Why did the conspirators offer the Z-film?

[David G. Healy]

" crummie little Commie's place of employment"

Mole #1

PM

You give'em way too much power Peter. We want this dude Brandon -or- dudette Brandy to hang around for a while, we need a clear picture of, BRASS in the nose - LEAD me around by it, 2006-Lone Neuter thinking. He/She is at the head of the class...

David, I want to assure you that the finest cryptologists at the CIA are working overtime to decipher what exactly it is you are trying to say. In fact, I send 99% of your posts directly to Langley, as they are all equally banal and confusing.

Now that's gratitude for you, is that anyway to act toward those that are looking out for your best interests? We want you here....

Let's hope those spooky guys and gals, have better things to do... confusing, crypto? Doesn't the latter firm up the former? You inside the beltway wuzzes can be so silly.

[Paul Rigby]

"flooding of the area with assets"

This was a key component of the plan. Control the area and create confusion. Prouty called the so called tramps "actors". In any event, you can clearly see Landsdale in this picture walking away from his men.

There were a lot of people in Dallas that day. It is a long list.

The Zapruder film? It is clearly altered but still shows the frontal shot.

PM

Peter,

Somewhere in one of Vance Packard's books of the the late 1950s/early 1960s, he quotes the motto of the tally men: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse them."

To put it another way, you first establish the contradictions, then multiply them. And why not - who was/is to stop them? Intelligence bureaucracies do things because they can, and do so with impunity.

But to introduce a note of caution: Saying there was a shot from the front is no great threat to the conspirators. On the contrary, unqualified, and minus precision, it serves their purposes admirably. After all, the grassy knoll is their built-in fall-back. They led us to it. And they're more than happy for us to remain there, ad infinitum.

[David G. Healy]

"flooding of the area with assets"

This was a key component of the plan. Control the area and create confusion. Prouty called the so called tramps "actors". In any event, you can clearly see Landsdale in this picture walking away from his men.

There were a lot of people in Dallas that day. It is a long list.

The Zapruder film? It is clearly altered but still shows the frontal shot.

PM

Peter,

Somewhere in one of Vance Packard's books of the the late 1950s/early 1960s, he quotes the motto of the tally men: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse them."

To put it another way, you first establish the contradictions, then multiply them. And why not - who was/is to stop them? Intelligence bureaucracies do things because they can, and do so with impunity.

But to introduce a note of caution: Saying there was a shot from the front is no great threat to the conspirators. On the contrary, unqualified, and minus precision, it serves their purposes admirably. After all, the grassy knoll is their built-in fall-back. They led us to it. And they're more than happy for us to remain there, ad infinitum.

again, right on point...

[Paul Rigby]

Jack White wrote: "Misdirection is vital to successful magic acts."

That immediately reminded me of one of my favorite quotes in this case, from the fascinating but flawed Farewell America:

President Kennedy's assassination was the work of magicians. It was a stage trick, complete with accessories and false mirrors, and when the curtain fell the actors, and even the scenery, disappeared.

In his book Post Mortem, Harold Weisberg said this about Farewell America:

Indeed, there is reasonable ground for suspecting that some of the most disreputable works were designed to kill interest. One is an extravagant work of unprecedented libel, meticulous in its pseudoscholarship, expertly written and edited, put together in an operation so vast and costly that I have traced those engaged in it to eight different countries. There is no doubt that those connected with intelligence operations of the United States and France at the very least were behind Farewell America and a movie of the same title, the aborting of which I was able to help in a small way. It was the book to end the credibility of all books on assassinations.

Incredibly, its excesses fascinate the intelligent but unthinking marginal paranoids among those genuinely concerned about these assassinations, even though the book itself cannot survive consideration of its content.

Perhaps true enough, but Farewell America was one of the first books to eschew the microanalyzation that Salandria talked about. It focused on larger issues like oil, race, motive, opportunity, and identity of the alleged plotters. Whatever its weaknesses, Farewell America said some very interesting things.

The plotters were correct when they guessed that their crime would be concealed by shadows and silences, that it would be blamed on a 'madman' and negligence. (James Hepburn)

Michael,

In so far as I understand Weisberg's verdict - correct me if wrong, but from the extract quoted he appears to argue that Farewell America was a co-production of the Agency and its French assets - I endorse it. (I take that view even if Weisberg goes on to argue something very different...) I also believe, and have posted on JFK Lancer to this effect, that Weisberg possessed an acute intelligence. The question is, in whose service was it deployed?

One example of what I'm getting at.

When Zapruder came before the Presidential Commission of enquiry, he told us some very remarkable things. He was, for example, conscious of the possible impediments - street signs etc. - on Elm Street to a clear line of filming sight, and positioned himself accordingly. He told us that he filmed the motorcade uninterruptedly. He told us that Kennedy was first struck when "abreast" - parallel - to him.

In short, he told us - or rather, told anyone with an IQ higher than their age and the ability to read - that he was familiar with a version of the film attributed to him, but not the one proffered by his interlocutors.

Now how did Weisberg, this highly intelligent man with war-time experience in the OSS, deal with this testimony? Did he deal with it competently and honestly? Not a bit of it.

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars by pretending that Zapruder hadn't had an uninterrupted view of the killing; and that the first bullet to hit Kennedy had done so much further back down Elm toward Houston. The film version served up by the WC was true, he sought to convince us, not the testimony of the very man alleged to have taken it.

[Michael Hogan]

Hello Paul,

I'm going to post what Weisburg wrote in Selections From Whitewash (Page 67):

The middle of the three large road signs on the north side of Elm Street was between Zapruder and the President for about twenty frames, from about 205 to 225. Because of the downward grade to the underpass, at the beginning of the sequence, only part of the President's head is still visible over the top of this sign. The Commission's entire case is predicated upon the assumption that the first shot could not have been fired prior to Frame 210, for that is the portion of the film in which, even on a still day, the President first became a clear shot from the sixth-floor window.

When Zapruder explained how he took his pictures, he said: "I was shooting through a telephoto lens....and as it [the presidential car] reached about--I imagine it was around here--I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself..." (7H571). Lawyers know very well that such words as "here" in testimony relating to a location reflect nothing on the printed page. When they want the testimony to be clear, they ask the witness to identify the spot meant by "here." Zapruder was not asked to explain. The startling meaning of Zapruder's testimony comes through anyway: He saw the first shot hit the President! He described the President's reaction to it. Had the President been obscured by the sign, Zapruder could have seen none of this. Therefore, the President was hit prior to Frame 210, prior to Frame 205, the last one that shows the top of his head, and the exact point can probably be reconstructed from the Zapruder footage the Commission saw fit to ignore entirely.

Paul, I read Zapruder's testimony again. Is this the part of his testimony you meant when you used the word "abreast?"

Well, as the car came in line almost--I believe it was almost in line--I was standing up here and I was shooting through a telephoto lens which is a zoom lens and as it reached about--I imagine it was around here--I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself like this (holding his left chest area).

Zapruder was sure that he saw President Kennedy grab his chest and lean over toward his wife. He repeated his assertion even when viewing the stills that appeared to show JFK reaching for his neck.

And on page 573:

Liebler: Do you remember when you looked at your pictures yourself, do you remember that there was a sign that does appear between the camera and the motorcade itself and you can see the motorcade for a while and then the sign comes in the view?

Mr. Zapruder: That's right.

And later:

Zapruder: ....I remember the car was kind of buried and I was kind of low and I don't know how I got that view--I just didn't get the full view of the shot.

Paul, in light of the statement you made about IQs and reading abilities, I'm hesitant to admit I'm confused, but I am. Could you point to the part of Zapruder's testimony that indicated he filmed the motorcade uninterruptedly? I have always found Zapruder's testimony to be strange in a lot of places. I've just never known quite what to make of it. If the Commission could have found a way to do without Zapruder's testimony, they would have. They put off interviewing him until almost the very end of the hearings.

Mike Hogan

Edited August 13, 2006 by Michael Hogan

[Peter McGuire]

Why did the conspirators offer the Z-film?

An important subject, rarely addressed head on. Below, a preliminary sketch of an answer. I leave aside two other obvious motives, as trophy and training aid:

Kennedy had to be killed in a public space to allay suspicion of an inside job.

Yet it had to be an inside job to ensure its success.

How to reconcile these conflicting imperatives?

A false film, buttressed by a series of measures designed to render the location a pseudo- or controlled public space:

1) Location of crime scene at the end of the motorcade route, thus limiting potential number of independent witnesses;

2) Largely portable scene-of-crime, leaving little to examine, provoke reflection or, not unimportantly, clear-up;

3) Further limiting independent witness presence in the chosen public space by misdirection as to the precise motorcade route;

4) Minimisation of independent witness presence at key vantage points through guards at aforesaid key points;

5) Flooding of public space by intelligence assets, using pre-established business proprietaries as thoroughly plausible pretext for presence;

6) Misdirection of independent eyewitnesses (and subsequent enquirers) by use of both planted and/or manufactured witnesses; and rehearsed misdirection actions by motorcade figures designed to support the built-in fall back position (the grassy knoll);

7) Deliberate investigative failure to account for, and adduce the testimony of, all those present: inconvenient witnesses were marginalised, ignored, and/or replaced by more helpful material. The fake film showed only those witnesses the conspirators wanted us to see.

< The primary purpose of the film was to hide the true role of Kennedy’s own bodyguard. >

The second, to inject the required quota of ambiguity and paranoia into the case: the Z-film, in the version we are familiar with, is quintessentially the product of the counter-intelligence mind.

The public understanding of the case would thus be shaped not by testimony, but by the false visual depiction.

Of course, things didn’t go quite according to plan. But the essential task did.

Question from Peter McGuire regarding "The primary purpose of the film.... silly question but which agent was assigned to Kennedy?

Edited August 13, 2006 by Peter McGuire

[Paul Rigby]

Paul, in light of the statement you made about IQs and reading abilities, I'm hesitant to admit I'm confused, but I am. Could you point to the part of Zapruder's testimony that indicated he filmed the motorcade uninterruptedly?

Michael,

Inference and supporting contemporaneous evidence:

When did Zapruder start filming?

“ I started shooting--when the motorcade started coming in, I believe I started and wanted to get it coming in from Houston Street” (7WCH571)

I interpret this as meaning there was no break in filming. After all, there's nothing in Z's testimony to suggest there was. Am I wrong? Humour me for a bit.

Assuming there was no break in filming, where is this footage of the turn from Houston? And how does Weisberg, that fearless apostle of truth, the restless intelligence ever eager to clarify and pin-point, deal with this question? There wasn't one, according to Wesiberg. Zapruder began filming, he writes, “before the first shot was fired” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, p.213). Now that what’s I call incisive.

Of course, we don’t have to rely on my interpretation of Zapruder’s word alone, though you wouldn’t know it from Weisberg, who’s as anxious to suppress the confirmatory detail to follow as any Warren Commission shyster. (A challenge: name one newspaper article on the Zapruder film from the period November –December 1963 instanced by Weisberg. Some of us seek a free flow of information, while Weisy...?)

According to the legendary Mr. Dunkel, photographic curator at the Sixth Form Museum in Dallas, “reporters apparently viewed the film Saturday morning.” And so they did. Here’s Arthur J. Snider in a syndicated piece for the Chicago Daily News, describing the film as he, or his source, witnessed it: “As the fateful car rounded the turn and moved into the curving parkway, the President rolled his head to the right…” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 27 November 1963. It tells you all you need to know about Mr. Dunkel that he solemnly argued Snyder’s piece demonstrated the inviolability of the Z-film!

And then, of course, we have Mr. Rather famously describing the film to Mr. Cronkite: "The films we saw were taken by an amateur photographer...The films show President Kennedy's open, black limousine, making a left turn, off Houston Street on to Elm Street..." (CBS Evening News, 25 November 1963, from Trask, Pictures of the Pain, p.89)

To turn to the early newspaper descriptions is to be struck by the complete absence of any mention of a hiatus in filming. Perhaps all of this very disparate group of official briefers and reporters, some of whom presumably saw the film, either missed this break, or felt it unworthy of mention. Of course, one might simply flip question round, and say - where is the written or spoken confirmation that he did turn the camera off?

Here’s a list of early print descriptions, with their versions of the sequence’s duration. No wonder Weisberg sought to withhold this sort of basic info from his readers. After all, he was selling it as genuine:

1. 24 November 1963: 15 seconds

Richard J. H. Johnson, “Movie Amateur Filmed Attack; Sequence Is Sold to Magazine,” NYT, 24 November 1963, p.5;

2. 26 November 1963: 15 seconds

Associated Press, "Movie film depicts shooting of Kennedy," Milwaukee Journal, 26 November 1963, part 1, p.3;

3. 26 November 1963: 35 seconds

UPI (Dallas), “Movie Film Shows Murder of President,” Philadelphia Daily News, Tuesday, 26 November 1963, p.3 (4 star edition): “It is seven feet long, 35 seconds in colour, a bit jumpy but clear.”

4. 27 November 1963: 15 seconds

John Herbers, "Kennedy Struck By Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says: Physician Reports One Shot Remained In President's Body After Hitting Him at Level of His Necktie Knot," NYT, 27 November 1963, p. 20;

5. 30 November 1963: 25 seconds

Rick Friedman, “Pictures of Assassination Fall to Amateurs on Street,” Editor and Publisher, 30 November 1963, p.16.

6. 30 November-4 December 1963: 20 seconds

"The U.S.," Time (International Edition), 6 December 1963, p.29

7. 28 September-2 October 1964: 8 seconds

Life, 2 October 1964

More to follow.

Paul

[Paul Rigby]

Paul, I read Zapruder's testimony again. Is this the part of his testimony you meant when you used the word "abreast?"

Mike Hogan

Mike,

You’re right and I was wrong: I was thinking of the following when I used the word “abreast”:

1. AP, "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3:

Dallas, Tex.-AP - A strip of color movie film graphically depicting the assassination of President Kennedy was made by a Dallas clothing manufacturer with an 8 millimeter camera.

Several persons in Dallas who have seen the film, which lasts about 15 seconds, say it clearly shows how the president was hit in the head with shattering force by the second of two bullets fired by the assassin…

This is what the film by Abe Zapruder is reported to show:

First the presidential limousine is coming toward the camera. As it comes abreast of the photographer, Mr. Kennedy is hit by the first bullet, apparently in the neck...”

2. John Herbers, “Kennedy Struck by Two Bullets, Doctor Who Attended Him Says,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p.20:

A strip of color movie film taken by a Dallas clothing manufacturer with an 8-mm camera tends to support this sequence of events.

The film covers about a 15-second period. As the President’s car come abreast of the photographer, the President was struck in the front of the neck. The President turned toward Mrs. Kennedy as she began to put her hands around his head…”

I have to observe that “almost in line” with is a pretty good match – a synonym, dare one say it – for “abreast” (“parallel to, or alongside of something stationary,” Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1987 edition, p.7).

Zapruder’s consciousness of the potential impediments on Elm Street to a clear filming line of sight is unambiguous: “I tried another place and that had some obstruction of signs or whatever it was there and finally I found a place farther down near the underpass” (7WCH570). A place which presumably suffered no such impediments, else why move and stay there?

Now, who introduced the street sign into Zapruder’s testimony/line of sight? It wasn’t there initially, as is clear from your extract from Z’s testimony (7WCH571). So who introduced it subsequently? Ah, yes, the scrupulous Mr. Liebeler:

Mr. Liebeler.

Now, I've got a list of them here that I want to ask you about--picture 207 and turn on over to this picture. It appears that a sign starts to come in the picture--there was a sign in the picture.

Mr. Zapruder.

Yes; there were signs there also and trees and-somehow--I told them I was going to get the whole view and I must have.

Mr. Liebeler.

But the sign was in the way?

Mr. Zapruder.

Yes; but I must have neglected one part--I know what has happened--I think this was after that happened- -something had happened (7WCH573)

This is priceless – Zapruder “remembers” a street sign impeding his view only after some less than subtle prompting from Liebeler? And then goes on to say: “I told them I was going to get the whole view and I must have”? Told who exactly? Wasn’t his possession of a camera on Elm a last-minute, spontaneous thing? And how to reconcile his expressed belief that he had obtained the “whole view” with his prior acceptance that it was in fact impeded?

I note that this sequence of contradictory nonsense follows the same pattern as an earlier one, in which Zapruder initially offers a definite location for the shots – behind him, to his right – then reverses himself under pressure from Liebeler (7WCH572).

And again, we find that early contemporaneous media descriptions of the film contain not a single reference to a street sign blocking the view, however fleetingly, between camera and President.

Which brings me back to the goose-farmer.

Weisberg ignores the context in which Liebeler introduced the street sign intrusion, and uses it to push the impact of the first bullet back down Elm Street to Houston, to before the street sign. I love the “therefore” in the Weisberg extract you quote. A sure sign a grotesque non-sequitur is to follow!

“The startling meaning of Zapruder's testimony comes through anyway: He saw the first shot hit the President! He described the President's reaction to it. Had the President been obscured by the sign, Zapruder could have seen none of this. Therefore, the President was hit prior to Frame 210, prior to Frame 205, the last one that shows the top of his head, and the exact point can probably be reconstructed from the Zapruder footage the Commission saw fit to ignore entirely” (Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report, NY: Dell, December 1967 edition, p.104).

So, in summary, let me see if I have this straight:

Zapruder goes before the Warren Commission’s Liebeler and says the first bullet hit Kennedy when the presidential limo was “almost in line” with him. Liebeler introduces a street sign impediment to Zapruder’s line of camera sight that Z had not recalled unprompted, and no contemporaneous reports had registered. Weisberg then proceeds, post hoc propter hoc, to argue that “almost in line” really means back down Elm toward Houston before the street sign!

The really startling meaning of Weisberg’s passage is much more interesting: He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written: “It would have been better had Life been able to buy all the films exposed at Dealey Plaza that day…” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, pp.217/8).

My IQ test is on Tuesday – care to stand in for me? It appears I could use the help!

Paul

[Ashton Gray]

...might I amend the above with another mention of smoke (literally) from the knoll/fence area (including an officer later testifying that he'd burned his hand on something he erroneously had believed to be a steam pipe, but nobody ever determined what it was)...

Allen Dulles' briar?

Dunhill, undoubtably.

Ashton

[Peter McGuire]

"The primary purpose of the film was to hide the role of Kennedy's bodyguard"

Paul, who was assigned to Kennedy?

Thanks,

Peter

[Paul Rigby]

"The primary purpose of the film was to hide the role of Kennedy's bodyguard"

Paul, who was assigned to Kennedy?

Thanks,

Peter

Peter,

Damned if I can work it out. Thomas Shipman?

Paul

[Michael Hogan]

Paul,

Thanks for responding. When you wrote:

When Zapruder came before the Presidential Commission of enquiry, he told us some very remarkable things. He was, for example, conscious of the possible impediments - street signs etc. - on Elm Street to a clear line of filming sight, and positioned himself accordingly. He told us that he filmed the motorcade

uninterruptedly

. He told us that Kennedy was first struck when "abreast" - parallel - to him.

I took it that your use of the word uninterruptedly referred to the street sign. I had no idea you meant the beginning of the film sequence. I think I inferred what I did because you used the term uninterrupted again in your last paragraph:

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars by pretending that Zapruder hadn't had an

uninterrupted

view of the killing; and that the first bullet to hit Kennedy had done so much further back down Elm toward Houston. (Emphases mine, of course)

Paul, do I have it right now? The first uninterruptedly refers to the break in filming the motorcade and the second uninterrupted refers to the street sign?

Please bear with me, I have some more questions. Are you maintaining that the Stemmons sign did not interfere with Zapruder's filming? Are you maintaining that the first shot did not happen until President Kennedy emerged from behind the sign? Are you saying Zapruder did not stop filming when he realized that the lead motorcycles were not the sequence he was intending to shoot?

You quote Weisberg:

Zapruder began filming, he (Weisberg) writes, “before the first shot was fired” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, p.213). Now that what’s I call incisive.

Here's another quote from Weisberg (Selections from Whitewash, Carroll & Graf Publishers/Richard Gallen New York 1994, p. 67)

"He (Zapruder) started taking pictures with his 8-mm movie camera as the advance escort turned from Houston into Elm and suspended photographing until the presidential car came into view.

Paul, your point is taken that in his WC testimony, Zapruder didn't mention the suspension of filming the motorcade, but both Trask and Wrone describe the motorcycles and lead cars were quite a bit in front of the President's Lincoln, and that when Zapruder realized this, he stopped filming after 7 seconds. Like Weisberg, I guess they just assumed this.

I do believe that by the time Zapruder testified to the WC (Eight months after the event!) he realized that he was in an odd position. The conclusions of the WC had already been leaked. I believe Zapruder knew the fatal shot did not come from the Depository, but what was he supposed to do or say? He tried. He also knew that it was impossible for Connally and Kennedy to have been hit by the bullet that first struck JFK. He seemed to say so, but Liebler was having none of it and immediately moved on. In short, Zapruder was aware that his country's government was deliberately espousing a version of events that he knew could not be true, but he also realized that there was little he could do about it. During his testimony Zapruder broke down crying...Not only in reaction to the horror of that day, but as a result of the unimaginable stress he was under, in my opinion.

When Zapruder realized Liebler was beginning to wrap things up he stated, "....they claim it has been proven it could be done by one man. You know there was an indication there were two?"

Liebler's non-response remains one of the classic examples of criminal conduct by the Warren Commission and its staff.

Zapruder knew there was more. In closing he offered, "All right, any time you want more help you can call on me and I will come in."

That wasn't going to happen.

I know it is clear from my posts that I am not a researcher. I am not even a very good analyzer of the available evidence. I do not know, or claim to know what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 other than a President was murdered and history was changed forever and for the worse.

Like the rest of us I do know there was a massive coverup that has made ascertaining what really happened impossible. How such a coverup has been maintained for so long is beyond my comprehension. I just wish I knew what really happened.

In closing Paul, please don't take my responses to you as adversarial. I do want to mention one more thing, though. About Weisberg, you wrote:

He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written...........

That, I think, would make for an interesting topic in and of itself.

Mike

[David G. Healy]

Paul,

Thanks for responding. When you wrote:

When Zapruder came before the Presidential Commission of enquiry, he told us some very remarkable things. He was, for example, conscious of the possible impediments - street signs etc. - on Elm Street to a clear line of filming sight, and positioned himself accordingly. He told us that he filmed the motorcade

uninterruptedly

. He told us that Kennedy was first struck when "abreast" - parallel - to him.

I took it that your use of the word uninterruptedly referred to the street sign. I had no idea you meant the beginning of the film sequence. I think I inferred what I did because you used the term uninterrupted again in your last paragraph:

Instead, he sought to assist the Warren Report liars by pretending that Zapruder hadn't had an

uninterrupted

view of the killing; and that the first bullet to hit Kennedy had done so much further back down Elm toward Houston. (Emphases mine, of course)

Paul, do I have it right now? The first uninterruptedly refers to the break in filming the motorcade and the second uninterrupted refers to the street sign?

Please bear with me, I have some more questions. Are you maintaining that the Stemmons sign did not interfere with Zapruder's filming? Are you maintaining that the first shot did not happen until President Kennedy emerged from behind the sign? Are you saying Zapruder did not stop filming when he realized that the lead motorcycles were not the sequence he was intending to shoot?

You quote Weisberg:

Zapruder began filming, he (Weisberg) writes, “before the first shot was fired” (Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up, NY: Dell, May 1967, p.213). Now that what’s I call incisive.

Here's another quote from Weisberg (Selections from Whitewash, Carroll & Graf Publishers/Richard Gallen New York 1994, p. 67)

"He (Zapruder) started taking pictures with his 8-mm movie camera as the advance escort turned from Houston into Elm and suspended photographing until the presidential car came into view.

Paul, your point is taken that in his WC testimony, Zapruder didn't mention the suspension of filming the motorcade, but both Trask and Wrone describe the motorcycles and lead cars were quite a bit in front of the President's Lincoln, and that when Zapruder realized this, he stopped filming after 7 seconds. Like Weisberg, I guess they just assumed this.

I do believe that by the time Zapruder testified to the WC (Eight months after the event!) he realized that he was in an odd position. The conclusions of the WC had already been leaked. I believe Zapruder knew the fatal shot did not come from the Depository, but what was he supposed to do or say? He tried. He also knew that it was impossible for Connally and Kennedy to have been hit by the bullet that first struck JFK. He seemed to say so, but Liebler was having none of it and immediately moved on. In short, Zapruder was aware that his country's government was deliberately espousing a version of events that he knew could not be true, but he also realized that there was little he could do about it. During his testimony Zapruder broke down crying...Not only in reaction to the horror of that day, but as a result of the unimaginable stress he was under, in my opinion.

When Zapruder realized Liebler was beginning to wrap things up he stated, "....they claim it has been proven it could be done by one man. You know there was an indication there were two?"

Liebler's non-response remains one of the classic examples of criminal conduct by the Warren Commission and its staff.

Zapruder knew there was more. In closing he offered, "All right, any time you want more help you can call on me and I will come in."

That wasn't going to happen.

I know it is clear from my posts that I am not a researcher. I am not even a very good analyzer of the available evidence. I do not know, or claim to know what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 other than a President was murdered and history was changed forever and for the worse.

Like the rest of us I do know there was a massive coverup that has made ascertaining what really happened impossible. How such a coverup has been maintained for so long is beyond my comprehension. I just wish I knew what really happened.

In closing Paul, please don't take my responses to you as adversarial. I do want to mention one more thing, though. About Weisberg, you wrote:

He was part of the cover-up. Only a witting servant of the CIA could conceivably have written...........

That, I think, would make for an interesting topic in and of itself.

Mike

nor is this adversarial --

The importance of Trask, Wrone and Weisberg(?) making a comment that Zapruder had a false start while filming? Was Zapruder quoted, saying same?

Zapruder attest to: he stopped filming, began anew after spotting the limo on Elm Street? If so.... where, WC testimony, Shaw trial in NO, media interview, personal-private comments?

He is after all, a guy on-the-record as "wanting to cooperate"... If he did stop for a few seconds I suspect Ms. Sitzman would of known...

[Michael Hogan]

nor is this adversarial --

The importance of Trask, Wrone and Weisberg(?) making a comment that Zapruder had a false start while filming? Was Zapruder quoted, saying same?

Zapruder attest to: he stopped filming, began anew after spotting the limo on Elm Street? If so.... where, WC testimony, Shaw trial in NO, media interview, personal-private comments?

He is after all, a guy on-the-record as "wanting to cooperate"... If he did stop for a few seconds I suspect Ms. Sitzman would of known...

This IS adversarial.

I wrote:

Paul, your point is taken that in his WC testimony, Zapruder didn't mention the suspension of filming the motorcade, but both Trask and Wrone describe the motorcycles and lead cars were quite a bit in front of the President's Lincoln, and that when Zapruder realized this, he stopped filming after 7 seconds. Like Weisberg, I guess they just assumed this.

So why the f___ are you asking me such rhetorical questions? Shortly after joining this Forum you and I had a go of it. Since then, I learned never to comment on anything you say. But since you saw fit to interject, I've made an exception. I don't like your style. I don't like your attitude. I don't like your methods. I don't think I like you.

You type so much crap, I've quit trying to ascertain what is accurate and what is not.

Your grammar sucks. It's not "Sitzman would of known." It's Sitzman would have known.

It's not my style to point things like that out. You bring out the worst in me. That's why I vowed not to pay any attention to the stuff you post. Save it for Bill Miller, or someone else that is interested.

[Duke Lane]

Very excellent analysis! Misdirection is vital to successful magic acts.

Yes. And might I amend the above with another mention of smoke (literally) from the knoll/fence area (including an officer later testifying that he'd burned his hand on something he erroneously had believed to be a steam pipe, but nobody ever determined what it was), and Decker immediately emptying the County Courts/Criminal Courts building of law enforcement presence, herding them all into the area behind the knoll/TSBD.

... and one of the next things that happened was the emptying of the rest of Dallas' streets by a call to "all downtown units" to report to DP ... which in reality led to quite a few others likewise descending there (unless one extends the "downtown" designation to include all of Dallas), followed then by the emptying of Dealey Plaza itself on an "officer down" call.

Herd 'em all together in one place, then send 'em all somewhere else en masse, right to where "the assassin" would be waiting, and right where he might reasonably be expected to be, in his own neighborhood.

In the meanwhile, what is interesting - and which nobody I can recall has noticed (or if so, said anything about) - only one of those emptied patrol districts was reassigned to another patrolman, that in central Oak Cliff. The question is not "why was Tippit sent to Oak Cliff," but "why was Oak Cliff the only patrol district that needed coverage?"

It doesn't matter who was sent to Oak Cliff as much as it matters why anyone was sent there, and only there ... to the exclusion of every other patrol district in the city.

And lo, the one and only patrolman with a particular assigned duty - to the exclusion of all other officers - "just happens" to get killed, and when the entire force rushes to his aid, the perp "just happens" to be sitting in a theater a few blocks away, and also "just happens" to be the President's supposed killer to boot!

You couldn't get much luckier (other than Officer Tippit, that is) if it had been planned that way! But then, for it to have worked, there would have had to have been someone to send Tippit into Oak Cliff, and that's where the theory falls apart, doesn't it.

They'd also have to know where Tippit was at any given moment (or at least when he'd arrived in Oak Cliff from wherever he might have been, which not everyone would have or could have known), and somehow know that there was someone there who was ready to shoot "the poor, dumb cop" when he was where he might reasonably be expected to show up while "at large" in central Oak Cliff.

Too many "ifs," but a great theory for the 30 seconds it lasted, eh?