A 26-second home movie taken of the assassination of President John Kennedy on November 22, 1963, has become one of the most famous pieces of film ever. There are countless versions on YouTube, viewed by tens of millions of people.
Where did this amazing imagery come from? Is it an authentic depiction of the assassination of a U.S. president?
To answer such questions, I sought out a man who could answer them better than almost anyone: Richard Stolley, a former editor at LIFE Magazine, the immensely popular photographic magazine of the 1960s.
Stolley was LIFE’s Los Angeles bureau chief on November 22, 1963, and he rushed to Dallas as soon as he heard the news of JFK’s assassination. Once in Dallas, Stolley got a tip from LIFE stringer Patsy Swank, who’d gleaned it from another reporter (who reportedly got it from a policeman), that someone named Zapruder had captured the assassination on film.
With the help of the Dallas phone book, Stolley found the home number for Abraham Zapruder, the Dallas businessman who had taken the film on his lunch break, and called it every 15 minutes until Zapruder finally answered late Friday night. He asked Stolley to meet him at his office the following morning. Over the course of the weekend, Stolley negotiated a $150,000-deal with Zapruder to purchase all the rights to the film on behalf of LIFE.
Stolley is now retired and living in Santa Fe. I spoke to him over the phone in September 2014.
How did Zapruder let it be known he had the film?
When he finished filming, he got down off the abutment shouting “They killed him. They killed him.” He was stumbling back to his office, just right across the street, and there was a reporter there, Harry McCormick from the Dallas Morning News. Now how he got there, I’m not sure. McCormick told a Secret Service agent, Forrest Sorrels, and the two of them went to Zapruder’s office.
A reporter from the competing paper, the Dallas Times Herald, Darwin Payne, was already in the office. So both reporters were in the office and they began arguing apparently. So at that point both newspapers were aware that he was up there with his movie camera. Of course nobody had any idea what he had there.
Eventually Zapruder — not him, either his assistant or partner — began calling around to try to get the film processed.
They went down to the Dallas Morning News. They all got in the car and the Secret Service guy went with them. They went down in a police car, as a matter of fact, sirens screaming and all the rest. There Zapruder was told they couldn’t handle motion picture processing. So they went next door to a TV station, which said it couldn’t handle 8mm color, they could only do 16mm black & white. This was back when evening television shows had just only recently gone from 15 minutes to half an hour. But somebody in the station either knew or looked in the phone book and said that there was a Kodak processing plant in Dallas.
Zapruder went on television for a few minutes just being interviewed. It’s amazing to look at this; the television interviewer from the station is smoking all the time. And Zapruder very briefly and quickly described what he saw and then he was kind of hustled off and that’s when they went to Kodak.
Given the film’s potential historical and evidentiary value, were they told to take special care developing it?
The answer is no; they didn’t know what he had. I mean the fact that somebody had been up there with an 8mm camera was kind of a shock to everybody anyway. There were other cameras along the way. Zapruder in his own kind of hysterical way at that point — I mean, he had seen what he had seen through the viewfinder and he assumed that it was on film.
At the television station, since they couldn’t process the film, he was kind of dismissed as another eyewitness. The Secret Service guy called Kodak and identified himself and said they were bringing film and that he wanted it to be processed immediately, it was important film.
I don’t know if he identified what it was, but he said this has to do with the president’s shooting. And I don’t know if he said you have to be very careful with this, but the fact that he called and said we’re on our way and we’d like this to be done immediately presumably alerted them that it was something they should be pretty careful about.
Did the Secret Service get a copy of it that night or not until the next morning?
Kodak processed it and they saw it for the first time. A few Kodak technicians saw it too, and Zapruder, canny businessman that he was, got affidavits from several of the Kodak workers that they had not made copies. So they either didn’t do copies or didn’t have enough film. They sent them over to another company and that’s where three copies were made.
The Secret Service man left before they went to the second plant where the copies were made because they’d gotten word of Oswald’s arrest, so he went back to Dallas PD. It was Zapruder and his partner. I think the two reporters had left at that point and I don’t even think there was a cop there. Well, maybe there was a cop there to drive them.
In any case they had the original and three copies and they dropped two copies off at wherever the Secret Service guy was — one was flown that night to Washington and the other one was given to the FBI in Dallas. So when I saw him the next day he had the original and one copy.
So then he and the partner went back to the office, had a drink and then he went home.
He was down to the original and one copy on Saturday morning?
Yes.
Was the film you saw Saturday morning in Zapruder’s office the same film we’ve all seen since?
As far as I know. I mean, I’ve seen it many, many times and it’s the same film as far as I can remember. I have absolutely no reason to believe that anything has been done aside from those two or three frames that were broken by LIFE in Chicago.
Is that near frame 313?
No, way earlier, just as the motorcade is coming around the bend. It’s not in an area that had anything to do with the events that mattered. But I think LIFE was under tremendous pressure to get the damn magazine out, and to have a technician in a lab in Chicago destroy a couple of frames and they put it back together…. But by then copies of the original were around so you have the original, which is missing two or three frames, and the copies which aren’t.
Why did LIFE feel the need to keep the film under wraps for so many years?
Well, what do you mean by ‘keeping it under wraps’? We made copies for every government agency that asked for it, and that of course is where all these goddamn bootleg versions originated.
For two reasons: competitive, [and because] Zapruder had made a huge point to me of not wanting it to be exploited. I mean, I was not in on these discussions; I just knew the people who were making these decisions. I’ve discussed it some since then, but it was competitive reasons, [and] Zapruder didn’t want it exploited.
We’d done our civic duty by giving copies to every bonafide law enforcement organization that had asked for them, including showing a copy at the Clay Shaw trial. Jim Garrison down in New Orleans, which is where I suspect wholesale bootlegging took place. So it wasn’t long before bootlegged copies were being shown. And as you know, finally, when Geraldo Rivera … I think Geraldo Rivera defines what Zapruder was concerned about [as far as] exploitation of the film.
He announced he was going to show it on air and … daring Time Inc. to try to stop him. Time Inc. did nothing, so he did put it on the air. It was a many generation copy, kind of faded. I didn’t see it but I was told. And he was kind of defying Time to sue him, which Time Inc. didn’t do, but at that point [the company] decided it did not want to have to make decisions about the disposition [of the film] and that’s when we sold it back to the family.
Did it surprise you that the public was so shocked when it saw the Zapruder film for the first time and a prevailing opinion since is that it sure looks like a shot from the front?
Well, as soon as I saw it that morning with those two Secret Service agents… God almighty. I just knew that this was something that we, meaning LIFE, had to have. I think I’ve described it as the most dramatic moment of my journalistic career, which has not lacked in dramatic moments. When you cover a story like that, as you well know, you sort of put your emotions aside. So, seeing the president’s head blown off, my immediate reaction was a journalistic one. This is an astonishing piece of film and the world’s leading picture magazine has got to have it.
The fact that the body went backwards I frankly didn’t notice it that much at the time. What I did notice is that the spray of blood and brain matter was forward. And there’s no way a shot anywhere else but from behind could cause that to happen. Now, the body jerking back has been explained as I understand it by physicians and neurologists and all the rest. That tremendous damage to the brain caused all sorts of galvanic responses to the body and that’s what drove him backwards.
But what was very clear to me, the direction the bullet was going, and even if there was a second shot — you know one of the theories is the Grassy Knoll and the two bullets hit the president’s head simultaneously — well, if that were the case then there would have been spray backwards as well as forwards. Every time I see it I make sure that I was right that this stuff is going up and forward. And it is. And, to me, having seen it when I did and seen it so many times, it’s one of the clinching arguments for the shot from behind.
In an interview with C-Span in 1988, on the 25th anniversary of the assassination, you said you were taken aback that the Dallas PD had already convicted Oswald before you had even landed in Dallas on Friday. In all this time have you ever had your doubts about him or how the investigation was handled?
No doubts about him, certainly doubts about how it was handled. The Dallas PD convicted him pretty quickly. They also had a press conference with him at one point. But believe me, having been in Dallas at that time I can excuse… I mean I’ve never seen a city in such shock. So, if rules were bent and things done that shouldn’t have been done it is totally understandable to me. I mean, they got him without killing him, and he didn’t kill anybody in the theater, which he was trying to do as far as we can tell. And they got him back to Dallas Police Department. His famous “patsy” quote and all the rest. But I think the handling of Oswald culminating of course with the decision to move him from one jail to another without proper security precautions, I think Dallas PD, looking back made one mistake after another once they got him. But, it was a very strange time.
Were you called to testify at any of the subsequent investigations?
No. Zapruder of course was. No, I was just the messenger boy at that point.
Have you followed the work of the Assassinations Records Review Board or had any dealings with ARRB investigator Doug Horne, who was charged with looking into the various films of the assassination?
No, the only time I have ever been contacted — I’ve followed it all very carefully — was when they were trying to evaluate the film in terms of the final payoff to the Zapruder family.
It was appraised at $16 million?
Yes, and somebody representing the government came to my office in New York. We had a long talk and I think another talk on the phone. I have to say I was astonished by the final figure. Of course it had been in the federal government’s hands all this time. I think the idea was to simply to ensure that they would never leave the archives.
What did surprise me is that the government did not hang on to the copyright. They gave the Zapruders $16 million and the copyright. Then the Zapruders, of course, did the right thing and gave the copyright to the 6th Floor Museum. They now in effect own rights to the film.
Horne’s investigations found that two teams at the National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington received what they were told, or assumed, were original versions of the Zapruder film independently of each other to prepare briefing boards. One arrived on Saturday and the other on Sunday.
I think two copies of the film … one went on Saturday, overnight on Saturday, and the second copy went to the FBI. That presumably was sent to Washington quickly too. By that weekend, what you’re saying is, I have no particular reason to doubt it, there were two first generation copies of the Zapruder film in Washington. And both were being worked on totally independent of each other.
Right. Same organization, but neither team knew the other was working on it.
Wonderful.
According to Horne, both teams thought they were working with THE original, not a copy. And the second team on Sunday told Horne that they received an unslit 16mm-wide double 8 version, which the Secret Service man told them had been developed at Kodak’s Hawkeye Works in Rochester, NY. Curious, because it should not have been in the unslit format if it had already been processed in Dallas….
I have no idea. I was told that the original and the three copies, that they separated the two [A and B sides of the original, unprocessed film], put them all together in this tiny 8mm thing. I don’t know, because by Sunday LIFE magazine had the original. And on Monday I got the last copy. I’ve read about these competing examinations in Washington, but I’ve not heard that they claimed to operate with a piece of film that looked different than the other. I didn’t see that film, but under the circumstances under which they were operating on Saturday and all the rest, it sounds very peculiar to me.
[LIFE editor] Roy Rowan told me they were in Chicago furiously trying to put the issue together, using a Moviola machine to pick stills.
The way they were handling this precious piece of film it makes your blood run cold. Putting it in a Moviola and running it and all the rest. Boy.
LIFE reporter Paul Mandel’s piece in December 1963, in which he said the Zapruder film showed that JFK turned to the Texas Book Depository, thus accounting for what was initially thought to be a frontal shot to the throat, which was later dismissed…
LIFE has done a mea culpa on that article so many times. He was just flat wrong. Paul is no longer with us. I don’t know if he was ever asked about that. He saw something that wasn’t there. I’ve seen the film enough times to know that’s true. That didn’t help the confusion over anything very much.
Then there was Dan Rather, who after viewing the film said it depicted JFK’s head going forward, then the Warren Commission “accidentally” printing the crucial frame backwards. All of that causes doubt and skepticism.
With those who want to be skeptical, yeah. Dan was in the lawyer’s office when I went back on Monday to negotiate for all rights. I’ve known Dan; we’d covered racial stories in the South in the late 50s.
He was sitting in there waiting to see the film, which he did. I sat out in the waiting room. I think he had concluded that if LIFE had showed up to buy all rights, I think he had $10,000 he was able to offer … he left and I went in and negotiated the rest of the purchase in a very short amount of time.
Dan, meanwhile, although Zapruder had asked him please not to talk about the film if CBS wound up not getting it … I think Dan figured he wasn’t going to get it with LIFE there and the temptation was too great, which I certainly can understand, because he went on air immediately describing it. First on radio, then on television.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report. What’s your opinion of its legacy?
They were in a hurry. Johnson wanted some kind of a decision as quickly as possible for both political and I think national morale reasons. I think in the end the Warren Commission was right, but the reaching that decision was flawed. But they got it right in my view.
I will always wonder about Ruby.
I went to the Carousel Club on Monday. Monday after we got the film, I mean after I’d negotiated for all rights, I guess we should have sat down in the hotel room and watched the funeral, which none of us were able to watch. I said, Llet’s find out what we can about Ruby.”
I think Tommy Thompson was with me and maybe one of the photographers. We went to the Carousel Club, which Ruby had closed Friday shortly after the president was killed. We banged on the door and finally a scantily clad young lady opened it. I was very impressed by [LIFE’s reputation because] damned if they didn’t let us in. (Laughs).
So, I’ll never forget it, we sat at a table with two of the women, two of the dancers who were still there, and they said when he heard the news Jack closed the club and sat at that table over there and cried. Then on Saturday he went down to the police department, there were pictures of him. He was well known to the cops. He comped cops at the Carousel Club, they could come in and watch dancing, free drinks and all the rest. He used to take sandwiches down to Dallas Police Department. He was kind of a cop nut. They all knew him, which was one of the reasons he could get in to the basement on Sunday. He was a familiar figure at the Dallas Police Department.
Anyway, these two women sat there and said, “Oh, God, it was so like Jack.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “He sat there crying and saying ‘Oh, My God, that poor widow is going to have to come back testify and go through this and those kids are going to have to go through this trial.’” And they said, in effect, you could just see this thing starting to form around inside his brain. They said, I’ll never forget, “that’s so like Jack.” He thought he’d be a hero as a result of it by wiping out the assassin. And he’d prevent any more sort of despair of showing up and testifying at any kind of trial. I have to say they were crying while [they told the story]. I’ve never heard anybody tell me something that I was convinced was the truth as far as they were concerned.
Many have suggested that LIFE’s publisher at the time, CD Jackson, as well as the magazine’s founder, Henry Luce, had ties to intelligence.
Yes, CD particularly. I mean, [he came out of the] the military. Luce, I’d never heard that about Luce, except. I mean, he was born in China and all the rest. But for CD Jackson, he was publisher of LIFE at the time, and a lot has been made about that. He may have been the one, when he saw the film — as publisher of course he was in charge of the money. He saw the film, early Sunday morning I assume, and it was either his idea or he concurred quickly that LIFE ought to get all rights, not just print. And that’s when they contacted me, said spend another $100,000 if you have to, and that’s what I did on Monday morning.
I will tell you back then the publishing side and the editorial side, Church and State, was a holy agreement; certainly less so now. A publisher would have no control over what the editorial side did, and as a matter of fact would stay out of all such discussions. Again that’s all part of the conspiracy that he was in intelligence. I’m sure he maintained great interest in it and all the rest. I mean, he saw the film at the same time everybody else did.
You yourself have been accused of being part of a conspiracy, involved in manipulating the Zapruder film.
There are two conspiracy theories that I’m part of. One way back was that [when] I got the film from Zapruder I took it to a CIA clandestine photo lab outside Dallas and they rearranged the frames to conceal — don’t ask me how they did this — but that was part of it. Then just a couple years ago a book was published, “My God, I’ve Been Hit,” is the title, which Kennedy is alleged to have said, which I don’t think he did say.
In this somebody in a hat and a trench coat — I’ve never owned a hat in my life — came into Ruth Paine’s home with a valise or bag or some kind of container full of money. The Irving police were there and they jumped me and knocked me to the ground. The author says … “he is believed to be Richard Stolley the LIFE magazine bureau chief from LA.” So they took me down to Irving police department and it’s unclear what happened there but they released me after several hours. Then I disappeared and went back to LA or wherever. But it isn’t clear. The money was either, the author’s not sure, to pay off Ruth Paine for her part in the conspiracy, undescribed, or to give to Marina for first dibs on her story on the family. The guy apparently didn’t realize we already had the damn story. I mean Tommy had got it 24 hours earlier. But anyway those are two times I’m mentioned by name.
[Over the years ] I spoke at two or three meetings of conspiracy theorists and I didn’t make that mistake again, because it was not a pleasant experience.
When “The Day Kennedy Died” came out last fall, I spoke several times here in Santa Fe and at a bookstore in Chicago. In both cases, there’s always a man — always a man, never a woman — lingering at the end of the line of people who want to come up and tell you where they were or ask an individual question after a Q & A period. And finally the line disappears and there’s the guy, and in both cases it was somebody with conspiracy theories, they’re always very polite, who wanted to know what I thought about it. I always try to be as courteous as possible and just say that I long ago decided that I did not keep up on theories, people send me this stuff all the time. I have never discovered anything that would change my mind.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Great interview – asks and answers all the questions that anyone could want put to Stolley.
Dan Rather Saw a Different Zapruder Film http://youtu.be/MnsaEHcaBhA
“Dan Rather Saw a Different Zapruder Film”~David Regan
Did he really? Or did he kick-start a long and lucrative career describing something he was told to say, having been assured the public never going to see the film for themselves.
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“With the challenges to authenticity based on image content being the subject of Professor Fetzer’s May 2003 conference, I decided to reinforce my process film technology knowledge and background by visiting professor Raymond Fielding at the Florida State University and to review with him copies of the Zapruder film and selected still frames. Our conclusion following a lengthy discussion was that it would not be possible to introduce significant scene content changes without producing easily detectable artifacts.”~Rolland Zavata
Subsequently in the fall of 2006, when David Healy was requesting a web
interchange of information, I submitted his chapter “HOW THE FILM WAS
EDITED” and my analysis to Professor Fielding for review and received
comments that included:
“You may quote me if you wish in saying that
(1) I agree with your interpretation of the data and evidence available and with the conclusions that you have reached, including questions of technical feasibility and the time line involved,
(2) in my judgment there is no way in which manipulation of these images could have been achieved satisfactorily in 1963 with the technology then available,
(3) if such an attempt at image manipulation of the footage had occurred in 1963 the results could not possibly have survived professional scrutiny, and
(4) challenges regarding the authenticity of the NARA footage and assertions of image manipulation, as are suggested by Mr. Healy in the document you sent me, are technically naïve.~Raymond Fielding
http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf
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The Core Issue on the Zapruder Film Authenticity
The central point of this whole argument is that it would be impossible to create a “Kodachrome original” by any means whatsoever.
Quoting Zavata again:
“The print films dye transmission had reasonable visual
response with arc (or if printed properly) with tungsten projection.
In the case of the Zapruder film, the spectral sensitivity of a
daylight camera original Kodachrome reversal film was balanced for about
5900 deg. Kelvin with nominally parallel curves having gammas of about
1.8. Because it was a reversal (i.e. it yielded a positive image) the
spectral transmission characteristics of the dyes were designed for visual
response when projected with 32-3400 deg Kelvin illumination.”
What this means is, if the same film type used by Zapruder was to be re-filmed, the light source would not be “daylight” the light source would of practical necessity be artificial; carbon arc lamps or tungsten projection.
As this is not ‘daylight’ the film would react distinctly differently chemically, and the color and contrast of the “faked film” would be different than that of an original shot in daylight. If any other film type were to be used, this would also by easily identified by chemical examination.
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It is reassuring to see how actual experts (Mr. Zavada and Mr. Whitten) confirm my contention above.
A detailed formal study could be enacted:
Given bone rigidity, we can see TWO rotational motions:
(a) One centered in the subject’s pelvis.
(b) One around his neck.
The unknown is whether the acting forces were external (bullet) or internal (muscles).
After abandoning the initial, unsustainable hypothesis of a jet stream effect, the WCers are clinging to the neurological random impulses which oddly became as unified as a philharmonic concert.
There are 3 possibilities:
(1) The head snap was the cause and the pelvis the effect.
(2) The pelvis was the cause (the say: “the back muscles are stronger and therefore his spine arched back”) and the head snap, the effect.
(3) The bullet caused a perfect harmony in the concert rupturing nerves at the astonishing precise timing to produce the head and pelvis rotations in unison, mimicking an opposite direction projectile.
Here’s a first challenge: prove that the area of the brain that governs those muscles is located in the damaged tissue. With today’s CT and elated technologies the responsible regions are being determined with extreme precision.
In scenario (2) above, with the back muscles dominating, the head would have lagged, showing clockwise motion, bending *forward*.
Dear Mr. Herrera,
Thank you for your kind remarks.
I would like to address the issues you raise above.
There is a 4th possibility, and this is the one I think is correct:
“When examining the Zapruder film frame by frame, it is readily apparent the President Kennedy’s head moves forward slightly for one frame before his head and shoulders move backward in response to the gunshot wound to the head. German wound ballistic researcher Bernd Karger, states initial transfer of energy causes the target to move minutely into the force and against the line of fire, prior to target movement with the force of the moving bullet. Karger found greater the transferred energy, the more pronounced the forward movement (Karger, 2008). Wound ballistic researcher Robin Coupland used high-speed photography to confirm and document the forward movement into the line of fire referenced by Karger (Coupland, 2011). Researchers Karger and Coupland noted the force in a moving bullet is energy of motion, or kinetic energy. Upon impact, the bullet pushes against the head, and initially, as the weight of the head is greater than the weight of the bullet, the head moves against the line of fire. As the projectile slows, more kinetic energy transfers to the target. A overcoming the weight of the head with a sufficient transfer of energy causes the target to move with the continued direction of force of the moving bullet. Application of contemporary wound ballistics research to the movement observed in the Zapruder film indicates a minute forward motion followed by more pronounced rearward movement—consistent with a single shot from the front.”
~Sherry Fiester CSI
. . . .
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THE ZAPRUDER FILM:
An Accurate Representation of The Kennedy Assassination
The JFK assassination research community now faces a critical dilemma. That being in that so much effort has been put to disproving the Autopsy Photographs and X-rays. The dilemma the community faces is that all the while it was thought that the results of such faking proved a rear shot, or attempted to. However using the most modern scientific forensic knowledge, it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that those very documents X-rays and photos in fact prove a single shot from the front killed Kennedy.
Let us begin first of all with cui bono? Who would have the most to gain from disputing the authenticity of the Zapruder Film?
The answer is obvious, the perpetrators of the assassination, because the film shows the timing of the shots that hit Kennedy and Connolly, and modern ballistics can prove the trajectory of the shots. Therefore it is in the perpetrator’s self-interests to cast as much doubt as possible on the most critical visual evidence of the assassination.
Essentially my critique is based on Horne’s acceptance of CIA agent Brugioni’s claims that is the crux of my counterargument. And I suspect, the CIA’s continuing cover-up is this trashing of the Zapruder film as a fake is the coup de grâce in erasing the most vital visual evidence in the case of the Kennedy assassination.
. . .
“The goal to create a “Kodachrome original” provides further insurmountable challenges..”~Roland Zavada
See: https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/12/12/the-zapruder-film/
~Willy Whitten, Special Effects Artist (Retired)
Hello there Willy
I am one of those who thinks the Zapruder film has been altered. My view is based mainly on two anomalies in the zfilm:
1. Police Officer Chaney’s interview regarding his actions riding past the limousine to talk to Chief Curry during the assassination and Chief Curry’s (and others) confirmation of that conversation. Chaney should appear on Zapruder but doesn’t. Jean Davison and I had a discussion on this issue on another thread. I’ll post the details when I can locate it again.
2. The flung-forward movement of the 4 front seat passengers after z313. If this action is caused by the limo decelerating at that time, as has been claimed by WC defenders, then why don’t the Kennedys move at all?
I see quite a few other anomalies in the film including Connally’s movements and the lack of correlation between the witness testimony and the film. Thanks for any views you have on the above.
regards
Vanessa
Hello there Vanessa,
Thank you for your question!
If you will read my comment on December 21, 2014 at 4:47 pm (at the bottom of this very thread):
‘The Core Issue on the Zapruder Film Authenticity’
I think that you and any other rational person should realize the literal impossibility that the Zapruder film can be altered.
If you would like a more thorough exposition on the topic, please see my article and commentary at:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/12/12/the-zapruder-film/
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Hi Willy
Thanks for the link. I think you’ll find I am quite rational. 🙂
Unfortunately I have to say the technical aspect of the Z film alteration discussion is completely lost on me. As I’m not an expert on film or photography the arguments don’t resonate with me at all.
My reasons for believing the zfilm is altered are based on the absence of Officer Chaney, the flung-forward movement, John Connally’s movements and the lack of correlation between the zfilm and limo witness testimony.
Can I also say that evidence that the zfilm has been altered does not serve the side of the conspirators at all. The only people who had custody of this film (that we know of) were the CIA, Secret Service, FBI and TimeLife magazine.
If the film has been altered then it must have been done by one of the groups above (or a combination thereof). And if that has happened then we are talking about a major conspiracy.
Thanks for your views.
“2. The flung-forward movement of the 4 front seat passengers after z313. If this action is caused by the limo decelerating at that time, as has been claimed by WC defenders, then why don’t the Kennedys move at all?”~Vanessa
But John does lurch forward. Jackie is turned and obviously braced as she is attempting to reach back to the trunk of the car. I see nothing unusual in the movements of anyone in that sequence.
You mention Connally’s movements, but are not specific in what you mean by “anomalies” [?]
Regards, Willy
Hi there Willy
I’m going to post some links to previous discussions we’ve had on this site on some of these issues. Apologies if that seems rude but my fellow contributors might want to strangle me if I post all that again.
1. Discussion of Officer Chaney with Jean Davison – on “Doug Horne Rebuts John McAdams” Nov 10 2104. Jean and I start talking at about comment number 17.
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/doug-horne-rebuts-john-mcadams/#more-17028
2. Discussion on Connally’s movements and the zfilm with Bill Callahan – in “What You Should Know about the WC Report is…..” Sept 22 2014. Bill and I start our discussion around comment number 54.
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/what-you-should-know-about-the-warren-commission-report-is-that/#comments
3. As for the flung-forward movement have you seen John Costella’s youtube presentation “JFK a Simple Introduction – The Fast-Forward Mistakes”
http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/fast.html
I see simultaneous movement by the Connallys, Greer and Kellerman. I don’t see any movement by JFK or Jackie.
I’ll address your other post separately.
If you do have the time to read those links then I’d be interested to hear your responses. Thanks for your views.
regards
Vanessa
Hello again Vanessa,
I am exceedingly familiar with Douglas Horne’s take on the Zapruder film. I have gone over John Costella’s information thoroughly as well.
I have given you the reasons that I reject both. It is not that technically challenging to grasp the bottom line argument against the alteration of the Z-film. In fact it is as simple as daylight! You needn’t understand the actual chemistry involved, you simply need to understand the Kodachrome II the film type used by Zapruder to film the assassination will not react properly under artificial light. Do you follow me thus far?
Of necessity, to film a new roll of Kodachrome II by aerial projection, or any other projection system means using artificial light. Okay? That should be easy enough to grasp
Now if one did remake a “fake” Z-film using Kodachrome II it would be instantly obvious to any expert on film to detect that it was shot in artificial light.
Rolland Zavata is not only such an expert, he was the premier expert in Kodak film for decades. His examination of the original Z-film in the National Archives revealed a properly daylight original, bearing all of the characteristics of the particular camera used by Zapruder.
As per the links you gave me. I was especially impressed that CSI Fiester made a comment there, and was confronted as though she is not the expert she claims to be. Having read her writing on this topic it is most apparent that she is indeed, an expert in crime scene investigation, forensics, blood splatter, and trajectory.
My summation is this; I find Zavata and Fiester’s credentials, experience, and manner of exposition far superior to the oft times ludicrous claims of their detractors.
To be careful of going beyond word limits I will post another comment as an addendum to this one…
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Now Vanessa, that addendum:
I have three reasons that I find Douglas Horne a suspicious character;
1. He obviously doesn’t have any expertise with film, special effects or movie making machines.
He also is ignorant of the properties of light in the field of photography in general.
2. He has taken up with James Fetzer and infamous charlatan and “professional Conspiracy Theorist” who has a track record of trying to extinguish the visual evidence, not only of the Z-film, but of all of the imagery of the events of 9/11. You can see an expose’ of Fetzer at:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/james-fetzer-professional-conspiracy-theorist/
3. Cui Bono? – Who benefits from dismissing the visual evidence manifest in the Zapruder film?
The obvious answer to the last point is that the perpetrators of the crime would most benefit.
Regards, Willy
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Hi Willy
Thanks for your attempt to enlighten me on how the Zapruder film could not be technically altered without it being apparent. I have to say I’m none the wiser. From what I understand of the technical explanation by John Costella he believes that the background panorama was filmed again in natural daylight. I’m not sure I even agree with that.
However, I really can’t pretend to understand the technical debate. Frankly I don’t think it’s that important anyway and leave it to the techies.
The main issue for me is that there are a number of anomalies on the film which cannot be explained any other way except through alteration. You don’t seem to have addressed those at all. Are you able to do so?
I’d appreciate it if you didn’t cast aspersions on Doug Horne either. He’s a respected professional with an extremely good record with the AARB. We’re not discussing Fetzer or his views here either so can you focus on the points I’ve raised?
I believe Photon is the one who had issues with Sherry Feister’s credentials (but then he doesn’t like anyone’s credentials) perhaps you can take that up with him.
If the Zapruder film has been altered then it’s a conspiracy – it’s as simple as that. Do you think it wasn’t a conspiracy? Who do you think was behind the assassination then?
Thanks for your views.
Okay Vanessa, I will address a couple of your concerns at this time;
> You say, “However, I really can’t pretend to understand the technical debate. Frankly I don’t think it’s that important anyway and leave it to the techies.”
This is an oxymoron. You admit you don’t understand the technical issues, but then claim they are unimportant. The fact is, they are of the essence. Another fact is that the core issue is elementary.
You say Costella claims the new background was shot in daylight. That is irrelevant because there is still not way to put the foreground into the shot without projecting the images through and optical printer — this introduces ARTIFICIAL LIGHT into the equation.
“The main issue for me is that there are a number of anomalies on the film which cannot be explained any other way except through alteration. You don’t seem to have addressed those at all. Are you able to do so?”
If you will produce what you think are “anomalies on the film” in some clear and numbered fashion, I would be glad to address them.
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“If the Zapruder film has been altered then it’s a conspiracy – it’s as simple as that. Do you think it wasn’t a conspiracy? Who do you think was behind the assassination then?”~Vanessa
By the same token if the Zapruder authentic then it proves a conspiracy – but further it is a template of the timing of the shots, the reactions of the victims etc.
Yes I am convinced it was a conspiracy, it was an act of state, a coup d’etat. Who was behind it? The Military Industrial Complex.
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Hi Vanessa, I have done a frame by frame forward analysis of the HD version here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWm26OLve8#t=23
I took notes by hand and will put them in typed text to show you what I see. I would like you to familiarize yourself with this particular version as it is the clearest available, and I want our frame numbers to be from the same page.
I will just say now, that everyone in the car lurches at the same time, even Jackie and John. Jackie is up and turned towards John gripping the rear of the seat with her right arm, so she is braced somewhat – but her head clearly nods to her left (towards the front of the car) and her body moves forward showing a space between her right arm and the seat she had been hugging during the lurch.
John was already falling to the left. Recall he has that back-brace on..so as he falls it is forward but to the left as well because he was already leaning on Jackie at that angle.
I will repeat this with the frame numbers next post.
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Hi Willy
I think there are 2 aspects to the Zapruder film alteration issue:
1. Whether it could have technically been done in 1963. That debate is still ongoing and, in my view is up to the experts to sort out; and
2. What is on the film that shows evidence of alteration ie Officer Chaney, the lurch-forward, Connally’s movements etc.
Rather than driving everyone else nuts by posting all that again how about we just focus on the issue of Officer Chaney.
Officer Chaney claims he rode past the limo and spoke to Chief Curry during the shooting. This conversation was confirmed by Chief Curry and 2 others. If this did occur then we should be able to see Officer Chaney ride past JFK on JFK’s side of the limo (as Chaney was positioned to the right rear of the limo). But we don’t see Officer Chaney at all.
Jean Davison and I discussed this issue at the link below at about comment number 17.
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/doug-horne-rebuts-john-mcadams/#comments
Thanks for your comments on where Officer Chaney has gone.
“Thanks for your comments on where Officer Chaney has gone.”~Vanessa
It may seem infuriating, but I think the answer is simply that the Zapruder film runs out while the limo is passing by the hedges which obscures the view of almost the entire limo before it reaches the underpass. Chaney must have motored forward after the film runs out – if indeed the testimony is true on this account. There was a stop of the limo and the lead car right at the entrance to Stimmon’s FWY – long beyond the view from the Plaza. That conversation may have taken place at that time.
What is of essence here is what is actually meant by “during the shooting” As shots were being fired? I doubt that, I think he motored past after the obvious shot to the head took place.
By the way I disagree strongly that JFK and Jackie don’t show signs of lurching forward with the rest of the occupants.
As per 1. “Whether it could have technically been done in 1963…”
The simple fact is it could not have technically done in 1963, but further it could not be done even today with FILM.
Modern readers have become familiarized with what is possible in the digital realm, and seem to forget that it is an entirely different medium when discussing analog technologies, both film recording and audio tape recording.
Are you young enough that you never had experience with film cameras? Either movies or still photography.
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“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t cast aspersions on Doug Horne either. He’s a respected professional with an extremely good record with the AARB. We’re not discussing Fetzer or his views here either so can you focus on the points I’ve raised?”~Vanessa
You say “we are not discussing Fetzer here..”
Who is “we”?
If you don’t want to consider Fetzer, that is fine by me, just disregard it. But don’t tell me not to discuss it, because Fetzer is very much in front of this PR on the Alterationist Argument. He plays the role of ‘community organizer’ on this issue. He has been in the forefront in promoting Costella, Jack White, Mantik, and David Lifton, as well as Horne. If we are held back in looking into such associations, we are not dealing with the entire picture as it stands.
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My apologies Willy, I seem to be losing my manners on this site. Of course you can raise Fetzer et al if you want to.
All I’m referring to are my own specific views which have been formed by John Costella’s assessment of the Zapruder film and then my own analysis of what is inconsistent about the film.
So for me personally Fetzer’s views are not relevant and I can’t really contribute anything to his role on the debate on the zfilm.
Please be aware that you are not just speaking to me on this site but probably a wider audience who may never even comment so if you have points to make about the zfilm then you should make them (regardless of what I say). Again, apologies.
Apologies accepted Vanessa, I am not miffed at all, I am simply assertive, but in no way hostile.
Of course ours is not a private conversation, that is why I have tried to be as detailed as I have been thus far. My foremost effort is never simply to convince an opponent, but to speak more to the readership that can grasp the significance of my point about daylight v artificial light and the effects on film dyes and emulsions. Once this is understood, all the other controversy on the side issues become moot. But since the Zapruder film is an authentic visual record, I am also more confident in my analysis of these side issues.
I have enjoyed our conversation Vanessa. I found it a productive exchange.
Thanks, Willy
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Hi Willy
Thanks for your comments on Chaney.
Let’s assume that you are right and the zfilm runs out just before we see the limo go under the underpass.
We also have the Daniel film which shows the limo coming out of the underpass so we have an almost continuous view of the limo with those 2 films with possibly a few seconds gap in between.
I don’t see how Chaney’s ride past and conversation could have happened in those seconds.
But if it did happen that way then we still should be able to see Chaney on Daniel either stopped under the underpass or riding behind the limo. But we don’t. He’s not on Daniel at all.
But you are right there is a gap of a few seconds between those 2 films which I have never picked up on before. That is very significant in my view. So I would very much like to hear your other comments on the film issue.
Hi Willy – here’s my response to your comments on the lurch-forward issue.
First up, can I say, that there is not a really good close up, numbered version of the film which shows all 6 occupants of the limo at the same time as the lurch forward. This is the best I can find. The zfilm version you have used is not quite as clear as some others in terms of detail. The occupants of the limo look tiny and it’s a bit hard to see their individual movements which I think is crucial to the lurch forward issue. This is my preferred version below that has the Kennedys and a bit of John and Nellie Connally (but not the SS agents) but I’ll have a go at interpreting yours too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU83R7rpXQY
The lurch forward of the Connallys and Greer and Kellerman is most clearly visible in this clip (see link below around paragraph 35). I think if there had been glass in the privacy screen then the Connallys would have hit their heads on it and Greer and Kellerman go pretty close to the windscreen.
http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/fast.html
With all due respect, I have to say I don’t see any forward movements by the Kennedys that match the lurch of the Connallys and SSAs. The lurch is simultaneous by those 4 and quite sharp. If the lurch is caused by the limo having the brakes slammed on at that time (which I believe it was) then I would expect the movement by the Kennedys to be identical in force to that of the other passengers. ie they should lurch forward sharply and back simultaneously and to the same degree that the other 4 do (regardless of their seating position).
The most significant issue is that we can see with the naked eye the movements of the Connallys and SSAs but we can’t similarly see the Kennedys move unless we slow the film down and analyse it frame by frame. We should be able to see the Kennedys move with the naked eye in the same way that we can see the other 4 passengers. That is a clear indication that the Kennedys don’t seem to be subject to the same force that’s being applied to the other 4 passengers. And that there is something amiss with those frames.
I believe that the frames showing the Kennedys’ forward movement have been removed and that is why we don’t see it in the extant zfilm.
“I believe that the frames showing the Kennedys’ forward movement have been removed and that is why we don’t see it in the extant zfilm.” ~Vanessa
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. You yourself are describing what is happening in individual frames as against your sense of inertia, all within a frame. You say within these frames all the people in the car lurch forward but for the Kennedy’s. How could removing frames accomplish what you are so suspicious of?
One would need to change the elements within the frames themselves. You would have to remove and then replace the Kennedy’s from the same frames that everyone else is lurching in.
Now you are talking an even more complex alteration. Frankly, the implications of what you propose are simply impossible.
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Let me make the point I make earlier clearer if I can Vanessa. You say;
“I believe that the frames showing the Kennedys’ forward movement have been removed and that is why we don’t see it in the extant zfilm.”
My point is; how do you remove frames of the Kennedy’s moving forward without removing the frames of the rest of the passengers moving forward? All of them are visible in each frame.
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Okay Willy, the parts of the frames showing the Kennedys moving forward have been altered and we don’t actually see their flung-forward movement at all.
How else can you explain what is happening to the four front passengers (which appears so striking in Costella’s video) and why doesn’t it happen to the Kennedys?
“..the parts of the frames showing the Kennedys moving forward have been altered and we don’t actually see their flung-forward movement at all.”~Vanessa
It is propositions such as this that can only be made by people without the slightest understanding of special effects film.
Even if I explained to you the complexity of what would be demanded to achieve such changes, you clearly wouldn’t grasp it. And now you are so far beyond the pale, and with no possible motive to alter this sequence in the first place. What could the forgers possibly hope to hide by doing what is essentially technically impossible?
Let me state that again very clearly, it is technically impossible to have altered the Zapruder film at all, in anyway whatsoever, that would not be immediately obvious upon expert inspection.
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“We also have the Daniel film which shows the limo coming out of the underpass so we have an almost continuous view of the limo with those 2 films with possibly a few seconds gap in between.
I don’t see how Chaney’s ride past and conversation could have happened in those seconds.”~Vanessa
I see what you are seeing, but I do think that Chaney could certainly have sped past the limo as it was entering the underpass and gotten that far ahead of the limo by the time of the shot from the Daniel film. Chaney was in hot pursuit of the lead car and those bikes can move quickly.
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Hi Willy
You’re right Chaney was in hot pursuit of the lead car but we can actually see the lead car in Daniel pulled to the right hand side while the limo is accelerating past it at that stage.
If Chaney did race up in front of the limo and talk to Curry during those few seconds between Zapruder and Daniel we still should be able to see Chaney on Daniel either stopped under the underpass or following behind the limo or even near Curry’s car.
But there is no motorcycle officer there except one to the rear on the right who I believe has been identified as Martin (?).
SS Agent Forrest Sorrels was in Curry’s car. This is part of his statement about when Chaney spoke to Curry:
Forrest Sorrels (Secret Service agent, in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine), November 28, 1963: “I noted that the President’s car had axcelerated [sic] its speed and was closing fast the gap between us. A motorcycle pulled up alongside of the car and Chief Curry yelled ‘Is anybody hurt?’, to which the officer replied in the affirmative, and Chief Curry immediately broadcast to surround the building. By that time we had gotten just about under the underpass when the President’s car pulled up alongside, and at that time Chief Curry’s car had started to pick up speed, and someone yelled to get to the nearest hospital, and Chief Curry broadcast for the hospital to be ready.” [Statement: 21H548]
There is also the Bell film (see link below) which shows the limo going through the underpass and then exiting it. It also shows Curry’s car alongside briefly. The 3 lead motorcycles escorting the motorcade can just be seen exiting the underpass. Officer Chaney can’t be seen at all.
Officer Chaney should be visible on Bell near Curry’s car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYTOTpz6KG4
“But there is no motorcycle officer there except one to the rear on the right who I believe has been identified as Martin (?).”~Vanessa
How do you know this isn’t Chaney?
Just looking at the Daniel film again_at the very beginning of the shot there IS a motorcyclist at the Limo’s left rear bumper. After the action in the plaza we recall that the motorcyclist on the left bumper had parked in Dealey and ran up the knoll – so the motorcyclist in this Daniel shot could very well be Chaney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkNjYfLez1Y
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Correction:
Sorry that bike is behind the dark car just behind the limo not the limo.
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Thanks Willy.
I think that is Martin because he was riding on the limo’s left rear bumper with Officer Hargis at the time of the assassination. Martin’s WC testimony says.
“Mr Ball: And in the motorcade what was your position?
Mr Martin: I was assigned to ride on the left-hand rear side of President Kennedy”.
Later on in his testimony Martin says:
Mr Ball: Now, afterward did the motorcade pick up speed then?
………..
Mr Martin: Yes – after the shots we picked up speed.
Mr Ball: Did you go to Parkland?
Mr Martin: Yes, sir; I did. I rode part of the time alongside of the President’s car. At times we were forced to the rear because of the pedestrians standing out on Stemmons and there just wasn’t enough room to ride in there.”
Officer Hargis is the officer who dropped his bike and ran. This is his WC testimony.
Mr Hargis: I don’t know whether it was the Secret Service car, and I remembered seeing Officer Chaney. Chaney put his motor in first gear and accelerated up to the front to tell them to get everything out of the way, that he was coming through, and that is when the Presidential limousine shot off, and I stopped and got off my motorcycle and ran to the right-hand side of the street, behind the light pole.”
Officer Chaney was riding on the right rear of the limo behind President Kennedy with Officer Jackson. Hargis says Chaney went to the front to talk to Curry. The motorcycle officer you mention in Daniel is on the left hand side behind the limo. If this is Officer Chaney then to get to that position on the left hand side in Daniel he would have had to gone in front of Curry’s car to end up on the left in Daniel. Is it likely that after moving forward on the right to tell Curry to get out of the way he would then cross the road in front of Curry’s car and potentially get in the way of the limo himself? Or would he just have stayed on the right hand side of the road where he was?
Unfortunately we don’t have any WC testimony for Officer Chaney or his partner Officer Jackson as they were not called to give evidence before the Commission. The best we have is this.
Officer Chaney 11-22-63 interview with Bill Lord on WFAA television, apparently in the early evening) “I was riding on the right rear fender… We had proceeded west on Elm Street at approximately 15-20 miles per hour. We heard the first shot. I thought it was a motorcycle backfiring and uh I looked back over to my left and also President Kennedy looked back over his left shoulder. Then, the, uh, second shot came, well, then I looked back just in time to see the President struck in the face by the second bullet. He slumped forward into Mrs. Kennedy’s lap, and uh, it was apparent to me that we were being fired upon. I went ahead of the President’s car to inform Chief Curry that the President had been hit. And then he instructed us over the air to take him to Parkland Hospital and he had Parkland Hospital stand by. I went on up ahead of the, to notify the officers that were leading the escort that he had been hit and we’re gonna have to move out.” (When asked if he saw the person who fired on the President) “No sir, it was back over my right shoulder.”
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter5b%3Aprimarypieces
Officer Chaney does not indicate that he crossed the road, either in front of or behind, Chief Curry’s car so I don’t think that can be him at the left rear in Daniel.
Okay Vanessa, the answer is clear enough now; Chaney simply became invisible to film emulsion sometime after the kill-shot to Kennedy.
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Hi Willy
Okay, I’m not sure what you mean by invisible by film emulsion. Perhaps you could explain that a bit further.
But can I ask, why would only Officer Chaney and his motorcycle become invisible to film emulsion and no-one else?
And if Officer Chaney did become invisible due to film emulsion wouldn’t those parts of the limo and Curry’s car (and anything else he passed) also become invisible?
I was pulling your leg Vanessa.
Forget it.
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Here Vanessa, is something you may be able to digest:
The sprocket mechanism of the Zapruder camera allowed light into the camera creating ghost images to bleed into the next frame of each successive frame. If there were any splices the ghost image would not be of the prior frame, it would be of the prior frame that had been cut out.
In the Zapruder film it is a steady flow of each frame showing a ghost image of the frame just prior to it. In no instance is there a frame with a ghost image of a frame several frames before it.
It was 34 years later that these ghost-images were explained to be the result of the mechanism of Zapruder’s particular camera. Therefore no one at the time of this supposed faking knew what caused these ghost images, they would not have realized that they needed to somehow blend a new ghost image in to the new area that shows a ghost image of the image at the beginning of the splice.
As there are no instances of a ghost image from any but the previous frame in the procession of the film, there cannot have been a splice anywhere in the film.
Furthermore no one at the time of this supposed faking knew what caused these ghost images, they would therefore not realize that they had to then somehow blend a new ghost image in to the new area that shows a ghost image of the image at the beginning of the splice. This makes the entire process much more complex than what you are attempting to present here.
It was not until 34 years later that Rolland Zavata’s analysis of the Z-film and Z-camera that the explanation for these ghost images were explained.
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Now Willy
I did consider for about a day how to respond to your email and whether you’d gone off your rocker or not. So you got the more respectful response rather than my first response, which was along the lines of “What?! Invisible?! Are you f*&king nuts?!” But I didn’t send that because I’m too polite.
Remember we deal with Photon on here who would, if he had to, persuasively argue that a dog is, in fact, a cat. So it’s conceivable you were being serious. If you’re making a joke it is best to indicate that somehow so we all understand each other.
We’re coming at the alteration issue from different angles, you the technical and me the practical, so we’re unlikely to meet in the middle. I don’t unquestioningly accept the view of technical experts. Sorry, but I’ve just seen too many cases where they’ve been proved wrong to accept their views as gospel.
Whereas, I can see with my own eyes that Officer Chaney is not in the films when he should be and I still don’t have a satisfactory answer to the question of where he has gone. That should trouble anyone who is looking at the authenticity of the Zapruder film.
“We’re coming at the alteration issue from different angles, you the technical and me the practical..”~Vanessa
There is absolutely nothing more practical than technical expertise. What you define as “practical” is your uninformed subjective judgment.
As the Zapruder film is authentic, all of the points that are in apparent disagreement with the film are erroneous and irrelevant. There have been misinterpretations. I have found many of these points are misinterpreted, or the product of disingenuous argumentation.
Horne has so much invested in this now, that it is practically impossible for him to back down. Therefore he will simply dig himself deeper into the hole. This will besmirch the rest of his arguments, some of which deserve to be upheld. This is a rather tragic case of an author shooting himself in his own foot.
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Okay Willy
But if the technical explanation cannot account for a man and his motorcycle then it has a problem.
Everyone involved in the Curry/Chaney conversation agrees that it happened before the underpass. Many other witnesses agree that’s when it happened. But this conversation is not captured on Zapruder or any of the other films.
If the technical explanation cannot account for that incident then there is something wrong with the assumptions underlying the technical explanation.
Even Jean Davison acknowledges that there is an issue with the Curry/Chaney conversation.
If you want to claim the primacy of the expert Willy then that is your prerogative. But you must realise the irony of what you are doing given the whole JFK case has been a battle between the ‘experts’ and common sense.
“But if the technical explanation cannot account for a man and his motorcycle then it has a problem.”~Vanessa
But you have not proven that the technical explanation doesn’t account for this construct that is simply a conundrum of your own making.
You claim to the ability positively identify motorcyclists who are wearing helmets with face shields that effectively mask their identities.
You claim that their formation during the “parade” would remain static after the mayhem of the shots and wounding of the occupants in the limousine. No! They scattered, and your attempts to keep up with who is who is as scrambled as the action that day was.
But the main foundation of your error here is dismissing technical facts that you admit yourself you do not understand.
Reliance on genuine expertise must not be confused with an “appeal to authority”, which appears to be part of your argument here.
I know that you likely would like to end this with the “agree to disagree” meme. I will not agree to such, sorry.
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Hi Willy
Believe me I’m quite ready to discuss this topic until kingdom come or until there is an explanation for what happened to the Curry/Chaney conversation.
There’s been quite a lot of detailed work done on exactly where all the motorcyclists were in the motorcade and who they were. It’s been mainly based on their WC testimony but also their official positions in the parade and the films of the motorcade. When I have a moment I’ll post some links for you.
I’ll also make it a bit easier for you by telling you where I think Officer Chaney is. In the McIntyre photo he’s back on the left under the underpass which is where we would expect him to be if he had ridden beside JFK on the right hand side of the limo and then passed the limo to speak to Curry.
And if that is him (and there are no other possible candidates) then that means he has been removed somehow from Zapruder. I’m happy to go into detail to show you why I think that is Chaney.
btw how you can say you won’t agree to disagree? 🙂
“I’ll also make it a bit easier for you by telling you where I think Officer Chaney is. In the McIntyre photo he’s back on the left under the underpass which is where we would expect him to be if he had ridden beside JFK on the right hand side of the limo and then passed the limo to speak to Curry.”~Vanessa
If you are sure it is Chaney, then he simply sped ahead, the Z-film ends as the limo speeds to the underpass and is obscured by bushes.
You simply must reconcile yourself to the FACT that the Z-film cannot have been altered, so counter explanation such as I have just made are more reasonable because it DOES reconcile the two issues.
What do I mean I won’t simple agree to disagree? It means that like you, I will make my counter arguments into perpetuity if that is what it takes.
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Look Vanessa,
The answer to your dilemma is obvious; Chaney sped forward and caught up with the lead car as it reached the underpass. Both the lead car and Chaney are out of the picture before the end of the Z-film showing the limo just before it enters the underpass itself.
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Okay Willy
Please see Robert Harris’s complete version of the Zfilm here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq1PbgeBoQ4
If that link doesn’t work then it’s “The Undamaged Zapruder film” on youtube.
This version shows the limo entering the underpass with Curry’s car glimpsed ahead of it. All the witnesses to the Curry/Chaney discussion agree that it happened before the limo went under the underpass.
At the very least we should see Chaney speeding past the limo on JFK’s side and then reaching Curry’s car but we don’t. Chaney doesn’t appear at all.
Over to you.
So we see the white lead car rear just as the limo goes into the underpass… Chaney could certainly be next to the car as well or even speeding ahead to the FWY entrance.
With Zapruder following the limo, you don’t see what is happening at the underpass until Zapruder’s pan reaches that.
You are grasping at straws here.
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Hi Willy
No straws, no grasping. If Chaney is next to the lead car or even speeding ahead he still would have had to pass by Zapruder’s camera to get there. Chaney was positioned on the rear right hand side of the limo in between JFK and Zapruder. Chaney has to pass the limo to get to the underpass.
Chaney cannot have got from the right rear of the limo to in front of the limo without passing it and appearing on the Zapruder film.
Notes from ‘JFK Horsemen part 2:
“In the telephone conversation not long before he died Curry confirmed to me that another police officer had witnessed [second hand testimony] the motorcade came to a virtual halt on the *access ramp to the Stemmens*. Patrolman Earl Brown was on the railroad overpass which spans Stemmons (not the triple underpass) and saw the cars come to a complete stop for nearly 30 seconds as it approached him.
He told this information to Earl Golz of the Dallas Morning News, and repeated it to me when I called him for verification. Unknown to me was that Jim Bowles, in his reconstruction had already allowed for 15-20 seconds for the temporary stop in addition to the time it took from the Plaza to the access road.
Curry told me they slowed down for two reasons: to find out from motorcycle officer if anyone was hurt, and to inform the Secret Service of the location of the nearest hospital.”
NOTE: The access ramp to the Stemmons FWY is some 700 feet beyond the Pavilion where Zapruder filmed the JFK head shot – and some 400 feet beyond the triple underpass. Earl Brown was 400 feet to the right on another railroad overpass.
This has ZERO RELEVANCE to the scene of the shooting, and the assertions that the limousine stopped in front of the pavilion.
Also for emphasis to Vanessa, Note:
“..the motorcade came to a virtual halt on the *access ramp to the Stemmens*”
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“Chaney was positioned on the rear right hand side of the limo in between JFK and Zapruder. Chaney has to pass the limo to get to the underpass.”~Vanessa
Yup and he must have passed the limo just as it was going so low in the frame that all you could see was Jackie’s hat. If he swung around to the sped right, closer to the curb, he would be totally out of frame as he passed.
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Hi Willy
You do realise that this conversation was reported to Gary Mack in 1979 after Curry had died. If it had been relayed while Curry was alive and he confirmed it then I would give it some credibility.
As it is, it surfaced 16 years after the assassination, is corroborated by no-one and comes from a not altogether disinterested source – GM.
In addition, all the WC testimony and other witness testimony from those actually involved in the incident say it happened before the triple underpass. And not one WC witness says it happened the way Patrolman Brown claims the (then dead) Curry said it did.
And consider this, if it did happen the way Patrolman Earl Brown (and not one other single witness) says then it would mean that Curry stopped the already speeding away limo to find out if anyone had been hurt.
We can already see on the Daniel film that Curry’s car has pulled over to the left to let the Presidential limo pass. Is it credible that he would then speed after it and stop it to ascertain if anyone was hurt when by his WC testimony he already knew that and had ordered the motorcade to the nearest hospital on the radio?
Not so fast Willy
Please observe Officer Chaney in Altgens –that is him on JFK’s right looking over to the President. Chaney’s helmet is higher than the top part of the limo and his helmet and top part of his face are higher than JFK and Jackie. His helmet and the top part of his face should still appear in Zapruder obscuring our view of JFK and Jackie as he moves past the limo.
Altgens is on the opposite side of the street to Chaney so it’s possible Zapruder’s perspective would be slightly different. But given Zapruder was on the same side of the street as Chaney I would expect that if this made any difference at all it would make Chaney appear slightly higher in comparison to JFK and Jackie.
In which frames do we only see Jackie’s hat? I thought JFK was visible in all the frames of Zapruder?
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=altgens&biw=1280&bih=929&tbm=isch&imgil=Cy56SHtz5pztiM%253A%253BCO3TmrSXLXNDkM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fdeeppoliticsforum.com%25252Fforums%25252Fshowthread.php%25253F13027-What-is-James-Chaney-Looking-Back-at&source=iu&pf=m&fir=Cy56SHtz5pztiM%253A%252CCO3TmrSXLXNDkM%252C_&usg=__IYJLXfsrsRgWHFF-yryVUiFXtiI%3D&ved=0CHgQyjc&ei=TDvAVLa4AsSB8gX4nICoCA#imgdii=_&imgrc=Cy56SHtz5pztiM%253A%3BCO3TmrSXLXNDkM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.the-puzzle-palace.com%252FAltgens6extremeclose-up.jpg%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fdeeppoliticsforum.com%252Fforums%252Fshowthread.php%253F13027-What-is-James-Chaney-Looking-Back-at%3B1024%3B804
Vanessa,
Chaney either sped ahead as I postulated, or he hang back with other motorcyclists as they were jumping off their bikes or riding them up the knoll.
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“In the opinion of virtually all of the dozens of motion picture film professionals who have viewed the Zapruder film u201C6Ku201D scans, the dark patches do not look like natural shadows, and appear quite anomalous. Some of these film industry professionals — in particular, two film restoration experts accustomed to looking at visual effects in hundreds of 1950s and 1960s era films — have declared that the aforementioned frames are proof that the Zapruder film has been altered, and that it was crudely done.” ~Douglas Horne
I request that Mr Horne either identify these so-called film experts, or refrain from making these statements.
~Willy Whitten
I would advise everyone reading here to read Rolland Zavata’s work on his inspection of the Zapruder Camera. As well as his answers back to David Lifton. In his reply to Lifton, pay close attention to what Mr Zavata says about the special emulsion film types used for processing special effects cinematography. These special emulsion film types are made for professional purposes and only come in 35 mm and up. They are not and were never available for 16 mm now 8 mm film stocks.
As a professional special effects artist for many years, I have to say that much of what I am reading here about “faking” the Z-film is based on ignorance of the craft a techniques of special effects cinematography.
I have quite a few other critiques of this business as far as the rhetoric and false argumentation of those asserting this charge of faking the Z-film
~Willy Whitten \\][//
For the life of me, I cannot understand why some of our fellow CT investigators would insist on the Z-film being a counterfeit.
(1) The scene depicted in the film irrevocably proves a frontal shot. To any analyst with a minimum level of knowledge and technical resources, anyway.
(2) The film was suppressed in a vault (owned by a well-known CIA front shop) precisely for that reason. Thank God Mr. Abraham mentioned its existence and described it on live TV! Even before being developed! Otherwise there would be no film.
(3) Olive Stone -as CT as you can possibly get and *somewhat* educated about *films* – says that it was slightly modified.
Therefore, can we please drop the “total fake” notion?
This is a very important follow up, in which I stand somewhat corrected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaGYxuPQg8
Thanks to Doug Horne for his extraordinary contribution to “our common endeavor”.
I still don’t see why NPIC would ever be shown an “unaltered” version
of the film or why Kodak would not be able to simply make it’s own set
briefing boards. Why give away the whole deal by letting to many
people see the evidence? If the film was altered the people who did the altering would be capable of producing all the fake photo evidence needed and keeping their mouths shut.
Technically the whole idea of blowing up 8mm film, optically altering it, and reducing it back to reasonably believable
8mm original composite was not possible in 1970 when I started working with opticals effects so I don’t see how it could have been done in 1963 and have heard no reasonable explanation for it.
It’s not very convincing to simply say a “magical secret technology”
was used. If such existed in 1963 then why did NASA need to hire
Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landings? (just kidding).
I bookmarked this thread because it’s the most probing, no nonsense, hard hitting interview of Richard Stolley I have ever encountered in 51 years of following the JFK case & this interview sets a standard for other journalists to follow. Besides purchasing the Zapruder for Life Magazine, Stolley was the 1st journalist to see the z-film in the office of the lawyer representing Abe Zapruder. Stolley saw it before Dan Rather did on Monday, 25 Nov 1963, making Stolley part of an elite group of very few to see the film before it ended up at Hawkeyeworks. The information Stolley carries in his memory is invaluable to answering a great many questions regarding the z-film. I urge Peter Voskamp to re-post the interview & remind readers that it’s about interviewing Richard Stolley & publishing the man’s responses to hard questions directly associated with the continuing controversy over the authenticity of the Z-film and to not use the thread as the backdrop for a mud slinging contest. Readers are fortunate to see an intensive interview of Stolley after 51 years of other interviewers not asking him the hard questions Peter Voskamp did. The posters slinging the mud should hang their heads in shame for hijacking the thread & steering it away from Voskamp’s magnificent interview of Richard Stolley IMO.
Mr. Horne, you did not answer John McAdams’ comment at 4:50 pm on 11/09/14, nor Ms. Davison’s at 7:43 on 11/09/14. Nor Photon’s at 2:31 pm on 11/09/14. Sincerely, Mark Florio.
” You just can’t account for the human brain’s response under stress”. You would think that would be self-evident, but people from Dr. Aguilar to Horne claim that stress SHARPENS memory and is even more reliable than photographic evidence. So we have Mr. Horne claiming that Hill’s 7 minutes of periodic observation of JFK’s head, which was cradled for the most part by Jackie and not visible to him, is absolutely infallible because it proves that JFK had a wound in the back of the head. Never mind that the Zapruder film doesn’t show Hill approaching JFK’s limo until after the final shot. Never mind that the Zapruder film does not show any solid debris on the trunk,particularly an object big enough to be a piece of skull. Hill was the only SS agent to react appropriately, but too late. The Altgens photo has him still standing on the rail of the follow-up car after the first two shots, so he obviously is in error about the timing of his response. As another example of response to stress clouding judgement Mr. Hill completely forgot about protocol, confidentiality and standard procedure after reaching Parkland, something that nobody has asked about. When Merriman Smith approached the limo he went to Hill and said “How badly is he hit,Clint?” Hil replied ” He’s dead,Smitty”. His correct appraisal of JFK’s condition was then broadcast around the world with the first reports. I doubt very much that he would have ever made that statement to the greatest political reporter of the generation unless he was under tremendous stress,emotional and otherwise.
Just insanity on a mass level. Look at Clint Hill’s testimony. EVERY time he has retold the story he gets ever CLOSER to the Limo. I’ve listened to, and read accounts of Hill stating that he had ‘just grabbed the Handhold on the trunk’, or that he had just about ‘reached the Limo’, when the last shot was fired. The fact is that 3 films, Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore, show that Agent Hill was just barely at the left front tire of the Queen Mary when the LAST shot killed JFK.
Clint Hill, as gallant and as brave as he could be, is the best observer of what he saw, but his story has changed over time as well. I feel sad for him. This event changed his life in such a terrible way. However, even as an Agent specially trained in the use of weapons, and how they sound, came up short.
As Hill deals with his own issues in life, he has allowed his story to grow in scope as Kennedy’s Camelot legend grew. You just can’t account for the human brain’s response under stress. Actually, a lot has been written here about the Limo Stopping…etc. Yet, if you watch and observe Hill ‘RUNNING’ toward the car, in all 3 films, you’ll notice that there is a ‘back-up’ of traffic as the Limo is almost rear-ended by the Queen Mary….and that some of the Motorcycle’s do stop. Yet…and most importantly…AS HILL CONTINUES TO RUN AND SCRAMBLE TO GET ONTO THE BACK…he keeps moving as just about everyone else falls behind.
So much for faking films…and DMP’s being correct about the car stopping…and the nonsense about Officer’s getting sprayed with matter. The wind was blowing right into their faces..and the splatter from the head-shot (halo at 313)…was right there for them to ride into. Mr. McAdams is correct about the Hargis comments. Just more self-serving drivel by people doing what people do: Inserting themselves into the story. Bring back Ms. Adams!!! Peace.
“in 1963 when colour film was still in its infancy a man named Zapruder got to be in the best place at the right time with his colour video camera and filmed the CIA and mob murder JFK at the behest of LBJ and others”.
Wow. That has to be a record for the most false statements in a single sentence on this site. Video camera in 1963? Colour film in its infancy? Zapruder filming for LBJ?
i would like to replY TO Protons flippant remarks io James,Indeed there was number of extraordinary coincidence in that day of filming.First off Orville Nix according to his daughter was filming from position sugested to him by his friend Forrest Sorrels Zapruder on opposite side of plaza is filming in sequence with Nix. Who is first official on seen to collect Zapruder film, none other then Sorrels.
Zapruder position filming could have given sequence to snipper behind him and snipper in TSBD via signal from umbrella man or Babushka Lady (reminds me of Pash in drag)
a witness sugested by McAdams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc7ZYzbyNV8
.
“First off Orville Nix according to his daughter was filming from position sugested to him by his friend Forrest Sorrels..” ~Gerald Campeau
A non sequitur. It is not ipso facto that because Nix may have been filming from a spot suggested by Sorrels that Zapruder would have necessarily been standing in a spot suggested by others. After all Zapruder’s perch atop that wall was the best view for the procession he hoped to film.
I have read other’s attempts to assign sinister intent to Zapruder. None of these arguments have ever made any logical sense to me.
It has been emphasized that Zapruder was part of the White Russian community in Dallas at the time. Well Zapruder was in the clothing industry, which was practically monopolized by the White Russian community in Dallas 1963.
Are we then to propose that the entire White Russian community was in on the plot to kill Kennedy? What would be the motive, what would be their gain?
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Photon, you were doing fine until you thought Zapruder “filmed the CIA and mob murder JFK at the behest of LBJ and others”. The murder ITSELF was at the behest of LBJ and others. It appears to me as though you write here that LBJ and others gave Zapruder the go-ahead to do his filming. Sounds silly to me.
I love the coincidence of it all. In 1963 when colour film was still in its infancy a man named Zapruder got to be in the best place at the right time with his colour video camera and filmed the CIA and mob murder JFK at the behest of LBJ and others. I love that such a vital piece of evidence has such a poor chain of custody despite the professionals involved such as the police and secret service. It’s complete BS to say otherwise. As a professional in this field myself as soon as something happens you switch on and kick on. Doesn’t matter who the victim is FACT. You don’t stand there and freeze thinking holy sh*! my president has just been shot so in that respect don’t come with the ‘everything was crazy blar’ hence mistakes. All those ‘mistakes’, that day and thereafter and people still to this day swallow it! Why did they destroy the crime scene evidence, the most vital part being the car on the Monday? Why were multiple statements ignored from eye witnesses and not included in the WCR including 21 police officers who state their instincts and senses drew them to the grassy knoll. Why was the ‘prime suspect’, murdered himself….And why is it that when you don’t conform to the official theory you are labelled a nut or just a hippy conspiracy theorist? I’m not a revolutionist or rebel without a cause…I don’t claim the moon landing was fake or 9/11 was an inside job. I have nothing to gain and no hidden motivation. I’m not even an American. I’ve simply read everything there is to read on JFK and it’s painfully obvious he was removed from government by his own. Many against say, “absurd,show me the evidence”. I’d love to, we all would but you know very well it was all destroyed, as well as over a hundred people connected to the murder of JFK who all met an untimely death between 1963-1978. I believe the odds of so many deaths related to that of jfk’s slaying was estimated at one million trillion to one. Say no more. Que the insanity accusations.
To James, November 9, 2014 – Thank you. The lone nut theorists do seem to specialize in ad hominem responses – Their motto seems to be; “When faced with evidence that proves you’re wrong – attack your opponent personally; Call him a moron or a crackpot and dispute the least relevant of his points”.
Not sure what’s driving these folks who want to believe that Lee Oswald stuck a broken Carcano out a 6th floor window and performed magic; Including the infliction of 7 wounds in the President and Governor with one bullet – All while enjoying a Coke in the 2nd floor lunchroom.
We’ve been interviewing the most obstinate and outspoken of the “2 lone nuts” theorists and analyzing their motive; Results will be published soon – for all to analyze and enjoy.
To see the difference between this probing interview, asking hard, no nonsense questions of Mr. Stolley directly associated with the continuing controversy about the Zapruder film & what Government operatives are alleged to have done with compare with Gary Mack’s Sixth Floor Museum Stolley interview in March 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxuOtcmyPxQ
Mack sat next to Stolley for over 20 min & not once asked him if the film he saw in Zapruder’s lawyers office 23 Nov 1963 differed in any way from what has been seen by the public since. Not asking the hard, probing questions of important JFK ambush witnesses is a pattern that runs through other 6th Floor Museum witness interviews. It’s obvious to me the persons behind these interviews are the wrong people if determining truth is the objective.
I find Mr. Stolley’s words here just heresay, and his opinions right in line with the WC “conclusion.” But, when he says “Just as the motorcade is coming around the bend. It’s not in an area that had anything to do with the events that mattered..” I’m thinking, “Would’nt that part of the film show the Dal-Tex building ?” In my opinion, that would be a critical area/view that the public should see.
Also, Zapruder’s office was in the Dal-Tex building. I tell you, the more i study this, the fishier it seems. I can’t yet put a finger on it, but something about the WC’staff,’ Howard Willens etc. ( C-SPAN.org)and now even Stolley smells fishy. I’m not sold on Forrest Sorrels either, or for that matter, even Zapruder.
This pretty much blows Horne’s theory of Z-film alteration out of the water.
But it’s redundant. David Wrone did that long ago with The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination.
The entire body of Horne’s theories is based on exploiting 30+ year-old memories for discrepancies. He simply has no sense of how unreliable such testimony is.
Why does it blow the alteration theory out of the water? Seems like a typical comment from you but you should explain. I have personally read almost everything Doug Horne has written in regards to this and he may not be 100% right on every single little detail but he’s well within the ballpark. In addition I have visually seen very very strong evidence that this film has been altered as have many others and at some point time you will of see it to.
It’s hard for me to believe that the film was sent up to Rochester, NY FBI, then back to Dallas. What did the Rochester FBI do, send it back exactly as it was? I really doubt that. They altered it, then sent it back to Dallas.
It is time for me to make a general comment here, for all readers of this thread.
If John McAdams had truly read any of my work on the Zapruder film—such as the 200 page Z film chapter, number 14 in my book “Inside the ARRB;” or my 19,000 word, footnoted research paper on the 2 NPIC events posted at LewRockwell.com—he would know that I have completely discredited David Wrone’s book on the Zapruder film, and have done so with great specificity, quoting Wrone’s incorrect conclusions verbatim, and citing exactly why his major conclusions (that the USG had no interest in the film and did not have the capability to alter it) are incorrect, in light of new evidence. David Wrone’s book misrepresented/failed to report properly on the 2 NPIC events, as I reported in my chapter 14, and that obfuscation, I believe, was intentional. Wrone’s book, when it was published, was the best defense to date, at that time, of the Z film’s authenticity. But it now reads like a “flat earth” document, following Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. Citing David Wrone’s book at this point in the Z film debate is about as useful as citing the Warren Report when discussing the medical evidence.
No one who has watched Dino Brugioni’s interview in the Shane O’Sullivan piece titled “The Zapruder Film Mystery” has expressed anything but respect for his excellent memory and his integrity, and this includes the moderator on this site, Jefferson Morley. Dino’s memories, when recorded on video in 2011, were 47 years old, and yet were more truthful, and useful, and reliable, than much of the testimony taken by the Warren Commission just months after JFK’s assassination. The best example of this is Dr. James J. Humes, who perjured himself on many occasions before the Warren Commission. Humes’ testimony was not “valid” just because it was “fresh.” And Dino Brugioni’s recollections (and those of Homer McMahon of NPIC in 1997) are not “invalid” just because they were not recorded in 1964. Each witnesses’ testimony and recollections must be evaluated independently, within the context of all known evidence and what they have said previously. Every oral historian and jurist knows this.
On those occasions when he discusses my work, McAdams keeps trotting out his favorite old shibboleth about how no one can trust 30+ year old memories; he attempts to use this rather lame, simplistic dismissal—a standard lawyer’s trick used in adversarial proceedings—whenever he cannot counter any of my specific assertions or conclusions by discussing specific evidence, or by discussing the pattern revealed by a large body of facts (and what those facts mean). On the rare occasions when he does discuss facts, he attempts to use a “reductionist” approach—which entails ignoring the “big picture” and selectively picking out one statement among many made by someone else, in an attempt to destroy a larger argument by nitpicking to death, and casting doubt upon, one small item in a large body of evidence. I find this approach to the JFK assassination counterproductive, for in adopting these methods, Mr. McAdams contributes nothing positive to the JFK debate; his sole object seems to be to cast the maximum doubt possible upon any facts contrary to the Warren Commission’s findings, and to debunk the serious work of dedicated JFK researchers, whose sole goal is to determine what really happened in our country in 1963.
But for the sake of this response, let me on this one occasion, counter his tired old argument that we cannot trust 30+ year old memories—which is demonstrably not true—by stating that most of the evidence that causes us to mistrust the Warren Commission’s medical conclusions are NOT 30+ year old memories, but rather, are contemporaneous documents created at or near the time of the assassination, to wit:
(1) The Boyajian Report dated 11/26/63, which records the arrival of JFK’s body at the Bethesda morgue 20 minutes prior to the Andrews AFB motorcade;
(2)The Sibert and O’Neill FBI FD-302 report dated 11/26/63, which quotes Dr. Humes’ statement at the autopsy (when describing the condition of JFK’s body) that there had been “surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull.” The significance of this statement is that there was no cranial surgery in Dallas.
(3) The receipt trail for the JFK autopsy report (from both 1965 and from 1967) which proves that the Secret Service TWICE relinquished “original autopsy reports” on JFK to others. The point here is that you cannot give away an “original” twice, if there was only one original. And we know the first draft of the autopsy report was burned by Dr. Humes in his fireplace after it was revised, because this is what Humes testified to in 1964 before Arlen Specter of the Warren Commission. That was not a 30+ year old memory—it was only about 4 months after the assassination. So we can have no confidence today in the extant autopsy report.
(4) National Archives personnel recorded in a written report on 10/31/66 that all of the paragraph nine materials (see the APR ’65 inventory) given to RFK in 1965 (including the brain and an “original autopsy report”) were not returned to the govt by the Kennedy family; and we have a 1969 memo written by Assistant S.S. Director Tom Kelley which records that the group of USG officials he was meeting with discussed the missing autopsy report, and the incendiary nature of that fact, and decided to do nothing about it.
(5) The Joint Casket Bearer Team’s official report written in 1963 lists the time that the honor guard took the Dallas casket into the morgue as “2000 hours,” or 8:00 PM. This contemporaneous document records the final casket entry (of three) that night at the Bethesda morgue; and when married with the Boyajian report (documenting the first casket entry at 18:35 hours, or 6:35 PM) proves that there was a shell game underway at Bethesda Naval Hospital on 11/22/63 with JFK’s body, and that its chain of custody from Dallas to Bethesda was broken—seriously compromised.
(6) The Gawler’s Funeral Home “first call sheet” prepared on 11/22/63 records that JFK’s body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital in a metal shipping casket, a term which had a specific meaning within the funeral trade. His body did not leave Dallas in a cheap, lightweight shipping casket; rather, it left Dallas in a heavy, dark brown, bronze ceremonial viewing coffin. The break in the chain of custody of JFK’s body already established by the Boyajian report and the report of the Casket Bearer Team is further substantiated by this written record created on 11/22/63.
(7) The contemporaneous treatment notes and reports of the Parkland treating physicians written on 11/22/63—they are certainly not 30+ year old memories—all record a large head wound in the rear, or right rear, of President Kennedy’s head. None of them describe any damage to the top of the head or to the right side. Those are not my interpretations of what they wrote, for if one consults a medical anatomy atlas, there is only ONE possible interpretation to what they wrote: JFK had a large defect in the back of his head, devoid of scalp and skull, extruding cerebral AND CEREBELLAR tissue. Those key observations speak to a fatal shot from the front, and dramatically disagree with the later autopsy conclusions.
I could go on and on, but by now the readers of this thread surely get the point: you cannot dismiss serious evidence, and the conclusions derived from studying the patterns in that evidence, by refusing to discuss the facts, and by resorting to simplistic techniques to attempt to discount “wholesale” everything someone says. That is an intellectually dishonest approach. END
That, Doug, is what you do. Except you try to cast doubt on the evidence that you find inconvenient.
Have you even noticed that witnesses you use to impeach the photos and x-rays not only contradict the existing photos, but contradict each other?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/memory.htm#arrb
Stringer and O’Neill are two examples.
DOUGLAS P. HORNE SAID:
The Sibert and O’Neill FBI FD-302 report dated 11/26/63…quotes Dr. Humes’ statement at the autopsy (when describing the condition of JFK’s body) that there had been “surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull.” The significance of this statement is that there was no cranial surgery in Dallas.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And apparently Mr. Horne doesn’t even shrug a shoulder or bat an eyelash when it comes to the supreme idiocy of Dr. Humes making such a “surgery of the head area” statement in front of TWO **non-conspirators** (FBI agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill) — even though, according to Mr. Horne, Dr. James J. Humes was the person who performed the covert “surgery of the head area” being discussed by Humes so that Sibert and O’Neill could easily hear him.
So, this would mean that Dr. Humes HIMSELF, who was, per Mr. Horne, a key conspirator in a plot to alter President Kennedy’s head wounds on the night of 11/22/63, is revealing the conspiracy–right in the autopsy room at Bethesda in front of two FBI agents who will be writing up a report on their observations.
Can anyone really NOT see how utterly ridiculous such a scenario would have been?
Evidently Douglas P. Horne can’t, because he said this to me five years ago:
“Mr. Von Pein, Dr. Humes performed the post-mortem surgery on JFK’s head wounds before the autopsy.” — Doug Horne; 12/19/2009
Also see:
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/doug-horne-part-1.html
Hi David!
Just to pick up on your comment pertaining to Humes being a comspirator re; Douglas’s comments. My own take on this is that Humes was a career officer who was simply following orders from higher authority. Humes was witnessed by the Gawler’s funeral home employee Tom Robinson both incising the scalp and sawing away bone from President Kennedy’s skull within a time frame prior to the loosely named “autopsy of record”, which itself was redacted several times, with prior copies and notes (evidence) being destroyed. I would not go as far to imply that Humes was directly involved in the conspiracy which took JFK’s life. However, Humes evidently agreed under orders to mutilate JFK’s corpse after the fact in order to destroy evidence of frontally inflicted head wounds, and also covertly removed JFK’s brain to destroy the accurate bullet paths through that organ, as well as to remove fragments, of which there were several. This, in my opinion made Humes an accessory after the fact, regardless of his motivations.
According to FBI agent Sibert, Humes made that statement about “surgery to the head” just after the head was unwrapped, and that it was just his first impression.
Later that night when the skull fragment found in the limo arrived, the issue was resolved as that fragment seemed to fit in like a puzzle piece in the area in question.
Sibert amended his notes to reflect this change of opinion.
I want to mention that there seems a lot of confusion about what “the back of the head” means in this argument.
It is often said that the Parkland doctors claimed to have seen a “blow-out” at the far rear of the head, and has been depicted as at the “occipital protuberance”. But if you look at the photo’s and read the words of the parkland doctors, you will see them cover the occipital-parietal with their hands, and every one of them used the term “occipital-parietal” in their wording.
Worth noting is that Kennedy’s head was never raised up during the Parkland proceedings. Kennedy was laying with his head resting on the very back of his head. No one there examined the very back of the head where the infamous “McClellend Drawing” showing that cartoonish “blowout” is shown.
There is no documentation that any of the Parkland doctors ever saw and approved of this drawing, none of them initialed it, or signed off on it.
“The back of the head” is of course any area from the mid-top of the head to the back of the neck, in layman’s terms – tecnically in medical terminology it is “occipital-parietal”. The “occipital protrusion” is a distinct bump just behind each ear.
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Mr Horne I have made comments directed to you, and realized that you may not have seen them because I posted on the main comment box rather than as a reply.
Those comments are at the bottom of this thread, I would like to direct your attention to them, and hopefully get a response.
~Willy Whitten
POST-SCRIPT TO MY COMMENTS ABOVE:
Here is the link to my research paper about the Two NPIC events with the Zapruder film the weekend of JFK’s assassination, published at LewRockwell.com: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig13/horne-d1.1.1.html
I appreciate Peter Voskamp’s mention of this paper, and I thought it only appropriate to provide JFKFACTS readers with ready access to it.
All of Richard Stolley’s interview comments should be evaluated in the context of this research paper. END
Mr. Horne,
At about 28 minutes into the Dino Brugioni interview video, when he describes seeing “portions of [JFK’s] skull fly into the air,” he gestures by moving his hand from the right side of his head forward. A few minutes later he describes debris going high over the top of Kennedy’s head, giving not precisely the same description that we see in Z313 but in the same location.
http://vimeo.com/102327635
How can this be? Isn’t he describing the “massive head wound on the right and top side of the skull” that you say was “painted onto” the altered copy *after* Brugioni viewed the original? Why did Brugioni see a wound on the right/top side of the head and not the “real exit wound” on the rear of JFK’s head that you say was “blacked out” later, after he saw the unaltered original?
Could you please explain this?
Ms. Davison,
In his video interview, in portions you have not yet seen (but will see next year), Dino makes very clear that the massive head explosion he recalls was high in the air, and that the explosion in 313 is “low.” He also made clear, in video you will see next year, that his head explosion was all WHITE, and was not red or pink or orange, as we see now in frame 313.
Actually he did make the point about “high” (3 or 4 feet above JFK’s head) vs. “low” in the audio segment embedded in the Shane O’Sullivaan interview, but clearly you do not want to quote that because it would support my anaylsis of his testimony and the film.
In the video segment you will see in a new documentary next year, you will also learn that Dino says that there is something missing from the killing, and that there are frames missing from the head explosion sequence.
You cannot properly interpret and understand the events of Nov 1963 by selectively quoting evidence. END
Mr. Horne,
I’m talking about the *location* of the head wound, not the color or height of the debris. Could you please address that?
At c. 1 hour, 19 minutes into the video you say,”Many people saw [Zapruder’s original copy] over the weekend. Many people saw exit debris leaving the President’s head, traveling to the left rear.” You illustrate this by moving your hand away from the low back of your head.
But that’s not what Brugioni saw. Please compare your gesture with Brugioni’s at c.28:30 in which his hand moves forward from the right side of his head. He later described debris exiting the *top* of the head, not the back.
Why did Brugioni place the wound in the same location we see in Z313, if this wound was “painted” on later and the “real wound” was in the back of the head?
You seem determined to believe that the Z film is authentic, or at least unpersuaded as yet that there are significant challenges to its authenticity.
I will attempt to address some of your concerns.
Erwin Schwartz, Zapruder’s business partner and friend, told author Noel Twyman (as reported in “Bloody Treason”) that the exit debris in the film he watched all weekend (numerous times—Zapruder kept one copy until late Monday) went out the back of the head toward the left rear. This observation of his is buttressed by the recollections of the Willis family in “The Men Who Killed Kennedy”—they are featured in two episodes—particularly Ms. Willis, who described an expanding cone of debris coming out the rear of JFK’s head, high into the air, colored mostly white, with a red halo in the center, as I recall. And the recollections of Schwartz and the Willis family (Marilyn in particular) are buttressed by the recollections of surveyors Brennaman and West in newspaper interviews in the 1970s and a letter to a relative, that they received large 8 x 10 inch color prints of Zapruder frames (from LIFE magazine), the week following the assassination, that showed large red blobs of blood exiting the rear of JFK’s head, in at least three or four prints. The many prints they were provided from the Z film (apparently the true camera original) were used to help make their plat map of Dealey Plaza for LIFE magazine.
Those items of evidence cited above are of course consistent with Clint Hill’s graphic description in his Warren Commission testimony of the bloody gore covering the trunk lid.
As for Dino Brugioni’s recollections of a high, vertical head explosion, it was certainly not what Peter Janney or I expected him to say. But he is insistent about that, and as the audio clip which you seemed determined to ignore or discount reveals, he said in April of 2011 that it was “in the sky,” and “3 or 4 feet above his [JFK’s] head.” Now, it does not mean that there was not exit debris traveling toward the left rear in the film he viewed also; if the film showed both patterns of exit debris, it simply means that he remembers today the pattern that was most dramatic TO HIM, and most memorable TO HIM. Memories of dramatic events are sometimes like viewing a Chinese landscape painting, where you see the mountain peaks, rising above the clouds, but not the base of the mountain or the entire mountain. I think that may be what we are dealing with here with Dino’s recollections. There may have been many other things happening in the camera original Z film he viewed, but what we have today (from the 2011 interviews by me and Janney) are the most dramatic highlights (in his mind) of what he saw 47 years ago. It does not mean that his memory is inaccurate in regard to the vertical head explosion; it simply means that there were likely other things happening in the film that he does not recall today.
Janney and I asked Dino if he remembered a brief car stop or the limo turning the corner form Houston to Elm, and it was clear he did not remember one way or the other. His response was,”the Secret Service wanted us to focus on the road sign and the killing [the head explosion].” He does not really remember one way or another whether those other things were in the film; but it does not mean they were NOT present when he viewed it. All we can be sure of today is what he DOES REMEMBER about the film he saw.
And he is adamant that there has been something cut out of the killing, and that there have been frames removed from the head shot. No matter how uncomfortable those facts are for those who wish to believe in the film’s authenticity, they will not go away; and Brugioni’s credibility is unassailable.
When the ARRB staff (Jeremy Gunn and I) interviewed Dr. Robert Grossman in 1997, he recalled an upper parietal “trap door” high near the crown of the skull, on the right side, which he called an “exit” in his drawing (see Volume 1 of my book). He said this exit was not a hole, but was a flap of bone with hair on it that moved ever so slightly when Dr. Clark (his boss, the Head of Neurosurgery) examined the head wound before declaring the President dead. For years I was very skeptical of Grossman’s recollection, but since hearing Dino Brugioni discuss the vertical head explosion in 2011, I have been inclined, in light of this new evidence from Dino, to believe Dr. Grossman. The upper right parietal flap makes a vertical head explosion possible. It obviously closed after the head explosion, and was not seen at Parkland by anyone but Grossman. It was a trap door that opened quickly, and then closed. This “trap door” is also very likely what Abe Zapruder was describing when he gave his television interview, before having his film developed. He was viewing the assassination through a small viewfinder, and so his description of the head opening up on TV was the best description he could give based on this constricted viewpoint.
Dino was not precise about where in the head the vertical explosion was launched from, except that it was not from the forward part of the skull where we see the red “explosion” in 313; according to Dino his head explosion came from somewhere behind the red explosion in 313. All he WAS sure about was that the head “explosion” in 313 was too low and too small; was not the one he saw; and that the explosion he saw definitely lasted more than one film frame.
Stay tuned for the new documentary coming out next year about the Z film and the medical evidence. You will have much more to consider and ruminate on at that time.
I don’t do chatrooms 24/7, and the few occasions I have gone onto JFKFACTS this past few months are the exceptions that prove the rule, for me.
I’m signing off of this forum at this time, as other matters demand my attention in the coming months, in particular a new manuscript (on an unrelated subject) which is several years behind schedule.
Good luck in your research. Keep an open mind. END
Post Script to my latest reply to Ms. Davison:
Exit debris traveling to the left rear of JFK’s head surely came from the large blowout seen in the right rear of the skull at Parkland; exit debris traveling more or less vertically is consistent with the high right parietal flap drawn and described by Dr. Grossman for the ARRB in 1997. The two patterns of exit debris do not necessarily have to have been caused by the same bullet, or even at the same time.
It is interesting to me that I am discussing the same two patterns of exit debris originally described by Josiah Thompson in “Six Seconds in Dallas.” END
Essentially all the Dealey Plaza witnesses to the head explosion put it on the top or right side.
You are latching onto the belated testimony of a few witnesses who support your theory, and ignoring the mass of testimony.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dpwound.htm
Where you aware that Phil Willis told the Warren Commission that he did not see Kennedy’s head explode?
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/willis_p.htm
Were you aware that Marilyn Willis on 6/17/64, she told the FBI that she saw the top of Kennedy’s head “blow off and ringed by a red halo?”
As for Grossman: he drew the back of the head for the ARRB (and had described it 20+ years earlier for the Boston Globe and he put only a small hole — perhaps the size of a quarter — in the back of the head.
So he flatly contradicts the idea that there was a large blowout in occipital bone.
Why are you using testimony so selectively?
Mr. Horne,
In your paper you say that the wound on the side/top of JFK’s head “had to be painted onto selected Zapruder film frames the next day,” but now you seem to be saying there actually was a wound on the side of his head (where the “flap” is) and Brugioni saw the effect of that one but not the other. Could you please tell me if I understood you correctly? Two head wounds, each with ejecta?
Some of the debris actually *did* go high in the air and last for more than one frame. Frame 314 shows a fragment high in the upper right, and remnants of the debris cloud still remain even in 316-7. Is it pink or white in those frames? Hard to tell, imo.
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z314.jpg
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z315.jpg
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z316.jpg
What Zapruder’s business partner et al. said years later about the head wound is not nearly as persuasive as Zapruder’s filmed description on 11/22/63. Presumably his partner used the same “small viewfinder” Zapruder did.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MhvGLTl6Hwk/UMdhUb2p-UI/AAAAAAAAlB8/gDCygWqcGbM/s500/WFAA-044.png
Although it’s seldom mentioned, “bloody gore” was found over the entire car including the hood, according to the agent who examined it. Kellerman in the front seat testified that when he got to the hospital he saw debris “all over my coat.”
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=15686
I do keep an open mind, Mr. Horne, and I hope you will, too, and will stay a while to discuss these issues.
Jean’s question to Mr Horne was simple:
“Why did Brugioni place the wound in the same location we see in Z313, if this wound was “painted” on later and the “real wound” was in the back of the head?”
How many paragraphs did Horne reply with and still not make a clear answer to Jean’s question?
This is a technique called argumentum verbosium, it is rhetorical distraction and misdirection.
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>>”You cannot properly interpret and understand the events of Nov 1963 by selectively quoting evidence. END” ~Douglas Horne
This is a very interesting point Mr Horne has brought up. I say that because I have read much of Mr Horne’s work, on the Internet, and as quoted by others.
The reason I find this statement interesting is because I see Mr Horne doing exactly that himself; ‘selectively quoting evidence’.
As a retired special effects artist myself, I also must say that in my reading of Mr Horne, he appears to have a very small grasp of the techniques of special effects cinematography.
An example follows:
>>“The implication here is that if the true exit wound on President Kennedy’s head can be obscured in the Zapruder film through use of aerial imaging (i.e., self-matting animation, applied to each frame’s image via an animation stand married to an optical printer) — as revealed by the u201C6Ku201D scans of the 35 mm dupe negative — then the same technique could be used to add a desired exit wound, one consistent with the cover story of a lone shooter firing from behind.”~Horne
This very paragraph proves that Horne has no grasp of special effects cinematography: “self-matting animation, applied to each frame’s image via an animation stand married to an optical printer.” There is no such thing as “self matting” using an animation stand. An animation stand is what is used to create mattes; an entirely different and lengthily process: One involving several previous processes to separate elements from each and every frame before the mattes can be created.
Horne quotes Zavada mentioning Raymond Fielding’s book on special effects cinematography – but it is quite obvious that Horne has not read the book himself. I have. I still own my original hard bound volume.
~Willy Whitten \\][//
Doug,
I’ve studied your two-NPIC events argument and have no doubt it’s sound. What amazes me is how quickly and responsively the USG acted in dealing with the original Z-film. The same way those USG employees dealing with JFK’s body post-Parkland acted. As if a script had been written for the actors.
Thanks, Jonathan. Virtually everyone with an open mind who has seen the Shane O’Sullivan interview on Vimeo, or who has read my Chapter 14 on the Z film, or who has read my long research paper at the LewRockwell site, understands the vital importance of what those 2 events at NPIC the weekend of the assassination mean. The reason the two briefing board events at NPIC were compartmentalized operations is because sandwiched in-between them, was the alteration of the Z film at Hawkeyeworks in Rochester. The two NPIC events are truly spotlights shining up into the night sky, proclaiming “Hey, the Z film was altered the weekend following the assassination.” END
Doug, where exactly was the technology in 1963 that the plotters used to make the alterations you claim?
Mr Horne,
Is it now your opinion that the backyard photographs of Oswald with the rifle are authentic? Do you think that was really Oswald, or do you believe these photo’s to be paste-ups of a patsy?
~Willy Whitten \\][//
“Virtually everyone with an open mind who has…read my Chapter 14 on the Z film…understands the vital importance of what those 2 events at NPIC the weekend of the assassination mean.”~Douglas Horne
There are at least two significant people who disagree with Mr Horne’s hyperbole quoted above, those being, Rolland Zavata, and Raymond Fielding.
Zavata and Fielding together represent the premier experts on cinematography, film, movie making machinery and special effects. Their combined knowledge and expertise in the field is equaled by none.
Raymond Fielding is author of THE TECHNIQUES OF SPECIAL EFFECTS CINEMATOGRAPHY – the veritable bible of professional special effects artists during the era of film.
Both of these icons of the film industry dispute specifically Doug Horne’s Chapter 14 on the Z film -and in great technical detail, at:
http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf
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I would like to make one thing very clear: I have never alleged that Richard Stolley was a part of any conspiracy regarding the Zapruder film; his employer—LIFE magazine—certainly was at a high level, but I have never claimed Dick Stolley was. He purchased the film twice that weekend for LIFE, once on Saturday for $50,000 (print rights only for still frames), and once again on Monday for a revised sale price of $150,000 (all rights including motion picture rights, plus permanent possession of the film and all copies); but this does not necessitate that he was part of any conspiracy, and I do not believe that he was. At least Stolley acknowledged that C.D. Jackson, LIFE’s publisher in 1963, was known to be an intelligence asset and had been since WW II.
I note that Stolley dodged the question about LIFE’s suppression of the film (LIFE paid an extra $100k for motion picture rights on Monday, 11/25/63, but never licensed the film as a motion picture in its 12 years of ownership). The interviewer allowed him to get away with this artful dodge.
It is most interesting to me that Stolley acknowledged that the original Z film and all 3 copies made on 11/22/63 were slit from the camera-original state of 16 mm wide (with adjacent opposing image strips from sides A and B) down to 8 mm for home projection. This confirms the original findings of Rollie Zavada in his report for the ARRB, confirms what the surviving Kodak plant managers in Dallas told Zavada in 1997 and 1998, and contradicts Zavada’s later, revised opinion that the film must not have been slit to 8 mm after all.
Stolley’s confirmation that the LIFE editor in Chicago (Roy Rowan) was using a “Moviola” machine (a hand cranked device that only accepts 16 mm films or 35 mm films) to select still frames for blowup purposes confirms to me that the version of the film first returned to LIFE in Chicago (by the USG) was a 16 mm wide B&W “dirty dupe” made at Hawkeyeworks late on Sunday, 11/24/63. That is, in preparing its Nov 29th issue, LIFE was using a crude B&W copy of the altered film created at Hawkeyeworks, at Kodak Headquarters in Rochester. On Sunday night, 11/24/63, the USG still had the reconstructed, altered, new “original” (an altered film masquerading as an original) in its possession (at NPIC in Washington D.C.), and for this reason could initially provide LIFE in Chicago only with a 16 mm wide “dirty dupe” of the altered, reconstructed film. You cannot view an 8 mm film in a Moviola machine; and the original, and all 3 first day copies, were slit to 8 mm on Friday, 11/22 in Dallas. The 3 LIFE B&W “dirty dupes” at the Sixth Floor Museum today were surely made at Hawkeyeworks on Sunday, 11/24/63; the reconstructed, altered, color Z film was at NPIC all night Sunday night and into the morning on Monday, 11/25/63. LIFE could only publish muddy B&W frames in its 11/29 issue because the USG initially only gave it back a B&W copy of the altered film to work with. LIFE did not get the color film back in NYC until Monday, 11/25/63, per James Wagenvoord, in a recent filmed interview at which I was present.
The interviewer failed to mention to Dick Stolley Dino Brugioni’s vivid recollection of seeing a much more massive head explosion in the Z film on 11/23/63 (at NPIC) than we see today; and interestingly, Stolley did refer to seeing a large vertical (up and slightly forward) head explosion in the interview (just as Brugioni recalls). (The extant Z film shows a small head explosion, of only one frame’s duration.) Brugioni viewed the film many more times the weekend of the assassination than Stolley did, and also examined many individual frames of the head explosion; so to me, Brugioni’s stubborn insistence that “something has been cut out of the killing” and that “frames are missing” from the headshot sequence [both direct quotes from my 2011 video interview of Dino] cannot be ignored.
Stolley’s equivocal comment that “as far as I know…it’s [the film I saw on 11/23 in Dallas] the same film [that exists today] as far as I can remember” CANNOT be viewed as the definitive last word on the film’s authenticity. Why? Because Stolley also told the interviewer “the fact that the body went backwards, I frankly didn’t notice it that much at the time.” Oh really? This is a significant statement. It is my contention that the extremely rapid back-and-to-the-left motion in today’s Z film is the result of optical frame excision—that is, of removal (at Hawkeyeworks) of exit debris frames traveling to the left rear—and that the rapid motion of JFK’s body we see today is an unintended consequence of the film’s alteration the weekend of the assassination. Stolley has unknowingly provided support for this hypothesis.
Stolley’s additional comment that the film was damaged by LIFE “just as the motorcade is coming around the bend” seems to imply that he remembers seeing the limousine turn from Houston to Elm in the film he viewed on 11/23. That turn from Houston to Elm, which Zapruder and Sitzman claim WAS INDEED filmed, is not in the film today. If Stolley saw that turn, then he saw a different Zapruder film than exists today. His statement here raises additional questions.
Stolley’s assertion that the many bootleg copies of the film originated from USG copies is not true. The two sources of the bootleg copies of the film are: (1) from the poor copy loaned to Jim Garrison by LIFE in 1969; and (2) from the discarded workprints of Moses Weitzman in NYC (purloined by Robert Groden), created as Weitzman was copying the extant film for LIFE magazine circa 1968.
While this interview is interesting and was a good idea, it resolves nothing about the authenticity of the extant film, for all the reasons stated above. In fact, it raises more questions than it answers. Stolley’s assertions about what happened to the film in Chicago are hearsay—he was not there. He has no knowledge whatsoever of the two NPIC events with the Z film in Washington D.C. the weekend of the assassination, and his ready agreement with the interviewer’s blithe suggestion (that NPIC was dealing with first day copies) is without any value.
My 19,000 word research paper about the 2 NPIC events, published at LewRockwell.com, makes clear that Dino Brugioni of NPIC had the original film on 11/23, and that the film brought to NPIC for event number two the next night (from Rochester) could NOT have been a first day copy, because it was in a 16 mm, double-8 format.
No interview like this can be considered “the final word;” it must be considered within the context of all the other available evidence, and each statement made by Stolley must be carefully examined in the light of other evidence. END
Hi Doug. Wanted to point out that it was actually Roy Rowan who spoke of the Moviola machine, and Stolley was just reacting to my mention of it. Also, this discussion was in no way intended to be the “definitive” take on the Z film. Rather, I thought it would be interesting to hear a firsthand account of the film’s acquisition five decades ago from the man himself. Stolley’s position on the assassination has been clear for years, and I don’t think anything is going to change that. Still, what interested me, especially in light of your investigations, was what he thought about the various versions landing in Washington over the weekend.
Peter,
I’m glad you did the interview. I just wanted to put many of his remarks into the proper context.
I would point out one more thing: the major reason I do not believe the Z film Dino worked with on 11/23 is the first day copy flown to Secret Service HQ by Phillips, is because that copy arrived in D.C. about 2:40 AM or so, according to David Wrone. If Dino had been dealing with that copy, he would surely have received it by noon or so, and the agents who delivered it to him would surely have said, “we have been evaluating this film, so let us tell you what frames we want enlarged.” Instead, it was delivered to him at 10 PM by two agents who had just gotten off an airplane, and who had come directly from the airport. They had not yet seen the film.
It seems rather obvious to me that they were delivering the true camera original film, slit to 8 mm, after it was intercepted at the LIFE printing plant in Chicago, and before LIFE had a chance to work on it.
All Stolley knows about what happened to the film that weekend after he purchased still print rights (from his personal knowledge) is that he put the camera-original film on an airplane Saturday afternoon for Chicago. After that point, he has no personal knowledge of what happened to it and Dino Brugioni takes over the narrative of the film’s true chain of custody that weekend; along with Homer McMahon the next night. END
The final 1964 report of the Warren Commission on the assassination of JFK contained dramatic inconsistencies. Those inconsistencies, in effect, disproved the Commission’s own final conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on November 22, 1963. Dulles, a career spy, Wall Street lawyer, the CIA director whom JFK had fired after the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco – and the Warren Commission member who took charge of the investigation and final report – is reported to have said, “The American people don’t read.”
Now Douglas Horne is taking this quote to heart, that “The American people don’t read.” Horne is counting on it to pull off a hoax as sinister and elaborate as the Warren Commission report. Horne is counting on the general ignorance of special effects cinematography of his audience. He can likely rest assured that most people will not take the effort to read and understand the rebuttals to his nonsense by Rolland Zavata and Raymond Fielding that utterly demolish his jejune assertions.
And what will be the final effect of Horne’s elaborate hoax? It will be to extinguish the single most crucial visual evidence of the assassination of President Kennedy. That is quite a coup in favor of the killers.
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“What I did notice is that the spray of blood and brain matter was forward. And there’s no way a shot anywhere else but from behind could cause that to happen.” You can say it over and over its still a lie, B.J. Martin. rode at the far left rear of JFK and recieved a direct hit of brain matter suggesting a shot from right front.
What happened to Martin is what happened to Hargis: blood and brain matter was blown upward, and both cops ran through it.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hargis.htm
McAdams i sudjest you read Jean Hill testimony, the car was allmost stoped when head exploded leaving no time to run through it
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/hill_j.htm
blood matter being “blown upward” could have come from a shot from the front, too, right? I mean, “upward” suggests a shot from ANY direction, not just from the TSBD.
Bobby Hargis was hit with such violence by the exit debris that he thought he himself had been shot by a bullet.
This impression of his—that he had himself been shot–CANNOT BE the result of exit debris being blown upward by a bullet, and then having “both cops ride through it.” Please! This is the latest new invention of the lone-nut apologists to explain how motorcycle cops to the left rear could be splattered by blood and brain tissue, and “that dog don’t hunt,” in the immortal words of Walter Matthau (as Senator Long) in “JFK.”
Furthermore, they didn’t immediately “ride through it.” The 1971 audio recordings of Fred Newcomb’s telephone interviews with Martin, Hargis, Chaney, and Jackson reveal that they all stopped their bikes when the limousine stopped briefly during the shooting. If you are ignorant of this evidence, check out Larry Rivera’s two YouTube programs called “The JFK Horsemen” and “The JFK Horsemen II.” Officer Jackson, after viewing a copy of the Garrison Z film, said that the car stop he recalled as missing from the film, that the film had been “cut” and obviously edited. And they said these things in 1971, not 30+ years later. END
No, that’s a factoid. He never said he was “hit hard.” Conspiracy authors added that part.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hargis.htm
That’s what Hargis said. Are you calling him a liar?
Why not? You call dozens of other people liars.
The car didn’t stop. That’s a factoid even few conspiracists believe. It did slow down.
For a determination of whether or not JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy, Bobby Hargis is a poor witness because of his very limited memory. Here’s an example from the WCR:
Mr. Stern. But you cannot now recall more than two shots?
Mr. Hargis. That is all that I can recall remembering [sic.]. Of course, everything was moving so fast at the time that there could have been 30 more shots that I probably never would have noticed them.
More salient evidence is the speed with which the most accurate shot was fired relative to the previous one–if one wants to assume that all shots were fired from a single source. If you want to assume that, the only fall-back is the “echo argument.” But that argument holds no water given that several of the witnesses testifying that the fatal shot came almost immediately after the next to fatal shot were highly experienced in the sound of gunfire:
* According to his statement to the FBI on December 16th, James Tague, the third man injured that day, said that after the first shot he “then heard two more loud noises in quick succession”
* When asked during his testimony to describe the shots he heard, motorcycle officer Clyde A. Haygood said, “it was the first, and then a pause, and then the other two were real close.”
* Lee Bowers, a tower man for the Union Terminal Company, heard three shots. “One, then a slight pause, then two very close together.” In an interview with Mark Lane, he stated that he did not believe the second and third shots could have come from the same gun.
* When William Greer, the driver of the presidential limousine, was asked by the Warren Commission how much time elapsed between the second and third shots said, “The last two seemed to be just simultaneously, one behind the other”. He also said the third shot was “right immediately after” the second.
* Roy Kellerman, the agent in the passenger seat of the presidential limousine, in his statements and his testimony said he heard a “flurry” of shells after the first shot. To the Warren Commission he described it as “a plane breaking the sound barrier, bang, bang”
* Special Agent George Hickey described “two reports which I thought were shots” … “that were in such rapid succession that there seemed to be practically no time element between them.”
* Ladybird Johnson stated that “suddenly there was a sharp loud report – a shot. It seemed to me to come from the right, above my shoulder, from a building. Then a moment and then two more shots in rapid succession.”
* Witness Pierce Allman, program director for WFAA-TV, described the third shot in an interview many years later as being “immediately” after the second shot
* Witness Mary Woodward, a junior reporter for the Dallas News, wrote in an article immediately after the shooting that the third shot came “rapidly” after the second. She elaborated in a 1988 interview that, “the second two shots were immediate – it was almost as if one were an echo of the other – they came so quickly. The sound of one did not cease until the second shot.”
* Special Agent Forrest V. Sorrels told the Warren Commission “that there was to me about twice as much time between the first and second shots as there was between the second and third shots.”
* Congressman Ralph W. Yarborough signed a statement on July 10th 1964 saying that “there seemed to be a longer time between the first and second shots, a much shorter time between the second and third shots” adding that “the third shot about one and one-half seconds after the second shot”
* Carolyn Walther signed an affidavit on December 4th in which she stated that “she heard a loud report and thought it was fireworks. There was a pause after the first report, then a second and third report almost at the same time”
* Pearl Springer signed an affidavit on December 4th in which she stated that “after the first shot there was a pause, than two more shots were fired close together”
* Wesley Frazier testified in the trial of Clay Shaw that he heard a noise that sounded like a motorcycle backfire and “shortly after that there were two more in rapid succession.” He added that “when I heard the second noise, the third was followed nearly just right back to back.”
* Linda Willis testified that “I heard one. Then there was a little bit of time, and then there were two real fast bullets together.”
* Special Agent Warren W. Taylor wrote in a statement on November 29th that “in the instant that my left foot touched the ground, I heard two more bangs and realized that they must be gun shots.”
* According to his Warren Commission testimony, Bob Jackson, who rode in the motorcade as a journalist for the Dallas Morning News, stated that “between the second and third, well, I guess 2 seconds, they were very close together.”
Thus, for the single source theory to be correct you have to believe in the highly improbable, given the fact that the Carcano required 1.66 seconds to fire again, and the fact that the final shot came in quick succession from the previous one and was the most accurate of all. And I am being very generous in my characterization of this as “highly improbable,” as we’ve seen no evidence that any gunman could duplicate such a feat, even with plenty of practice. And I mean an exact replication, with identical circumstances to those asserted by the WC–not one of those ersatz simulations that have been periodically put forth by some WC-friendly media outlets
John, regardless of this “hit hard” stuff, he was hit by the blood spray in such a matter that he felt he was shot.
You’re calling millions of people liars. Everyone who watched the first televised viewing of the motorcade saw Kennedy’s limo stop. Your boy Greer turned around to stare at Kennedy as he took the kill shot in the head; Only then did Greer get the big Limo moving again. I saw it. Everyone who watched the video saw the limo stop, The talking heads in the studio saw it stop. Yes indeed, the limo did stop the first time the Zapruder film was shown on TV, it stopped. It raised a bigger uproar in this Country than Mylie Cyrus’s MTV awards Video. Hell, the stopping of the limo is what triggered the HSCA hearings. People were screaming bloody murder until Congress was forced to go ahead with another toothless investigation. A few years later, the limo had ceased to stop in the video. Now, all the videos show the limo streaking through Dealey Plaza like Nuvolari or Sterling Moss is behind the wheel. But, originally, it stopped. We all saw it. Incidentally, how are you defining “factoid”? That’s an expression I haven’t seen used before. thanks.
“Yes indeed, the limo did stop the first time the Zapruder film was shown on TV, it stopped.”~BrptherBruce
Your memory is faulty, the Zapruder film shown on TV the first time is the same film we see today. The limo does not stop in that film, it slows substantially but never comes to a stop. That is not a “factoid”
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If it was “blown upward” that may suggest someone fired at JFK from street level, like that storm drain to the front and right of the limo.
“CLINT HILL (United States Secret Service Agent, Retired): I was on the left running board of the follow-up car, immediately behind the presidential vehicle. All of a sudden, I heard an explosive noise over my right shoulder. And I saw the president grabbed at his throat, and I knew something was wrong.
“I jumped off the running board of the follow-up car and ran toward the presidential vehicle. As I was running, they tell me there was another shot. I didn’t hear it.
“Just as I was approaching the President’s car, there was a third shot. It hit the President in the head, and then it exploded out the right side of his head. Blood and brain matter and bone fragments sprayed out across the people in the car, across the trunk, myself and Mrs. Kennedy.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cold-case-jfk.html
In a written report dated Nov 30, 1963 and in his Warren Commission testimony Clint Hill also stated that the right rear portion of JFK’s head was missing, and laying in the back seat.
The right rear portion of his head.
He had 7 minutes to observe it on the way to the hospital, so it is extremely unlikely he was inaccurate about what he was describing. His adrenalin was pumping, and that is when you get very accurate memories recorded, particularly for salient facts.
And that was not a 30+ year old memory! One was a week old, and the other about 4 months old.
The trouble is that you are assuming that “right rear” had to mean in occipital bone.
In fact, the wound was indeed mostly posterior but in parietal bone.
In a later interview, Hill said the wound was “above the ear.”
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/clinthill.htm