The logic of Z film alteration: a summary

[Roger Odisio]

A problem with the recent 56 page discussion about Z film alteration is that arguments were made and rebutted in isolation, without the context needed to judge their validity.  Without logical connections made between them to see if they provide a coherent whole.

 

Here I want to set out a complete scenario for alteration.

 

The afternoon of the murder Zapruder appeared on Dallas TV to explain that he had filmed the murder.  He was standing right across from the head shots that killed Kennedy.  He had watched his film several times to make sure he had fully captured what happened.

 

Zapruder knew his film was valuable. Early Saturday morning he organized a bid among major media for (partial) rights to it. 

 

On the day of the murder, govt officials had already asserted that Oswald did it by himself with shots from behind JFK.  Oswald had been arrested few hours after the murder.  His interrogation began at about 3 PM that afternoon. He would be murdered two days later before he could talk to a lawyer, eliminating the possibility of a trial to assess his guilt. The Warren Commission would be established 5 days after Oswald's death in order to frame him for the murder.

 

Because it captured what actually happened, the Z film quickly became crucial to the coverup. Getting control of it before the public could see it was vital.  

 

Suppose CBS had won the bid Saturday morning and prepared to show the original film to country that weekend. That would have been devastating to the coverup.  It could not be allowed.

 

Richard Stolley, Life's rep, was the first to arrive for the bid at 8:00 Saturday morning, startling Zapruder. He wasn't fooling around.  Henry Luce's Time-Life empire had been an implacable foe of JFK.  For decades, CD Jackson, Life's publisher, had done work on national security issues for the CIA.

 

Obviously the CIA could not itself participate in the media bidding. Life was fronting for them. 

 

Life easily won the bid by offering $500,000 (in today's dollars) for partial rights to the original film.  The deal was Zapruder would hand over the original film to Life for a few days so Life could publish stills from it in their magazine.  That issue of the magazine was to hit the streets on Tuesday. Three copies of the film were also made in Dallas when it was developed.

 

Life was to return the original film to Zapruder in a few days after making the stills, in return for a copy Zapruder had kept.  We can see that Jeremy's claim that Life always intended to bury the film, had no reason to try to alter it, is false.  The initial deal required Life to return the original film to Zapruder.

 

Stolley put the film on a plane to Life's headquarters in Chicago to begin work on the stills.  That was the cover story.

 

The CIA had a plane waiting in Chicago to fly the film to its NPIC lab where briefing boards could be done to reveal what the film showed. Those boards were done on  orders from John McCone, CIA director.

 

When the boards were finished at about 6:00 AM Sunday morning Art Lundahl, head of NPIC, took them to brief McCone. McCone then briefed the new president, Lyndon Johnson.  By early Sunday morning both Johnson and McCone knew that the film clearly contradicted the Oswald story.

 

How do we know the film used for the briefing boards Saturday night was the original and not one of the copies?  Jeremy says it was the Secret Service's copy because the courier who brought it said he was from the SS.

 

We know it primarily because using a copy for the boards would make no sense.  Doing the boards was not an exercise of idle curiosity for Johnson and McCone. They needed to know if, and to what extent, the film contradicted the Oswald story (it's very likely Johnson at least already knew the answer to the "if" question).

 

If Brugioni had used a copy while Life kept the original, there would be no point in altering a mere copy or burying it.  Any attempt to conceal what the film showed would have to be done on the original and copies made from the original destroyed. 

 

The statement of the courier that he was SS is meaningless.  Compartmentalization of staff was standard procedure for the CIA.  Neither the Brugioni not the McMahon crews had a need to know anything more than that their assignment was to make briefing boards for top govt officials. 

 

Even Jeremy acknowledges the the original was much clearer than the copies.  McCone would have specified it be used for the boards for the reason just cited and because quality mattered.  There was no reason for govt officials to settle for using a copy instead of the original.  CD Jackson would have understood that.   A copy was sufficient for Life's purposes; it was not for making the briefing boards.

 

Before the boards were finished, at about 3:00 AM Sunday, the film was scooped up and flown to the CIA's then secret lab, Hawkeye Works at the Kodak plant in Rochester.  This was nothing unusual.  It turns out during that time there were regular flights between NPIC and HW. 

 

The secret HW lab was in fact established for precisely the kind of job it would be asked perform on the Z film.  The alteration that was necessary could not be done at NPIC.

 

However, sufficient alteration could not be done at HW, given the tools they had at the time and the time they had to work on the film.

 

That Sunday evening a second set of boards was done at NPIC by the Homer McMahon group.  Brugioni was not told about that.  The film used was delivered by "Bill Smith", who, following script, also said he was with the SS. Smith said he had brought the film to be used for the boards from Rochester, and that part was true.

 

McMahon said it was Smith who decided on the frames to be used on the boards.  McMahon had thought the film, even in its altered state, showed shots from more that one direction.  Smith wasn't interested in his opinions.

 

Who was to be briefed by these new boards?  The govt officials who had asked for the boards to be done on Saturday had already been briefed using them.

 

Nobody. The second set of boards was not for briefing, but instead intended to replace Brugioni's boards as an historical record of the film.  Those are the boards now at NARA.

 

McMahon said he left NPIC Sunday night before those boards were finished. Some of the frames he did are not on the extant boards and others are that he didn't do.  We don't know who else worked on the second set of boards.  Since they were not intended to brief anyone, we also don't know when the changes McMahon alluded to were made.

 

Lundahl had retuned a set of his boards to Brugioni after Johnson and McCone were briefed.  He told Brugioni to put them away and don't let anyone see them. Which Brugioni did.

 

In 1975 when Brugioni mentioned that he still had a copy of his boards in his safe, his then supervisor ordered him to get rid of them. Brugioni packed them up and sent them to the CIA director's office, never to be seen again. Those boards were the last vestige of the original Z film.

 

After alteration failed, Life went back to Zapruder and struck a new deal that was signed on Monday.  Life would pay Zapruder another million dollars so they could keep the original, now altered but still showing incriminating details, as well as the copy Zapruder still had of the original film. It was a simple matter to replace the other two copies held by the FBI and SS with copies made from the altered film.

 

The additional money was paid to Zapruder in four equal installments.  His silence, if that had ever been a problem. was bought.  He died a few years after the installments ended.

 

Which raises a central question for anyone denying that alteration was tried.  What changed Life's mind that weekend about returning the original film to Zapruder, and made it willing to give Zapruder another $1 million so it could keep the film, if it wasn't the failure to convincingly alter it at HW?

 

Life then buried the film from viewing by the general public for as long as it could get away with, which turned to be almost 12 years.  Until a bootleg version  was shown on national TV.  It's job done, Life gave the film it had back to Zapruder for $1, verifying its purpose in controlling the film in the first place.

 

Life's publishing of stills from the film in several issues also played a role by helping to convince the public it had seen everything necessary about what the film showed.  There was no need to push to see the film itself that Life was hiding.

 

Why is the question of alteration important?  Because understanding it sheds light on how a crucial part of the coverup worked.  And, need I say, who was involved.

 

 

 

[Kevin Balch]

19 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

A problem with the recent 56 page discussion about Z film alteration is that arguments were made and rebutted in isolation, without the context needed to judge their validity.  Without logical connections made between them to see if they provide a coherent whole.

 

Here I want to set out a complete scenario for alteration.

 

The afternoon of the murder Zapruder appeared on Dallas TV to explain that he had filmed the murder.  He was standing right across from the head shots that killed Kennedy.  He had watched his film several times to make sure he had fully captured what happened.

 

Zapruder knew his film was valuable. Early Saturday morning he organized a bid among major media for (partial) rights to it. 

 

On the day of the murder, govt officials had already asserted that Oswald did it by himself with shots from behind JFK.  Oswald had been arrested few hours after the murder.  His interrogation began at about 3 PM that afternoon. He would be murdered two days later before he could talk to a lawyer, eliminating the possibility of a trial to assess his guilt. The Warren Commission would be established 5 days after Oswald's death in order to frame him for the murder.

 

Because it captured what actually happened, the Z film quickly became crucial to the coverup. Getting control of it before the public could see it was vital.  

 

Suppose CBS had won the bid Saturday morning and prepared to show the original film to country that weekend. That would have been devastating to the coverup.  It could not be allowed.

 

Richard Stolley, Life's rep, was the first to arrive for the bid at 8:00 Saturday morning, startling Zapruder. He wasn't fooling around.  Henry Luce's Time-Life empire had been an implacable foe of JFK.  For decades, CD Jackson, Life's publisher, had done work on national security issues for the CIA.

 

Obviously the CIA could not itself participate in the media bidding. Life was fronting for them. 

 

Life easily won the bid by offering $500,000 (in today's dollars) for partial rights to the original film.  The deal was Zapruder would hand over the original film to Life for a few days so Life could publish stills from it in their magazine.  That issue of the magazine was to hit the streets on Tuesday. Three copies of the film were also made in Dallas when it was developed.

 

Life was to return the original film to Zapruder in a few days after making the stills, in return for a copy Zapruder had kept.  We can see that Jeremy's claim that Life always intended to bury the film, had no reason to try to alter it, is false.  The initial deal required Life to return the original film to Zapruder.

 

Stolley put the film on a plane to Life's headquarters in Chicago to begin work on the stills.  That was the cover story.

 

The CIA had a plane waiting in Chicago to fly the film to its NPIC lab where briefing boards could be done to reveal what the film showed. Those boards were done on  orders from John McCone, CIA director.

 

When the boards were finished at about 6:00 AM Sunday morning Art Lundahl, head of NPIC, took them to brief McCone. McCone then briefed the new president, Lyndon Johnson.  By early Sunday morning both Johnson and McCone knew that the film clearly contradicted the Oswald story.

 

How do we know the film used for the briefing boards Saturday night was the original and not one of the copies?  Jeremy says it was the Secret Service's copy because the courier who brought it said he was from the SS.

 

We know it primarily because using a copy for the boards would make no sense.  Doing the boards was not an exercise of idle curiosity for Johnson and McCone. They needed to know if, and to what extent, the film contradicted the Oswald story (it's very likely Johnson at least already knew the answer to the "if" question).

 

If Brugioni had used a copy while Life kept the original, there would be no point in altering a mere copy or burying it.  Any attempt to conceal what the film showed would have to be done on the original and copies made from the original destroyed. 

 

The statement of the courier that he was SS is meaningless.  Compartmentalization of staff was standard procedure for the CIA.  Neither the Brugioni not the McMahon crews had a need to know anything more than that their assignment was to make briefing boards for top govt officials. 

 

Even Jeremy acknowledges the the original was much clearer than the copies.  McCone would have specified it be used for the boards for the reason just cited and because quality mattered.  There was no reason for govt officials to settle for using a copy instead of the original.  CD Jackson would have understood that.   A copy was sufficient for Life's purposes; it was not for making the briefing boards.

 

Before the boards were finished, at about 3:00 AM Sunday, the film was scooped up and flown to the CIA's then secret lab, Hawkeye Works at the Kodak plant in Rochester.  This was nothing unusual.  It turns out during that time there were regular flights between NPIC and HW. 

 

The secret HW lab was in fact established for precisely the kind of job it would be asked perform on the Z film.  The alteration that was necessary could not be done at NPIC.

 

However, sufficient alteration could not be done at HW, given the tools they had at the time and the time they had to work on the film.

 

That Sunday evening a second set of boards was done at NPIC by the Homer McMahon group.  Brugioni was not told about that.  The film used was delivered by "Bill Smith", who, following script, also said he was with the SS. Smith said he had brought the film to be used for the boards from Rochester, and that part was true.

 

McMahon said it was Smith who decided on the frames to be used on the boards.  McMahon had thought the film, even in its altered state, showed shots from more that one direction.  Smith wasn't interested in his opinions.

 

Who was to be briefed by these new boards?  The govt officials who had asked for the boards to be done on Saturday had already been briefed using them.

 

Nobody. The second set of boards was not for briefing, but instead intended to replace Brugioni's boards as an historical record of the film.  Those are the boards now at NARA.

 

McMahon said he left NPIC Sunday night before those boards were finished. Some of the frames he did are not on the extant boards and others are that he didn't do.  We don't know who else worked on the second set of boards.  Since they were not intended to brief anyone, we also don't know when the changes McMahon alluded to were made.

 

Lundahl had retuned a set of his boards to Brugioni after Johnson and McCone were briefed.  He told Brugioni to put them away and don't let anyone see them. Which Brugioni did.

 

In 1975 when Brugioni mentioned that he still had a copy of his boards in his safe, his then supervisor ordered him to get rid of them. Brugioni packed them up and sent them to the CIA director's office, never to be seen again. Those boards were the last vestige of the original Z film.

 

After alteration failed, Life went back to Zapruder and struck a new deal that was signed on Monday.  Life would pay Zapruder another million dollars so they could keep the original, now altered but still showing incriminating details, as well as the copy Zapruder still had of the original film. It was a simple matter to replace the other two copies held by the FBI and SS with copies made from the altered film.

 

The additional money was paid to Zapruder in four equal installments.  His silence, if that had ever been a problem. was bought.  He died a few years after the installments ended.

 

Which raises a central question for anyone denying that alteration was tried.  What changed Life's mind that weekend about returning the original film to Zapruder, and made it willing to give Zapruder another $1 million so it could keep the film, if it wasn't the failure to convincingly alter it at HW?

 

Life then buried the film from viewing by the general public for as long as it could get away with, which turned to be almost 12 years.  Until a bootleg version  was shown on national TV.  It's job done, Life gave the film it had back to Zapruder for $1, verifying its purpose in controlling the film in the first place.

 

Life's publishing of stills from the film in several issues also played a role by helping to convince the public it had seen everything necessary about what the film showed.  There was no need to push to see the film itself that Life was hiding.

 

Why is the question of alteration important?  Because understanding it sheds light on how a crucial part of the coverup worked.  And, need I say, who was involved.

 

 

 

I agree that a summary is useful.

Zapruder did appear on TV the afternoon of the 22nd and noted he had taken a film of the assassination, but at the time he had not had the film developed and could not have viewed the film. In fact, the newsman Jay Watson says that WFAA will help him get the film developed which it was later that afternoon.

[Roger Odisio]

1 hour ago, Kevin Balch said:

I agree that a summary is useful.

Zapruder did appear on TV the afternoon of the 22nd and noted he had taken a film of the assassination, but at the time he had not had the film developed and could not have viewed the film. In fact, the newsman Jay Watson says that WFAA will help him get the film developed which it was later that afternoon.

You're correct, Kevin.  Zapruder had not yet had the film developed before his TV interview.  I just rewatched the interview.  He was describing what he saw as he was filming.

I was going on Zapruder's statement that once he developed the film he watched it several times to make sure he had captured what had happened.  It's likely that was before he set up the bidding for the following morning.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Do we really need to go over all of this again?

Roger Odisio writes:

Quote

We can see that Jeremy's claim that Life always intended to bury the film, had no reason to try to alter it, is false.  The initial deal required Life to return the original film to Zapruder.

My claim was not that "Life always intended to bury the film". Life's original agreement with Zapruder clearly implied that, as of the Saturday morning, Life did not intend to bury (or alter) the film. The decision to bury the film can only have been taken later that weekend and must have been related to Life's change of plan: to obtain ownership of the physical film.

Quote

The CIA had a plane waiting in Chicago to fly the film to its NPIC lab where briefing boards could be done to reveal what the film showed.

This claim is a fundamental element of Roger's scenario. If the CIA didn't fly the original Zapruder film to Washington, the film cannot have been altered that weekend and Roger's scenario collapses.

Unfortunately, Roger has provided no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA, and no evidence that the CIA flew it from there to Washington.

Has Roger even looked for documentary evidence, such as airport records or accounts by the many Life employees who were in Chicago that weekend, to back up his claim? If so, what did he find? If he didn't bother to look for any evidence, why did he not bother?

In the absence of any documentary evidence to support it, this claim is a pure invention.

Problem numero uno with Roger's claim:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.

Quote

Jeremy says it was the Secret Service's copy because the courier who brought it said he was from the SS.

As I pointed out on the original thread, there's more to it than that. Several pieces of evidence, taken together, demonstrate that the film which was examined at the NPIC on the Saturday evening must have been one of the Secret Service's two copies:

• According to the existing documentary evidence, the only version of the film in Washington at the time was the copy which the Secret Service in Dallas had sent to the Secret Service in Washington overnight on the Friday.
• There is documentary evidence that every other version of the film was elsewhere: (a) the original film was with Life's printers in Chicago; (b) the Secret Service's other copy had been borrowed by the FBI in Dallas and was somewhere en route between Dallas and FBI HQ in Washington; and (c) the third copy was either (sources vary) with Zapruder in Dallas or with Life in Chicago, but was certainly not in Washington.
• According to witnesses at the NPIC, The film was brought to the NPIC by a Secret Service officer and taken away from the NPIC by a Secret Service officer.
• According to the head of the Secret Service in Dallas, the Secret Service in Washington: (a) wanted to examine the film; (b) did not possess the facilities to examine the film; and (c) would have asked to borrow the CIA's facilities: namely the NPIC in Washington.

The film which Brugioni and others examined at the NPIC can only realistically have been the Secret Service's first-day copy which had been flown from Dallas overnight on the Friday, arriving in Washington on the Saturday morning.

All of the evidence I've mentioned here was mentioned in the original thread, and there is no honest reason for Roger not to have mentioned all of it here.

We have now identified two problems with Roger's scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.

Quote

How do we know the film used for the briefing boards Saturday night was the original and not one of the copies? ... We know it primarily because using a copy for the boards would make no sense.

As Roger implicitly admits, there is no good evidence that the film used for the briefing boards was the original. Roger has provided no evidence:

• that anyone in Washington demanded that the original be used;
• that anyone in Washington even discussed obtaining the original;
• or that anyone in Washington gave any thought to which version they preferred.

That makes three problems:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.

Quote

If Brugioni had used a copy while Life kept the original, there would be no point in altering a mere copy or burying it.

Correct. The Secret Service copy which Brugioni examined was neither altered nor buried.

Quote

There was no reason for govt officials to settle for using a copy instead of the original.

Yes, there was: practical convenience. The only version of the film which Life had access to in Chicago was the original, so Life used the original. The only version of the film which the Secret Service had access to in Washington was a copy, so NPIC used that copy.

Roger's notion, that people in Washington would have insisted on using only the original film, is pure speculation. Roger has provided no documentary evidence to support this aspect of his claim. Again: has Roger even looked for documentary evidence to support his claim? If not, why not?

Quote

at about 3:00 AM Sunday, the film was scooped up and flown to the CIA's then secret lab, Hawkeye Works at the Kodak plant in Rochester.

More speculation. There is no evidence that any version of the Zapruder film was taken from NPIC to Hawkeye Works at 3 o'clock on the Sunday morning or at any other time.

The only evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works that weekend is a piece of hearsay from more than 30 years later. One person claimed to have heard someone say that he had come from Hawkeye Works. Hearsay from more than three decades later is nowhere near strong enough to support the claim Roger makes.

We have now identified four problems with Roger's scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.

Quote

The secret HW lab was in fact established for precisely the kind of job it would be asked perform on the Z film.

Apparently not. It seems that Hawkeye Works did not possess an optical printer. Without an optical printer, Hawkeye Works would not have been able to make a copy of a home movie such as the Zapruder film.

Almost all of the proposed alterations (the most obvious example: the removal of frames) require that the altered original film be copied, in order to create a plausible 'original' film. The alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works scenario proposes that a copy was made and was examined at NPIC that weekend. Perhaps Roger can explain to us how that copy might have been created, in the very limited time available, without using an optical printer.

We know that it didn't happen, because the film that's in the national archives is not a copy but the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera. See:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

The problem tally has now reached six:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.
5. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film.
6. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy.

Quote

What changed Life's mind that weekend about returning the original film to Zapruder, and made it willing to give Zapruder another $1 million so it could keep the film, if it wasn't the failure to convincingly alter it at HW?

Obviously, what changed Life's mind was the necessity to keep the film largely away from public view until the immediate fuss had died down. There's no need to invent any attempts at alteration, botched or otherwise.

Once Life or [insert name of preferred Bad Guys] understood that the Zapruder film contained evidence which contradicted the lone-nut interpretation, the easiest and most practical course of action was to hide the film. This is what actually happened.

We know that hiding the film worked, because it was only after the national TV broadcast in 1975 that pressure from the general public was able to force the authorities to confront some of the evidence which the Warren Commission had ignored.

There was no need to even try to alter the film. There was no need to do anything other than hide the film away until the fuss had died down, which is what actually happened.

We're now up to seven problems with Roger's speculation-filled and largely evidence-free scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.
5. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film.
6. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy.
7. There was no need to alter the Zapruder film; it only needed to be kept largely out of public view until the fuss had died down.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

There is also an eighth problem, one which other pro-alteration enthusiasts seem unable to overcome. Let's see if Roger can solve the problem.

Dino Brugioni claimed to have seen debris from JFK's head extending upwards, but not backwards, in the film he examined on the Saturday evening. Of course, this is what we see in the Zapruder film today. Brugioni's claim would appear to be further confirmation that the film hasn't been altered.

The problem for our pro-alteration friends is in two parts:

• Because any alterations can only have been made after Brugioni saw the film, the film he saw must have been authentic and unaltered. If Brugioni really did see debris extending upwards, that debris must have actually existed and cannot have been the result of alteration as some people have claimed.
• If Brugioni was mistaken in recalling debris which extended upwards, we're justified in doubting other parts of his 30-plus-year-old recollections, including anything which implies that the film he examined was the original.

Either way, the case for alteration doesn't look good.

Roger: do you think that Brugioni was correct in recalling debris which extended upwards from JFK's head, or do you think that he was mistaken?

[Sandy Larsen]

Jeremy Bojczuk seems to think that he has proven Roger's Hawkeye Works theory wrong because he has found speculation in it. But the truth is, ALL theories have speculation in them. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be theories... they would be facts.

Here is that way theories work: First, someone like Roger creates one. Then he promotes it, and it is supported by those who think it is viable.

If anybody thinks the theory is flawed, the onus is on them to prove it has a fatal flaw. The theory stands as long as no fatal flaws are revealed.

 

Given that it has been proven that the Z film has been altered, I believe that the Hawkeye Works theory is correct.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Roger: do you think that Brugioni was correct in recalling debris which extended upwards from JFK's head, or do you think that he was mistaken?

 

In my opinion, the original film showed exit debris shooting upward to a height of three or four feet, and backward. In other words, at an angle.

Brugioni was so astonished by the height and volume of the spray that the part about it shooting back at an angle didn't make a lasting impression on him.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

11 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Given that it has been proven that the Z film has been altered, I believe that the Hawkeye Works theory is correct.

No such thing has been proven at all, ever, in any form - especially on this forum.

[Sandy Larsen]

3 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

15 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Given that it has been proven that the Z film has been altered, I believe that the Hawkeye Works theory is correct.

No such thing has been proven at all, ever, in any form - especially on this forum.

 

1. Photo densitometery has proven that the back part of Kennedy's head at 313 and several frames afterward are artificially too dark to be natural.
2. A massive blowout wound occurs during these same frames, centered on Kennedy's right temple. Yet the autopsy photos show his right temple to be intact, as does the autopsy report.
3. Not a single witness saw the massive right-temple wound.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

14 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

1. Photo densitometery has proven that the back part of Kennedy's head at 313 and several frames afterward are artificially too dark to be natural.
2. A massive blowout wound occurs during these same frames, centered on Kennedy's right temple. Yet the autopsy photos show his right temple to be intact, as does the autopsy report.
3. Not a single witness saw the massive right-temple wound.

Every single one of those statements is false.

[Kevin Balch]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

In my opinion, the original film showed exit debris shooting upward to a height of three or four feet, and backward. In other words, at an angle.

Brugioni was so astonished by the height and volume of the spray that the part about it shooting back at an angle didn't make a lasting impression on him.

 

What do you base your opinion on since you could not possibly have seen the original film since you claim it was altered?

[Roger Odisio]

On 8/19/2024 at 4:54 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Do we really need to go over all of this again?

Roger Odisio writes:

My claim was not that "Life always intended to bury the film". Life's original agreement with Zapruder clearly implied that, as of the Saturday morning, Life did not intend to bury (or alter) the film. The decision to bury the film can only have been taken later that weekend and must have been related to Life's change of plan: to obtain ownership of the physical film.

This claim is a fundamental element of Roger's scenario. If the CIA didn't fly the original Zapruder film to Washington, the film cannot have been altered that weekend and Roger's scenario collapses.

Unfortunately, Roger has provided no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA, and no evidence that the CIA flew it from there to Washington.

Has Roger even looked for documentary evidence, such as airport records or accounts by the many Life employees who were in Chicago that weekend, to back up his claim? If so, what did he find? If he didn't bother to look for any evidence, why did he not bother?

In the absence of any documentary evidence to support it, this claim is a pure invention.

Problem numero uno with Roger's claim:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.

As I pointed out on the original thread, there's more to it than that. Several pieces of evidence, taken together, demonstrate that the film which was examined at the NPIC on the Saturday evening must have been one of the Secret Service's two copies:

• According to the existing documentary evidence, the only version of the film in Washington at the time was the copy which the Secret Service in Dallas had sent to the Secret Service in Washington overnight on the Friday.
• There is documentary evidence that every other version of the film was elsewhere: (a) the original film was with Life's printers in Chicago; (b) the Secret Service's other copy had been borrowed by the FBI in Dallas and was somewhere en route between Dallas and FBI HQ in Washington; and (c) the third copy was either (sources vary) with Zapruder in Dallas or with Life in Chicago, but was certainly not in Washington.
• According to witnesses at the NPIC, The film was brought to the NPIC by a Secret Service officer and taken away from the NPIC by a Secret Service officer.
• According to the head of the Secret Service in Dallas, the Secret Service in Washington: (a) wanted to examine the film; (b) did not possess the facilities to examine the film; and (c) would have asked to borrow the CIA's facilities: namely the NPIC in Washington.

The film which Brugioni and others examined at the NPIC can only realistically have been the Secret Service's first-day copy which had been flown from Dallas overnight on the Friday, arriving in Washington on the Saturday morning.

All of the evidence I've mentioned here was mentioned in the original thread, and there is no honest reason for Roger not to have mentioned all of it here.

We have now identified two problems with Roger's scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.

As Roger implicitly admits, there is no good evidence that the film used for the briefing boards was the original. Roger has provided no evidence:

• that anyone in Washington demanded that the original be used;
• that anyone in Washington even discussed obtaining the original;
• or that anyone in Washington gave any thought to which version they preferred.

That makes three problems:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.

Correct. The Secret Service copy which Brugioni examined was neither altered nor buried.

Yes, there was: practical convenience. The only version of the film which Life had access to in Chicago was the original, so Life used the original. The only version of the film which the Secret Service had access to in Washington was a copy, so NPIC used that copy.

Roger's notion, that people in Washington would have insisted on using only the original film, is pure speculation. Roger has provided no documentary evidence to support this aspect of his claim. Again: has Roger even looked for documentary evidence to support his claim? If not, why not?

More speculation. There is no evidence that any version of the Zapruder film was taken from NPIC to Hawkeye Works at 3 o'clock on the Sunday morning or at any other time.

The only evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works that weekend is a piece of hearsay from more than 30 years later. One person claimed to have heard someone say that he had come from Hawkeye Works. Hearsay from more than three decades later is nowhere near strong enough to support the claim Roger makes.

We have now identified four problems with Roger's scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.

Apparently not. It seems that Hawkeye Works did not possess an optical printer. Without an optical printer, Hawkeye Works would not have been able to make a copy of a home movie such as the Zapruder film.

Almost all of the proposed alterations (the most obvious example: the removal of frames) require that the altered original film be copied, in order to create a plausible 'original' film. The alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works scenario proposes that a copy was made and was examined at NPIC that weekend. Perhaps Roger can explain to us how that copy might have been created, in the very limited time available, without using an optical printer.

We know that it didn't happen, because the film that's in the national archives is not a copy but the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera. See:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

The problem tally has now reached six:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.
5. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film.
6. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy.

Obviously, what changed Life's mind was the necessity to keep the film largely away from public view until the immediate fuss had died down. There's no need to invent any attempts at alteration, botched or otherwise.

Once Life or [insert name of preferred Bad Guys] understood that the Zapruder film contained evidence which contradicted the lone-nut interpretation, the easiest and most practical course of action was to hide the film. This is what actually happened.

We know that hiding the film worked, because it was only after the national TV broadcast in 1975 that pressure from the general public was able to force the authorities to confront some of the evidence which the Warren Commission had ignored.

There was no need to even try to alter the film. There was no need to do anything other than hide the film away until the fuss had died down, which is what actually happened.

We're now up to seven problems with Roger's speculation-filled and largely evidence-free scenario:

1. There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA.
2. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC.
4. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination.
5. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film.
6. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy.
7. There was no need to alter the Zapruder film; it only needed to be kept largely out of public view until the fuss had died down.

This is another note by Jeremy full of, to borrow Paul Rigby's apt phrase, "surpassingly cynical disengenuousness"  Over and over again, Jeremy asserts that no documentary evidence has been provided by the CIA about what they did with the film that weekend. Evidence he has to know would not exist. Therefore, he asserts,  we should conclude as a fact that they weren't involved in what happened with the Z film!   No doubt hoping the reader will be ignorant of that agency's 60 year record of lying and covering up what it did.

 

Jeremy can't deny that it was McCone, the CIA director, who ordered briefing boards to be made of the Z film at the CIA's NPIC lab that Saturday for the purpose of showing him and the new president what the film had captured.  By early Sunday morning both Johnson and McCone knew that the film contradicted the Oswald story they were already going with.

 

Jeremy's first line of defense is that a copy of the Z film, not the original, was used for the first briefing boards.  It would make no sense to alter a copy wile the original was somewhere else.

The decision to bury the film can only have been taken later that weekend and must have been related to Life's change of plan: to obtain ownership of the physical film.

 

That's true, but it turns out that was a main reason a copy was *not* used. Johnson and McCone understood that working with a copy was useless to them!  If the film contradicted the Oswald story, as it clearly did (even Jeremy accepts that), they would need to do something with the original to conceal that fact.     

 

Yet Jeremy falsely claims that all evidence indicates a copy was used.  This is classic Jeremy:

 

"As Roger implicitly admits, there is no good evidence that the film used for the briefing boards was the original. Roger has provided no evidence:

 

• that anyone in Washington demanded that the original be used;
• that anyone in Washington even discussed obtaining the original;
• or that anyone in Washington gave any thought to which version they preferred."

In fact all the evidence we have (not confined to CIA documents that never existed) points to the fact Johnson and McCone, besides knowing that using a copy for the boards would be useless, would have wanted the much sharper film original to be used.   CD Jackson would have understood that. J & My were in charge of investigating the murder (and covering it up).  Life merely wanted to publish some selected stills in their magazine. 

 

Govt officials obviously had priority over Life for the use of the original film.  The claim that no official in DC sought, discussed obtaining, or even gave any thought to securing the original film for their boards can't be proven by the lack of a document from the CIA saying otherwise.  It's utter nonsense, a baseless assertion. 

 

It should be clear by now, Sandy, it's useless to implore Jeremy to rebut the points I made.  Every time he comes out from behind the where-is-the-CIA-memo mantra and tries to do that he falls flat on his face.

 

I asked Jeremy:

  

What changed Life's mind that weekend about returning the original film to Zapruder, and made it willing to give Zapruder another $1 million so it could keep the film, if it wasn't the failure to convincingly alter it at HW?

 

This is the heart of the matter.  Jeremy's non answer:  "Obviously, what changed Life's mind was the necessity to keep the film largely away from public view until the immediate fuss had died down. There's no need to invent any attempts at alteration, botched or otherwise." Later in his note he adds this jibberish:  "The decision to bury the film can only have been taken later that weekend and must have been related to Life's change of plan: to obtain ownership of the physical film.

 

Jeremy doesn't answer the question. *What* was it that changed Life's mind after it had first agreed to return the original film to Zapruder?

 

Why didn't they make the deal for full rights in the first place?  Why were they initially willing to return the film?  What did they subsequently learn that changed their mind about returning the film to Zapruder?  What convinced them to buy the full rights to the film and bury it for as long as they could get away with?

 

Burying the film was always an option. What convinced them to do that after first agreeing to return the film, if it wasn't the failure of their attempt on Sunday to alter the film to conceal the damaging information?  The answer is clear isn't it?

 

Jeremy avoids these questions.  He *proves* they did not try alteration by simply asserting they had no reason to when they could just hide it! 

 

A nonsensical assertion.  This was at a time (Sunday) when the media, govt officials, and some of the public knew of the film's existence and what crucial information it contained.  Life was coming out within a few days with stills from the film.  Zapruder still had a copy of the original film.  Yet according to Jeremy alteration was never even considered.

 

The idea that they would decide at that time on Sunday that they could get away with the murder by simply burying the film from public view without first trying to conceal the incriminating parts, is absurd.

 

(Jeremy's assertion that they decided to just hide the film came after he first asserted they would have simply destroyed it.  He shifted to his hiding claim once destroying the film was shown to be impractical nonsense under the circumstances.  Particularly under the first deal when Life had to return the film to Zapruder, but even after that.)

 

What then happened at Hawkeye Works after the boards showed Johnson and McCone the actual facts of the murder?  The film never was sent there, Jeremy says.  We know this because,--all together now--the CIA has produced "no evidence that any version of the Zapruder film was taken from NPIC to Hawkeye Works at 3 o'clock on the Sunday morning or at any other time" 

 

3:00, btw, is a reference to Brugioni's statement that that was when the film was sent out from NPIC early Sunday morning, before his boards were even finished. They had a lot of work to do on it and time was short.

 

A bit of a slipup there, for then Jeremy asserts:  "The only evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works that weekend is a piece of hearsay from more than 30 years later. One person claimed to have heard someone say that he had come from Hawkeye Works. Hearsay from more than three decades later is nowhere near strong enough to support the claim Roger makes"

 

Actually there was no hearsay. It was "Bill Smith" the courier who brought the film to NPIC Sunday for the second set of boards to be done who told Homer McMahon he was coming from the plant in Rochester.

 

What about those second set of boards? If the film brought by "Smith" was unaltered, the same film that Brugioni made boards from, why was a second set done by the McMahon group?

 

Who was the second set meant to brief, since Johnson and McCone (who had asked for the first set on Saturday) had already been briefed using Brugioni's boards?.   

 

Jeremy has ducked these questions.  My answer: no one was to be briefed.  The second set of boards from the altered film was intended to replace Brugioni's boards in the historical record.  Which they did finally in 1975 when Brugioni's boards, the last vestige of the original film, were destroyed.  The second set, (done in part by McMahon's crew and unidentified others as I explained), which Brugioni has documented are different from his boards, now reside at NARA.   

 

I've had my say.  Readers can judge it for themselves. With attention to the following context.

 

Because of the glaring discrepancy between the official story and what happened in Dealey Plaza, the coverup took on a crucial importance, if the planners were to get away with the murder.  The coverup had 4 essential elements.

 

1.  Snatch the body from Dr. Rose at Parkland so the autopsy could be controlled at Bethesda

 

2.  Murder Oswald before he could tell his alibi to a lawyer.

 

3.  Establish the Warren Commission to frame Oswald once a trial had been eliminated.

 

4.Try to alter the Z film, and failing that, bury it for as long as possible, while Life publishes selected stills from the film to convince the public they had seen everything the film contained. 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/19/2024 at 1:30 PM, Kevin Balch said:

On 8/19/2024 at 6:31 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

In my opinion, the original film showed exit debris shooting upward to a height of three or four feet, and backward. In other words, at an angle.

What do you base your opinion on since you could not possibly have seen the original film since you claim it was altered?

 

I base the three or four feet height on Brugioni's statements, and the verticalness on those witnesses who got splattered.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy Larsen writes:

Quote

Jeremy Bojczuk seems to think that he has proven Roger's Hawkeye Works theory wrong because he has found speculation in it.

No, that isn't what I think. I have shown that Roger's suggestion (in the scientific sense, it's certainly not a theory, and its lack of supporting evidence makes it dubious even as a hypothesis) is worthless because it is full of speculation.

Every significant claim within Roger's scenario is unsupported by sufficient evidence, and some of his claims are actively contradicted by the evidence that exists. Roger makes six such claims, all of which fail:

1. Someone at Life in Chicago handed the Zapruder film to someone from the CIA. There is no evidence at all that this happened.
2. The CIA flew the film from Chicago to Washington. There is no evidence at all that this happened.
3. The film examined by Brugioni at NPIC was the original. The only evidence for this is a 30-plus-year-old recollection. The claim is contradicted by documentary and witness evidence which shows that the film at NPIC was one of the Secret Service's copies.
4. The film was taken by the CIA from NPIC to Hawkeye Works. There is no evidence at all that this happened.
5. Hawkeye Works was equipped to alter the Zapruder film and create a faked, copied 'original'. This claim is contradicted by the evidence that Hawkeye Works did not possess an optical printer, and by evidence that the film that exists today is not a copy.
6. The only conceivable reason Life bought the physical film from Zapruder was to conceal the botched attempt at alteration. This claim is contradicted by the observations that (a) what needed to be concealed was the evidence which undermined the lone-nut interpretation, and (b) this evidence existed within the unaltered film. There was no need to alter it!

That's six claims, every one of which has failed.

I think Roger should start again, this time by looking for some actual evidence to support his speculations, and get back to us when he has constructed a scenario that isn't made up almost entirely of guesswork and wishful thinking.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy continues:

Quote

Given that it has been proven that the Z film has been altered ...

Oh dear! If Sandy really believes that alteration "has been proven", he should assemble the relevant evidence, write up a cogent argument, submit it all to a reputable, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, and let us know what happens.

That's a serious suggestion, by the way. If Sandy can convince a substantial body of people with the relevant expertise that, for example, "Photo densitometery has proven that the back part of Kennedy's head at 313 and several frames afterward are artificially too dark to be natural", the claim will be worth taking seriously.

Until then, however, claims by random amateurs that the Zapruder film was altered in a top-secret CIA lab are no different from claims by other random amateurs that the moon-landings photos were taken on a film set in Arizona.