ft + 3.03ft (Itek) = 5.409ft between the initial SS plotting and the later Itek plotting of the extant z313 headshot with the WC in between.

 

 

Edited June 24 by Chris Davidson
Didn't finish initial posting.

[Chris Davidson]

1 hour ago, Chris Davidson said:

Let me guess, Gerald Ford the advisor to the HSCA was responsible for telling Itek not to use the standard frame count.

There are a number of clues to what this is all about.

First the speed difference in a four frame span between two sets of four frame spans.

 

 

The simple fact that there are two versions of CE884 should be quite troubling to most.

The fact that the speed difference between these two CE884 versions(1.5mph) for a short span of frames matches the Itek speed difference in sets of four frames between each other, is even more troubling as the WC has the limo traveling 2.24 and 3.74 mph

It's not only the mph that are important as the limo was not traveling anywhere near those documented speeds in the extant film at the designated frames, it is the missing adjusted distance too.

[Roger Odisio]

10 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger Odisio writes:

Yes, that's reasonable. But the existence and the destruction of briefing boards does not imply that the film was altered. Officials might genuinely, with an open mind, have wanted to find out what information the Zapruder film contained about, for example, the number and direction of shots.

If a second examination took place later, officials might have wanted a second opinion about whether the film corroborated or contradicted the new lone-gunman orthodoxy. For example, they might have wanted to know whether JFK and Connally reacted to wounds that were too close together in time to have been fired by the same rickety old rifle. The fact that the film can be interpreted to show that some of the bullet impacts were too close together might be a plausible reason to destroy the briefing boards.

Whether briefing boards were made once or twice, and whether they were stored or destroyed, there is no reason to conclude that these examinations used anything other than genuine, unaltered copies of the film.

 

 

Wait a minute, Jeremy.  Previously you had claimed that nothing was done with the film at either the NPIC or HW that weekend.  If briefing boards were done at all, you said, they were probably done by the McMahon group some time in December.  You couldn't deny the existence of the boards McMahon worked on that are now at NARA.

 

I've explained why that conjecture is nonsense.  As I have already acknowledged, some officials genuinely wanted to find out what happened.  The President had just been murdered by unknown forces. Then there were the bad guys, who wanted to know how much the film contradicted  their Oswald story.  The coverup built around the Oswald story was already underway a few hours after the murder. 

 

Both groups wanted briefing boards to clarify things. And they wanted that information right away.  A strip of film couldn't do that. Briefing boards were necessary. 

 

One example of an "innocent" official, in Salandria's terms, was John McCone, CIA director at the time. RFK's first instinct was the murder was the work of the CIA.  He talked with McCone for 2 hours that afternoon. Probably the main thing he found out was how little McCone was plugged into cold war policy at the agency.

 

One of Brugioni's boards was sent Sunday morning to McCone's office.  It's been written that at some point McCone told Bobby he thought there was more than one shooter. Which, if true would be another indication of how far McCone was out of the loop at the agency, as well as what Brugioni's boards showed.. I don't know if that is true.  Maybe someone else does.

 

Doing the boards that weekend to clarify what happened is another reason officials of either type would have insisted that the original film be used for the boards. No matter what Life magazine wanted.

 

I've said there was in fact no conflict. Life was fronting for the CIA from the beginning in buying rights to the film.  Obviously the CIA itself could not bid with the media for control of the film. But you don't have to agree with that to understand who had priority over the use of the original film that weekend.

 

In this note you're now willing to discuss the possibility of a second board being done "later".  It's not clear whether you mean the following day or in December. Maybe, you suggest, "officials might have wanted a second opinion about whether the film corroborated or contradicted the new lone-gunman orthodoxy."   

 

Unless you (still?) want to claim Brugioni is lying about when he said he did his boards, or that  never did any boards and was lying about them later being destroyed, that means he did the first set that weekend, as he said.

 

Brugioni was the foremost photo analyst at NPIC.   A year before the murder he had worked on the photos of the Soviet missiles in Cuba that led to the missile crisis.  He later wrote a book about it, thirty years after the incident!!, called Eyeball to Eyeball.

 

A busy guy, he also wrote a book, 6 years after that (36 years after the murder)!!!, called Photo Fakery:  A History of Deception and Manipulation.

 

So, Jeremy, do you have some reason to think that the officials who wanted to see boards would have some reason to consider Brugioni's boards so inadequate they would want a second set done before it was clear what happened?  Brugioni's boards were designed to answer the very questions you pose. It's very likely he did so clearly, which is why the film was sent off the HW before his boards were even finished.

 

Leaving aside your silly answer, your scenario poses another question to be answered.  Why did the CIA, a decade later, destroy Brugioni's boards right away after they found out he still had a copy of them?  If both boards were made from the same unaltered film?  If Brugioni's boards didn't contradict the second set in important ways?

 

After reciting again what you think the "documentary evidence" shows, you conclude:

"We must base our conclusions on the evidence that actually exists, not on speculation about what we would like to have happened".

 

Wrong.  The first job of a researcher is to assess the veracity of the information he finds. What you have done here, in extolling the documents left behind for you, while dismissing far more likely explanations of events, is a form of stenography.  

[Chris Davidson]

40 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Then refer back to the early SS survey of Dec5, 1963 where it was determined JFK was shot, plotted at street elevation 418.35.

Later moved to 418.48 by the WC.

Creating a distance difference of 2.379ft.

We now have a distance difference of approx 2.379ft + 3.03ft (Itek) = 5.409ft between the initial SS plotting and the later Itek plotting of the extant z313 headshot with the WC in between.

 

 

The WC synced the subterfuge using .9ft per frame(z161-z313) as their average 136.1ft/152frames.

This is rather obvious in their initial listings(z161-166)and(z168-171) from both CE884's where the limo traveled a total of .9ft

The total distance span of the early SS plotting vs the later Itek findings was approx 5.409 ft.

At .9ft per frame using the WC average, 5.409ft/.9ft per frame would amount to approx 6 frames.

There is quite a bit more to all of this, but hat's enough hi-jacking for now.

My apologies to Kevin.

 

[Denise Hazelwood]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

The extant version is the only version of the film that has ever existed, especially considering the frames damaged by Life exist in un-damaged form on other copies.

Then why did Brugioni describe the head shot as different? Why would Dan Rather have described JFK as moving “violently forward”? How would John Costella be able to prove alterations with his examples? And why on Earth would anyone think Z190 was the “throat” shot? (BTW, the “undamaged” versions don’t have the sprocket areas. Guess who would have appeared in the sprocket images? George Hickey. These copies also have the same other splices that the “original” film has. It took me a long time to reach the conclusion that the Z-film is an altered product, but I did reach it eventually.

[Jonathan Cohen]

11 minutes ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Then why did Brugioni describe the head shot as different? Why would Dan Rather have described JFK as moving “violently forward”? How would John Costella be able to prove alterations with his examples? And why on Earth would anyone think Z190 was the “throat” shot? (BTW, the “undamaged” versions don’t have the sprocket areas. Guess who would have appeared in the sprocket images? George Hickey. These copies also have the same other splices that the “original” film has. It took me a long time to reach the conclusion that the Z-film is an altered product, but I did reach it eventually.

A : Brugioni misremembered, decades later.

B : Rather misremembered, or lied.

C : Costella has proved absolutely nothing regarding alteration, and in fact, many of his claims have been thoroughly debunked. If you care to throw your hat into the ring with a guy who believes he was being tracked by rain sensors when he and Jack White were in Dealey Plaza, be my guest.

D : George Hickey did not shoot John F. Kennedy.