Quote:Extract from Chapter 4, “The Filmed Assassination,” from Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams’ Murder From Within (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Probe, 1974):

Between the period that Zapruder took his film and the Commission saw it, the film was altered.

Available copies that we examined showed splices present (Fig. 4-3). All splices were photographic, i.e., the mechanical splices of the original were copied onto the duplicates.

The following is an inventory of our examination.

Splices in frames 152-159 concern the period after the limousine turned Elm and Houston Streets and before the freeway sign.

Frame 152 is spliced at the bottom of the frame. In the next frame, splices exist at both top and bottom. In addition, the color changes. Instead of the previous warm color, the frames have a bluish cast. A great difference between frames 153 and 152 is indicated by the movement of the limousine: it makes an extremely rapid forward lurch indicating frames are missing here.

Frame 154 has a splice at the top and is bluish in cast. Frame 155 contains a splice at the top third of the frame. Splicing tape marks are present in the foreground of frame 156, which is also bluish; a crude splicing gap appears at the base. A splice may exist at the lower third of frame 159.

The next sequence in which splicing and color change occur is during the that period when the limousine is hidden by the freeway sign.

There is a possible splice in the top eighth of frame 205. Splicing tape adhesive marks are visible on the freeway sign in frame 206. Frame 206 has a bluish cast, as do frames 207-212.

Frame 207 is spliced at the top. A splice may have been made on frame 210 near the bottom. On frame 211, splicing adhesive tape marks are present. Splicing adhesive covers frame 212; a crude cut out is at the base. Frame 213 has a splice at the top; the color changes back to warm hues. At frame 215, a splice line runs across the top fourth of the frame.

Color change indicates that different copies of the film were used to produce one continuous film.

A graph, made to show the feet the limousine traveled per frame number, indicates the limousine moved about 20 feet every 20 frames (Fig. 4-4). Between frames 197 and 218, when the limousine is behind the freeway sign, it moved only 10 feet within 21 frames. This means that the limousine either slowed down or stopped between frames 197 and 218. If it stopped then an unaccountable number of frames could have been removed.

Throughout the entire Zapruder film, nothing indicates that frames have been added. What is clear is that frames have been removed. Time has been deleted from the film. With time removed, the film is useless as a clock for the assassination.

Retouching

Retouching has been done with the image of the driver in the film between frames 214-333. It appears after the limousine emerges from behind the freeway sign. Retouching is evident on the front of the limousine windshield on the driver’s side to obscure his movements. The author’s reconstruction film, taken of a car on Elm Street, under similar lighting conditions, on Nov. 22, 1969, at 12:30 p.m., shows the driver’s motions clearly through the windshield.

Retouching may also occur at the top of the freeway sign to obscure the action of the occupants and to hide the shot hitting the President in the throat.

The object in the driver’s hand is barely visible between frames 285 and 297, the sequence of the Governor’s wounds. Between frames 303-317, it is easily seen. The telling feature, especially in the latter sequence, is the action: the driver raises it, seems to aim, and, then, in the frame immediately after the fatal shot to the President in frame 313, brings it down.

Although splicing marks were undetectable about frame 313, it is likely that frames were removed and the remaining retouched. The appearance of frame 313 is vital to the health of the scenario.

Given the forward inclination of the President’s head at the time of the fatal shot (Fig. 4-5), a line drawn through the actual points of entrance and exit is horizontal. If a rifleman fired from above and behind, the line between the points of exit and entrance would be at an angle.

To camouflage evidence of a shot from the front, the actual exit wound at the side of the head (Fig. 4-5) was covered with opaque (Fig. 4-6).

Second, an exploding, bloody halo was manufactured on the film in the area around the President’s head in frame 313 (Fig. 4-6). Significantly, other films of the assassination lack this halo. The CBS reporter who saw the Zapruder film two days after the assassination at a press showing made no mention of an exploding head. Mrs. Kennedy failed to describe this burst in her testimony.

The halo, a cartoon-like, red-orange burst that nearly obscures the President’s head, not only confuses the features of the head, but also distorts the actual and less dramatic wounding (Fig. 4-5). Furthermore, the burst occurs for one frame only – an eighteenth of a second – and does not appear in the very next frame. The film should have shown the burst developing and decaying over a sequence of perhaps 18-30 frames. For example, a film made of the effect of a rock hitting a window would require a number of frames to record the moment of impact, the spidering and splintering of the glass, then the shattering effect of the rock, and the outward showering movements of fragments, and their eventual descent to the ground.

The two Secret Service agents in the front seat and both Connallys implied a shot came from the rear by claiming that a substantial amount of debris came forward and down on them. No pictorial evidence verifies their claims.

A good indication of removal of frames during the fatal shot sequence is found in the out-of-sequence movements of the legs of a woman running across the lawn in the background. The rhythm of her running is broken unnaturally, e.g., running on her left leg twice, which would indicate frame removal.

Retouching can be seen in a comparison of frames 317 and 321 (Fig. 4-7). The President and his wife appear large in frame 321, even though the dimensions of the two frames are equal in size. Frame 321 was optically enlarged and then reframed. This eliminated material at the right hand side of the picture, such as the driver and the windshield. In addition, it is possible that in frame 321 the windshield was painted-in; it fails to match the windshield in frame 317. In addition, a change in perspective occurs. The line in the back seat in frame 321 has shifted. This means that the limousine has gone further down the street and that an unknown number of frames were removed.

Refilming

More evidence of tampering is indicated with the framing of the pictures, especially between frames 280-300. There, the heads of both the President and Connally scarcely appear, and almost disappear from view. This means that the original film was probably refilmed, and reframed, in such a manner as to remove certain material just below their heads.

For example, on the afternoon of Nov. 24, 1963, two days after the assassination, CBS newsman Dan Rather viewed a copy of the Zapruder film in Dallas. His report noted that Connally, as he turned to look back at the President, “…exposed his entire shirt front and chest because his coat was unbuttoned…at that moment a shot very clearly hit that part of the Governor.” On available copies, only Connally’s head appears in this sequence.

The possibility exists that the original Zapruder film was refilmed on an optical printer. Modern cinematography laboratories are equipped with optical printing machines that can generate a new negative without the “errors” of the original. Optical printers can insert new frames, skip frames, re-size the images, along with other creative illusions. One hour on the optical printer could eliminate the Connally hit.

Deletions

Most available copies, when viewed on a screen as a movie, are slightly jerky, especially in the movement of the limousine. Perhaps the maximum number of cuts was made, the greatest number of frames removed, without making it obvious to the casual viewer.

Certain items could not be altered, such as the President’s head and body snapping backward, without elaborate artwork. But, of those who have seen the film, the cuts are overcome by the way in which people see the movie. The viewer’s focus is usually on the President, not on the other people in the limousine.

Some of the action depicted on the film that was difficult to explain had to be eliminated.

First, the limousine initially appears on available copies some 40 feet down from the top of the street; it literally leaps into view. Yet Zapruder stated that he filmed the limousine as it turned onto Elm St. from Houston St. The copy that CBS reporter Dan Rather saw two days after the assassination apparently had the turn on it because Rather described it.

Frames deleted between 152-159 probably showed the decoy shot being fired from the Vice-President’s follow-up car.

Cuts between frames 205-215 likely relate to two areas: reaction to the decoy (first) shot, and the second (throat) shot.

Between frames 207-212, the President seems to swing his head very quickly to his left as if in reaction to the decoy shot. His action would indicate the direction of the Secret Service agent’s revolver as well as sharply contrast with the lack of reaction by those agents in the front seat of the Presidential limousine.

The President’s reaction to the second shot, which hit him in the throat, is missing. Zapruder testified, “…I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself like this (holding his left chest area).” CBS reporter Dan Rather said that “…the President lurched forward just a bit, it was obvious he had been hit in the movie…”

The Commission, which received the film from the Secret Service, published frames 207 and 212, both obviously spliced, but failed to print frames 208-211.

The alterations after the fatal shot probably were concerned with eliminating the limousine stop and the rush by Secret Service agents upon it. Indeed, the Secret Service made an effort “…to ascertain whether any [movie news] film could be found showing special agents on the ground alongside the Presidential automobile at any point along the parade route.”