The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

So yes, the only “evidence” the Z-film was ever in Rochester at all is sole-source second-hand 34 year-old hearsay from a witness with major credibility problems.

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Thank you, Tom. Once again, Sandy Larsen is completely wrong with his "statistical proofs" above.

 

Jonathan,

Would you care to explain to readers of this thread how what Tom said has any relation to my statistical proof?

Here's a clue for you:  ZERO

 

Edited yesterday at 05:22 PM by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

11 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Sorry, Sandy, but your "proof" is not a proof.

 

Sorry Pat, but you don't understand the proof.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

57 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Though I'm surprised you found a flaw in it, given that nobody else has been able to. What exactly is the flaw?

Or are you just making stuff up again?

The flaw is the entire premise! As Pat very capably explained to you, "there is no scientific or historical basis for selecting statements and then claiming these statements 'prove' what you claim to be true. A scientist or an historian might take from this that these statements suggest a certain scenario, but there is no such thing as 'proof.'"

[Sandy Larsen]

16 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

The flaw is the entire premise! As Pat very capably explained to you, "there is no scientific or historical basis for selecting statements and then claiming these statements 'prove' what you claim to be true. A scientist or an historian might take from this that these statements suggest a certain scenario, but there is no such thing as 'proof.'"

 

LOL you have no idea what you are talking about.

My proof doesn't do what Pat thinks it does.

I've been thinking of how to explain the proof in a way that non-technical people can understand it. I'll write up a formal proof so you guys can go at it and try to find a flaw in it. I'm confident you won't be able to.

 

[Tom Gram]

8 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

My favourite anomaly claim is this one: the plume of brain matter above JFK's head only appears in frame 313, which means that frames must have been removed! That claim has actually been made more than once on this very thread. Needless to say, if you look at frames 314 onwards, you'll see the plume of brain matter. It's visible even in poor-quality copies. This fact has been known and pointed out on this very forum for years, and people still repeat the claim. The only thing these people needed to do was look at the actual film! But they didn't bother. It makes me think that it isn't the Zapruder film that's missing some brain matter. The sheer moon-landings level of amateurishness when it comes to claims of alteration is appalling.

Great point. This is probably the most unintentionally hilarious part of the O’Sullivan film. Horne goes on this whole rant about how the “most startling” thing he learned from Brugioni is that he remembered the plume of brain matter appearing in more than one frame. Horne concludes from this that “the film we have today is an altered film”. The O’Sullivan film cuts Brugioni’s interview when this comes up, right after Brugioni describes exactly what is seen in the extant Z-film.

DB: There was a chunk of body… of head … above his head. And uh, and then there was a uh, there was a uh, little mist or cloud around it. 

So instead of questioning Brugioni further on camera, Horne cuts the interview immediately after the above statement, goes into his ridiculous rant, then plays an audio clip from a Janney interview. Incredibly, Janney tells Brugioni straight up that the explosion is only visible in one frame, Z313. Based on the audio, it sounds like Janney only showed Brugioni Z313, and didn’t closely examine the subsequent frames with him. The only substantive thing Brugioni says is he thought the Z313 explosion went “3 or 4 feet” into the air. 

Here’s the funny part IMO. Later in the O’Sullivan film, images of panels III and IV of the NARA briefing boards are shown, and in panel IV, the plume of blood and brain matter is clearly visible for more than one frame. As you point out, the multi-frame plume is even visible in multi-generational digital copies of the Z-film. It surely would have been even more visible in a first generation copy that was was only 24 hours old. 

I might start a tally of debunked Horne claims about Brugioni. So far the only thing I have that isn’t completely worthless is Brugioni’s failure to recognize the NARA briefing boards as his own work, and even that is highly questionable. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Tom Gram

[Roger Odisio]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Bundy was the National Security Advisor. His job was not to ascertain WHO killed Kennedy, but to ascertain if Kennedy was killed as an act of war by another nation. He needed to come to a quick conclusion on this and tell his new President how he should respond asap. His assertion it was Oswald, then, was not the conclusion of a criminal investigator, nor the announcement of a formal policy, but the conclusion of a man tasked with deciding which turn to make when the road comes to a T intersection. He decided that in light of Oswald's arrest and reputation as a nut he most probably acted alone, and that Johnson should act accordingly. 

I am sure similar decisions were made within hours of the recent shooting. People paid to make decisions make decisions, based upon impressions. Bundy came to the correct decision, IMO. The government SHOULD have assumed Oswald was a nut and then perform a thorough investigation to see if this was true. 

The PROBLEM then is not how Bundy and Johnson responded in the first few days, but how the FBI, SS, and the WC responded over the next ten months, and years. Now I fully believe Johnson was responsible for their failure to honestly investigate the crime. But we have no reason to believe Bundy was responsible for that, IMO. 

According Salandria quoting from White's book, the officials on AF1 "learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of Oswald and his arrest".  From Salandria "this was the first announcement of Oswald as the lone assassin, before there was any evidence against him, and while there was overwhelming evidence of a conspiracy".  We don't have the tapes of the message.  That's all we know of its content .  White had apparently access to the messages before he wrote his book.

You've turned this into some kind of briefing for Johnson by Bundy about what he should do with the claim that Oswald was a lone assassin.  Where did that come from?   

As far as I know no one at that point, including Johnson, asked Bundy for such advice.

Moreover, you ignore what to Salandria and me is important about the message.  It was directed at the other officials coming back to DC, not Johnson.  Telling them the murder had already been solved; don't interfere.  How else do you explain that the same message was sent to the plane loaded with officials coming back from Hawaii?  Johnson wasn't on that plane.   There's no denying the purpose of that message.     

[Jean Ceulemans]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Sorry Pat, but you don't understand the proof.

 

The odds are that 40 were correct, yep. Thats what statistics in this case show, odds to something being so or not.  But odds are not facts.

You can never exclude that those 5 perhaps had it right, and the 40 others had it wrong.

The odds (unlimited) may be very high or low, but they don´t say how it actually was. A probabilty 0-1, with 1/1 it is still not proof of a fact.  At best it´s plausible.

Edited 21 hours ago by Jean Ceulemans
Add

[Roger Odisio]

On 7/20/2024 at 5:59 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger Odisio writes:

Yet again, Roger is assuming that the people who "began blaming Oswald" were the same people who instigated the assassination. Let go of those assumptions, Roger!

The idea that the killers would have in place a plan to get away with the murder and get the policy changes that motivated the murder in the first place is a logical deduction from everything we know both about human nature and the murder.  Plus what we know about the power possessed by the people likely behind the murder. 

 

It's not an assumption.  It's sad that you continue to misrepresent this point as if you don't know the difference between an assumption and a deduction.

 

On the other hand, your unsupported speculation that the killers would not have had such a plan, but instead depended on an unnamed group to save their skin and achieve those changes manifestly defies the most basic logic for self preservation.   

On 7/20/2024 at 5:59 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

There is an alternative explanation: one set of people made the assassination look like the work of a communist conspiracy, which prompted a second set of people, the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, to defuse popular discontent by blaming it on a lone nut.

As I said your alternative explanation that there was a group of folks that wanted to blame a communist conspiracy that were later overruled somehow is easily seen as nonsense.  Your proof that the first group intended to blame such a conspiracy was based solely on the fact that the murder was accomplished by multiple shooters!  You conclude therefore that the planners must have *intended* to blame a conspiracy!  Rather than the straightforward explanation that they used multiple shooters to maximize their chance to kill Kennedy.  Their top priority. 

There were people who wanted to go after Cuba but they weren't found in the leadership of the planners.  Because anyone who wanted to risk nuclear war with the Soviets in such a way was insane.  Such a war was already recognized as unwinnable.

The fact that such claim of conspiracy was entirely missing from officials right away as the coverup plan began is an indication that it likely never was seriously considered, let alone was the main plan of the killers.  Surely you must understand, as I'm sure the planners did, that Johnson was never going to implement such a crazy idea at the beginning of his administration.

On 7/20/2024 at 5:59 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

As I've explained several times, the Zapruder film was dealt with! It was hidden from public view for more than a decade. Doing so succeeded in eliminating the immediate problem. It prevented the public at large from becoming aware of the ways in which the film contradicted the lone-nut interpretation.

There's no need to complicate matters by adding an extra, unnecessary layer to the story. Rather than speculate that the film was altered and then hidden, why not cut out the middle man? The unaltered film was just hidden! That was the only thing that needed to happen, in order to deal with the problem of the film's incriminating contents.

I consider this passage to be progress of a sort.

 

Originally you claimed the planners would have simply destroyed the Z film.  There was no need to try to alter it.

 

This was easily shown to be false because altering the film had clear advantages.  There was a remaining copy they could claim was the original (which they did).  Govt officials and the public at large quickly learned of the Z film and what it had captured.  And that Life was going to publish stills from it early in the following week.  The anticipation was palpable. Altering the film instead of destroying it relieved them from having to explain what happened to that crucial evidence.

 

There was another reason why they preferred alteration.  Life's publishing of the stills served to fool the public into thinking they had seen everything about the murder it was necessary to see.  That was important when they later came to bury the film from public view after alteration failed.

 

I'm going to optimistically assume we will hear no more from you about why they would have simply destroyed the film instead of trying alter it.

 

Now you're back with another deceptively simple reason why they wouldn't have tried alteration. You say forget about that possibility.  Hiding it from public view, which we know at some point they did, for as long as they could get away with, was enough.  But it's not enough of an explanation, and your claim doesn't comport with other things we know or can reasonably deduct.

 

A few preliminary questions. If they decided to bury the film and instead of first trying to alter it, when did they make that decision?  And who is "they"?  Was Life magazine acting in its own corporate interest in doing that?  Note Life's eventual decision to bury the film exactly met the needs of the perps running the cover up.

 

Life's original deal Saturday morning with Zapruder allowed them limited rights to use the original film for a few days to make stills for their magazine.  They were  then supposed to return the original to Zapruder in exchange for a copy he had retained.

 

(Note that Life clearly preferred to us the original to make its stills, while you've been arguing in essence that Govt investigators would have been satisfied with using a copy for their much larger and more important job of making briefing boards for officials investigating the murder.  So they never asked Jackson for the original he had that Saturday or even entertained the idea.. 

 

The original deal with Zapruder establishes that Life did *not* intend to bury the film that Saturday morning.  They were supposed to give the original back to Zapruder.  That's clear.

 

When did they change their mind?  and why?  What caused their mind to change and eventually hide the film?  There are some clues.

 

Later that Saturday McCone ordered Lundahl to have briefing boards made at the CIA's NPIC lab to better see what happened.  Making briefing boards was standard procedure.  Lundahl took the finished boards and briefed McCone with them early Sunday.  McCone then briefed Johnson.

 

At that time Johnson, McCone, and Lundahl all could see that the boards contradicted the Oswald story they were already going with.  What to do?

 

Early Sunday morning, before the boards were finished, the two couriers who had 

brought the film to NPIC, left with it to go somewhere.  But where? 

 

"Bill Smith" returned  later Sunday with a version of the film saying he was coming from the Kodak plant in Rochester.  A second set of boards was then done that night that Brugioni explained were different from the ones he did the night before. 

 

Why was a second set done?  And for whom? Was the film used for the second set different from the one used to make the first set?  If not, why was a second set of boards done?

 

McCone, who had asked for the first set to be done, and then Johnson had already been briefed about what those boards showed.  What was the second set for if it wasn't to verify the new film as the replacement for the film Brugioni had worked on?  Why was Brugioni's boards later destroyed if it wasn't so they couldn't contradict the second set of boards?

 

Hiding the film from public view was always an option.  The question before us, however, is  whether they first tried alteration, and failing that, resolved to hide the film.

 

With the second deal consummated on Monday, Llife clearly had in mind burying the film. But why? Life paid Zapruder a lot of money, eventually $1.5 million in todays dollars, for the full rights to the film.  Was Life solely acting in its own corporate interests to keep the film out of public view after that? Who made the decision to bury the film?  CD Jackson?  Henry Luce?

 

Life's decision to bury the film precisely coincided with the needs of the killers' coverup plan. What does that mean?

 

After 12 years Life returned the film to Zapruder for $1.  Why would they do this simply because some of the public saw a bootleg copy of it on TV?  The only thing that had happened was that Life's ability to fully prevent people from seeing that film had ended. IOW, their job of hiding the film was over. The decision to give the film back to Zapruder can be seen as verification of Life's role in hiding the film.

 

You can ignore all of this if you want to and avoid discussing what was done with the film between the time it left NPIC until it was returned maybe 10-12 hours later.  But the question remains.  What changed Life's mind about its original deal with Zapruder?.  What caused them to rip up the original deal with Zapruder and strike one that gave Life full control over the film? 

 

I suggest that what changed their mind, and what led to a new deal with Zapruder is straightforward.  When the briefing boards verified that the film contradicted the Oswald story they were already going with, they decided to try altering the film in secret at HW.  When they couldn't conceal enough of the incriminating details they fell back of their second option.  Hiding the film from public view as long as they could get away with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roger Odisio]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

This is incorrect Pete. Ben Hunter initially didn’t remember a Secret Service agent at all. He was asked during his initial ARRB interview if he recalled any Secret Service involvement, and said that the question “rang a bell” and that there may have been a SS agent present. He also prefaced his interview by saying his memory of the event was “extremely fuzzy”. 

In a subsequent phone call with the ARRB, he said he wanted to amend his previous comments. He now claimed that a SS agent did deliver the film to NPIC, and said it was the SS agent, not Capt. Sands, who told him not to talk about the analysis event. 

That’s it. Hunter never mentioned the name Bill Smith, and never mentioned anything at all about the film in Rochester. That came entirely from McMahon. 

So yes, the only “evidence” the Z-film was ever in Rochester at all is second-hand 34 year-old hearsay from a sole source witness with major credibility problems. 

RO:  Nobody is relying on Hunter for anything important.  As I recall he'd only been on the job for 2 weeks.  The "only" evidence sentence is the heart of your claim and it's not true. We know a lot more than that.

Brugioni said that before his boards were finished the couriers who had brought the film to him, scooped it up (about 3:00 AM Sunday morning) and took it somewhere.  Where did they take it is an important question.

Instead of incessantly claiming there is no evidence that it was taken the the CIA's then secret lab at HW, evidence you know would not exist even if that were true, try to think about that question based on what we know.

An uncut 16 mm version appeared at NPIC later on Sunday brought by "Bill Smith"  who told McMahon he was bringing it from the Kodak plant in Rochester.  

The McMahon crew worked on that film and produced briefing boards that now reside at NARA.

Despite your claiming in another message that this point is still unclear, Brugioni did explain why those boards were not done by him, an explanation that I laid in front of you, to which you have offered no rebuttal. It establishes that two sets of boards were done that weekend.  Why?  Brugioni's boards had already been used to brief Johnson and McCone, who had asked for them.  Who asked for McMahon's boards; who were they for?  What was their purpose, if not to try to establish the altered film as the original, while Brugioni's boards were later disappeared once it was clear what they showed?

Was the film "Smith" brought different or the same one Brugioni worked on?  If it was the same why wasn't it in 8MM like Brugioni what worked on? 

Two facts.  If the original film was to be altered, it couldn't be done at the CIA's lab at the NPIC. But the CIA had a secret lab no one else knew about at HW who could do that kind of work.

If you're going to argue that the film that Sunday morning was sent somewhere else than HW you need to start, as a basis, with an explanation of why there was no interest in altering it once they saw that it showed that it contradicted the Oswald story they were already going with. To underlie, or give some credibility, to your story. Which you and Jeremy have failed to do.

It won't suffice to instead keep asking for evidence that it was sent to the secret lab, evidence you know could not exist.  As you do in the last paragraph below.  Yes, let's lend credence to the fact (it is a fact) that the CIA did not confirm that it sent the film to HW that Sunday morning as if you are making a point.

Tom:  Lastly, the CIA HRG did NOT confirm the Z-film was in Rochester. All they did was tell the ARRB that the word “Hawkeye works” was still classified TS/SCI, and that the McMahon interview must be marked and stored accordingly. That’s it. They did not comment at all on the substance of McMahon’s claims. 

 

[Pete Mellor]

9 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Lastly, the CIA HRG did NOT confirm the Z-film was in Rochester. All they did was tell the ARRB that the name “Hawkeye works” was still classified TS/SCI, and that the McMahon interview must be marked and stored accordingly. That’s it. They did not comment at all on the substance of McMahon’s claims. 

Tom, my bad here.  I'm going off memory which isn't a good idea in my case.  What I meant was Hunter's wife informed CIA's HRG that Ben was at NPIC working on the Zapruder film, which HRG confirmed to A.R.R.B.

Yes agree it was McMahon who told of the S.S. agent Smith who supposedly informed McMahon that the film he brought to NPIC he had picked up from Rochester?

Not sure though why you describe McMahon as a witness with major credibility problems.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Pete Mellor writes:

Quote

Sorry Jeremy, we'll agree to disagree.

Fair enough!

Quote

If the film hasn't been altered, why all these discrepancies?  You also cannot prove there has not been alteration.

Witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes. In real life, witnesses get stuff wrong far, far more often than films are altered. That, until alteration is proven, is why there are discrepancies.

Films come out of the camera unaltered. That is their default state. The first thing that needs to be proved is the claim that the film has been altered. Until that happens, the default state applies: the film has not been altered.

Similarly, in the case of the moon landings photos, it is up to those who claim the photos are faked to prove their claim. It is up to those who claim that the moon is made of green cheese to prove their claim. Until all of these people do this, it is rational to believe that the Zapruder film is authentic, that the moon landings photos are authentic, and that the moon is not made of green cheese.

In at least 40 years of people claiming to have spotted anomalies in the film, whether it is internal inconsistencies or contradictions with witness statements or with other images, nothing has been produced that would convince a reasonable, open-minded member of the public that the film has been altered.

What needs to happen is for someone to assemble the evidence for one or more specific claims of alteration, write it up into an academic-level paper, submit that paper to a reputable peer-reviewed journal, and get the paper accepted. Until that happens, it is all just amateurish moon-landings-style speculation. As far as I'm aware, no-one has even tried to do this. It's all still at the level  of "well, this kinda sorta looks a bit funny to me, so the film must have been altered." That level of amateurishness is liable to make rational critics of the lone-nut theory look like idiots by association.

Quote

Not sure though why you [Tom] describe McMahon as a witness with major credibility problems.

It's because of this famous passage in McMahon's ARRB interview:

Quote

I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. Do you know what a ... wet frame is? Well, you're looking at one. I damn near died. And I'm not a competent witness because I don't have accurate recall. I don't have absolute recall. ... I just told you, I don't have a full deck. I don't know how I am presenting anything here. This is not ... at the time I did it I was not impaired, but I later became impaired. So whether you are talking to a reliable witness or not, that's up for you to decide.

(https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=181453)

'Major credibility problems' is an understatement!

[Pete Mellor]

JB, There is no need to pepper your posts with sarcastic references to fake moon landings and green cheese or levels of amateurishness.  The JFK assassination case is littered with malfeasance.  The Secret Service's stripping of JFK's protection in Dallas followed by their Bethesda casket conjuring tricks alone would incite any reasonable person to question the validity of other aspects of the case.

It is your prerogative to discount the weight of witness statements that question what is seen in the Zapruder film. Fine. You go your way and I'll go mine.

Regarding McMahon's credibility.  His statement of his being a recovering drug addict/alcoholic I find neither here nor there. Why throw the baby out with the bath water?  My point has been that there were two separate NPIC operations, seemingly on 23rd & 24th November, one with an 8mm film, then another with McMahon & Hunter with a 16mm film.  McMahon identified his own handwriting as well as identifying the briefing boards.  So, what should a reasonable open-minded person like myself conclude was the logical purpose and function of these two events?

However, let's leave it at that.  I'm completely convinced that what each of us sees in Zapruder's film, never the twain shall meet.          

[Tom Gram]

Claim: Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter were not present during Brugioni’s briefing board event. 

Supporting Evidence: 

To my knowledge, the only direct quotes we have from Brugioni on this topic are in the O’Sullivan film. 

DH. While you worked at NPIC did you know a gentleman by the name of Ben Hunter? 

DB Yes

DH. Was he there that night with you? 

DB. No. 

DH. Are you sure about that? 

DB. Yes… cause Ben Hunter was in the..was a photogrammetrist in the photo..photogrammetry…and I didn’t need him. I mean I wouldn’t have called him in. 

DH. Did you know a Homer McMahon? 

DB. I knew him, yes but… not that night. When we went to the third floor….

That’s not very convincing, even on its own, but here’s where it gets interesting. Horne asks again later in the film: 

DH. Were Pierre Sands, Homer McMahon or Ben Hunter present at the event over which you presided. 

DB. No. No.. just Ralph Pearse, Bill Banfield, and uh.. I think there was about three in the lab and three in the, uh, pasting the thing together and…

[Horne cuts him off and changes the subject]

Incredibly, Horne never asked Brugioni to identify the six unnamed people who were present at NPIC that night, including the “three in the lab”. 

Peter Janney wasn’t any better. Here’s Horne’s own summary of Brugioni’s first interview with Janney: 

Brugioni told Janney that Bill Banfield ordered in 3 or 4 photo technicians (who worked on the home movie to enlarge individual frames) and 2 or 3 people from the graphics department (who actually assembled the briefing boards in the graphics department on the second floor, one floor above the photo lab. In the four follow on interviews, Janney repeatedly and specifically questioned Dino about whether either a Captain Sands, or Ben Hunter, had been present that night. Brugioni consistently said that he was acquainted with both people, and that neither Captain Sands nor Ben Hunter was present at the NPIC event he presided over. 

Not surprisingly, we do not have a tape or transcript of the first Janney interview. In fact, we don’t have tapes or transcripts for any of the “four follow on interviews” either. All we have from any of the six interviews Janney conducted with Brugioni is a partial transcript of the sixth interview and a 90 second audio clip from the O’Sullivan film. 

Why was Brugioni only asked about Hunter and Sands in the “four follow on interviews”? Was he asked to identify the 3 or 4 photo technicians in the first interview? Was he ever asked at all? Did Janney not ask about McMahon?

Taking his lowest estimates, Brugioni didn’t remember 5 out of 7 total people there that night other than himself. With his highest estimates it’s 7 out of 9. 

Horne’s summary is also interesting in comparison to the O’Sullivan film. Brugioni’s fumbled reasoning that Ben Hunter wasn’t there was that he was a photogrammetrist and that he “wouldn’t have called him in”. Well, according to Horne’s summary, Brugioni told Janney that the lab crew was called in by Bill Banfield, not himself.

Basically, Brugioni’s denials regarding Hunter, McMahon, and Sands are not credible at all. He had no idea who worked on the enlargements in the color lab. Period. It is ridiculous to think that Brugioni could perfectly recall who wasn’t in the lab that night 46+ years later but have no idea who actually was. 

To make matters worse, Janney and Horne appear to have realized that questioning Brugioni about his anonymous “three or four” person “lab crew” could severely hurt their theory, so they immediately changed the topic every time he brought it up. Without the complete Janney tapes however, especially the first one, we can’t say for sure. Where are the Janney tapes? Why are they being withheld from the research community? 

We also have corroboration from the ARRB.  McMahon and Hunter had no idea who worked on the actual briefing boards upstairs at NPIC. Hunter also told the ARRB that Sands remained “close by”, observing the work in the lab. In other words, the NPIC witnesses’ own statements suggest that the lab and briefing board crews did not interact that night. 

Brugioni mentioned the unnamed lab crew again in the partial transcript of the sixth Janney interview. All Brugioni says in the transcript is “and then there was a lab crew”. That’s it. There was no follow up by Janney nor any attempt to ascertain the identities of this anonymous “lab crew”. 

Conclusion: NOT CREDIBLE. 

Does this prove that there was only one briefing board event? No, but it does prove that Brugioni is not a credible witness on the topic of attendees. He had no clue who worked on the prints in the lab that night. McMahon and Hunter had no clue who worked on the briefing boards upstairs. Hmmmm…. 

Edited 41 minutes ago by Tom Gram

[Jonathan Cohen]

35 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

The Secret Service's stripping of JFK's protection in Dallas followed by their Bethesda casket conjuring tricks alone would incite any reasonable person to question the validity of other aspects of the case.

Nobody said you can't "question the validity of other aspects of the case." The problem is that when you actually look at the EVIDENCE, the notion of massive alteration of the assassination film and photo record is shown to be absolute nonsense.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Pete Mellor said:

JB, There is no need to pepper your posts with sarcastic references to fake moon landings and green cheese or levels of amateurishness.  The JFK assassination case is littered with malfeasance.  The Secret Service's stripping of JFK's protection in Dallas followed by their Bethesda casket conjuring tricks alone would incite any reasonable person to question the validity of other aspects of the case.

It is your prerogative to discount the weight of witness statements that question what is seen in the Zapruder film. Fine. You go your way and I'll go mine.

Regarding McMahon's credibility.  His statement of his being a recovering drug addict/alcoholic I find neither here nor there. Why throw the baby out with the bath water?  My point has been that there were two separate NPIC operations, seemingly on 23rd & 24th November, one with an 8mm film, then another with McMahon & Hunter with a 16mm film.  McMahon identified his own handwriting as well as identifying the briefing boards.  So, what should a reasonable open-minded person like myself conclude was the logical purpose and function of these two events?

However, let's leave it at that.  I'm completely convinced that what each of us sees in Zapruder's film, never the twain shall meet.          

Jeremy answered the credibility question, but I’ll add a few comments. I actually think McMahon was exaggerating a bit when he made the senile dementia/wet brain comment. He was clearly worried about mentioning NPIC employee names that were still classified, and there are hints in his testimony that he might have not told the full truth to the ARRB. My impression is that he was concerned about violating a secrecy agreement, or something like that. 

The example I’ve used before is McMahon’s initial statement that the SS agent “Smith” and “three other people” timed the film, which he subsequently retracted and claimed the three “other” people were just himself and Ben Hunter - “to the best of [his] knowledge”. 

Later in the deposition, McMahon let slip that there was “another chap” who was there working with “Smith”. McMahon refused to identify him. When questioned about Sands, McMahon said “we might have had an intermediate - a Naval officer who brought the chap in.” He also said that most of the geo-military personnel who worked at NPIC were undercover, and he refused to name any names.

The point is, McMahon’s “wet brain” comment is not the only reason to question his credibility. We have legitimate reason to suspect that he withheld important information from the ARRB. 

Also, McMahon did not actually identify the NARA briefing boards. He never saw them that night, and didn’t know who prepared them. He confirmed to the ARRB that he prepared the prints on the NARA briefing boards, but he thought a few views were missing. The NARA boards contain 28 prints. 

Contrast that with Hunter, who insisted that only 8 frames were selected for reproduction by himself and McMahon. 

Brugioni on the other hand remembered using “12 to 15” prints on the briefing boards. 

Hunter and McMahon were interviewed 34 years after the assassination. Brugioni was interviewed 46-48 years after the assassination. None of their statements are consistent, which is understandable considering the time gap.

The two briefing board event theory relies entirely on Brugioni’s memories from nearly half a century earlier. There are some legitimate discrepancies, like Brugioni not remembering the NARA boards as his own work, but the majority of Horne’s claims about Brugioni completely fall apart under scrutiny. For example: 

1. Brugioni had no idea who worked on the prints in the lab that night. (see my previous comment) 

2. Brugioni had no idea if he worked on the original Zapruder film. He even said, on camera, that he did NOT recall images between the sprocket holes. (see below) 
 

3. The so-called “plume” issue is a joke. (see previous comments by myself and Jeremy). 

 

Edited 50 minutes ago by Tom Gram